Texas This I Know.....

TNR Hack Demonstrates Hypocritical Double Standard of the Left

2007-02-13T15:35:00.002-06:00

Peter Beinart, of The New Republic makes casual reference to his standard for racism in the course of making a case for Joe Biden staying in the presidential candidate race, "Biden Time" February, TNR.

He says "I have my own reasons for hoping Biden stays in the race. Partly, it's a broader principle: stupid, insensitive remark shouldn't sink political candidacies unless they bespeak some larger animus. George Allen's "macaca" comment mattered because, as Ryan Lizza has documented, Allen had a long history of racist sympathies. So did Trent Lott, long before he endorsed Strom Thurmond for president. Biden, by contrast, has another dumb remark on his record (this one about Indian Americans), but his long career in Congress suggests no sympathy for racists. Given that, he doesn't deserve the political death sentence. Journalists shouldn't be hypocrites: You can ask politicians to be unscripted and then decapitate them anytime they misspeak."

This is so wrong, on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. So let's take them in order: George Allen, if you believe the accounts of the left-wing media, is a dyed in the wool racist. Using it N-word as a 20 year-old college student, stuffing a deer's head in a black family's mailbox, etc.

OK, if this is proof of a man's character and automatically condemns him to a "political death sentence", why is Robert Byrd, a former member of the Ku Kux Klan, still in the Senate? Surely his history of proud racism (you don't join the KKK unless you're proud to be a racist), use of the N-word (to Brit Hume in a Fox interview in be late 90's ), night riding, lynching, burning crosses, all the things that the KKK is famous for, would condemn him to trek back to his little store in West Virginia? And remember, the fact that it was long ago does not matter. It didn't matter with George Allen. But no! Byrd remains firmly ensconced in the Senate and hacks like Peter Beinart do not say boo!

Moving on to Trent Lott, Beinart says that Lott "endorsed Strom Thurmond for president." In the first place this is factually incorrect, Strom Thurmond was not running President, therefore he could not be endorsed for president! He was having his 100th birthday party. Trent Lott was engaging in the hyperbole of someone who had been asked to say something good about the guest of honor at a party, that's all. And yet Beinart condemns him as a racist.

Now, to the most egregious example of hypocrisy in the entire article: Beinart says " Journalists shouldn't be hypocrites: You can't ask politicians to be unscripted and then decapitate them anytime they misspeak" is jaw dropping! This is exactly the kind of thing that journalists like Beinart do so well. Given that Beinart thinks he's a journalist and also thinks he is actually consistent in his moral pronouncements, the level of doublethink approaches Orwellian proportions.

Beinart, is just another far left hack writer in a mediocre, far left publication but he deserves watching because he is an example of the mendacity and tenacity of the Left.

Tom DeLay, In his Own Words

2006-01-31T08:29:00.000-06:00

Chris Matthews, host of Hardball on MSNBC, went down to Texas and interviewed Congressman Tom DeLay, January 30th. LINK I think the interview is worth reprinting here. Not only to preserve the text but to show that DeLay is a tough but kind man who seems to hold no ill will toward his tormenters.

Of Trials and Indictments

Jan. 30: Chris Matthews kicks off Hardball's Decision 2006 coverage with an exclusive interview with Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas. Delay speaks about the fight he'll wage for his seat, his homestate's politics, and his involvement in the Abramoff scandal.

Here is an excerpt of that interview.

CHRIS MATTHEWS : Mr. Delay, how many times have you been elected down in this part of the country?

TOM DELAY (R-Tex.): Oh mercy, ten times.

MATTHEWS: Ten times. And here you are fighting a tough election. Do you think it’s going to be a tough one?

DELAY: It’s going to be a very tough one. It’s going to be a national election. We have all the MoveOn.org’s down here. They’ve been down here for over a year. All the leftists groups have been down here…doing the telephones. This is a national campaign.

MATTHEWS: Is the vote for this House seat, your seat, as a member of leadership and a very powerful Republican, is this about a national decision or is this about a local decision?

DELAY: No, this is a national decision. The Democrats have been planning this for a long time. They announced it-they announced their politics of personal destruction two years ago and the character assassination is part of their strategy. They don’t have an agenda and so they’re trying to get the House back by destroying people and their families.

MATTHEWS: Why do these rank and file Democrats make you a target? Why do they hate you?

DELAY: Well I hope that they hate me because I’m effective, because I get things done. We’ve had an eleven year run of a Republican majority doing things that I’m incredibly proud of: cutting taxes, strong national defense, welfare reform, balancing the budget, paying down on the debt. I mean, one thing after another, we’ve been effective on it and the Democrats don’t like it.

MATTHEWS: So you’ve got Ronnie Earle, the District Attorney down here, the prosecutor going after you, are you going to be able to get a trial out of him before the election?

DELAY: Well I hope so. I have demanded my rights to a speedy trial; unfortunately Ronnie Earle is filing frivolous appeals to drag it out as long as he wants. He’s been dragging my name through the mud for three years now and he’s going to try to drag it out, try to influence the election, that’s the way he operates.

MATTHEWS: Is he going to try to hold the election, I mean try to hold the trial, after the election?

DELAY: He doesn’t care when you hold the trial, just so long as they don’t hold it before the election.

MATTHEWS: Do you need an acquittal? To win the election; do you have to have an acquittal before the election to clear this air?

DELAY: Oh, I would like one, but my constituents know what’s going on here. They’ve looked at this case, they understand it, they’ve been very very supportive they know what Ronnie Earle is-a runaway district attorney who is abusing his power, indicting me on laws that don’t exist. They understand what this is all about. And, and, then it’s also supported by all these leftist groups that are in here right now. The backlash is in my favor.

MATTHEWS: He indicted you on one count and then he came back and indicted you again and then it turns out if first attempt to indict you failed-it was thrown out.

DELAY: No, well, his first attempt to indict me was on a law that didn’t exist. And when he found that out he went to two other grand juries, uh, within four days, one of them "No Billed" me? That should have been the end of it. Then he got a brand new grand jury that didn’t even go through orientation and he got them to indict me on another law that didn’t make sense.

MATTHEWS: How do you tell people down here that have voted for you all these times, that this problem is purely partisan? How do-do you have to sit one on one with people? Some people say where there’s smoke there’s fire. How do you convince them that it’s just smoke?

DELAY: I don’t have to. They know who I am. They’ve worked very closely with me. I’ve worked very hard in this district to build infrastructure, to work on charities, to work with kids, to work with the poor, NASA, Ellington Field, all these things that I’ve worked with, local elected officials and my constituents, they know who I am. And they know this is all bogus. And the support I’m seeing over the past few weeks has proved it.

MATTHEWS: Do you believe you’re going to be able to hold your base-your Republican base?

DELAY: Oh absolutely. I mean, just last week alone I had five meet and greets packed. I went to six events that had over 400 people at each one of them. I got standing ovations just by being introduced at these organizations. We picked up 500 volunteers last week alone. We’re doing fine.

MATTHEWS: Well what’s it feel like when somebody comes up to you and says what’s all this stink about?

DELAY: They don’t. They know what it’s about. They don’t question me on it.

MATTHEWS: The Abramoff thing in Washington, there’s a lot of your former staff people involved with him. Does that bother you?

DELAY: Not at all.

MATTHEWS: Michael Scanlon, people like that who you trusted are now right in the middle of this thing talking to the prosecutors.

DELAY: I think that’s really unfortunate that they broke the law and they’ve been found guilty breaking it. I had nothing to do with that. I’ve done nothing wrong. I haven’t broken any laws. I have no problem.

MATTHEWS: You don’t think that the prosecution will try to squeeze one of them, to try to get them to say something against you?

DELAY: There’s nothing they can say against me unless they lie. I’ve had it all checked out by my lawyers and everything that we’ve done has a clean bill of health. Department of Justice has told my lawyers on several occasions that I’m not a target of this investigation. We have no problem here. All we have are leftist groups trying to create a sense of guilt by association in this case. They can not tell you or charge me with one thing that’s against the law or against the House rules or even unethical.

MATTHEWS: What do you make about the Democratic opposition? Pelosi, she’s running for Speaker obviously, if they pick up fifteen seats she’ll be the candidate for Speaker. When I talked to your potential opponent, Mr. Lamson, he said I think rather carefully, he could see himself voting for Nancy Pelosi.

DELAY: I’ll bet.

MATTHEWS: What do you think-why is he being so careful?

DELAY: Because Nancy Pelosi, MoveOn.org, George Soros, Howard Dean, not very popular people in the 22nd district of Texas and he’s going to try to do both which he’s always done in his career. Trying to appear to be moderate to conservative to the constituency and then go to Washington and be buddies with Nancy Pelosi, voting with her 90-95 per cent of the time.

MATTHEWS: What happened to that old conservative, democratic tradition down here that’s going-those concerns have all become Republicans, right?

DELAY: Conservative Democrats have all become Republicans.

The Scotland Trip and Golf

MATTHEWS: Do you expect George Bush senior or the president to come in and help you in this campaign?

DELAY: Well we just had the vice president in just last month and raised a good amount of money for this. I’m very proud of that. Uh, I don’t know what the future holds as far as the president, but he’s very supportive.

MATTHEWS: Are you worried that the Democrats will be able to use iconic pictures, that’s probably a fancy word, but graphic pictures like golfing in Scotland, to bring you down?

DELAY: Oh sure they’ll try all of that. I mean they want to lie about what’s going on. I’m very involved in international affairs. That Israel is against the religious persecution in China; or for Taiwan-against China; getting persecuted Jews out of Russia. I’ve been involved in a lot of foreign affairs. Uh, yes, when I go over somewhere for that I take a day off or a half a day off and I play golf.

MATTHEWS: But there’s no religious persecution in Scotland.

DELAY: No, but Margaret Thatcher was in England and I met with a lot of conservative organizations trying to them win against the Labor Party. I was very involved with the conservative movement in England.

MATTHEWS: So that picture of you-that picture we keep seeing of St. Andrews-I’m not much of a golfer but, you’re a better golfer obviously-but do you think that’s unfair to say that you went over there on a junket?

DELAY: It’s incredibly unfair.

MATTHEWS: Why? Who paid for the trip?

DELAY: A legitimate conservative organization.

MATTHEWS: But wasn’t there a pass through?

DELAY: No, there was no pass through.

MATTHEWS: They came up with the money themselves.

DELAY: That’s exactly right. They raised their money themselves.

MATTHEWS: That public policy group…

DELAY: That’s exactly right.

MATTHEWS: So you don’t have any problem with that trip?

DELAY: Not at all.

MATTHEWS: Nobody’s asked you about it down here.

DELAY: Uh, not really, no. Actually, a lot of people play golf down here.

MATTHEWS: But not in Scotland.

DELAY: It’s good to play golf down here.

MATTHEWS: But not in Scotland.

DELAY: Many of them down here go to Scotland---

MATTHEWS: I mean everybody knows that you’re a tough Republican, conservative, who gives his life for the cause. You’re not in it for the money or the lifestyle.

DELAY: Right.

MATTHEWS: And I don’t even hear that from your critics, okay. But they say that you’re too tough, that you play too hard, that you cut the corners to get done what you have to get done politically like soft money, hard money, all that complicated stuff.

DELAY: They hate it because they’re losing. I have built a huge coalition to support our agenda of a limited government, strong national defense, protecting American families against overactive judiciary. We have built big coalitions outside coalitions, grassroots operations to fancy that and get it done. Democrats hate it that I’m effective. They just hate it. And that’s just too bad, but we’re going to keep on working as hard as we can for the conservative agenda for the future of this country.

MATTHEWS: Would you like to chair the Appropriations Committee?

DELAY: No, I’d like to continue to advance our agenda.

MATTHEWS: But since you’ve left leadership, do you intend to go back to leadership if you get re-elected? Do you intend to go back into that leadership world?

DELAY: I don’t know. I’ve had ups and downs throughout my career. I have never lost focus on our agenda. So I’m going to work on our agenda.

The Coming Election

MATTHEWS: Okay, let me talk about your agenda down here in the 22nd.When Robert Byrd, the former Democratic leader, had served his time as leader he decided to find a new power base which was Chairman of Appropriations, so he could really deliver for West Virginia. He’s practically paved the danm state he’s built so much there, right? Do you think of that as your next career period where you aren’t formally in the leadership but you’re using your Appropriations Committee to help this district?

DELAY: No. I’m focused of course on working with my district. There’s a lot of work to be done here and this is the highest growth area in the nation and we’ve got to have infrastructure here. And Johnson Space Center is incredibly important and we want to advance President’s agenda. Working through Homeland Security through Ellington Field here is very important. And many others, the medical center, the port, a lot of things I need to be working on. But I also work on the fact that I want to throw the tax code out and replace it with a national sales tax. I want to stop the judiciary from attacking and destroying American families. I want, I want to continue and win this war on terror and protect our borders and there’s so much more to do and I’m going to continue to do that.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about your generosity. To build the Republican party and the congressional delegation, the Republican delegation here in Texas, you gave up a lot of Republican territory.

DELAY: True.

MATTHEWS: Do you wish you had held onto it?

DELAY: No.

MATTHEWS: You can still win this seat with a lot less Republican votes.

DELAY: Sure. All you need is 51 percent to win.

MATTHEWS: But you gave away a lot didn’t you?

DELAY: I did.

MATTHEWS: Why’d you do it?

DELAY: I went from about a 63% district to a 55% district.

MATTHEWS: Why were you so generous with other members? Because you actually created some new congressional opportunities?

DELAY: Well first of all I had to show leadership in order to get other members to take less Republican districts so that you could spread the Republicans around over the whole state and if I didn't, if I didn't show myself as a role model, I couldn’t ask other members to give up their Republicans

MATTHEWS: Would you rather run in your own district - when this court throws at you redistricting, you might end up in the old district with your old 2002 seat.

DELAY: Nah, this, I mean, the base is still intact, I’m very solid with my base and the odds, we took on some union-type Democrats. Not enough for them to win the seat.

MATTHEWS: What I’ve learned coming down here Congressman, I thought you’d have an all-white, you know Protestant whatever, Anglo community down here. You’ve got a helluva lot of diversity in this district.

DELAY: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: You’ve got big numbers of African-Americans, big numbers of latinos.

DELAY: Asians, huge numbers of Asians.

MATTHEWS: I saw alot of that.

DELAY: A lot of Asians, both Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Pakistanis, Hispanics, blacks, this is an incredible district. We have great diversity.

Working with Abused and Neglected Children

This is six years of raising private funds, of a dream that is actually my wife’s, that became mine, when she started working with abused and neglected children. We became foster parents and through that, saw how awful the government-run system is, and we designed a different way of taking care of foster children, giving them a safe permanent home. See right now in the system, they are moved from home to home to home. Our first foster child was in sixteen different homes in her teenage years.

Here they come in and they move in here and that it. We will never kick them out, we will never move them out, if anybody gets moved out, it will be the foster parents. And when they turn eighteen, when the government says you’re on your own, they can come back. this is something we got from Israel - they can come back, we’ll have places for them to stay, they can visit their, you know, come back for Thanksgiving, Christmas, cry on a shoulder, whatever they want to come back to. It gives them a sense of permanency and

MATTHEWS: What kind of families do they come from?

DELAY: These are severely abused children. These are children that somebody’s stepfather has been raping her since she was three years old, beatings, mothers on drugs.

MATTHEWS: So the kids are teens.

DELAY: No, they’re usually coming here, they’re going to be from, we got twenty-seven on hand here, they’re anywhere from nine years old up to eighteen. Because these are children that nobody wants. They have issues, they don’t want them, they just warehouse them, and what we want to do is give them a safe permanent home and deal with their issues.

MATTHEWS: And who are the adults here?

DELAY: These are Christian foster parents that want to embrace children.

MATTHEWS: I see.

DELAY: That we have recruited.

MATTHEWS: Young families?

DELAY: Some young, mostly young, have their own families. Each house has a three-bedroom apartment inside the house, for the family and because dealing with these children is very taxing and they get burned out, so we want to make sure they can take time off and shut off part of their house, bring in a nanny to stay with the kids while they take the weekend off. In New York, when we were holding fundraisers to raise money for this, we anticipated raising about three million dollars. And then they killed all that by using what his name that is running for governor? For attorney general?

MATTHEWS: Are people living here now?

DELAY: Not in this house. We’ve got eight houses, six of them have kids in them now, we’re interviewing parents for these two houses, everything is designed with the kids in mind, as you can see each one of the bedrooms are all big.

MATTHEWS: I’d like to live here!

DELAY: Isn’t it nice? Each room so that you can watch the kids through their bedrooms but if they’re going to use the computer, they’ll be in there so you can see what they’re using it for, so its all designed so that you can interact with the kids.

MATTHEWS: Do you have any crime problems?

DELAY: Not out here no.

MATTHEWS: The kids don’t misbehave that bad?

DELAY: No, if you show them love and give them trust, they respond. If you just warehouse them, they don respond. they go in and get involved in bad things.

MATTHEWS: Its pretty impressive

DELAY: Its even larger than we dreamed

MATTHEWS: What’s the larger community here?

DELAY: There’s the county seat is Richmond Texas, and this county, this is where Texas started. Steven F. Austin settled this area. All the great Texans came from this area, this, where this place is right now is Fort Dade county and the bend of the river is right here and where the fork was, and so its a great longtime Texas history.

MATTHEWS: So you actually live here in the 22nd?

DELAY: Yup.

MATTHEWS: And your opponent, your Democratic opponent, the guy who is probably going to win the Democratic nomination Nick Lampson, former Congressman, he lives outside the district?

DELAY: He lives in Beaumont.

MATTHEWS: And that’s outside the district. That’s pretty far from here.

DELAY: He’ll claim to live in the district. ITs over 100 miles from here. He’s the only Democrat they’ve been able to get to run.

MATTHEWS: Haven’t they encouraged him to move?

DELAY: Oh of course and he claims the local address for his home.

MATTHEWS: But that’s not where his bed is.

DELAY: It’s not where his family is.

MATTHEWS: Is that going to be an issue?

DELAY: Well I dont know that its going to be an issue.

MATTHEWS: You know in Massachusetts they call those guys mattress-draggers. They drag their mattresses from one district to another, looking for a seat.

DELAY: Well I don’t know, I’m sure we’ll be able to explain that to my constituency during the upcoming election

MATTHEWS: So this is Texas weather huh?

DELAY: This is Texas winter. This is as bad as it gets. For the last four weeks, its been seventy-two degrees.

What Makes Tommy Run

MATTHEWS: Okay I’ve got to ask you a cosmic question, you’re Tom Delay. You’re not in this business for the money. You live modestly. You commute back and forth from Washington to Houston, Texas. Why? What drives you every day?

DELAY: It’s what I believe in, the Constitution of the United States, Ronald Reagan got me involved in this. I fight every day for what I believe in: Strong national security, protecting the American family, values. I want to see this country led in a different direction than when I found it, when I got in politics twenty-some years ago.

MATTHEWS: What’s it feel like to get up every morning knowing there’s a lot of Democrats and some prosecutors who may be Democrats themselves who get up every morning with the idea of bringing you down?

DELAY: That’s their problem, not mine. I stay focused on what I’m trying to do for my district and for this state and for this country.

Alito Hearings, Senator Durbin's Opening Statements

2006-01-09T15:56:00.000-06:00

Here is an advanced text of the opening statement by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Bugout-Ill.)

Judge Alito, I welcome you and your family to the Judiciary Committee.

First, I would like to thank Chairman Specter for waiting until the new year to hold this hearing. Holding this hearing earlier would not have given us enough time to figure out our strategy for voting against you while at the same time making it seem like it is your fault.

Why has this nomination risen to the level of historic importance? The Supreme Court has handed down 193 decisions over the past ten years that were decided by a 5-4 vote. Justice O’Connor was the fifth and deciding vote in 148 of these 193 cases. Time and again the vacancy you seek to fill was the most important vote on the Court for advancing the Bugout agenda.

Justice O’Connor, the Justice whom you would replace if confirmed, was the fifth and decisive vote to safeguard Americans’ right to look at porn; the fifth vote to require our courtrooms to be accessible to the disabled; the fifth vote to allow the federal government to pass laws that allow the environmental wackos to triumph over common sense, the fifth vote to preserve the right of universities to place less qualified students in front of more qualified student because of their color; the fifth vote to ban the execution of serial murderers under 18 years old in America. And Justice O’Connor was the fifth vote to uphold the time-honored principle of shutting the church out of politics.

Justice O’Connor has been the critical decisive vote on many issues that go to the heart of the Bugout agenda. The person who fills the O’Connor vacancy will truly tip the balance of the scales of Bugout values in America. For that reason, Judge Alito, your nomination is one of the most important Supreme Court nominations in a generation. Yesterday the Chicago Tribune editorialized that anyone who questions your nomination has a heavy burden of proof. I disagree. You have proven yourself completely unfit for the Bugout Party's plans for an America ruled by the Bugouts.

My friend, Illinois Senator Paul Simon, once said the test for a Supreme Court nominee is not where he stands on any one specific issue. The real test is this: will you use your power help us, or hinder the Bugout Party in the coming years?

I believe that is the right test, because the Supreme Court is the last refuge of our agenda, God knows we can't get the American People to go along with it..

In my lifetime, the Supreme Court has allowed mothers to kill their children, allowed cities to take land from private citizens for private development, and established the principle that our government should respect the values of the Bugout Party. These decisions are the legacy of justices who chose to expand our, Bugout, agenda as much as possible. If you are confirmed, Judge Alito, will you continue their legacy? No? I suspected as much.

Note: The Bugout Party is now the name for the Democratic Party. Bugout derives from the phrase, "bugging out", used during the Vietnam War, and means to scuttle away from a battle, even when you are winning. The Democrats have earned this title by constantly yelling that we should get out of Iraq, and constantly denying what is plain to the troops, that we are winning.

An Essay by Walter Williams, Edited So That Non-PHDs Can Understand It.

2006-01-08T14:50:00.000-06:00

Walter Williams is a brilliant guy, and he has something to say. Below is a COLUMN he wrote for the Washington Times. It has been edited so that dumasses like you and me can understand better. The word quintile has been changed to fifth. Economists divide income earnings into five catagories from lowest to highest and call them "quintiles". But this is just another word for one fifth of the whole enchilada. Since most people know what a fifth of whiskey is, I thought I would use fifths instead of quintiles.

Imagine five bottles of whiskey, each sitting on a shelf by itself, one above another. These represent the income earnings catagories from lowest to highest. The bottle on the bottom is filled is with Old Red Eye whiskey, is made of plain glass, and has a wooden stopper. The bottle on the top shelf is made of the finest crystal, the glass stopper has been lap ground to fit the bottle opening perfectly, and it is filled with 30 year old Scotch whiskey. In between are three bottles of less and less ornate craftsmanship and poorer quality of whiskey as they get down to the bottom bottle. Keep this in mind when you are reading the essay.

Poverty Hype
By Walter E. Williams
January 4, 2006

Despite claims that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, poverty is nowhere near the problem it was yesteryear -- at least for those who want to work. Talk about the poor getting poorer tugs at the hearts of decent people and squares nicely with the agenda of big government advocates, but it doesn't square with the facts.

Michael Cox, economic adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm, a business reporter for the Dallas Morning News, co-authored a 1999 book, "Myths of Rich and Poor: Why We're Better Off Than We Think," that demonstrates the pure nonsense about the claim that the poor get poorer.

The authors analyzed University of Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics data that tracked more than 50,000 individual families since 1968. Messrs. Cox and Alms found: Only 5 percent of families in the bottom fifth of income in 1975 were still there in 1991. Three-quarters of these families had moved into the three highest income fifths. During the same period, 70 percent of those in the second lowest income fifth moved to a higher fifth, with 25 percent of them moving to the top fifth. When the Bureau of Census reports, for example, that the poverty rate in 1980 was 15 percent and a decade later still 15 percent, for the most part they are referring to different people.

Messrs. Cox and Alm's findings were supported by a U.S. Treasury Department study that used an entirely different data base, income tax returns. The U.S. Treasury found that 85.8 percent of tax filers in the bottom income fifth in 1979 had moved on to a higher income fifth by 1988 -- two thirds to second and third fifths and 15 percent to the top fifth. Income mobility goes in the other direction as well. Of the people who were in the top 1 percent of income earners in 1979, over half, or 52.7 percent, were gone by 1988. Throughout history and probably in most places today, there are whole classes of people who remain permanently poor or permanently rich, but not in the United States. The percentages of Americans who are permanently poor or rich don't exceed single digits.

It doesn't take rocket science to figure out why people who are poor in one decade are not poor one or two decades later. First, they get older. Would anyone be surprised that 30, 40 or 50-year-olds earn a higher income than 20-year-olds? The 1995 Annual Report of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that "Average income tends to rise quickly in life as workers gain work experience and knowledge. Households headed by someone under age 25 average $15,197 a year in income. Average income more than doubles to $33,124 for 25- to 34-year-olds. For those 35 to 44, the figure jumps to $43,923. It takes time for learning, hard work and saving to bear fruit."

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report listed a few no-brainer behaviors consistent with upward income mobility. Households in the top income bracket have 2.1 workers; those in the bottom have 0.6 workers. In the lowest income bracket, 84 percent worked part time; in the highest income bracket, 80 percent worked full time. That translates into: Get a full-time job. Only 7 percent of top income earners live in a "nonfamily" household, compared to 37 percent of the bottom income category. Translation: Get married. At the time of the study, the unemployment rate in McAllen, Texas, was 17.5 percent, while in Austin, Texas, it was 3.5 percent. Translation: If you can't find a job in one locality, move to where there are jobs.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report concludes, "Little on this list should come as a surprise. Taken as a whole, it's what most Americans have been told since they were kids -- by society, by their parents, by their teachers."

Time's Joe Klein Wraps A Nugget Of Insight In A Pedestrian Movie Review

2006-01-06T11:50:00.000-06:00

I have always considered Joe Klein to be a Leftist dickhead, and, given his actions in the 1990s, an obsequous ass presenter in the colony presideded over by alpha baboon, Bill Clinton. But even Buttboy Joe gets it right once in a while.

In his TIME movie review,"When Hollywood Gets Terrorism Right", of the films "Munich", "Syriana", "Paradise Now" and the TV series "24", he has this to say in the last paragraph:

...but the psychological burden is crushing. And that is the point: this new form of warfare, imposed by Islamist fanatics—and utilized by Iraqi extremists in response to the U.S. invasion—is a sapping wound to a civilized society. ... The moral necessity to confront the terrorists is clear. But the war is going to be fought on their terms, not ours, and we are bound to be diminished—stained, perhaps irrevocably—by it.

This idea, that we will end up soiled beyond cleaning in our struggle with Islamofascism, is undisputably true. I accept this as a price we must pay in order to keep from paying a much higher toll. That price is not more American dead, although that will inevitably happen. Nor is it the coarsening of a society that engages in war, although that will inevitably occur. It is not any of the many toxic by-products of prosecuting this struggle.

No, the price we cannot allow ourselves to pay is the culture destroying psychic death-by-regret of a people who have killed millions of innocents to get a relative handful of bad guys.

If we fail to get the bad guys, and the bad guys only. If we allow the terrorists to goad us, by attacking over and over on our own turf, into a white hot conclusion that we will kill as many Muslims as needed in order to solve the problem, we will then have become as bad as the Islamofascists. Worse, because we, the U.S.. actually have the power to destroy them all.

And you know what? We would not last too long after that. Because our self image as the good guys would be gone. And we would deserve it.

John Murtha, War Hero?

2005-12-02T16:30:00.000-06:00

John Murtha, the congressman who want to get out of Iraq thereby leaviung the Iraqis who have trusted us to the tender mercies of Al Queada, is lionized as a war veteran in the Main Stream Media, with two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. They say he joined the Marines to fight in the Korean war. What they don't mention is he never set foot on Korean soil. He spent the war as a drill insructor at Camp Lejuene N.C. Nothing wrong with this except the implication is that he saw combat in the Korean War. He did not.

He volunteered to go to Vietnam in 1966. He came back in 1967. This means he spent 12 months or less in Vietnam. He was a regimental intelligence officer. Do regimental intelligence officers go out in the field? How did he get two Purple Hearts? How did he get the Bronze Star? Inquiring minds want to know.

We Are Countering Al Jazeera

2005-12-02T12:37:00.000-06:00

The U.S. military is countering the lies put out, on a daily basis, by Al Jazeera and its clones in the Middle East. The U.S. military only uses the truth. If you don't get that, then piss on you!

The Hypocrisy of the Self Righteous Left

2005-11-30T13:01:00.000-06:00

Leftists, especially big name leftists, the ones who are always blabbering about how other people are too rich, use too many of "our precious natural resources", are too selfish, etc in the self righteous, finger waving manner we have all become accustomed to have been dealt an icepick into their ballon-like egos by the publication of Peter Schweitzer's book "Do As I Say, Not As I Do. Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy." Herewith, a snippet from the "Carlson Tucker Show" detailing some of the hypocrasies of Barbara Striesand, Michael Moore, Al Franken, Ted Kennedy, and the Kennedy family.

You have these -- have amazing examples of hypocrisy. Barbra Streisand, you point out, and did I misread this? Could this really be true? This environmentalist, Barbra Streisand, spends 20 grand a year watering her lawn? How do you know that?

SCHWEITZER: Yes, it`s public record; $22,000 a year is her water Bill. And she lives in a compound, just her and her husband, James Brolin, that has five homes, and a 12,000-square-foot air conditioned barn, if you can believe it.

CARLSON: That`s -- that`s a major violation of the principles of ecology, it sounds like. Has she ever responded to this?

SCHWEITZER: She hasn`t. And what is so funny about it, Tucker, is that, you know, she`s constantly lecturing the American people on what she calls excessive consumption and says that, you know, the American people need to give up their SUVs, and they need to hang their clothes out to dry instead of using the dryer.

So it`s ridiculous, you know. The gap between what she claims she believes and what she actually does is huge.

CARLSON: Yes, I`d suggest that she be quiet, but it`s so amusing when she talks, I hope she keeps yapping.

Michael Moore, a hypocrite according to you. Give me examples.

SCHWEITZER: Well, you know, Michael Moore has said at least half a dozen times in his books, on C-SPAN, and in interviews with newspapers and magazines, that he doesn`t own a single share of stock, because he considers Wall Street money to be dirty.

Well, he may be technically correct, Tucker. He doesn`t own a single share; he owns tens of thousands of shares of stock. And a lot of people that listen to him would probably be interested to know that among the companies he`s owned shares in include pharmaceutical companies, off-shore oil drilling companies, defense contractors, and believe it or not, in recent years, he`s also been a shareholder in Halliburton.

CARLSON: But he must have lost money on Halliburton.

SCHWEITZER: No, actually he took a 15 percent capital gain on some of the stock in Halliburton that he sold.

CARLSON: That is just amazing. You`ve got a portion of your book where you quote Michael Moore calling other people racist for not having diverse enough staffs. And according to Michael Moore in one of his books as saying he`s never going to hire anybody but black employees from now on. Has he lived up to that pledge?

SCHWEITZER: No, he hasn`t. I mean, he and Al Franken both have abysmal records. They criticize conservatives and corporate America for a lack of diversity and say that they`re racists and bigots because they don`t embrace affirmative action.

But if you look at the credited people that Michael Moore has hired since 1990, he`s hired 134 people. A grand total of three were actually black.

For Al Franken, he`s hired 112 people during that time period. A grand total of one was actually black. So they both have abysmal records when it comes to what they profess they believe in.

CARLSON: Ouch. Now, to be fair, I`m not personally all that against hypocrisy, because I think that everybody falls short of his own ideals. And if you live up to your ideas, you probably have pretty low standards. We`re all hypocrites? Are you making the case that liberals are more hypocritical than conservatives?

SCHWEITZER: Well, I really -- I think there`s two differences. Yes, we are all hypocritical. That`s very true. But I think, first of all, you never hear about liberal hypocrisy. I mean, you hear about it with conservatives all the time. Liberals get a free pass.

You know, they advocate taxes, but then they work to avoid paying the very same taxes. You never hear about that.

But the second distinction I think is even more important, Tucker. When conservatives abandon the principles and are hypocrites, what ends up happening? They get hurt; they damage their families; they damage their lives. With liberals, you find something very interesting.

I would argue their ideas are so bad that when they become hypocrites and abandon their principles, they actually improve their lives.

CARLSON: Interesting. Now, Ted Kennedy, I mean, I was a little bit surprised to hear you call him a hypocrite. Sum that up for us, that case.

SCHWEITZER: Well, in Ted Kennedy`s case, I mean, for 40 years, he`s been advocating higher taxes. His pet cause now is the inheritance tax. He says it`s socially just and fair for the American people to pay 49 percent when they die to the IRS.

The irony is that Ted Kennedy and his family have been massively successful at avoiding paying that very same tax.

According to the Kennedy family`s own numbers, they have transferred between $300 million and $500 million from one generation to the other. On that money, they`ve paid a grand total of $134,000 in taxes. Tucker, that`s less than 1 percent.

So he`s not in any position to lecture anybody on the need to pay taxes until he starts doing it himself.

CARLSON: Who is his accountant, do you know? Might be interested in signing up with that program.

SCHWEITZER: Yes, he`s got a whole team of them. What they`ve done is they`ve set up trusts in estates all across the United States. In fact, Merchandise Mart, you know, the large real estate holding that they used to own, that was actually domiciled in a trust that was set up on the island nation of Fiji, if you can believe it. Yes, so very creative accounting, to say the least.

CARLSON: So he`s one of those corporate Benedict Arnolds Kerry was always lecturing us about. Peter Schweitzer, author of "Do as I Say." Excellent book. Thanks a lot for joining us.

SCHWEITZER: Thanks for having me, Tucker.

McCain Is Putting All our Heads In The Guillotine

2005-11-05T07:16:00.000-06:00

Senator John McCain is trying to remove the option of torture from the arsenal of the American People in its war with the Islamist fanatics. He says that it leads to bad intelligence because the prisoner will say anything to make the pain stop.

Story Link McCain vows to add torture ban to all major Senate legislation

Speaking from the Senate floor, McCain said, "If necessary - and I sincerely hope it is not - I and the co-sponsors of this amendment will seek to add it to every piece of important legislation voted on in the Senate until the will of a substantial bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress prevails. Let no one doubt our determination."

The ban would establish the Army Field Manual as the guiding authority in interrogations and prohibit "cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment" of prisoners.

''Subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop,'' McCain said

Poor John, he does not understand. We are not Communist schmucks out to torture prisoners for revenge and fun. Our goal is to obtain data that can be used to prevent terror attacks. It is the threat of pain, discomfort, or death that prompts the terrorist to answer questions and carry on a conversation in the first place. The actual pain is administered if he lies. He will stick to the truth to avoid pain.

Sosphisticated interrogation techniques are capable of determining if he is lying by comparing what he is saying to what he has said and to other verified data. No human mind can construct, and keep track of a fabric of lies over a period of weeks or months. If the terrorist can be persuaded to talk, the truth can be ferreted out. And we will be able to prevent terrorist attacks. but the terrorist must always know that if we need to, we have the option of torture.

If McCain is successful, he will be putting us in deeper danger. It is the equivalent of baring all our throats to Al Quaeda.

He should be ashamed of himself.

President Bush should veto any legislation with this dangerous provision attached to it.

Valerie Plame Was NOT a "Covert Agent"

2005-11-05T06:14:00.000-06:00

She was employed by the CIA but at the time of her "outing" she was NOT covert, just an employee. The subsequent two year hurricane of ink and pixels has been a deliberate attempt by the leftist Main Stream Media to create another Watergate. It has failed.

EDITOR'S NOTE

2005-10-14T08:12:00.000-05:00

Due to DSL problems this blog will not be updated for about two weeks. See you in November.

List of Tom DeLay Related Posts

2005-10-08T09:51:00.000-05:00

The Tom Delay Indictment(s) Will Go Nowhere.......October 8, 2005
Tom DeLay Indictment: No Direct Connection. Why Is That ?.......October 6, 2005
The DeLay Indictment: The Foreman Speaks out.......October 2, 2005
Tom DeLay Indictment: Okay Ronnie, Now Prove it! September 28 2005
Take THAT! Tom Delay Haters.......September 12, 2005
So Sorry! Tom Delay Haters.......September 10, 2005
So Sorry, Again! Tom Delay haters.......September 10, 2005
Senator Clinton Must Come Clean About Her Involvement, Or Resign.......April 21, 2005
Proving a Negative, Tom Delay's Task, Set by the Left.......April 19, 2005
Proof, Proof, Ya Gotta Have Proof!.........April 17,2005
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Fined $21,000 by FEC........April 14, 2005
Barbara Boxer Funnels Money to Son, Media Fails to Notice..........April 14, 2005
More Than 3 Million Paid to Congressional Family Members in Last Election Cycle.......April 14, 2005
Newt,We Hardly Knew Ye!.......April 13, 2005
New York Times, Others Scheme to Oust Tom Delay.......April 11, 2005
Valerie Has Plamed Out..........April 08, 2005
Moneybags Soros Funds Tom Delay Critics.......April 6, 2005
Ronnie Earl, moralizing hypocrite and Nut........November 26, 2004

The Tom Delay Indictment(s) Will Go Nowhere

2005-10-08T09:17:00.000-05:00

This is why the indictments against Tom DeLay will never see a jury. CNN runs this story online. The crucial information is contained in the box below.

DeLay, R-Texas, and two associates were indicted September 28 on a conspiracy charge that accuses them of illegally steering $190,000 in corporate donations to state legislative candidates in 2002 and disguising the source by sending the money through national Republican campaign committees.

The indictment came as that grand jury's term was expiring.

After questions were raised about whether the charge applied to state election code, Earle went to a second grand jury, which declined to bring a money laundering charge against the three.

Earle then went to a third grand jury, and it returned an indictment on October 3 indicting DeLay and his associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, with money laundering and conspiracy.

Friday's motion was filed in Travis County District Court by DeLay's lead attorney, Dick DeGuerin.

DeGuerin alleges that once Earle realized DeLay had been charged with a "crime that did not exist in Texas law," the prosecutor and his staff "engaged in an extraordinarily irregular and desperate attempt to contrive a viable charge" before the statute of limitations ended.

The motion accuses Earle of trying to cover up that the second grand jury rejected the prosecutor's "new, contrived charges of money laundering."

Ronnie(I Just Enforce The Law) Earle does not have the evidence to support the charges. They are solely political in nature. The indictment(s) will be set aside by a judge.

Tom DeLay Indictment: No Direct Connection. Why Is That ?

2005-10-06T07:49:00.000-05:00

Something funny about this graphic published in the Austin-American Statesman. It is billed as a timeline of facts behind charges against Tom DeLay but there are no arrows or mention of Tom Delay in the boxes. Funny, for a person to be as deeply involved as Tom is supposed to be, wouldn't it be appropriate to have at least one direct link between him and the crime?

It is fast becoming plain to any objective observer that Ronnie Earle is grasping at straws. He got the second indictment from a newly impaneled grand jury the within hours of the first meeting, before they were even given orientation. Do you think they had time to consider the evidence?

He had to scramble to get the second indictment, going before two Grand Juries to get one indictment, because he screwed up so bad on the first. A small detail like the law not being in effect at the time of the supposed crime. Hoohaaa Boy! How stupid can one man be?

Besides being a Leftist hack, Ronnie (I Just Enforce The Law, Except When I Don't) Earle is also an incompetent dunce.

The DeLay Indictment: The Foreman Speaks out

2005-10-02T10:53:00.000-05:00

William M. Gibson Jr., the foreman of the Austin, Texas Grand Jury that recently indicted Congressman Tom DeLay appears to be spilling his guts to newspaper reporters. He does not get specific, no names or dates does he speak. Just "... stacks and stacks of papers — evidence of telephone calls from Mr. DeLay and everybody" Papers specifying what, phone logs specifying when and who are not given. Just generalities

This is quite puzzling. By Texas law, Grand Jury proceedings are secret and not to be divulged. This excerpt from the Texas Code Of Criminal Procedure states:

"... Art. 20.02.... Proceedings secret ...(b) A grand juror ... who discloses anything transpiring before the grand jury,... shall be liable to a fine as for contempt of the court, not exceeding five hundred dollars, imprisonment not exceeding thirty days, or both such fine and imprisonment."

Maybe Gibson is rich enough so that $500 is a trifling sum, and tough enough that a month in jail is no big deal.

Or maybe he thinks that Texas House Bill 462 has become law. HB462 is sponsored by Harold V. Dutton Jr., a Houston Democrat. It changes the Grand Jury oath so that Jury members are compelled to keep their mouths shut only while that particular Grand Jury is in session. When it disbands, they can blab all they want. If this is what William M. Gibson Jr. believes will keep him out of jail, then Harold Dutton, Democrat, should clue him in that HB462 is still in committee. It ain't law!

Or, and this is by far the most likely scenario, Willaim M. Gibson Jr. is secure in the knowledge that the DA of Travis county will not bring charges against him. That District Attorney is none other than Ronnie (I Just Enforce The Law) Earle. To understand just how this would have come about, focus your attention on the imaginary telephone conversation below.

Cell phone custom ring:" I fought the law, and the....law won..I fought the law and the.....law won......"

Ronnie Earle: Hello, this is Ronnie Earle, I just enforce the law.

William M. Gibson Jr.: Ronnie? Hey Ronnie? It's me Bill.

Ronnie Earle: Bill? Bill who? How did you get this number?

William Gibson Jr.: You know, Bill. The foreman of the Grand Jury. We indicted Tom DeLay.

Ronnie Earle: Oh, sure Bill, what can I do for you?

William Gibson Jr.: Well, I'm upset, Ronnie, you said, you promised that if we indicted him he'd curl up like a red worm on hot concrete and you'd scoop him up like roadkill. But he ain't backin' down! He just keeps comin' on the radio, and the TeeVee, smilin' that smile and sayin' over and over that you ain't got nothin'. He might as well be sayin' that we, the Grand Jury are a bunch of dumbasses, for indicting him on your say-so.

Ronnie Earle: Yeah........Bill, listen to me for a minute, ole buddy. Are ya listenin'? I kinda, sorta told you all a tiny little white lie. The truth is I don't have nearly as much evidence against him as I let on to ya'll. But I figgered if I got him indicted and he saw what he was up against. He'd see reason and ask for a plea bargain. It's worked so many times before I didn't see why it wouldn't work now.

Gibson Jr.: Well, evidently it ain't workin'! What are we going to do now?

Ronnie Earle: Well, I got an idea. It involves you. And you'll have to talk to some reporters about some of the things I told you in the Grand Juty session, only you will make out like you actually saw it.

Gibson Jr.: Reporters, huh? I don't know. I might say the wrong thing. I might do the wrong thing. What'll I say!?.......

Earle: Don't worry about it! You don't have to remember any specific things to say, just generalities, buddy. They'll take it from there.

Jr.: ..... and what about the oath I took to keep all that stuff secret? I could go to jail!

Earle: Bill! Get ahold of yourself. I swear sometimes you are as dense as a fencepost. I am the guy who brings charges in this county! Do you think I would bring charges against you after all you have done for the Party? You just go ahead an do what I tell you, you ain't got nothin' to worry about.

Jr.: Oh, OK! I guess I can expect a call from the news people, huh?

Earle: Yeah. Give me a coupl'a hours to set it up with some of my reporter friends. I'll call you back and we'll go over what you're gonna say to 'em again. OK?

Jr.: OK.

The foregoing conversation is speculation. But taking into account the low-life that is Ronnie Earle, and his history of political vendetta, it is probably true. Maybe not in the details but the broad strokes are right on target.

Tom DeLay Indictment: Okay Ronnie, Now Prove it!

2005-09-28T14:02:00.000-05:00

Below is the indictment released today by Ronnie Earle, from the Travis County District Attorney's office. As can be seen there is no new info. Ronnie Earle just added Tom DeLay's name to a previous list of supposed bad deeds done by people associated with DeLay.

DeLay's name appears on the front page, then he is accused along with the others of conspiracy but the list of particulars does not mention him at all. He does come up when the document mentions he waived his rights to statute of limitations protection. And this must be how Ronnie the Rooter was able to come up with this bogus conspiracy charge.

It is not worth the paper it is printed on, much less the time it took, 3 years, and six Grand Juries to accomplish.

Tom Delay Indictment Text-Page 1 (Click to Enlarge)
Tom Delay Indictment Text-Page 2(Click to Enlarge)
Tom Delay Indictment Text-Page 3(Click to Enlarge)
Tom Delay Indictment Text-Page 4(Click to Enlarge)

This Just In: Cheney Planned 9/11, Impeach Bush!

2005-09-27T10:57:00.000-05:00

Blogger Bonnie of "Kinder Gentler Brain" sent an e-mail in response to the post " Impeach Bush: The Popularity Approach" in which she cited "The Project For A New American Century"

Bonnie sez:

I have researched and listed several crimes that appear to have been committed by the current administration. But then again I was one of apparently a very few Americans that knew about the Project for the New American Century that was outlined in 1997 in which Mr. Cheney and his cronies have decided that a nation at peace is not very profitable.

The PNAC statement of principles are:

Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;

• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;

• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;

• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

These are crimes? It seems to me that the PNAC's goals are to strengthen our military, promote democracy, promote freedom both political and economic, and preserve order. All laudable goals in light of subsequent world events. (bombing of American embassies, attack on the U.S.S. Cole, 9/11, etc.)

Bonnie sez:

Part of their plan is to create a situation like Pearl Harbor to get the American people behind the idea of going to war. If you start back in 1997 with this plan and then follow the progression of the administration, it becomes hard to think that this war was for profit only.

The only fly in that particular ointment is that Islamic terrorism against the U.S. began in 1979 with the taking of hostages in Tehran. According to Bonnie's timeline Cheney and company did not even began planning their grand conspiracy until 1997.

Bonnie is hereby invited to cite the so-called crimes in the PNAC documentation that Cheney, etal are plotting to foist upon an innocent, unsupecting world.

Impeach Bush: A Collection Of Nonstarters Named " Articles Of Impeachment"

2005-09-21T13:25:00.000-05:00

To actually impeach a president, articles of impeachment must be brought against him by the House Of Representatives. In the 1980s, Congressman Henry B. Gonzales(D-Texas) prepared "articles of impeachment" against Ronald Reagan on a regular basis. Henry B. met with about as much success as this bunch of Don Quixotes will ultimately see.

It would also seem that these people live in the perpetual twilight of a September 10, 2001 world. Any event that occured after that day does not appear on their radar. They acknowledge the occurence of such events in order to use them bolster their own case, but any re-assessment of worldview in light of such events is completely missing.

Below are the "articles of impeachment" posted at Impeachment.org and refutations of them [in breackets]. Purely catchall phrases thrown for good measure, or outright propaganda has been deleted.

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

... (propagandandistic preamble snipped)...

1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law;[Authorized by Congress] carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of U.S. G.I.s. [Authorized by US Congress and UN resolution 1441]

2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war. [If President Bush lied, so did President Bill Clinton, Senators Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Bob Graham, Tom Harkin, and Barbara Boxer. These are only some the Democrats who have said exactly the same thing, years before President Bush repeated it. Were they lying too?]
.
3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable. [The attack on Iraq was conducted, and American soldier's lives put at risk, in order to minimize civilian casualties.]

4) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression. [Enforcing UN resolution 1441]

4) Deleted, 5) Deleted

6) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.[More catchall phrases, except for the reference to the UN in which case, resolution 1441 was being enforced.]

7) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of acitizen as an "enemy combatant."[Passed by Congress, subsequently confirmed as legal by the Supreme Court]

8) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense. [Some of these scuzballs were let go whereupon they went right back to conducting terrorist acts against the US]

9) Deleted, 10)Deleted

11) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry. [Congress passed and the courts affirmed this practice. Safeguards were put in place to prevent abuse.]

12) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials. [Congress passed and the courts affirmed this practice. Safeguards were put in place to prevent abuse.]

13)Deleted, 14) Deleted, 15) Deleted, 16)Deleted

17) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court. [The treaty was with the USSR which no longer exists]

Impeach Bush: The Popularity Approach

2005-09-21T12:46:00.000-05:00

Impeach Bush Blogger, Bonnie has written a post titled "Impeach Bush:Reasons Republicans Should Join" in which she holds forth to republicans on the reasons to impeach President Bush.

I must say, this is a novel approach. Impeaching a president primarily because you think the American People don't like him, not because of anything he has done has never been tried before.

This of course, begs the question of offending the Republican base and the people who think he is the last, best chance for Western culture.

... Republicans though need to be looking hard at poll numbers and thinking about the 2006 elections.

...According to a poll by the Cleveland Plain Dealer 46% say he should step down from office while 44% think he should stay. ... If Republican leaders would listen to their constituents ... If Republicans want to come out of the Bush Era somewhat intact ... Instead of allowing Bush and his cronies to take down the whole party over the coming months or years, ...the Republicans could very well have a mess on their hands that may take years to clean up.

So if there are Republican leaders in Washington that would like to maintain some dignity within the party, they should take the initiative into demanding accountability from Bush and Company.

The Bloggers Who Would Impeach Bush

2005-09-20T21:12:00.000-05:00

The bloggers who are attempting to impeach President Bush have got to be one of the angriest, most out-of-touch group of people, outside of a lunatic asylum, that has ever existed. This group is Moveon.org squared.

Using Technorati and Google, the following strange fish can be brought up from the depths of the Internet.

Rambler Joe Snitty, the neo-hippy . This guy thinks that the only thing necessary to Impeach President Bush is influence the Senate. Guess his civics lessons didn't cover details like the House of Representatives, who must actually bring forward articles of impeachment before the Senate can act. That's right Joe, you are going to have to convince a majority of that august, 435 member body to impeach. but then you are only half way. You still have to convince more than half of the Senate that he is a rat. And, as if that isn't enough, the guys you are tasked with convincing are Republicans!

Then there's the Impeach Bush Coalition. A veritable treasure trove of hard hitting reasons to impeach President Bush. Reasons like "George Bush and his officials are derelict in their duty" Because they didn't turn Katrina away from Nawlins. Or "George Bush and his officials lied to the American people" because President Bush, ever the nice guy, tried to cover for Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco by offering the opinion, on the Today Show, that they probably did not anticipate the levees breaking. The list goes on....and on in this same vein of complete and utter crap. It makes amusing reading though.

A Google search for "impeach bush" site:blogspot.com yields 53,600 pages that contain the phrase "impeach bush". This covers only the free webpages offered by Blogger. Only 84 of them are relevant though, the rest are repeats.

A Google web search for "impeach bush" yields a whopping 1,100,000 pages.

One more thing, this effort appears to be headed, in part, by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who has been in the middle of every crackpot movement since the American people threw Jimmy Carter out of office.

Have any of you guys ever read Don Quixote?

Murdered Over Lifestyle, Courtesy of the Religion Of Peace

2005-09-20T06:49:00.000-05:00

We, in the West, believe women should have the freedom to choose, have the freedom to determine their own destiny insamuch as possible. Not so in the Muslim world. A woman's fate is determined by her male relatives. If they are lucky, wise and benevolent, she has a fairly good life. If they are malevolent and stupid, she does not have it so good. In either case if she asserts herself, attempts to steer her own ship, she is liable to be killed. REUTERS has this story of honor killing in Germany.

September 15, 2005

German Turk admits to shooting his sister in honor killing

BERLIN -- A young Turkish immigrant accused along with his brothers of killing his sister on a Berlin street confessed on Wednesday to the crime that has sparked a debate about Islamic honor killings in Germany.

"I killed my sister. Nobody else in the family helped me," 19-year-old Ayhan Surucu told a packed court in Berlin through his lawyer....

Hatun Surucu infuriated him by saying that she had the right to live as she pleased and to sleep with whom she wanted, he said....

Their sister was forced to marry her cousin in Turkey when she was 15 years old. She left him and returned, pregnant, to Berlin and gave birth to a boy at the age of 17.

She lived as a single mother, kept away from her family and swapped her headscarf for makeup....

According to Papatya, a Berlin-based organization that seeks to help young Turkish women, there were 45 known honor killings in Germany from 1996 to 2004, of which 13 took place in Berlin.

Nagin: I Need You Back Here, Baby!

2005-09-19T16:32:00.000-05:00

I have figured out why the Mayor of the toxic mudhole formerly known as New Orleans is encouraging people to return even though there are not nearly enough resources to support them. Even though to return will mean certain death for some if another storm just grazes the fragile levees and causes them to break again.

But the Mayor cannot be concerned with that. He knows if he does not have his patronage system rebuilt soon, then most of the greenback rain coming from the Federal moneycloud will not fall in his backyard, he might not even get wet!

If he does not have any people in Nawlins, how's he going to be in any position to distribute the goodies. You cannot have a patronage system without patronees.

At this posting he has rescinded his call for move backs. I wonder what he will come up with in its place.

Nagin: N.O. should get most aid dedicated to hurricane recovery

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin speaks at a news conference Thursday about support from the National Conference of Mayors and his plans for returning residents to the city. At left is conference president Beverly O'Neill.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says some cities are trying to use Hurricane Katrina to grab federal aid even though they were not affected much by the storm.

Nagin said Thursday that New Orleans should get the bulk of the $100 billion or more he expects the federal government to spend rebuilding areas devastated by the storm and its related flooding.

"Maybe let a little bit go to the cities that were less affected," he said at a Baton Rouge news conference, without naming any of those cities.

As Nagin spoke, East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Kip Holden was in Washington, D.C., to present federal officials with an $11.2 billion wish list for improvements ranging from roads to housing to help handle the massive influx of evacuees from the New Orleans area.

Nagin was asked if his statement about other cities applies to Baton Rouge.

"The city of New Orleans was hit by a Category 5 storm" and "80 percent of the city was under water," Nagin said in comparing the damage to his city versus others seeking federal aid.

... By JOHN LAPLANTE and GERARD SHIELDS, Advocate staff writers

Newspaper Stories Citing Hidden Poll, Facts Sifted Out

2005-09-19T11:13:00.000-05:00

Posted below are excerpts from some of the stories published recently who cite the Scripps Howard Texas Poll. As I noted here there is no way to check the facts or interpretation of the poll since it is hidden behind a subscription wall and has not been published at large. At the bottom of this post I have listed the facts of the poll, as the newspapers have interpreted it

Fort Worth Star Telegram September 19,2005
Unease rising on Iraq, terror
AUSTIN - Support for the war in Iraq is slipping in President Bush's home state, with only 28 percent of Texans saying the conflict is going well, according to poll results released Sunday.

The Scripps Howard Texas Poll, which surveyed 1,000 randomly selected residents from Aug. 22 through Sept. 3, also shows that Texans are increasingly uneasy over the wider war on terrorism, with three out of four respondents saying another attack on the United Stated is at least somewhat likely during the next year.

"There is a lot of concern about how the war is going," said poll director Ty Meighan. "You can see it in our poll, just as you can see it in the polls that are coming out nationally."

Fort Worth Star Telegram Sep. 18, 2005
Texans growing uneasy over Iraq
AUSTIN _ Support for the war in Iraq is slipping in President Bush's home state, with only 28 percent of Texans saying the conflict is going well, poll results released Sunday show.

The Scripps Howard Texas Poll, which surveyed 1,000 randomly selected residents from Aug. 22 through Sept. 3, also shows that Texans are increasingly uneasy over the wider war on terrorism, with three out of four respondents saying another attack on the United Stated is at least somewhat likely during the next year.

"There is a lot of concern about how the war is going," said poll director Ty Meighan. "You can see it in our poll, just as you can see it in the polls that are coming out nationally."

Fort Worth Star Telegram, Sep. 12, 2005
Most in favor of 'Robin Hood'

By John Moritz, Star-Telegram Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - The state's often-maligned school finance system, which has been nicknamed the Robin Hood plan, enjoys more support among Texans than many of the political leaders who for years have vowed to end it, a new poll shows.

The Scripps Howard Texas Poll of 1,000 residents found that nearly six in 10 support the funding plan, which requires the state's wealthiest school districts to share the property tax revenues with poorer ones to ensure equitable funding.

By contrast, Gov. Rick Perry, who has called three unsuccessful special legislative sessions urging lawmakers to scrap the plan, enjoys the support of only about four in 10 Texans, the poll shows....

Fort Worth Star Telegram, Sep. 11, 2005
Texans back current school finance plan, poll shows

By John Moritz, Star-Telegram Austin Bureau

AUSTIN -- The state's often-maligned school-finance system, which has been nicknamed the Robin Hood plan, enjoys more support among Texans than many of the political leaders who for years have vowed to end it, a new poll shows.

The Scripps Howard Texas Poll of 1,000 residents found that nearly six in 10 support the funding plan, which requires the state's wealthiest school districts to share the property tax revenues with poorer ones to ensure equitable funding.

By contrast, Gov. Rick Perry, who has called three unsuccessful special legislative sessions urging lawmakers to scrap the plan, enjoys the support of only about four in 10 Texans, the poll shows....

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Mon, Sep. 19, 2005
Poll shows concern on economy for Texans

By Jim Fuquay. Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Texans have growing concerns about the national economy and their own finances, with 60 percent saying the economy is doing fair or poorly and 40 percent saying they are worse off than a year ago, according to a new Scripps Howard Texas Poll.

Worries about rising energy prices colored results of the poll, which was conducted between Aug. 22 and Sept. 3, said Ty Meighan, the poll's director. The poll surveyed 1,000 adults by phone and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points....

Corpus Christi Caller-Times, September 18, 2005
Poll shows Texans not optimistic about Iraq

Many say they expect terror attack in the next year

By TIM EATON Scripps Howard Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - Nearly 80 percent of Texans believe a terrorist attack in the United States is likely in the next year - a 15-point increase from February, according to the Scripps Howard Texas Poll.

Seventy-eight percent say an attack is very or somewhat likely, compared with just 19 percent who say an attack is not very or not at all likely.

"This is absolutely normal and traditional. The better a government is at preventing terrorism, the less credit they get for their success," said David McIntyre, director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M University. "The better you are at counter-terrorism, the less people think it is required. It's just a terrible dilemma."

Sixty percent of Texans rate the United States' war on terrorism as going poor or fair - the highest level of dissatisfaction since the question was first asked last year....

Houston Chronicle, Sept. 8, 2005,
Texans shift cash to cover fuel prices
Many report eating out, driving less, but few plan to trade in SUVs
By DAVID IVANOVICH
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A growing number of Texas motorists say higher gasoline prices are forcing them to drive less, eat out less often and trim their spending at the grocery store.

But the latest Scripps Howard Texas Poll found drivers are no more likely to consider buying more fuel-efficient vehicles than when pump prices were lower.

"Some people simply ... don't care," said Ty Meighan, director of the poll. "They have their truck or their SUV or whatever it is, and that's the vehicle they're going to have."

Surveying 1,000 Texans by telephone between Aug. 22 and Sept. 3, the Scripps Research Center found 63 percent of respondents said gas prices were causing them a financial hardship. That was up from 60 percent last May and 42 percent in October 2004

Houston Chronicle, Sept. 10, 2005, 10:21PM
More Texans say they favor sharing the wealth
EDUCATION FUNDING
An income tax, other proposals draw responses along party lines
By CLAY ROBISON
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - Although a growing number of Texans believe their local property taxes are too high, most support the controversial law, dubbed "Robin Hood," that requires property wealthy school districts to share tax revenue with poorer schools.

But there are sharp differences between Republicans and Democrats over the share-the-wealth law, the Scripps Howard Texas Poll shows, underscoring one reason for the Legislature's prolonged inability to overhaul the school finance system and cut local school taxes.
...
According to the Texas Poll, 65 percent of Texans believe their property taxes are too high, compared with 60 percent in May and 54 percent in February.

'Makes a lot of sense'
But despite the Republican attacks against Robin Hood, 57 percent of the survey's respondents agree that rich districts should share their money with poorer schools. Some 38 percent disagree, and 5 percent don't know, reflecting similar polls earlier this year.
...
Only 44 percent of Republicans favor the law, while 49 percent oppose it, and 7 percent don't know, according to the survey. Democrats, however, approve of Robin Hood by a 72 percent to 23 percent margin, with 5 percent undecided. Independents support the law, 59 percent to 36 percent, also with 5 percent unsure.

...

Even on income tax
Although leaders have vowed to find a tax trade-off that is "revenue neutral," 61 percent of the Texas Poll respondents believe their overall taxes will increase if the Legislature ever enacts a new school finance plan.

Some 25 percent of respondents blamed the school finance impasse on lawmakers, 24 percent blamed it on lobbyists and special interest groups and 14 percent blamed the governor.

Only 3 percent specifically blamed House Speaker Tom Craddick and 1 percent blamed Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. But 17 percent said "all of the above."

Texans, the poll indicates, are about evenly divided on whether the Legislature should enact a state income tax to reduce property taxes and increase education funding. Some 45 percent support an income tax, 47 percent don't and 8 percent are unsure.

But there were significant partisan differences over an income tax. Only 35 percent of Republicans like the idea, and 57 percent oppose it. Democrats support it by 60 percent to 31 percent, and independents are evenly divided at 48 percent.

The telephone poll of 1,000 Texans was conducted Aug. 22-Sept. 3 by the Scripps Research Center. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Let's try to devine the facts through the published stories. Shall we?

What can be ascertained from the stories:
The poll was conducted among randomly chosen telephone exchanges over the period of August 22 thru September 3.
The number of respondents was 1000
28 percent of Texans say the War is going well.
Three quarters of respondents expect a terror attack within the year.
Nearly six in ten support Robin Hood.
Governor Perry is backed by four in ten respondents.
40 Percent think they are worse off than a year ago.
60 Percent think the economy is doing fair to poor.
79 percent expect a terror attack within a year.
19 percent do not expect an attack at all.
60 percent think the War on Terror is going poor to fair.
63 percent think gas prices are causing them financial hardship.
65 percent think their property taxes are too high.
57 percent think that rich school districts should share the wealth.
38 percent think that rich school districts should NOT share the wealth.
44 percent of Republicans favor Robin Hood.
49 percent oppose Robin Hood.
72 percent of Democrats favor Robin Hood.
23 percent of Democrats oppose Robin Hood.
59 percent of Independents support Robin Hood.
36 percent of Independents oppose Robin Hood.
25 percent of respondents blamed the school finance impasse on lawmakers.
24 percent blamed it on lobbyists/interest groups.
14 percent blamed Governor Perry.
17 percent said "all of the above"
3 percent specifically blamed House Speaker Tom Craddick.
1 percent blamed Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.
45 percent support a state income tax.
47 percent do not want an income tax.
35 percent of Republicans want an income tax
57 percent of Republicans do not want an income tax
Democrats support an income tax by 60 percent to 31 percent.
Independents are evenly divided on an income tax at 48 percent.

A telephone conversation with Poll Director, Ty Meighan, confirmed that the poll is indeed behind a subscription wall and will not be released. Also elicited: the fact that the phrases "Robin Hood" and "share the wealth" do not appear anywhere in the poll, 942 of the 1000 respondents were registered voters, no questions were asked to determine the likelyhood of voting by the respondents.

A fact worthy of a separate post has emerged from this exercise: it appears that the Fort Worth Star Telegram uses the same story more than once. They just change the headline and publish it again.

Raw Data For The Scripps Howard Texas Poll Hard To Find

2005-09-19T10:15:00.000-05:00

The Fort Worth Star Telegram, The Dallas Morning News, the San Antonio Express-News and others have published stories citing the results of a Scripps Howard Poll of Texas citizens. This would ordinarily be fine except that when one tries to find the particulars, the raw data, methodolgy, etc., one runs into a stone wall of Internet silence on the subject. It is unusual, to say the least, that when newspapers cite the results of a poll, not a single one of them posts a link to that poll.

A call to Scripps Howard Inc. elicited the information that it was, most probably, still behind a subscription wall. A message was left on the Scripps Howard Poll Director's phone, but had not been returned at the time of this posting.

It will be interesting to see if the poll text is eventually published. And if the stories published in today's newspapers actually fit the facts of the poll.

Low Carb Cereal/Trail Mix Recipe

2005-09-18T11:33:00.000-05:00

It ain't cheap. And it requires about 45 minutes of preparation but it is tasty and a batch lasts a month to 5 weeks. Plus it appears to smooth out of one of the downsides of a low carb lifestyle. I leave it to you to guess which one. Hint: It's sometimes chunky, and begins with S.

Material:
12 oz walnuts
12 oz almonds
12 oz pecans
16 oz cashew nuts
12 oz dry roasted peanuts
10 oz dried banana chips
14 oz sunflower seed
14 oz flaked coconut
2 oz cinnamon

Equipment:
Food Processor
Very large mixing bowl
Stiff stirring tool

Procedure:
Load processor 2/3 full with ingredients and run it until largest particle is about 3/8" diameter then dump into mixing bowl. Do Not process coconut. Eventually you will be able to determine when to stop just by listening to the sound of the processor.

After all ingredients are processed, sprinkle coconut flakes and mix with tool, making sure to break up any coconut balls. Then sprinkle the cinnamon on top of mixture. Mix until cinnamon is evenly distributed throughout mixture, this assures complete mixing of the other ingredients.

Cover and let stand overnight. This allows nuts and cinammon to absorb the oil from the coconut.

Makes 53 ea., 2 .oz servings. 1/3 level cup equals 2 ounces.

A no carb milk substitute can be made by mixing heavy cream with water on a one part cream to two parts water ratio.

To make Trail Mix, don't proccess ingredients quite so much. Largest particle should be 1" to 3/4". However, be sure and process banana chips as finely as with cereal. This is what gives the mix it's sweetness and needs to be spread throughout mixture. The cinnamon gives it a kick and is good for you.

See the carbohydrate to ounce breakdown below.

Dry Roasted peanuts.........454g 16oz 80carb
Dried banana ...............284g 10oz 147carb
Cashews.....................454g 16oz 112carb
Sunflower seed..............397g 14oz 65carb
Pecans.....................340.5g 12oz 60carb
Walnut.....................340.5g 12oz 45carb
Almond.....................340.5g 12oz 90carb
Coconut flakes..............396g 14oz 162carb

total carbs............................ 761
total oz............................... 106

carb/oz= 7.18

Nawlins Mayor Nagin: Chicken Little or Walter Mitty?

2005-09-18T09:53:00.000-05:00

Last week he was predicting 10,000 deaths, poisonous floodwaters, and six months to dry it out, now he is encouraging people to move back in, even though only a small amount of water and electricity has been restored.

Mayor Nagus oscillates between gibbering despair and overreaching optimism . Is this guy bi-polar? Nagus needs to be removed from any decision making capacity for the safety of the population of the city. Hopefully, cooler, more sane heads will eventually prevail.

For those of you who are too young to know, this explains (Ckicken Little) and (Walter Mitty).

The Fort Worth Star telegram has this AP story, Link.

New Orleans mayor defends return plan

NEW ORLEANS - Mayor Ray Nagin defended his plan to return up to 180,000 people to the city within a week and a half despite concerns about the short supply of drinking water and heavily polluted floodwaters.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, head of the federal disaster relief effort, said Saturday that Nagin's idea is both "extremely ambitious and "extremely problematic."

But Nagin said his plan was developed in cooperation with the federal government and balances safety concerns and the needs of citizens to begin rebuilding.

"We must offer the people of New Orleans every chance for a sense of closure and the opportunity for a new beginning," he said.

Nagin said the Algiers, Garden District and French Quarter sections would reopen over the next week and a half, bringing back more than one-third of the city's half-million inhabitants. City officials later backed off setting a specific date for reopening the famous French Quarter - the city's main tourist draw.

Allen said a prime public health concern is the tap water, which in most of the city remains unfit for drinking and bathing. He said he was concerned about the difficulties of communicating the risk of using the water to people who return and might run out of bottled water.

Another concern is the risk of another storm hitting the region, threatening an already delicate levee system and possibly requiring residents to be evacuated again, he said.

Allen, who planned to meet with Nagin on Monday, said federal officials support the mayor's vision for repopulating the city, but he is concerned about the mayor's timeline.

"Our intention is to work with the mayor ... in a very frank, open and unvarnished manner," he said.

Business owners were allowed back in to some sections of the city to begin the long process of cleaning up and rebuilding, part of Nagin's plan to begin reviving the city by resuming a limited amount of commerce.

But confronted with damage that could take months to repair, many said hopes for a quick recovery may be little more than a political dream.

"I don't know why they said people could come back and open their businesses," said Margaret Richmond, owner of an antiques shop on the edge of the city's upscale Garden District that was looted. "You can't reopen this. And even if you could, there are no customers here."

The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters.

"They took everything - all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "People left their old clothes on the floor when they took new ones. The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs. You can still get a Shania Twain album."

If the store had not been looted, it could be open in two weeks, Stonaker said. Now he doubts it will be open by January. "They'll have to gut it and start over," he said.

Algiers, a residential area located across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans, is scheduled to reopen Monday, the first neighborhood to welcome back residents. Uptown, including the historic Garden District neighborhood, also is scheduled to reopen this week.

All the areas to be reopened this week were spared Katrina's flooding. Electricity and clean water have been restored to some sections.

In the French Quarter, the hum of generators, the thumping of hammers and the whir of power tools cut through the air Saturday as business owners were allowed in to survey the damage and begin cleaning up. Some threw an impromptu street party, complete with a traditional feast of red beans and rice.

At the famous French Quarter restaurant, The Court of Two Sisters, director of food and beverages Andrew Orth was removing plywood from the windows on Saturday morning.

"We couldn't open even if the electricity was on," Orth said. "First we've got to clean the rotted food out of the coolers and probably replace them."

Orth estimated it would take several weeks to get the restaurant ready to serve diners....

If Thine Eye Offends Thee, Pluck It Out!

2005-09-18T08:09:00.000-05:00

And If Thy Finger Offends Thee, Cut It Off!
LINK

SYDNEY, Australia - An Australian professional football player said Tuesday he plans to have one of his fingers amputated in an attempt to improve his game.

Brett Backwell, who plays Australian rules football for Glenelg, a suburb of the city of Adelaide in South Australia state, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. he has suffered from pain and restricted movement since he broke his left ring finger three years ago.

Doctors had suggested fusing the bones in the finger, but Backwell rejected the proposal.

He said he believed that amputating the finger was the only way to stop the pain and allow him to keep playing.

"To chop a finger off, that's a bit drastic," Backwell told the ABC. "But I love my footy (football), and love playing sport, and if that's going to help me to succeed at this level then it's something you've just got to do."

Survived The Storm, Destroyed by Looters.

2005-09-18T07:54:00.000-05:00

This sad comment on the fate of a Walmart store in Nawlins and by extension the sartorial values and musical tastes held by some Nawlinites.
LINK

...The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters.

"They took everything - all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "People left their old clothes on the floor when they took new ones. The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs. You can still get a Shania Twain album."

If the store had not been looted, it could be open in two weeks, Stonaker said. Now he doubts it will be open by January. "They'll have to gut it and start over," he said....

NBC Woos Christians, NYT Looks Down Nose, Sniffs

2005-09-17T22:58:00.000-05:00

It seems NBC has decided to try something different with a show aimed at a Christian audience. NBC is reallly desperate for ratings and they will do anything, even cater to, ugh!, Christians.

Newsmax has a take on a New York Times review of "Three Wishes"

Saturday, Sept. 17,
NBC to Air Christian Show

An upcoming TV series featuring Christian pop singer Amy Grant will make its debut next Friday, and NBC is pulling out all the stops to promote it.

In "Three Wishes," Amy Grant will visit a different town every week, where, in a gesture of Christian charity, she will seek to fulfill the wishes of needy families and community groups, according to the New York Times.

The show, which Amy Grant describes as "faith in action," is being heavily promoted by NBC, which, the Times reports, has sent more than 7,000 DVDs of the show's first episode to ministers and other clergy members, along with a recorded message to their congregants from Amy Grant.

NBC also has scheduled Grant, who recently released an album of hymns titled "Rock of Ages," for interviews on Christian radio and taken out advertising in small-town newspapers.

The Times, widely noted for its dismissive attitude toward anything that smacks of Christianity, was unable to resist commenting that the network's promotion of the series is "evocative of a red-state presidential campaign," which "bears scant resemblance to any NBC has crafted before."

To the Times, "red state" means an area of lowbrow superstition offensive to the elite circles in which the newspaper travels.

"Three Wishes," Times reporter Jacques Steinberg noted, "is aimed, in no small part, at a churchgoing rural and suburban audience" – you know, the sort of intellectually backward types who inhabit red states.

Air America: Just Keeps On Truckin'...Into the Abyss

2005-09-17T14:41:00.000-05:00

Just when you think the Air America has done it's best to look venal and stupid, they top themselves. I kind of figured that stealing money from a Boy's and Girl's club for daily operations was the topper but now it looks like, the hosts at AA are defending the Nutbag-Racist-Anti-Semite: Louis Farrakan.
I ask you now, aint that cool?

World Net daily has a story about the latest from those wild and crazy hosts at AA, LINK.

Friday, Sept. 16, Air America Hosts: Farrakhan Not Wrong on Levees

Two hosts at the liberal radio network Air America are defending Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan - saying he's not wrong to suspect that white people deliberately blew up the levees in New Orleans.

"You cannot blame people for coming up with conspiracy theories," Air America host Chuck D. said, after he was asked Thursday about the paranoid pronouncement by MSNBC's Tucker Carlson.

"They look on television and see that the government is four days late in saving people [who are] supposed to be their citizens," Chuck D. explained.

Carlson gave him a second chance to denounce Farrakhan's lunatic declaration, saying, "You're a smart guy. You know that white people didn't blow up the levees to kill black people. You've gotta know that didn't happen."

But the Air America host refused to budge, insisting instead that there was a chance Farrakhan could be right.

"I can't say unless I know for sure what's the actual facts and what's actually false," the rapper-turned-talk host said.

Carlson tried a third time, telling Chuck D.: "Look, I can say for certain that it was not a white conspiracy. White people did not blow up the levee to kill black people."

Still, the radio lefty wouldn't denounce Farrakhan's poisonous rant, saying only, "I don't think it's a person at fault but I think the system needs revamping."

After failing to persuade Chuck D., the MSNBC host turned to panelist Rachel Maddow, who also hosts a show on Air America.

Asked if she believed that white people deliberately destroyed the levees, Maddow declined to render a personal judgment - and instead defended the sentiment behind the toxic hypothesis.

"Conspiracy theories don't necessarily help but you have to understand where they come from," she told Carlson. "They come from people feeling like this disaster had a real racial component. I mean, it was a majority-black city that was absolutely abandoned by the country."

On Monday, Farrakhan uncorked his ugly theory, telling a North Carolina audience: "I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry."

On the 880th Day Of Iraqi Freedom:...

2005-09-17T12:31:00.000-05:00

September 17, 2005

On the 880th day of Iraqi freedom:

The total number of Iraqis who are alive, and have not been murdered, or killed by Saddam's criminal neglegience, since the invasion is 181,632.

The number of new mass graves that have been dug, then filled with Iraqi victims since we toppled Saddam is zero.

As of midnight September 17, 2005 the deaths attributable to Saddam had been stopped for 880 days and no new mass graves have been dug.

Saddam Hussein has not paid off a suicide bomber's family, or bribed a Frenchman in 880 days.

This is only four of the myriad things accomplished by our invasion and toppling of the monster Hussien!

*****************************************************

Background:

Saddam Hussien became "President" of Iraq in 1979. The Coalition invaded Iraq March 22, 2003.

This makes his total time in power equal 23 years , 2 months, 22 days. Or 8,477 days.
The conservative estimate of the number of Iraqis murdered by Saddam's regime and placed in mass graves during that time is 400,000.

The number of Iraqi civilians who starved to death, or died from lack of proper medical care while Saddam stole Oil-for-Food money, and sold critical medical supplies for money to build palaces and buy weapons adds another 1,350,000, for a total of 1,750,000 deaths.

Assuming that the murders and deaths attributable to Saddam stopped when the invasion started that would make Saddam's average number of Iraqis killed per day during his time as ruler of Iraq to be 206.4. Even Zarquarwi has not matched this!

We Are Lied To About Katrina, and Nawlins

2005-09-15T12:35:00.000-05:00

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Jack Kelly writes a column entitled "No shame". In which he brings out some very interesting points of fact about the Katrina disaster. I do so hope that Congress opens hearings on this. And before they start sending billions of dollars to Governor Blanko and Mayor Nagus.

The federal response to Katrina was not as portrayed

By Jack Kelly, Sunday, September 11, 2005

It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.

"Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.

But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.

Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:

"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three days.

Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.

So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.

I write this column a week and a day after the main levee protecting New Orleans breached. In the course of that week:

More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.

The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.

Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.

Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this. A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:

"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.

"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.

"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.

"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."

"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.

Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can't be on the scene immediately.

Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.

And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states.

Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.

The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.

A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck? (Note: The number of school buses has since been more reliably set at 700.)

An E-mail Making The Rounds

2005-09-14T11:08:00.000-05:00

This Email is presently making the rounds. I am unable to verify the existence of Dave Kulow but because I am a froth-at-the-mouth conservative, it seems to fit within the parameters of what I hold true. So, I am reprinting it here. It first appeared about this time last year. It has been edited to fit in the context of this weblog.

PRESIDENTIAL OBSERVATIONS BY THE SECRET SERVICE by Dave Kulow

We had a neighbor when I lived in DC who was part of the secret service presidential detail for many years. His stories of Kennedy and Johnson were the same as those I heard from the guys who flew the presidents' plane --- yes, Kennedy did have Marilyn Monroe flown in for secret "dates," and LBJ was a typical Texas "good ole boy" womanizer. Nixon, Bush 41, and Carter never cheated on their wives. Clinton cheated, but couldn't match Kennedy or LBJ in style or variety.

The information below is accurate. The elder Bush and current president Bush make it a point to thank and take care of the air crews who fly them around. When the president flies, there are several planes that also go -- one carries the armored limo, another the security detail, plus usually a press aircraft. Both Bush's made it a point to stay home on holidays, so the Air Force and security people could have a day with their families.

WHAT WAS:

Hillary Clinton was arrogant and orally abusive to her security detail. She forbade her daughter, Chelsea, from exchanging pleasantries with them Sometimes Chelsea, miffed at her mother's obvious conceit and mean spiritedness ignored her demands and changed pleasantries regardless, but never in her mother's presence. Chelsea really was a nice, kindhearted, and lovely young lady. The consensus opinion was that Chelsea loved her Mom but did not like her. Hillary Clinton was continuously rude and abrasive to those who were charged to protect her life. Her security detail dutifully did their job,
as professionals should, but they all loathed her and wanted to be on a different detail. Hillary Clinton was despised by the Secret Service as a whole.

Former President Bill Clinton was much more amiable than his wife. Often the Secret Service would cringe at the verbal attacks Hillary would use against her husband. They were embarrassed for his sake by the manner and frequency in which she verbally insulted him, sometimes in the presence of the Secret Service, and sometimes behind closed doors. Even behind closed doors Hillary Clinton would scream and yell so loudly that everyone could hear what she was saying. Many felt sorry for President Clinton and most wondered why he tolerated it instead of just divorcing his "attack dog" wife. It was crystal clear that the Clinton's neither liked nor respected each other and this was true long before the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Theirs was genuinely a "marriage of convenience."

Chelsea was much closer to her father than her mother, even after the Lewinsky scandal, which hurt her gravely. Bill Clinton did in fact have charisma, and occasionally would smile at or shake hands with his security detail. Still, he always displayed an obvious air of superiority believed him to be disingenuous, false, and that he did nothing without a motive that in some way would enhance his image and political career. He was polite, but not kind. They did not particularly like him and nobody trusted him.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN:

Al Gore was the male version of Hillary Clinton. They were more friendly toward each other than either of them were towards former President Clinton. They were not intimate, so please don't read that in. They were very close in a political way. Tipper Gore was generally nice and pleasant. She initially liked Hillary but soon after the election she had her "pegged" and no longer liked her or associated with her except for events that
were politically obligatory.

Al Gore was far more left wing than Bill Clinton. Al Gore resented Bill Clinton and thought he was too "centrist." He despised all Republicans. His hatred was bitter and this was long before he announced for the Presidency. This hatred was something that he and Hillary had in common. They often said as much, even in the presence of their security detail. Neither of them trusted Bill Clinton and, the Secret Service opined, neither of them even liked Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton did have some good qualities, whereas Al Gore and Hillary had none, in the view of their security details.

Al Gore, like Hillary, was very rude and arrogant toward his security detail. He was extremely unappreciative and would not hesitate to scold them in the presence of their peers for minor details over which they had no control. Al Gore also looked down on them, as they finally observed and learned with certainty on one occasion. Al got angry at his offspring and pointed at his detail and said, "Do you want to grow up and be like them?" Word of this insult by the former Vice-president quickly spread and he became as disliked by the Secret Service as Hillary. Most of them prayed Al Gore would not be
elected President, and they really did have private celebrations in a few of their homes after President Bush won. This was not necessarily to celebrate President Bush's election, but to celebrate Al Gore's defeat.

WHAT IS:

Everyone in the Secret Service wants to be on First Lady Laura Bush's detail. Without exception, they concede that she is perhaps the nicest and most kind person they have ever had the privilege of serving. Where Hillary patently refused to allow her picture to be taken with her security detail, Laura Bush doesn't even have to be asked, she offers. She doesn't just shake their hand and say, "Thank you." Very often, she will give members of her detail a kindhearted hug to express her appreciation. There is nothing false about her. This is her genuine nature. Her security detail considers her to be a
"breath of fresh air." They joke that comparing Laura Bush with Hillary Clinton is like comparing "Mother Teresa" with the "Wicked Witch of the North."

Likewise, the Secret Service considers President Bush to be a gem of a man to work for. He always treats them with genuine respect and he always trusts and listens to their expert advice. They really like the Crawford, Texas detail. Every time the president goes to Crawford he has a Bar-B-Q for his security detail and he helps serve their meals. He sits with them, eats with them, and talks with them. He knows each of them by their first name, and calls them by their first name as a show of affection. He always asks about their family, the names of which he always remembers. They believe that he is deeply and genuinely appreciative of their service. They could not like, love, or respect anyone more than President Bush. Most of them did not know they would feel this way, until they had an opportunity to work for him and learn that his manner was genuine and consistent. It has never changed since he began his Presidency. He always treats them with the utmost respect, kindness, and compassion.

It is important for Americans to have a true inside understanding of their President.

This Guy Writes Better Than Me

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

I did not write this but it pretty much sums up my thinking about this subject. It has been edited for spelling. Nagin has been changed to Nagus, as in Grand Nagus of DS9, and Blanco is Blanko as in blank, incompetent, puttylike entity who's only talent is to grab power and hold on to it. Even when her own constituent's lives are at stake, Blanko's priorities never waver, she tries to keep a deathgrip on power. The guy's name is Steve Hopkins and he resides at Hog On Ice.

What is George Thinking?

Blanko and Nagus Blow it, and Bush Apologizes

I suppose you know that the President is planning to make a ridiculous speech on Thursday, in which he talks about how bad he feels about the federal government letting everyone in New Orleans down.

Why does he do these things? Over and over, he reaches out to the left, and every time, they take the olive branch and beat him over the head with it.

Governor Blanko failed to follow her disaster plan. She was so nonchalant, National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield called her before the storm and begged her to start taking action. New Orleans mayor Ray Nagus also got a call, and like Blanko, he chose not to follow his own preexisting plan. Then Blanco and Nagin exacerbated the mess AFTER the storm and BEFORE the flooding. Nagus failed to use his last opportunity to evacuate, and Blanko made the city wait an entire day while she bickered with the President about turf concerns.

After all that, FEMA reacted FASTER than after earlier disasters, and yet somehow, the Democrats had the gall to say the feds--and by extension, President Bush--were responsible for the obscenely high death toll.

If there's one lesson George Bush really needs to learn, it's that the Democrats are always going to shaft him, and when he tries to include them and do them favors, it only gives them more ammunition.

If the Democrats in Louisiana had done things even partially correctly, we would not have a high death toll or a flooded city to deal with. They could have prevented the flooding and evacuated the people, leaving FEMA with a much smaller job to do. But they wasted flood control money and they left people in the city as it sank, and naturally, FEMA--which never, ever responds quickly--was unable to cope with the mess.

The correct thing for George Bush and the Republicans to do is to fight back and make sure people understand that Democrats caused this tragedy. Instead, the President is essentially going to confess to a series of misdeeds he and his subordinates didn't commit, and he will probably see to it that at least through the 2008 election, the ignorant, half-witted public will think Republicans caused the destruction of New Orleans.

This is without a doubt the dumbest decision of his long political career. It almost makes you wonder if George Soros has naked pictures of Karl Rove.

I'm so disgusted, I don't feel like defending the President any more. What good will it do for bloggers to point out the truth, when the President himself refuses to stand up and fight?

I generally don't watch Presidential speeches, because they're dull, and it's extremely unusual for a Republican President to say anything I disagree with. But this time I think I'll tune in. It's not often that you get to witness a career suicide on prime time TV with two days' notice.

Air America Can't Sell Advertising, Does It Get Any Better Than This?

2005-09-13T16:13:00.000-05:00

I've always regarded Al Franken as a no talent, totally unfunny, hack writer who is given far more credit than he deserves, or works hard for. And I have always thought of liberal philosophy as the supreme rationalization for meddling in other people's lives. So it pleases me to no end when I hear news that these two's biggest endeavor to date, the excreable Air America, is struggling. World Net Daily has an article about Air America that warms the heart.

Radio station can't sell any ad for Air America.

Manager makes plea to liberals, noting Rush Limbaugh sold out.By Joe Kovacs
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Posted: September 12, 2005
A California radio station is pleading for advertisers to sponsor the liberal programming of the Air America shows it broadcasts, while noting the conservative Rush Limbaugh show is virtually sold out on its sister station.

"For liberal programming to continue ... you need to support it," said an ad by KOMY station owner Michael Zwerling, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

"You can't be coy in this business," said Zwerling. "You have to spell it out, especially in Santa Cruz where everybody thinks they deserve everything."

Zwerling brought Air America to the Central Coast region of California in July, and during initial negotiations, he says network executives refused to allow Al Franken to share a dial with syndicated radio host Michael Savage, known for statements such as "liberalism is a mental disorder."

"As soon as I said Michael Savage, the door slammed shut," Zwerling said.

Though there has been some letters and calls of appreciation for airing the liberal content, not a single business has purchased air time during Air America's slot since its debut.

Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh, who is broadcast on sister station KSCO, gave some advice to Zwerling today on his nationally broadcast show, suggesting he ask for donations.

"I want to help this man because he took a great risk," Limbaugh said. "I don't want this guy to suffer out there."

"What you need to do if you want financial support, you need to go get funding," he continued. "You need to ask for donations from people. Probably the best way to support Air America in this market since its advertisers won't is to find a local Boys and Girls Club, and tell that Boys and Girls Club that you need an operating loan for some unrelated purpose," referring to the recent scandal involving Air America allegedly siphoning money from such a club in New York City.

"Normally, people give money to the Boys and Girls Club, but liberal radio has found a way to extract money from the Boys and Girls Clubs," Limbaugh said.

"I think this is the lesson for all of you who wish to show some sort of financial revenue income by carrying liberal radio. You have to orient yourself to fund-raising, not commerce. Commerce has never been part of the recipe here. ... This guy has made a terrible blunder. He thought liberal radio was about commerce and dollars and business and selling advertising, and that's not what it's about. ... You are doing something good for the cause."

Dead Peasant Insurance

2005-09-13T15:22:00.000-05:00

Dead Peasant Insurance is the pactice of insuring someone without their knowledge or consent. Usually someone who works for you. The Canada Free Press has a story about AlGore, a bunch of Democrats, and Dead Peasant Insurance.

Al Gore & friends in eye of the storm

By Judi McLeod & David Hawkins
Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore went on the public record yesterday with the claim that what happened in New Orleans was known--before it happened.

“What happened was not only knowable, it was known in advance, in great and painstaking detail, said Gore. ‘They (the Bush administration) did tabletop planning exercises. They identified exactly what the scientific evidence showed what would take place.”

Why do people have to take Al Gore, who does not own a crystal ball and is not the local weatherman, at his word?

People died in New Orleans; people lost every earthly possession they ever had.

If Al Gore has knowledge that the good people of the Big Easy do not, it is incumbent upon him to share that knowledge with Hurricane Katrina’s victims. It is also incumbent upon the government of the land to go after the information Gore is boasting he has by means of a sworn affidavit.

Republican or Democrat, tragedy should always trump politics.

While the former senator from Tennessee is raising the red flag of blame, he could wind up drawing unwanted attention to some of his closest comrades.

Someone made money on the death and devastation in New Orleans. Suspicions now point to something called “Dead Peasant Life Insurance”, the loathsome practice of taking out life insurance on people without their knowledge and callously collecting on their death.

…”Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access points to one of the only ways out of New Orleans last week, effectively trapping victims of Hurricane Katrina in the flooded and devastated city.”

The above quote comes not from Al Gore or even from Internet conspiracy theorists, but from the daily Washington Times,

Would it be too cynical for us to ponder whether any police personnel had their pension funds invested in GOLI (Government Owned Life Insurance), AKA Dead Peasant Life Insurance?

Was any party able to calculate on costs to be saved by “claimant cleansing” (drowning) in the State of Louisiana?

So far the body count in New Orleans has been as low as 197 as opposed to the upwards of 10,000 predicted. Authorities have already indicated it will not be possible to identify many of the dead.

The Bush administration should be sensitive to insurance fraud in the wake of broken levee-devastated New Orleans.

Insurance fraud is no stranger to the State of Louisiana.

“Louisiana has a new law regarding convicted insurance swindlers to repay the money they stole, plus court and investigative costs. The old law only imposed jail time. HB 689, however wouldn’t reduce separate civil judgment by the restitution. The new law took effect in early August, (Legislative News, Aug. 26, 2005)

Although hardly a household word to the masses, Dead Peasant Life Insurance is a growing phenomenon in modern-day America.

While Wal-Mart unwittingly put Dead Peasant Life Insurance on the map, hundreds of employers have taken out—sometimes secretly—life insurance policies on thousands of rank-and-file employees. Wal-Mart took some 350,000 dead peasant insurance policies In the State of Texas alone, before later canceling them.

Rep. Kenny Marchant, (R.Carrollton) introduced a 2003 bill to authorize the State of Texas to purchase Dead Peasant Life Insurance policies on Texas retirees, giving the state “insurable interests” in the continued lives of its retirees.

The new bill would have given the right to the state to purchase dead peasant policies on state retirees—without their permission. The bill was voted down in Congress.

Some organizations lament that Dead Peasant Life Insurance gives more pork to the insurance industry. That could be a textbook case of only stating the obvious. What about the ability to purchase Dead Peasant Life Insurance for global custodians, who control assets in the trillions; the controllers of hedge funds and those in charge of powerful pension funds?

Unfortunately, the incredible practice of putting life insurance on people without their permission—or in some cases, even their knowledge—varies from state to state.

Three states, Florida, Oregon and Texas, plus Washington, D.C., have statutes that would seem to bar employers from taking out policies on lower-level workers. Eight other states require employees’ consent. Six other states require the employee to be notified of the insurance policy.

Perhaps an easy rule of thumb for mainstream Americans to adopt would be to file this fact mentally: When someone purchases life insurance on you, they have a financial interest in your death.

The crackdown on the practice in some states has already sparked Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie, Proctor & Gamble and other big employers to cancel their policies.

But even in the face of crackdowns and litigation, insurers have so far declined to reveal how many dead peasant policies they have written,

Recent lawsuits have turned up evidence that rank-and-file policies have been purchased by the who’s who of corporate America.

Ironically, Gore had been scheduled to give a speech to state insurance commissioners in New Orleans last weekend about the likelihood that global warming will spawn increasingly deadly hurricanes. He decided to take his speech to San Francisco Sierra Club environmentalists after that conference was cancelled.

Then there’s the French connection in Louisiana. According to census reports, of the 668,271 Acadian/ Cajuns living in the United States, 61 percent are Louisiana residents, making the 262,000 French speakers in the state the largest in the U.S.A.

Organizations such as La Francophonie, which claims to represent the French-speaking nations of the world and the French American Foundation (FAF) are active in the state.

Founded in 1976, FAF is “the only organization dedicated specifically and solely to strengthening the bilateral relationship across the full range of French American relations”.

Guess who shares FAF membership with Groupe AXA, among the world’s largest insurance giants and BNP Paribas, the bank at the heart of the UN oil-for-food scandal? (*See full FAF membership list at end of story).

Al Gore’s friends Bill and Hillary Clinton, that’s who.

Meanwhile, something stinks in New Orleans, and that something has the reek of partisan politics.

FAF membership list
# Former President William Jefferson Clinton (1984)
# Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (1983, 1984)
United States Senate (D – NY)
# John A. Thain (1999)
Chief Executive Officer
New York Stock Exchange
# Kori N. Schake (2001)
Director for Defense and Strategy Requirements
National Security Council
# General Wesley K. Clark (1983)
Wesley Clark & Associates
# Charlotte Hallengren (1999, 2000)
Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army
Strategic Planner
The Joint Staff, Pentagon
# Jennifer Koch Easterly (2003)
Major, U.S. Army
Battalion Executive Officer
742nd Military Intelligence Battalion
# John A. Nagl (1999, 2000)
Major, U.S. Army
# Peter F. Najera (2001, 2002)
Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army
# Amy B. Dean (2000)
President and CEO
South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council
# Steve Coll (1999)
Managing Editor
The Washington Post
# Maria G. Gotsch (1999, 2000)
Senior Vice President
New York City Investment Fund
# Henri de Castries (1994, 1995, 1998) Money laundering and dead peasants
Directeur Général
Groupe AXA
CNN News Story
# Nicolas Moreau (2001, 2002)
Vice-Chairman
AXA Rosenberg
# Charlotte Dennery (2003, 2004)
Director, Corporate Development, North America
BNP Paribas
# Ludovic de Montille (1989)
Senior Banker
BNP Paribas
# Pierre Mariani (1995, 1996)
Head, International Retail & Finance Services
# Christine Morin-Postel (1981)
Senior Vice-President
Suez BNP Paribas
# Alexandre de Juniac (2002)
Secrétaire du Conseil d’Administration
Thalès
# Bruno Lafont (1989)
Executive Vice President
Lafarge
# Marwan Lahoud (1999, 2000)
Chief Executive Officer
MBDA Missile Systems

A Solution To The "Crescent of Embrace" Brouhaha

2005-09-13T13:09:00.000-05:00

Click to enlarge

The addition of forty crosses, each one five stories high so they can be seen from three miles up, should convince anyone that no homage is being paid to the Muslim hijackers. That is if they believe it is an Islamic crescent in the first place. For those individuals, the placement of the crosses in the very heart of the crescent can be symbolic of the events of Flight 93.

If the ACLU brings suit, everything will stop while all aspects of this controversy is given air.

The very last thing wanted is for the Islamic fanatics to think they had put one over on us Infidels.

Where Do Rights Originate? How Are They Stopped From going Away?

2005-09-13T11:13:00.000-05:00

The Weekly Standard has an article on the Judge John Roberts confirmation hearings that has some intersting things to say about where rights come from .

The Democrats seem to subscribe to the notion that rights are actually created by the Constitution and can be expanded, or reduced, by changes to the Constitution.

...the Democratic position: "Our democracy, our rights, and everything we hold dear about America are built on the foundations of our Constitution," said Kohl. "Our Constitution is . . ." said Leahy, "the foundation of our rights and liberties." "Herein lies the crux of the debate I referenced at the outset," said Biden. "Whether we will have ever increasing protections for human liberty and dignity, or whether those protections will be diminished."

Republicans hold to the more, in my opinion, quixotic view that rights exist all on their own, and the Constitution simply codifies them.

...the Republican position, put most succinctly by Cornyn: "The Constitution does not guarantee everything that is good, and it does not prohibit everything that is bad." In this view, the Constitution doesn't grant rights--indeed, the Bill of Rights is a series of amendments to the original document. In this view, the Constitution is just a rule book, and we would still have rights if tomorrow it ceased to exist.

I believe that rights exist on their own but that a people must be strong enough, and wise enough, to wrest those rights out of the hands of the members of the group who have, through accident or manipulation, become the keepers of the levers of political power.

Once the revolution is fought, and the changes made, a written document is the best method of insuring that it stays that way.

Take THAT! Tom Delay Haters

2005-09-12T22:32:00.000-05:00

Case against DeLay associate dismissed

HaHaHa and GOOD-ON-YA, Tom! This will cause the Haters to choke on their own bile. Ain't it cool?

A Texas judge dismissed a civil case against a major fundraiser for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) last Friday.

The federal district-court judge dismissed the case brought by two Texas Democrats against John Colyandro, the former executive director of the Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (TRMPAC).

The judge, Lee Yeakel, ruled that lawyers for the two Democrats failed to prove that Colyandro had knowingly broken Texas election law in using corporate contributions to fund campaign ads.

Texas election law prohibits the use of corporate money in races for state office.

In his opinion, Yeakel wrote that the petition against Colyandro and his three co-defendants “fails to allege any facts that Colyandro intentionally or even knowingly violated the applicable sections of the Texas Election Code.”

In May, another Texas judge ruled against Colyandro and co-defendants Jim Ellis and Warren Robold in a separate civil case, ruling that the three had violated state election law by failing to report $684,507 in corporate donations.

Colyandro and Ellis also face criminal money-laundering charges following indictments last year by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

Muslim Extremists Force Closing Of 35 Christian Churches In Indonesia

2005-09-12T21:23:00.000-05:00

First it was Darfur in Africa, now it is Java in Indonesia. Next to Terrorism, the most worrying and infuriating aspect of Islam is the intolerance of other faiths required by the Koran. This article in the Christian Post reports instances of religious bigotry and persecution in West Java.

The most chilling part of the report is the Muslim cleric's characterization of Christianity as a "problem". This brings to mind the Nazi's "Final Solution" to their "problem".

Monday, Sep. 12, 2005

The accelerating trend of Christian church closures in predominately Muslim West Java, Indonesia, has recently raised nationwide concern, reported a prominent UK-based human rights watchdog last week.

According to the report released on Sept. 8 by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), recent church closures in Indonesia share a common pattern and appear to be part of a wider scheme by militant hardliners, which can be traced to a previous report prepared by the World Evangelical Alliance’s Religious Liberty Commission (RLC).

On Aug. 17, the RLC reported that thirty-five churches had been closed in West Java since the Indonesian Council of Muslim Clerics (MUI) discussed the "problem" of Christian expansion in Indonesia at a four-day national congress in late July.

To solve the “problem,” the congress released an 11-point fatwa (edict) denouncing liberal interpretations of Islam, secularism and pluralism as un-Islamic.

“Fueled mainly by the MUI, the drive for Islamization has increased in recent years, as has a growing concern over Muslim apostasy (leaving Islam),” the RLC reported. “This is evidenced in the Education Bill, the push for Sharia Law and the escalation in church closures, which are all part of an aggressive counter-measure to halt or reverse the spread of Christianity.”

Another example, which CSW cited, is the high-profile court case of three Indonesian Christian women from the Christian Church of David’s Camp in Harguelis, West Java, who were accused of “Christianizing” Muslim children who attended their Sunday school program over the last two years.

CSW pointed out that the accusation of “Christianization” came not from the parents but from the local chapter of MUI.

MUI claimed that the three women offered the children gifts with a purpose of converting them to Christianity. But the CSW clarified that no evidence of this was given in court and, indeed, no children had converted to Christianity.

"The case is symptomatic of the growing harassment faced by Christians in the area of West Java," CSW concluded.

CSW's Advocacy Director, Tina Lambert said, "A huge injustice has been done to these three women. This in itself is a travesty but it is made all the more worrying by recent church closures and an observable strategy by militants over recent years to slowly chip away religious freedom across Indonesia.

"Indonesia has a rich and long tradition of interfaith cooperation and we ask moderate Muslim leaders to condemn this court decision and to continue to work together with Christian leaders to restore harmony and religious freedom for all."

In another example, CSW disclosed how one pastor was forced by Islamic militants from the vigilante group AGAP (Anti-Apostasy Movement Alliance) to close the church. The militants reportedly threatened the pastor and forced her to close the church when she refused to sign a letter stating that the church would stop all religious activities.

The pastor attempted to seek help from the local police. However, the police appeared to be siding with the militants. During a meeting arranged for a settlement in the next day, various representatives even continued to call for the church to be closed including the local officials, the local head of the MUI and the police and military commander.

Amid the fear of the militants’ massive anti-Christian activity in the area, CSW's Advocacy Director called on the Indonesian government to take action to prevent militant activity in West Java, to investigate reports of the complicity of local government and security officials in this activity and to revoke legislation incompatible with international guarantees of religious freedom.

On Sunday, local news agencies reported that Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged his government’s commitment to protect the religious freedom of all citizens. He also called on the community to help prevent violence against any faith.

According to the Jakarta Post, the National Police chief has been instructed to enforce the law against those responsible for the closures of the churches, including those who took part in them.

Eunice Or, eunice at christianpost dot com

"Crescent Of Embrace" Not Really a Crescent After All

2005-09-12T14:09:00.000-05:00

Upon further inspection, the furor over the shape of the memorial to the Heroes of Flight 93 is beginning to look like a tempest in a teapot. As can be seen from this image (below) of the proposed design, the "crescent" began as a meandering, ragged semicircle. LINK to data.

And as can be seen in this image of the final design, the "crescent" is still a meandering, ragged semicircle, only less so. Notice area 4. It is the most important part, called "Sacred Ground", and it breaks the flow of the circle. Also,if a line is drawn between the middle of the two ends and the center of the circle, it does not point to Mecca. To liken this to the crescent of Islam could be construed as an insult by some Muslims. Of course, some Muslims are insulted by our existence on the planet anyway. LINK to data.

(clic on pic to enlarge)

Flight 93 To Be Memorialized by "Crescent Of Embrace"

2005-09-12T10:38:00.000-05:00

The heroism of the 40 people on Flight 93, who crashed the airplane rather than have it be used as a missle, will be remembered by a structure built in the shape of an Islamic crescent. In what can only be interpreted as a further triumph of the Muslim hijackers, the crescent will also be oriented toward Mecca.

Malkin: Seeing Is Believing...

News Article: "Flight 93 marker design picked"

A 911 Remembrance and Promise

2005-09-11T13:14:00.000-05:00

On this, the fourth anniversary of the kidney-punch-from-behind given to us by the Islamic fanatics. I think it is appropriate to re-print something I wrote last year. It was in response to articles by Annie Jacobsen about a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles that was terrorized by 13 Syrian musicians acting suspiciously. Whether or not the Syrians were up to no good, or just having fun at the other passenger's expense is not the point. The point is that the scenario invisioned by the passengers is one that may happen someday. The original links have gone dead. But "Terror In The Skies" has expanded into a series that can be found HERE. There is even a book, which can be found HERE.

After reading this (Note: Link now active, but it will take you to the Series) I have made a personal decision about what I will do if I ever encounter conditions like those described in Annie Jacobsen's article. This course of action will not be limited to Arab men. That level of suspicious activity from any group would set it in motion.

First I am going to intrude myself upon their space. I am going to ask if I can cut in line to the bathroom 'cause I really, really got to go! I am going to take every opportunity to make friends with them and feel them out. If I am rebuffed, if none of this works, I am simply going to confront one of them and ask what's going on. Firmly and politely, I am going to ask if he knows these other men and if so, how so. I am going to ask him what's in the bag. If I don't get the response I want, which is a prompt and plausible explanation for my questions, I am going to start a fight and assume his buddies will jump on me too.

From what I gather, the Air Marshals, and flight crew need an actual event, before they can take action. Their procedures are hobbled by Political Correctness.

My goal will be to create enough of an incident to give the Air Marshals reason to take charge. And if the Air Marshals are not on the flight, give the captain and crew a reason to act, and time to call for help. While I get enough help from the other passengers to subdue them, I hope.

My secondary goal is to screw up their plan, if indeed they are terrorists. A quick read of the Al Qaeda Manual, gives the impression that one of the things terrorists hate most is for a operation to be uncovered, or things not to go according to plan.

If they are NOT terrorists, then I'll be real sorry about it and hope they understand why I couldn't take the chance. Plus, they will be able to take some comfort when they see me being lead away in 'cuffs.

But this might not happen at all. Very likely, I would discover that they are simply airplane passengers, just like me. Or the guy could just answer my questions and no harm, or ruckus would be necessary. If the details of the story are correct, these guys were having fun at the other passenger's expense. They were playing the "Let's scare the Americans" game. A firm, straightforward question would probably have ended their fun and de-fused the situation.

In any case the rights of everybody will be maintained and no rules will have to be changed.

I am only one person and the chances of me getting in one of these situations is pretty remote, but if others decide to do the same thing, the likelyhood will increase that the terrorists will encounter one of us, and it will become harder for the them to succeed.

By posting this I have taken the first step. The terrorists now know that at least one individual will be on the hyper lookout, and will not sit still if they attempt anything. He will be perfectly willing to go to jail, crash the airplane, kill, be killed, and endanger the lives of the other passengers as long as their plan does not get carried out. And they don't know who he is. He might even be a woman! Or dressed as one!

Terrorists take note: your plans will be opposed with everything at my disposal! What? You are not afraid to die? Same here!

The terrorists can always study the procedures of the airlines, and the FAM, and devise a plan that will overcome it.

But I and others like me will be the unknown quantity that makes any plan they come up with just that much trickier.

Terrorists will always strike at the softest target, and they will keep on trying until they succeed. But the most they are going to be able to do is crash one airplane at a time.

gowain

So Sorry, Again! Tom Delay haters

2005-09-10T20:28:00.000-05:00

Sugarland Texas DA says he's gotten no indication charges are being pursued

By R.G. RATCLIFFE
AUSTIN - Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey Jr. said Friday he is not expecting to receive information anytime soon from the Travis County investigation into a political action committee founded by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle obtained a grand jury indictment Thursday against the DeLay-founded Texans for a Republican Majority on charges of violating state election laws that prohibit corporate money from being used to influence races for elective office.

At a news conference announcing the indictment, Earle hinted he might have sought an indictment of DeLay if he had jurisdiction. Jurisdiction for election law violations is held by the home county of the accused person.

DeLay, R-Sugar Land, would fall under Healey's jurisdiction.

No talk of case's facts
Healey said Earle called him after the news conference to say no referral against DeLay would be made at present.

"I can tell you he told me his comments were not intended to signal he had anything imminent to send to me in regard to Tom DeLay," Healey said. "We did not talk about the substantive facts of the case."

Healey said he felt certain Earle will handle the case properly.

"Knowing Mr. Earle's reputation and having talked to him ... if there is a matter in reference to a case against anybody stemming from this investigation, if there is a case to be made, supported by the evidence and the law, he will either present it to a grand jury or refer the matter to the proper authorities outside of his jurisdiction."

Healey said he did not know if Earle plans to give him any evidence in the future.

"It would be reckless for any district attorney to make reference to the likelihood of an investigation coming one's way unless, of course, the target was talking about it," Healey said.

Three indicted
TRMPAC and the Texas Association of Business were indicted on charges of illegally using $2.3 million in corporate cash to influence 2002 Texas House races to give the GOP a legislative majority.

Three of DeLay's political associates were indicted in the same investigation last year on similar charges: TRMPAC Director John Colyandro; fundraiser Warren RoBold; and Jim Ellis, the director of DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority.

All three men are fighting the charges against them.

Story LINK.

So Sorry! Tom Delay Haters

2005-09-10T16:40:00.000-05:00

"I have never said that Mr. DeLay is a target of the investigation," said Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. After months of speculation and millions of angry, accusatory words in the MSM, this is what it has come to: NOTHING!

Less than nothing. Had Earle spoken sooner, he could have prevented some of the more rank speculation in the MSM. But Ronnie Earle is a Democrat sleaze. We should not expect any better.

PAC's indictment isn't new peril for lawmaker, ethics experts say

Friday, September 9, 2005
By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON – The day after indicting House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's defunct political committee on charges of illegally using corporate money to help state candidates, an Austin prosecutor said Friday that he has not referred any information to the suburban Houston office with jurisdiction over Mr. DeLay.

Congressional ethics experts also said the latest charges probably don't put Mr. DeLay, R-Sugar Land, into any fresh peril as he girds for an inquiry into his overseas travel and his dealings with a discredited lobbyist.

"I have never said that Mr. DeLay is a target of the investigation," said Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

Last month, Mr. DeLay spent about 90 minutes with Mr. Earle, asserting that he played a limited role at Texans for a Republican Majority, serving on its advisory board and appearing at fundraisers.

"Mr. DeLay assured the district attorney's office that he was not involved in the day-to-day operations of TRMPAC, and to his knowledge all activities were properly reviewed and approved by lawyers," said spokesman Kevin Madden.

Three DeLay associates were indicted last year: TRMPAC director John Colyandro, fundraiser Warren RoBold and Jim Ellis, head of Mr. DeLay's leadership committee, Americans for a Republican Majority.

All deny wrongdoing.

On Thursday, Mr. Earle added two counts against TRMPAC itself, accusing it of illegally accepting $120,000 in corporate donations to help Republicans win control of the Texas House. The committee could be fined $40,000, although it was dissolved in July. Also charged was the Texas Association of Business, the state's largest business group.

DeLay allies have long accused Mr. Earle, an elected Democrat, of pursuing a partisan vendetta.

Announcing the indictments Thursday, Mr. Earle was somewhat vague on whether he was investigating Mr. DeLay, suggesting that one reason the majority leader hadn't been charged had to do with jurisdictional issues. Charges involving state campaign laws can be filed only in a person's home county.

On Friday, the district attorney in Fort Bend County, John Healey Jr., said he had never investigated Mr. DeLay or TRMPAC and had spoken with Mr. Earle for the first time on Thursday.

"He indicated to me that his comments were not intended to signal that he had anything imminent to refer to this office regarding Tom DeLay," Mr. Healey said.

Mr. Earle confirmed that. "I'm not referring anything to his office," he said.

Democrats cited the latest indictment as fresh reason for Mr. DeLay to step down as majority leader. But it's unclear whether the charges would affect an expected ethics investigation in the U.S. House.

Last year, the House ethics committee declined to look into allegations of campaign violations at TRMPAC, citing the ongoing criminal inquiry in Austin.

Jan Baran, a Washington lawyer who represented former Speaker Newt Gingrich before the ethics panel, said he doubts the indictment affects the DeLay case.

"There's got to be an allegation," Mr. Baran said. "What is the allegation against Mr. DeLay vis-à-vis TRMPAC – that he had a title and that individuals who ran TRMPAC on a day-to-day basis allegedly violated Texas law?"

Bush Still Beats Kerry

2005-09-10T08:46:00.000-05:00

George Bush is taking a beating. His job approval rating is now 41% according to a Zogby poll of 1157 likely voters. He is matched against every sitting president since Carter and loses, but even with all that going against him, he still beats John Kerry.

In a sign of just how severe the damage to the President’s standing caused by Katrina is, the Zogby America survey finds that, despite his re-election last fall, President Bush would lose to every modern president since Jimmy Carter, the one-term Democrat who left office amid record unpopularity and a presidency rated, at the time, dismally. He would also lose to his own father, who left office amid an economic recession triggered, in part, by a devastating hurricane.

However, in one of the few bright spots for the President, he would still beat Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, by a narrow, one-point margin.

Safe House, Bombmaker Blown up Near Syrian Border

2005-09-08T08:44:00.000-05:00

Story LINK

September 8, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition air forces conducted an air strike against an al Qaida terrorist safe house in the vicinity of Husaybah,Iraq near the Syrian border at approximately 1:11 a.m. Sept. 8.

A known bomb-making cell leader, Abu Mohammad, was targeted in the safe-house strike.

Mohammad has been linked extensively to other al Qaida terrorists and foreign fighters in Husaybah and throughout the Western Euphrates Valley. Additionally, he is known to have worked directly for Abu Islam, the al Qaida Emir of Husaybah, who was killed by a Coalition air strike last week.

Intelligence sources confirm that Abu Muhammad is known to have been involved in numerous vehicle-borne explosive device and improvised explosive device attacks on Coalition forces. He is also responsible for numerous direct attacks on Iraqi security and Coalition forces.

Intelligence sources place Abu Mohammed in the tribal fighting that has occurred in Husaybah, where al Qaida terrorists murdered local Iraqis who opposed Iraqi al Qaida.

The type of munitions used and the time the air strike was conducted mitigated risks to civilians in the local area.

U.S. SOLDIERS, IRAQI ARMY DETAIN 36 SUSPECTED TERRORISTS

2005-09-02T17:28:00.000-05:00

You won't find this in the pages of your local paper.

September 1, 2005

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq – Iraqi Army forces and U.S. Soldiers detained 24 suspected terrorists during a cordon and search mission southwest of Iskandariyah Aug. 29.

The Soldiers were from the 1st Battalion 155th Infantry, 155th BCT, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).

Additionally, Soldiers of the 150th Engineer Battalion, 155th Brigade Combat Team, detained 12 suspected terrorists in the village of Owesat Aug 29th.

The 155th BCT is a U.S. Army unit assigned to the II Marine Expeditionary Force (Fwd) in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Centcom News Release LINK

48TH BRIGAGDE DETAINS TERRORISTS, FINDS WEAPONS CACHE

2005-09-02T17:25:00.000-05:00

Or this.

September 1, 2005

CAMP STRIKER, Iraq -- Task Force Baghdad Soldiers detained five suspected terrorists during a routine patrol on the evening of Aug. 27.

The U.S. Soldiers were assisted by local residents who pointed out an unfamiliar white sedan which they said did not belong in the area.

Soldiers from C Company, 295th Infantry Battalion, 48th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division cordoned off the area and searched the vehicle.

Inside the car, they discovered a large weapons cache which included a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, two RPG rounds, four AK-47 rifles, a machine gun, six body-armor vests, 23 hand grenades, and other significant evidence.

Centcom News Release LINK

AIR STRIKE TARGETS TERRORIST SAFE HAVEN IN HUSAYBAH, IRAQ

2005-09-02T17:17:00.000-05:00

Or this.

September 1, 2005

CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, AR RAMADI, Iraq – At approximately 1:00 p.m. Sept. 1, Coalition Forces conducted an air strike against an identified terrorist safe haven in the western border town of Husaybah.

Over the past two days, numerous reliable sources have observed approximately 50 Al Qaeda (AQIZ) terrorists staging weapons at a train station to be used in continued attacks against local Iraqis and coalition forces.

Marine Corps F/A-18s destroyed the building using precision-guided 500 pound bombs.

Coalition aircraft attacked similar safe houses Aug. 26 and Aug. 30 in Husaybah after Iraqi citizens reported that a large group of AQIZ terrorists were using an abandoned hotel and house to plan and launch attacks on local Iraqis and coalition forces.

For the past five months, Marines based at Husaybah have reported an escalation in fighting between AQIZ terrorists and local tribes and attacks upon the Marines.

The number of terrorists killed in the air strikes is undetermined at this time.

Centcom News Release LINK

COALITION FORCES BOMB TERRORIST SAFE HOUSES

2005-09-02T17:11:00.000-05:00

Or this!

August 31, 2005

CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, AR RAMADI, Iraq – U.S. Marines have launched precision air strikes on several Al Qaeda in Iraq positions during the past five days. All of the coalition strikes were directed against targets that were confirmed to have armed Al Qaeda in Iraq members present. These terrorists and their safe havens were threats to Coalition Forces operating in the area.

Additionally, Coalition Forces in Husaybah have confirmed that local Iraqis in the Husaybah-Al Qaim region are fighting against Abu Musab Zarqawi in western Al Anbar.

Local sources in the area have reported Al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists killing unarmed male Iraqis who oppose their organization and ideology. Reports further indicate that terrorists have been trying to exert influence and control over the border region. This control would allow them a greater ability to move foreign fighters and weapons across the Iraqi-Syrian border.

Coalition Forces will continue to attack Al Qaeda in Iraq targets and stand committed to fighting the extremist elements who desire to rob Iraqis of their freedom and their ability to choose how to be governed.

There is no reliable information to confirm the number of foreign fighters taking part in this latest violence.

Centcom News Release. LINK

The Lost City of New Orleans?

2005-09-02T06:11:00.000-05:00

Think the people of New Orleans did not know what they were in for if a hurricane should hit the city? This eerily prophetic article titled "The Lost City of New Orleans?" was written in 2000. Some of it's highlights are excerpted below.

Louisiana's marshlands, the only buffer for hurricanes that come out of the Gulf, are slipping into the ocean at an alarming rate. New search indicates that just one major hurricane could put New Orleans under water.
...

Research by the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that New Orleans is sinking faster than many realize and could be under water within 50 years. The city is facing a series of issues--disappearing wetlands that protect from hurricanes, levees that are too low to hold back flood waters, rising water tables, to name a few--that if not addressed soon could have New Orleans suffering the same fate as Atlantis.
...

New Orleans sits on a bed of silt, sand and clay, which historically has been rebuilt with each flooding; new silt and sand are deposited when the river floods. But the levees that protect the city from flooding also prevent the rebuilding of the silt. As a result, New Orleans is sinking at a rate of one-third of an inch per year, which is not good for a city that is already eight feet below sea level.
...

Pumping water from the soil has become a standard requirement for new construction. Drainage canals must be constructed for most regions within New Orleans. Yet even taking the water away creates a problem. "By putting in the drainage canals, you begin to drain the area," says McManis. "As you lower that water level, it adds additional weight to the surrounding soil. As a result, the soil begins to condense and cause down movement in the soil itself." The ground sinks even more.
...

If it were left to residents and city officials, the status quo would prevail. One city official says of the flooding and subsidence, "We are below sea level and we do get floods sometimes, but it's not a real serious problem. You can still purchase flood insurance." Another city official expressed faith in the current levee system.
...

"We need to bite the bullet as a society and say that we have a problem. Our coastline has 40 percent of our nation's wetlands and 80 percent of the loss occurs here. New Orleans needs a wake-up call. The city is on the verge of becoming extinct."

How To Crop A Picture And Create Fake Solemnity

2005-08-31T06:31:00.000-05:00

Problem: You have this wonderful picture buried inside a crass photo of Cindy Sheehan and Al Sharpton in a crowd of media types. What do you do?

Judicious cropping removes most of the reporters, cameramen, and media equipment. The one thing you can't cut out is the guy with a video camera right behind Al Sharpton's head. But, not to worry, he could be Al's personal camera guy saving this moment for posterity.

Thanks to YAHOO for the photos.

Terrorists Kill, Maim Iraqi Children

2005-08-30T23:12:00.000-05:00

Iraqi children bore the brunt of a terrorist rocket attack in Fallujah, Saturday 27.2005.

See It Here

U.S. MARINES AID VICTIMS OF ROCKET ATTACK

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq – U.S. Marines transported children to a local hospital following a terrorist rocket attack in Ferris on Aug. 27.
Seven children were wounded and one was killed in the attack.
The wounded children were treated by a local doctor.
Marines are currently building an operating base in the city.

Good News: Radical Muslim Hate Spewing Cleric Gets Beaten Up.

2005-08-30T17:18:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, this is heartening news, that is if it becomes a trend. The radical Muslim clerics who preach hate need to begin suffering the consequences of their actions.
Australian News has an article titled "Masked gang attacks controversial cleric".

Melbourne Islamic cleric Nacer Benbrika has been kidnapped and bashed, fuelling fears of a co-ordinated hate campaign against the nation's radical Muslims. ...Mr Benbrika - who has described Osama bin Laden as a great man - was kidnapped and bashed last week by two carloads of men wearing balaclavas.

... The assault, which ended in Mr Benbrika being treated in hospital, came less than 48 hours after former terror suspect Mamdouh Habib claimed he was stabbed in a Sydney park, also by hooded assailants.

It also comes amid a community backlash against radical Muslim clerics in Australia in the wake of the London bombings.

Benbrika, who is also known as Abu Bakr, has raised the ire of Prime Minister John Howard by openly supporting jihad overseas and claiming that local Muslims must adhere to two sets of laws - Islamic law and Australian law.

His claims have angered non-Muslims and moderate Muslims, and the Islamic community in Melbourne is abuzz with speculation about who carried out the attack.

...

Mr Benbrika, 45, was driving in Melbourne's northern suburbs last Tuesday night when two carloads of men forced him to pull over. The men then dragged Mr Benbrika into a car and drove him to a remote spot where he was bashed, before being dumped back in his home suburb of Broadmeadows.

The cleric then visited a local hospital to get treatment for his injuries, which are not believed to be serious. He did not report the attack to police.

Victoria's most senior Islamic cleric, Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam, said yesterday that he had no idea who might have carried out the attack. "I heard that somebody had attacked him, and they were wearing balaclavas, but we have no idea who it might have been."

Mr Benbrika could not be contacted for comment.

Mr Benbrika's home has been raided by ASIO twice this year in connection with a suspected terror plot to blow up Melbourne landmarks, including Flinders Street train station.

The assault on Mr Benbrika came after Mr Habib claimed he was stabbed while walking in a Sydney park with his wife.

Mr Habib, who was only slightly injured, believes the men attacked him because of press reports that he had been claiming payments from Centrelink since he was released from US detention in January.

The attacks on Mr Benbrika and Mr Habib appear designed to send a warning rather than cause serious injury.

Why Don't We See News About Our Accomplishments In The War On Terror?

2005-08-30T07:35:00.000-05:00

Below is a copy of the "Iraq" page of the Fort Worth Star Telegram but it could be any major newspaper in the U.S. Notice something? Almost all the headlines are negative, only a few are neutral, and none are positive. No mention of the schools opened, construction projects finished, continued build up of the Iraqi Army, and successful security operations. Why is that? There is positive news. Why is it not offered to us.

A publisher who relays only bad news is breaking the social contract between readers and publishers. The contract states: "The publishers will report all of the news and the readers will continue to believe it". The overall news media is breaking this contract by pretending that there is no good news and, predictably, the readers are peeling away. Due to talk radio, and the Internet, the positive news leaks out and the readers become aware of it and lose confidence in the newspapers. This same principle applies to TV media too. Eventually, this will result in the American People simply disbelieving anything the media puts out.

TOP NEWS FROM IRAQ
Iraq's highest-ranking Sunni Muslim Arab criticizes constitution
By Hannah Allam, Knight Ridder Newspapers
One of Iraq's two vice presidents criticized the country's proposed new constitution on Monday as a threat to national unity and said he's considering asking his supporters to reject it when it's presented to voters this fall.
LATEST AP IRAQ STORIES

* U.S. launches airstrikes near Syria border
* U.S. launches airstrikes near Syria border
* Heavy fighting erupts in western Iraq
* How Iraq's constitution vote will be done
* Journalists' group Iraq media death probe

KNIGHT RIDDER SPECIAL REPORT
Echo Company returns home
In April, 12 Marines on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq, died when their company was ambushed. Nearly six months later, the rest of the troops returned home to Camp Pendleton, Calif. Read about their bittersweet homecoming, as well as the stories of their fallen comrades.
» Read the stories | Watch the video
» Listen to the audio | See all photographs
» Q&A: David Swanson | Joe Galloway
MORE FROM THE BAGHDAD BUREAU

* Sunnis warn of split as Iraqi leaders accept draft of constitution
By Tom Lasseter, Hannah Allam and Mohammed Al Awsy, Knight Ridder Newspapers
The Iraqi parliament accepted a final draft of a new constitution Sunday as top leaders from the nation's Sunni Muslim minority warned that the document could tear the country apart along sectarian lines.
* Oil revenues, Islam among sticking points for Sunni minority
By Richard Chin, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Iraq's constitution works against the country's Sunni minority in many ways.
* Iraqi forces may need years of preparation
By Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder Newspapers
American Sgt. LaDaunte Strickland, sweat pouring down his face, stared at the four Iraqi soldiers sitting in the shade of a truck. They were supposed to be helping Strickland and a group of U.S. Marines man a vehicle-control point.
* Fighting unseen enemy creates psychological pressure on troops
By Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder Newspapers
The inability of U.S. forces to hold ground in Anbar province has put the Marines and soldiers there under intense physical and psychological pressure.
* Iraq misses another constitution deadline
By Richard Chin and Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Iraq's ruling coalition missed another deadline to complete a constitution Thursday, putting off until Sunday a national assembly meeting to consider the document.
* Iran covers all its bets in neighboring Iraq
By Warren P. Strobel, Knight Ridder Newspapers
When rival Shiite Muslim factions battled in Iraqi cities this week in a worrisome new turn for the country's stability, neighboring Iran had little to lose: It supports both factions.
* Insurgency concentrated in areas along Euphrates River
By Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Iraq's insurgency has concentrated much of its fight against U.S. and Iraqi forces in towns along the murky waters of the Euphrates River, beginning with Qaim on the Syrian border and running through towns such as Haditha, Haqlaniya, Hit, Ramadi and Fallujah.
* U.S., insurgents locked in stalemate
By Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder Newspapers
American forces in Anbar province, the center of guerrilla resistance in Iraq, are trying to hold on to a handful of population centers and hit smaller towns in quick-strike operations.
* One day before crucial vote, fighting breaks out in Najaf
By Hannah Allam and Mohammed al Dulaimy, Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - After months of silence, rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr placed his militiamen on high alert Wednesday and asked his followers in the Iraqi government to suspend their work as Iraq descended into political chaos a day before a crucial vote on its proposed new constitution.
* Sunni opposition could derail Iraq's proposed constitution
By Tom Lasseter, Richard Chin and Mohammed al Dulaimy, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Top Sunni Muslim Arab leaders lashed out Tuesday against a draft constitution given to the Iraqi parliament the day before, threatening to mobilize voters against it in an October referendum.
* Key provisions of the draft constitution
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Excerpts from the Iraqi draft constitution: The republic of Iraq is an independent sovereign state. Its ruling system is republican, parliamentary, democratic and federal.

Separated At Birth? Or Newspaper's Mistake?

2005-08-29T11:40:00.000-05:00

Is Democrat Paula Hightower of Arlington the long lost sister of Republican Jane Nelson of Grapevine? Or has the Star Telegram made a mistake? In a story titled "Incumbent has strong challenger" the picture at the bottom is purported to be Paula Hightower Pierson. But is it? The picture of Senator Nelson is from the Internet

Senator Nelson
Hightower

What Cindy Sheehan Ought To Take

2005-08-28T12:46:00.000-05:00

This picture is so clever and so true I had to copy it and put it up here. Look close, there is acid commentary in all the text and every word is a spot on thrust of the verbal epee at the weak points of the Left. Which, I guess, is fairly easy since the Left has no srong points.

You can see the original, or at least the place from which I stole it here. It is named "The Illiberal Left". Ckeck it out.

Clic To See a Bigger Pic

Polls, Lies, and Damn Lies #1

2005-08-27T22:19:00.000-05:00

An IPSOS poll, taken at the beginning of August, about which a great hullaballoo has been made in the media because it gives President Bush a failing grade, has a fatal flaw. That flaw is in the make-up of the pollees. It does not reflect the percentage of Republicans and Democrats presently making up the electorate.
As you can see from this PDF file, the Democrats make up 49% of the respondents, while Republicans make up only 39%. Hardly representative of US voters judging by the last Presidential election. The excerpt below shows the details of the flaw.

Do you consider yourself a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent or none of these?*

(IF “DEMOCRAT” TO Q.2a, Q.2b ASKED. IF “REPUBLICAN” TO Q.2a, Q.2c ASKED. IF “INDEPENDENT” or “NONE OF THESE” TO Q.2a, Q.2d ASKED. RESULTS SHOWN IN SUMMARY BELOW.)

2b. Do you lean strongly or only moderately toward the Democratic Party?
2c. Do you lean strongly or only moderately toward the Republican Party?
2d. Do your beliefs tend to lean more toward the Democrats or the Republicans?

REGISTERED VOTERS

Strongly Republican .......................... 19%
Moderately Republican ...................... 20%
Definitely Independent/neither.............. 11%
Moderately Democrat......................... 27%
Strongly Democrat ............................ 21%
Refused/not sure................................. 2%
Total Republican ............................... 39%
Total Democrat ................................. 49%

* Half the respondents were asked party identification in this location, the other half were asked at the end of the survey with the other demographic questions. Results for the respondents who were asked the question early were 41% Republican, 47% Democrat. For the respondents asked later in the survey, the results were 37% Republican, 50% Democrat.

Progress In Iraq

2005-08-26T06:56:00.000-05:00

We won't be seeing this in our local newspapers. Why? Because it is mostly about Iraqis getting on with their lives and building a country. It is about the ordinary, everyday advance of progress in a country that has been stalled for 25 years. This CENTCOM news release has been edited for content. Only items that have been finished have been left in. References to projects that are not complete have been ommitted.

August 22, 2005
Release Number: 05-08-21
THIS WEEK IN IRAQ (12-18 AUGUST 2005)

School Children:

Some of the Iraqi citizens benefiting from reconstruction this week were school children. Several projects were completed across the country, including school buildings. The Iraqi Security Forces continued to display their capability, and local citizens contributed to the security of their communities.

Children in Dobak Tappak village of Al Tamim Province received much-needed school supplies, clothing and toys from the Nahrain Foundation, a non-governmental organization that focuses on providing proper nutrition, decent clothing and medical supplies to Iraqi women and children. The foundation received its supplies as part of a joint effort between American donations and a Coalition forces-run program known as “Operation Provide School Supplies,” which accepts donations from private citizens and corporations in the U.S.

More than 600 children will return to renovated or rebuilt schools in Maysan Province when school starts this fall. This week, renovation on the Al-Eethnar Mud School was completed, and the Al Eethar Mud School was replaced at a cost of $87,000, benefiting 500 students who attend classes there.

Completed Construction Projects

Eight newly constructed schools in Wassit and Babil Provinces are receiving new furniture before the start of the school year. Each of the school projects will receive office desks and chairs, file cabinets and new student desks. 400 three-student desks will be proportionally divided among the schools, based upon the number of students.

An electric distribution and street lighting project in Daquq was completed on Aug. 17, providing new overhead distribution lines and street lighting in the community.

Baghdad trunk sewer line, was completed this week benefitting approximately two million people. Workers cleaned and repaired the Baghdad trunk sewer line and its associated manholes and pumping stations. The $17.48 million project restored principal sewage collection elements in the Adhamiya, Sadr City and 9-Nissan districts of Baghdad, and will provide for the intended sewer flows to the Rustamiya wastewater treatment plant.

The Basrah courthouse project completed phase one. This five-phase, $865,000 project is expected to be entirely complete in October of 2005. It is expected to hold a number of high profile trials. Work continues, employing an average of 70 local Iraqi workers daily.

A patrol station in the Karkh district of Baghdad Province was completed, as was a $390,300 border-post project on the Saudi Arabian border. A division headquarters building for the Iraqi Army in Salah Ad Din Province was also completed this week. The $7 million project includes a single-story building with a concrete roof and interior office space to accommodate the unit. Additionally, a $2 million firing range in Taji was completed this week.

A new prison project was started in Khan Bani Sa’ad, a mountainous municipality in the Ba’quba District of Diyala Province. The $75 million project will house up to 3,600 inmates. The entire site is approximately 550,000 square meters, which includes an educational center, medical facilities and administration buildings. The project will employ approximately 1,000 Iraqi workers during construction.

Iraqi Army Turnovers, Graduations, Etc.:

Generals from Iraqi and Coalition forces joined local tribal leaders at a ceremony where Forward Operating Base Dagger in Tikrit, one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces, was officially handed over to the 4th Iraqi Army Division this week. This highlights the increasing turnover of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces.

In Taji, Iraqi soldiers completed a Strategic Infrastructure Battalion Train-the-Trainer course. The 90 graduates will go on to serve as instructors at an Iraqi Army training base. A class of future IA non-commissioned officers graduated from their primary leadership development course on Aug. 15 in Tikrit. Iraqi Army unit training also included combat lifesaving, staff training, computer skills and weapons training.

This week, the 1st Iraqi Army Brigade succeeded at implementing the first Non-commissioned Officer Academy in the country. Iraqi soldiers from the most recent class were the last group to be instructed by the U.S. Soldiers who had developed the training. During Saddam Hussein’s regime, an NCO corps did not exist in the Iraqi Army. The class will continue after the U.S. instructors leave, and will be taught by NCOs from the 1st IA who assisted earlier courses.

Security Operations:

Baghdad, Iraqi Police Service officers in the New Baghdad District conducted a variety of operations including raids involving over 450 officers. Police confiscated 30 AK-47 rifles, two hand guns, and one machine gun during the raids.

They arrested 30 suspected insurgents. In addition, police at the Al Khanssa Police Station in Baghdad captured a kidnapper involved in the abduction of a local physician, whose family paid a ransom to have the victim released. Police officers recovered the doctor’s vehicle as well as the ransom money paid by his family.

Iraqi Army soldiers found a weapons cache under a vehicle in Rawah this week. The cache contained two light machine guns and 3000 rounds of ammunition, nine AK-47 rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition, one NATO machine gun and 200 rounds of ammunition, four concussion grenades, one fragmentary grenade without fuses, and various other ammunition.

Based on two separate tips from Iraqis, Coalition forces discovered weapons caches that contained rocket-propelled grenades and two launchers, 16 mortar rounds and a launcher, and five boxes of anti-aircraft ammunition hidden in northwest Baghdad.

Another tip led Coalition forces to a large cache of artillery shells in the early hours of Aug. 16. The shells were apparently intended for use as improvised explosive devices. The 25 to 30 individual rounds, located inside a building within Al Anbar Province, were destroyed after security forces confirmed there was no one in the building.

After a local Iraqi identified his neighbors as insurgents, Iraqi Army soldiers and Coalition forces conducted a joint cordon and search operation in northwest Fallujah and detained two suspects.

Iraqi Security Forces killed terrorist Abu Zubair, also known as Mohammed Salah Sultan, in an ambush in the northern city of Mosul this week. Zubair, who was wearing a suicide vest when he was killed, was a known member of Al Qaeda in Iraq and a lieutenant in Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi’s terrorist operations in Mosul. He was being sought for his involvement in a July suicide bombing attack of a police station in Mosul that killed five Iraqi police officers. He was also suspected of resourcing and facilitating suicide bomber attacks against Coalition, Iraqi Security Forces and Iraqi citizens throughout the country.

Local Iraqi citizens, along with the growing Iraqi Security Forces, are contributing to the security of their communities.

http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/News_Release.asp?NewsRelease=20050821.txt

Cindy Sheehan Is A Sock Puppet

2005-08-25T14:48:00.000-05:00

Poor Cindy Sheehan. I've changed my mind about her. I thought at one time she was making a cynical use of her son's death to score a political point.

Now I realize she is just a dupe for the Left. She is so ignorant of the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so child-like in her assessments of them, that to attribute cynicism to her would be like accusing a three year old of calculating greed because he believes in Santa Claus.

Michaell Moore, etal should be ashamed of themselves, but they have no shame.

Below is part of a transcript of an interview of Sheehan: "Sheehan plays 'Hardball' with Matthews" on Hardball, with Chris Mathews. I have highlighted the questions and statements that show her ignorance and naivete.

MATTHEWS: All right. If your son had been killed in Afghanistan, would you have a different feeling?

SHEEHAN: I don't think so, Chris, because I believe that Afghanistan is almost the same thing. We're fighting terrorism. Or terrorists, we're saying. But they're not contained in a country. This is an ideology and not an enemy. And we know that Iraq, Iraq had no terrorism. They were no threat to the United States of America.

MATTHEWS: But Afghanistan was harboring, the Taliban was harboring al-Qaida which is the group that attacked us on 9/11.

SHEEHAN: Well then we should have gone after al-Qaida and maybe not after the country of Afghanistan.

MATTHEWS: But that's where they were being harbored. That's where they were headquartered. Shouldn't we go after their headquarters? Doesn't that make sense?

SHEEHAN: Well, but there were a lot of innocent people killed in that invasion, too. ... But I'm seeing that we're sending our ground troops in to invade countries where the entire country wasn't the problem. Especially Iraq. Iraq was no problem. And why do we send in invading armies to march into Afghanistan when we're looking for a select group of people in that country?

So I believe that our troops should be brought home out of both places where we're obviously not having any success in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and that's who they told us was responsible for 9/11.

U.S. Armed Forces Exceed Recruitment Goals, Ha!

2005-08-23T15:38:00.000-05:00

The Main Stream Media's Leftist Bias Batting Average is still 1000. Below is a story from the New York Post " THE REAL IRAQ NEWS ". I have edited it for content.

Remember last spring, when the Army's recruitment efforts fell short for a few months? The media's glee would have made you confuse the New York Times and Air America.

When the Army attempted to explain that enlistments are cyclical and numbers dip at certain times of the year, the media ignored it. All that mattered was the wonderful news that the Army couldn't find enough soldiers. We were warned, in solemn tones, but delivered with gleeful certainty that our military was headed for a train wreck. Remember that?

Now, as the fiscal year nears an end, the Army's numbers look great. Especially in combat units and Iraq, soldiers are re-enlisting at record levels. But you don't hear it in the MSM.

Let's look at the numbers, which offer a different picture of patriotism than the editorial pages do.

* Every one of the Army's 10 divisions — its key combat organizations — has exceeded its re-enlistment goal for the year to date. Those with the most intense experience in Iraq have the best rates. The 1st Cavalry Division is at 136 percent of its target, the 3rd Infantry Division at 117 percent.

Among separate combat brigades, the figures are even more startling, with the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division at 178 percent of its goal and the 3rd Brigade of the 4th Mech right behind at 174 percent of its re-enlistment target.

This is unprecedented in wartime. Even in World War II, we needed the draft. Where are the headlines?

* What about first-time enlistment rates, since that was the issue last spring? The Army is running at 108 percent of its needs. Guess not every young American despises his or her country and our president.

* The Army Reserve is a tougher sell, given that it takes men and women away from their families and careers on short notice. Well, Reserve recruitment stands at 102 percent of requirements.

* And then there's the Army National Guard. We've been told for two years that the Guard was in free-fall. Really? Guard recruitment and retention comes out to 106 percent of its requirements as of June 30.

Of course, we'll hear stammering about an "army of mercenaries"— naive, uneducated kids lured by the promise of big retention bonuses. That's another lie told by the elite to excuse themselves from serving our country in uniform.

The young men and women who have been through the crucible of combat — often on repeated deployments — are hardly naive. Their education levels exceed the American average. And, as of Aug. 2, the Army had spent a 2005 total of only $347 million on Selective Re-enlistment Bonuses — that's weekend walking-around money for America's Fortune 500 CEOs.

Big bucks for risking your life? Not hardly. Only 60 percent of soldiers get any re-enlistment bonus. For the overwhelming number whose skills merit an extra incentive, bonuses runs between $6,000 and $12,400 per year of contracted service — per year of facing death, wounds, separation from family and uncertainty as to whether you'll ever see that family again.

A total of 643 soldiers with very special capabilities, from special operators to doctors, got an average payment of $57,000 — a fraction of what the private sector offers them for doing the same jobs at far less risk. They don't do it for the money.

Guess we have to face it: Patriotism is alive and well. Soldiers believe in the Army, and they believe in their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. They love their comrades, too. And yes, the word is "love." They would die for the man or woman serving beside them. They're risking their lives to save a broken state, to give tens of millions of human beings a chance at decent lives, to do the grim work that no one else in the world is willing to do.

Their reward? The Cindy Sheehan Extravaganza. Predictions of disaster. The depiction of Michael Moore as a hero and our soldiers as dupes. And a ceaseless attempt to convince the American people that there's no hope in Iraq.

The ugly truth is that much of the media only cares about our soldiers when they're dead or crippled. That's a story.

As you read this, 500,000 soldiers are on active duty because they chose to serve their country. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of Reservists and Guard members have been called into uniform. And they're all behaving as true soldiers do: Running toward the sound of the guns, not away from them.

We should be humbled by their choices, honored by their sacrifices, and proud of what they're fighting to achieve. Instead of the jerk's refrain "Support our troops, bring them home," the line should run "Support our troops, make their home worthy of them."

Our men and women in uniform — in every service — deserve far better than we've given them.

Hillary Named In Lawsuit Over Campaign Financing

2005-08-22T10:46:00.000-05:00

Hillary Clinton's shennanigins are slowly catching up to her. A sympathetic judge and a timid proscecutor kept her name out of David Rosen's trial, and the case against him failed. This time it may be different, unless she buys the plaintiff off.

Worldnet Daily has the story: "Fraud Lawsuit Targets Hillary".

As Hillary Clinton positions herself for a presidential run, a former fund-raiser is moving ahead with a lawsuit claiming the New York senator orchestrated the largest campaign-finance fraud ever by an American political campaign.

In an interview with WorldNetDaily, Los Angeles millionaire lawyer and businessman Peter Franklin Paul asserted Clinton failed to declare to the Federal Election Commission more than $2 million in contributions – a massive omission he believes prevented her 2000 senatorial campaign from going bankrupt in the crucial final weeks.

Paul has filed a civil suit charging Sen. Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton, with fraud, coercion and conspiracy. California courts so far have denied the Clintons' motions to dismiss, and Paul expects the case to proceed at the beginning of the year, just as Hillary Clinton prepares to defend her Senate seat.

"This public servant, who is sworn to uphold the Constitution, is the biggest violator of the fundamental principles and statutes relating to fair elections and honest government," Paul told WND. "She needs to be dealt with in a way that will show this country and elected officials in Washington that everybody is accountable to the rule of law."

The Politics Of Grief

2005-08-21T14:08:00.000-05:00

The Left has discovered a new arrow in its quiver. Some would say the last bit of scum from the bottom of the barrel. Grief is the latest weapon in the arsenal of Anti-Americanism. If a person is grieving, so say the Lefties, no one can engage them in political debate because.......they are grieving, you know. And their grief, by itself makes them correct and sane.

An article in the Weekly Standard, "Speak of the Dead" points out some of the more egregious uses of people and grief by the American Left since 9-11.

Here is a message for our friends in the grief-based community: Really, you must cut this out. We are tired of having our emotions worked on and worked over; tired of the matched sets of dueling relatives, tired of all of these claims on our sympathy, that at the same time defy common sense.

The heart breaks for everyone who lost relatives and friends on September 11, as it does for the relatives of the war dead and wounded, as it does for the sons of Paul Wellstone. It does not break for MoveOn.org, Maureen Dowd, and Gail Sheehy, who have not been heartbroken, except by a string of election reverses, and are using the anguish of other people in an effort to turn them around. Especially, it does not break for George Soros, who, after squandering millions on the Kerry campaign, is now using poor Cindy Sheehan to get back in the action, and it does not break for political operative Joe Trippi, late of the Howard Dean meltdown, who is trying to do the same thing.

She is now the vehicle for a collection of losers, who will use her, and then toss her over and out once she has served their purposes, or more likely failed to do so. Her family has broken up under the effects of this circus; she has now lost her husband, as well as her son. Please, send her back to her therapist, and what is now left of her broken-up family. And please--do not try this again.

Republicans Have Nothing To Lose, Everything to Gain by Rule Change.

2005-04-28T10:09:00.000-05:00

When the Democrats decided to have it their own way, anyway, by filibustering judicial nominations in 2003. They broke with a 217 year old tradition. A tradition is just an unwritten rule. The only thing that enforces an unwritten rule is the respect both sides have for it. Either side has the ability to rewrite an unwritten rule by simply disregarding it. The Democrats chose to do this. They broke tradition. Once a Senate tradition has been broken, the only thing that can bring back the pre-existing Senatorial configuration is for the written rules to be changed to enforce a previously unwritten rule.

The Democrats made a stategic mistake by breaking tradition at a time when the other side possessed the ability to change the rules. Oh, that's right, they thought they were going to regain the Senate in 2004. Haha! Their only hope now is that the Republicans do not have the requisite backbone to change the rules.

I guarantee you one thing, as certain as the grass turns green in Spring, as soon as the Democrats regain the majority, they will change the rules, now that the tradition genie is out of the bottle.

So, Republicans, you have a lot to lose if you don't, and everything to gain if you do change the written rules and enforce the old reality.

Gowain

Democrat McDermott Loses Court Fight, Will Appeal

2005-04-28T05:59:00.000-05:00

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last week handed Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) a key victory in his ongoing lawsuit against Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), making it more likely that McDermott will be forced to pay punitive damages and lawyer’s fees for leaking a taped conversation of GOP leaders way back in 1996.

... an October district court decision that ordered McDermott to pay Boehner $60,000 in damages, plus legal fees that could mount to more than $500,000, said Boehner’s lawyer, Mike Carvin.

Boehner could expect a final decision in a suit that he initiated against McDermott in March of 1998 by the end of this year, according to Carvin.

McDermott is also the subject of a separate and ongoing, investigation by the House Ethics Committee based on a complaint filed by Rep. David Hobson (R-Utah) last year on the leaked tape issue.

McDermott’s legal predicament stems from his leaking to several newspapers a transcript of an audiotape recorded by a Florida couple with eves-dropping equipment of a conference call of GOP leaders on how to handle issues surrounding then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

Boehner sued McDermott for violating his privacy and McDermott has since admitted that he provided the tape to reporters.

McDermott, however, has consistently argued that the First Amendment protected his decision to share confidential material with the media.

LINK

Gowain

Democrat Jones Places 7th in Trip-Derby

2005-04-28T05:56:00.000-05:00

Washington- Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones ranks seventh among U.S. representatives and senators in the number of trips taken since 2000 that were paid for by outside groups, according to a study of congressional travel compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine.

The Cleveland Democrat's 47 trips were the most any Ohio member of Congress took in that period. Private groups paid more than $75,000 for her to deliver speeches and learn about issues in destinations as exotic as Taiwan, Malaysia, Egypt and Antigua, and as familiar as Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dayton.

Members of Congress say such trips expose their legislative priorities to broad audiences and give valuable educational opportunities without billing taxpayers. But watchdog groups like the Congressional Accountability Project say privately funded trips let special interests buy influence with members of Congress.

"In general, these trips help provide members of Congress with a high-flying lifestyle that leaves the rest of America in the dust," said accountability project director Gary Ruskin, who said privately funded excursions should be banned.

Such trips are currently legal, though there are some restrictions.

LINK

Gowain

Lobbyist Paid for Democrat's 2001 Trip

2005-04-28T05:54:00.000-05:00

Stephanie Tubbs Jones, an Ohio Democrat who sits on the House ethics committee, took a 2001 trip to Puerto Rico that was paid for by a registered lobbyist firm — an apparent violation of the chamber's ethics rules — according to documents that she filed with the House clerk.

A spokeswoman for Mrs. Jones disputed those records yesterday, saying "human error" led a staffer to list the name of D.C. lobbyist firm Smith, Dawson & Andrews as having paid the $3,366 tab for Mrs. Jones and her husband to travel to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques in the Caribbean.

Smith Dawson was put on the form in error," Jones spokeswoman Nicole Williams said. "The invitation came from Todo Puerto Rico con Vieques. They hired Smith Dawson to handle logistics for the trip." Miss Williams declined to provide The Washington Times with any evidence to support her assertion and refused to have either the lobbying firm or the group she says actually paid for the trip provide any documentation to prove her claim.

In addition to the travel disclosure form, which was filed two weeks after Mrs. Jones' return and bears her signature, the lobbyists also were listed as the trip's sponsor in the financial disclosure forms she signed and filed at the end of the year.

LINK

Gowain

Did Pelosi Staffers Violate Ethics Rules

2005-04-28T05:51:00.000-05:00

Eddie Charmaine Manansala, Pelosi's special assistant on East Asian affairs, filed a disclosure form for the $9,087 trip a few hours after the newspaper's inquiry and sent a note to the ethics committee saying, "I did not know I was supposed to file these forms and I apologize for its lateness."

6 months late!

Dim Democrat Fails to Report Trip

2005-04-28T05:47:00.000-05:00

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) even asked the ethics committee to investigate him after a reporter for the newspaper Roll Call pointed out that a travel disclosure form from 2001 listed the lobbying firm Rooney Group International as paying for a $1,782 trip to Boston, which would be a violation of House rules. LINK

With stupidos like this the Dems are going to end up hoist on their own petard.

Judicial Injudiciousness, Not a Problem

2005-04-26T10:13:00.000-05:00

The present battle in the Senate and in the Media over the appointment of judges misses the point. While everyone is planning and plotting strategies to get the kind of judge they want into the Judiciary System for eventual appointment to the Supreme Court, no one is asking the question that should be asked, "Why should unelected people so important to a representative republic?"

The answer is, of course, they should not. One of the fundamental rights of any group of people is to choose the persons who have power over them. Judges not only enforce the law, they leave their thumbprint upon the law just as thoroughly as any legislator when they interpet it. The Founding Fathers understood this and constructed our government so that all persons in a position of power would have to answer, ultimately, to the voters. The method they prescribed to make judges answer to the voters was to give the Congress the right to make and dissolve lower courts, limit juridstiction of all courts, and make exceptions and regulations for all courts. This is fully laid out in Article III of the Constitution. In addition Congress was given the power of impeachment which applies to judges who do not follow the limits and regluations set for them by the Congress.

The Independent Judiciary is a myth. It serves, just like all other branches of government, at the behest and sufferance of the voters. The Congress of the United States, elected by the voters, is the eight hundred pound gorilla in this equation. Just because the Democrat and Republican Congress failed to exercise their rights for 60 years does not mean they have lost that right forever. The solution to the problem of judicial injudiciousness is for Congress to rein back over-reaching judges. They have the power, now they have to summon up the guts to use it. If they do not, they will be replaced.

Representative Pelosi Pressed for Details on Trip, Refuses...Testily

2005-04-22T19:20:00.000-05:00

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seems to have the same trips-paid-for-by-lobbyists problem that Tom Delay has been pounded on by the Democrats and MSM. Although Pelosi's paperwork shows that the Puerto Rico excursion was paid for by Todo Puerto Rico con Vieques, an interest group, Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones who was on the same trip, filed documents showing that Smith, Dawson & Andrews, lobbyists, paid for it.

When asked for documentation proving the interest group funded the junket, Pelosi deflected the question.

This story would not even be on anyone's radar if not for the Democrat's attempt, assisted by the Looney Left, to destroy Tom Delay. I predict that this particular tactic will come back to damage the Democrat's more than the Republicans.

Senator Clinton Must Come Clean About Her Involvement, Or Resign

2005-04-21T12:29:00.000-05:00

Using the Left's newly created paradigm of "The fact that there is no evidence of your guilt does not prove you are innocent" I demand that Senator Hilary Clinton prove beyond any doubt that she is not up to her eyeballs in sleaze.

She cannot use the fact that there is no evidence that she knew what was going on right under her nose. Or the fact that there is no evidence that proves she colluded with these felons. One of whom is now in prison! No, she has to prove it. Or else, hand in her resignation

"JANUARY 7--The finance director for Hillary Clinton's 2000 U.S. Senate campaign was indicted today on federal charges of filing bogus financial reports with the Federal Election Commission.

According to the below indictment, David Rosen reported the false numbers in connection with a "Hollywood tribute" honoring Clinton. Investigators allege that a "wealthy individual" paid more than $1.1 million to underwrite the Clinton gala and that those payments were delivered through "several corporate entities controlled by him."

While that whopping sum should have been reported to the FEC as an "in-kind contribution," prosecutors charge that Rosen covered up the real source of the money, and even caused the creation of a fictitious $200,000 invoice to aid his scheme.

The August 2000 fundraiser was billed as a "Hollywood Tribute to William Jefferson Clinton," though the funds raised went to his wife's campaign kitty. The bash was held as the Brentwood estate of radio mogul Ken Roberts. While the so-called wealthy individual (referred to only as "C-1") is not named, he is clearly Peter Paul, an Internet entrepreneur who helped organize the bash.

Clinton is not mentioned by name in the indictment,instead referred to only as "Senator A." The fundraiser was largely orchestrated by Aaron Tonken, a notorious L.A. con man who last August was sentenced to five years in prison following a guilty plea to a pair of fraud counts.

The 39-year-old Tonken, who made his living defrauding donors and underwriters of charity events, now resides in the federal lockup in Taft, California, where he is scheduled to remain until April 2009."

I hope some of you are beginning to realize how ridiculous and unfair is to demand that Tom Delay "prove" his innocence? If so, I have made my point. But as long as there is an orchestrated effort to oust Tom Delay using allegations of groundless, non-existent transgressions, I will continue to point out the unfairness, and hypocracy of it all.

Therefore, Hilary must present her case for innocence. Now!

Gowain

Proving a Negative, Tom Delay's Task, Set by the Left

2005-04-19T15:12:00.000-05:00

The following conversation took place on a discussion board. I have edited it for consistency and changed one name to protect the stupid. It began as my response to a Tom Delay story. But developed into what I think is the core fallacy of the argument against Delay: The demand that he present positive proof of his innocence. In other words that he prove a negative.

Gowain....More BS from the Left. Look at the people the story is based on. A turncoat conservative, a Left leaning Republican, another Republican who has been quoted out of context, and un-named sources. Mustn't forget those un-named sources. A lot of noise, not a shred of proof.

LeftiePoster....Where is your proof that the story is wrong????? I am waiting for you to prove it wrong.

Gowain....The proof, or rather the lack of proof, is in the story. No specifics, un-named sources. Etc.

LeftiePoster.....Still no proof offered by you. I am waiting for you to prove DeLay innocent. Give me proof.

Gowain....The proof of innocence is that no one has offered up proof of guilt.

LeftiePoster.....You still haven't offered any proof on this issue. I am still waiting.

Gowain....You are ignoring the proof.

If I alleged that you are a child molester. How would you go about proving your innocence? You have had contact with children, haven't you? How are we to know that you did not molest one of them when no one was looking?

The only thing you could do is point out that there is no proof of your guilt, that no child has ever accused you of molesting him, and that you have never been charged or convicted of pedophilia.

If I refused to accept this and demanded that you provide some positive proof of your innocence, what could you do? NOTHING!

It is called proving a negative and cannot be done.

LeftiePoster.....I am still waiting

Gowain....Again, if I alleged that you are a child molester. How would you go about proving your innocence?

The only thing you could do is point out that there is no proof of your guilt, that no child has ever accused you of molesting him, and that you have never been charged or convicted of pedophilia.

If I refused to accept this and demanded that you provide some positive proof of your innocence, what could you do? NOTHING!

LeftiePoster.....I am still waiting for you to post your proof.

Gowain....Prove you are not a child molester.

LeftiePoster.....Your gall is only surpassed by your stupidity.

Gowain....Still no positive response to my Child Molester allegation huh? Come on, LP, as an exercise in evidence, come up with proof that you are not a pedophile.

LeftiePoster will never be able to prove that he is not a child molester, just as Tom Delay will never be able to prove he did nothing wrong. Not as long as both are faced with the insurmountable task of positively proving something when the only evidence they can point to is the lack, no the non-existence, of evidence proving they committed a crime. This is why the burden of proof always falls on the accuser.

Proof, Proof, Ya Gotta Have Proof!

2005-04-17T11:19:00.000-05:00

I challenge anyone to cite proof from any source that Tom Delay has committed a crime. Despite all the noise coming out of the Main Stream Media about the "transgressions" of Tom Delay, they have cited abolutely NO proof of wrong-doing. Bupkas, zip, zero, nada, not-a-flicker.

Makes me want to shout "Where's the beef?" Or in this case, the "Where's the TOFU!"

Gowain

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Fined $21,000 by FEC

2005-04-14T14:48:00.000-05:00

"Pelosi PAC fined $21,000 by federal elections officials

WASHINGTON (AP) — A fund-raising committee run by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was fined $21,000 for improperly accepting donations over federal limits, according to records and interviews.

The political action committee, Team Majority, was one of two PACs Pelosi used to fund candidates during the 2002 campaign. She stopped raising and donating money through the committee more than a year ago, after complaints that she was improperly using the multiple PACs to exceed limits.

The fine, which was paid in October 2003, was reported in Team Majority's year-end campaign finance records, released this month. The case is still open and the Federal Election Commission declined comment, but Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said that the fine was connected to donations made to more than two dozen candidates from both of Pelosi's so-called leadership PACs — Team Majority and PAC to the Future — that together exceeded federal limits.

"We checked with the FEC, we thought this was OK, when we found out it wasn't we did everything aboveboard and we've been complying with them," Daly said.

Daly said Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat and leading advocate of campaign finance reform, would dissolve Team Majority after the FEC case was concluded. Two Democrats — Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen and Julie Thomas, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Iowa — have been fined $2,500 each in connection with donations received from the committee. The agency was still negotiating with a third congressional committee before closing the case, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Federal law dictates that if multiple PACs are under the control of the same person, they're considered affiliated and must adhere to limits as if they were one. Federal law limits PAC contributions to candidates to $5,000 per election. Donors to PACs can give $5,000 annually.

In the 2002 election cycle, Pelosi gave more than two dozen candidates the $5,000 maximum contribution from Team Majority as well as PAC to the Future, which is her main leadership PAC — thereby exceeding contribution limits.

Team Majority gave back more than $100,000 that was collected in excess of limits, records show. But it also collected more than $140,000 that Daly said was within the proper limits. That money was spent last year to support Pelosi's fund-raising activities — including money for salaries, legal fees and phone services, and $2,176 to entertain donors at a box at the Simon and Garfunkel Concert at the MCI Center in December, records show."

Let watch and see if this story gets amplified and repeated over and over like the hit pieces on Tom Delay.

Warning: Don't hold your breath.

Gowain

More Than 3 Million Paid to Congressional Family Members in Last Election Cycle

2005-04-14T14:42:00.000-05:00

How come stories like this are coming out now? Why were they not developed at the same time the Tom Delay story was being put together? Could it be that the reporters did not give a damn about fairness? Balance? Could they possibly have an agenda?

WASHINGTON — At least 39 members of Congress have engaged in the controversial practice of paying their spouses, children or other relatives out of campaign funds, or have hired companies in which a family member had a financial interest, records and interviews show.

House campaign funds have paid more than $3 million to lawmakers' relatives over the last two election cycles, records show....

Many lawmakers who have hired relatives say their motivation is confidence, not profit.

"I need a campaign manager I can trust," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), whose wife, Rhonda, is now paid $40,000 a year to run his campaign. Over the last four years, she has received $114,894, records show.

DeLay, a Texas Republican, has defended the payments to his wife, Christine, and his daughter, Danielle DeLay Ferro, saying his family members provided valuable service to his campaign. They received $473,801 over the last two election cycles, records show....

The Times developed a list of names of relatives and businesses owned by relatives on campaign payrolls from interviews, news accounts and personal financial disclosure reports. Campaign reports do not have to disclose whether recipients of funds are related to a candidate, so The Times' list is most likely incomplete.

...The Times' analysis of two election cycles... The campaign fund of Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) paid $251,853 to her husband's firm, according to the candidate's campaign filings. She was followed by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-North Hollywood), $205,500; Rep. Bob Filner (D-San Diego), $154,504; and Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), $152,362.

Altogether, at least 10 lawmakers in the 53-member California House delegation have hired family members, according to records and interviews.

Rep. Pete Stark (D-Hayward) paid his wife, Deborah, $119,000 from his campaign fund over the last four years to serve as his campaign manager, records show. In the last election, she earned $2,400 a month as campaign manager and was awarded a $2,400 bonus.

"It's just a matter of paying her for the professional job she was doing," Stark said.

In addition, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) paid her son, a lawyer, $130,000 over four years to run her political action committee, according to her campaign filings....

FEC regulations permit salary payments to family members for "bona fide, campaign-related services," according to a 2001 advisory opinion issued to Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). Jackson had asked the commission whether he could hire his wife, Sandi, as a paid campaign consultant.

"Any salary in excess of fair market value of the services provided is personal use," the opinion said, noting that it was illegal for candidates to use campaign funds for personal use....

Rep. Ralph M. Hall (R-Texas)[a Democrat flopper], whose political committee paid his daughter-in-law Jody $123,761 for the last two campaigns, said, "I don't see anything wrong with it if she's doing real work for real pay."

Gowain

Barbara Boxer Funnels Money to Son, Media Fails to Notice

2005-04-14T14:38:00.000-05:00

"In 2003, Barbara Boxer directed $15,000 from her political-action committee, “PAC For a Change,” to a consulting firm run by her son. The year before, she funneled $115,000 to the same firm."

Lets watch and see if this story gets the same attention as the ones about Tom Delay

Gowain

Newt,We Hardly Knew Ye!

2005-04-13T22:46:00.000-05:00

Newt Gingrich has always been my hero. The man who ran the corrupt Jim Wright out of Washington, who created the Contract With America, who was the elected official most responsible for the Rupublicans taking the House of Representatives in 1994.

Yep, I have always admired Newt. I knew he was human though. I mean, it was not like he was getting a lot of love and affection for his huge contribution to the Conservative Movement. He had been pounded in the Main Stream Media ever since he triumphed over Jim Wright, with hardly anyone coming to his defense. When he resigned his position as Speaker to be with his true love and make much more money, I could see how a man could decide to chuck it all, and I made allowances for his feet of clay.

That is until today when I saw him criticize Tom Delay. When I first heard about it, I could not believe it. Then I found the video clip on the Internet. Sure enough he had said exactly what the media quoted him as saying.

He said Delay was the one who had to prove his innocence. Then he pooh-poohed the "vast Left wing conpiracy" as if there was not a concerted, orchestrated effort to run Tom Delay out of Washington.

I ask you, Newt, just how does one go about proving that something does not exist except by pointing out that that it does not exist? Tom Delay has pointed out several times that he did nothing wrong, that there is no proof, to no avail. What more can he do?

Not one of the hundreds of negative stories, and opinion pieces, written about him has been able to come up with a single action that was criminal, or even unethical. Yes, he was "admonished" for somehow allowing people to lie to him.

Newt, you of all people know how the Left Wing attack machine works. You were a victim of it! For you to say and do the things you have said and done today bespeaks an ego that places your own notoriety above party and country. For the fleeting fame of being on TV, CBS of all places, you sold your dignity and integrity. You have set the Conservative movement back years for the paltry sum of 30 seconds TV time, and a swipe at a very effective Conservative. Was it jealousy? Good grief!

I weep for you, Buddy. And I can never forgive you.

Gowain

Doctor Who Diagnosed Schiavo Was "105%" Sure But Got It Wrong For Other Patient

2005-04-12T13:43:00.000-05:00

Here is something for all you Pull-The-Tube absolutists to think about. Remember, Terri Schiavo had not had tests, MRI, PET, CAT-scan, ANYTHING! since 1992.

(CNSNews.com) -- A neurologist hired by Michael Schiavo to confirm that his wife Terri was in a persistent vegetative state said he was "105 percent sure" of that diagnosis, but Dr. Ronald Cranford expressed similar certainty about a patient he examined in 1980 who later regained both consciousness and the ability to communicate.
...
Cranford expressed similar certainty about another patient he declared to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) in 1980, former Minneapolis Police Sgt. David Mack.

''Sergeant Mack will never regain cognitive, sapient functioning,'' Cranford said six months after Mack was shot..on Dec. 13, 1979. ''He will never be aware of his condition nor resume any degree of meaningful voluntary conscious interaction with his family or friends.''

Based on Cranford's unequivocal diagnosis of Mack, the officer's relatives removed him from a respirator in August 1980 ...

But Mack did not die.

On Oct. 22, 1981, 18 months after Cranford declared Mack's case hopeless, doctors at the advanced care facility where Mack was being treated noticed that he was awake. The Associated Press described Mack's recovery.

"A policeman considered 'vegetative' after being shot in the head in 1979 has come out of his coma and, although doctors caution he may never recover fully, he is spelling out some of his desires: 'TALK. WALK. SKI. DOG,'" ...

Cranford insisted at the time that his initial diagnosis was correct.
...
In an interview last week with Cybercast News Service, Cranford acknowledged a "mistake," but maintained that his original assessment of Mack was accurate.

"At the time I said that, he was in a vegetative state," Cranford said. "But, I did make that misstatement about Sgt. Mack and I was wrong and I did make a mistake in that case."

Cranford argued that Mack's case is different from Terri Schiavo's because a CAT scan of Mack's brain showed no atrophy, while Schiavo's CAT scan showed severe deterioration.
...
Cranford also told reporters in 1991 that he wanted to be known as "Doctor Humane Death." He has since publicly claimed to have facilitated the deaths of between 25 and 50 disabled patients by removing the feeding tubes that provided their nutrition and hydration.
...
Cybercast News Service found more than two dozen cases where published news reports document patients diagnosed as being in a persistent or permanent vegetative state, or coma "waking up," including:

--Recovery after three years - Marcello Manunza suffered a brain injury during a car crash in November 1987. In July 1990, relatives noticed that he was following them around the room with his eyes and appeared to be trying to read encouraging signs that had been placed in his nursing home room. Within days he was able to eat, control the movement of his limbs and speak;

--Recovery after seven years - Hawaii resident Peter Sana lapsed into a coma after contracting meningitis, an inflammation of the membrane that encloses the brain and spinal cord. He was in a Honolulu nursing home in September 2001 when he began responding to commands from nurses. Sana's father visited him every day during the seven years. His caregivers credit visits by family members with giving Sana the will to wake up;

--Recovery after eight years - The first thing Conley Holbrook said after rousing from a PVS in 1991 was "Momma." He then identified the two men who had beaten him unconscious with a log on Nov. 27, 1982. Holbrook awoke while he was hospitalized for pneumonia; and

-- Recovery after 18 years - In 1983, Patti White Bull of South Dakota was diagnosed as being in a coma or PVS due to complications from a Caesarean section. Two months later, her husband and other family members removed her from life support. On Christmas Day 1999, White Bull woke up and asked to see her children. A day later, she was walking around her nursing home room with assistance.

A 1996 study published in the British Medical Journal found that 43 percent of patients in the United Kingdom thought to be in a PVS had been misdiagnosed. Of the 40 patients whose cases were reviewed, 17 were later found to be "alert, aware and often able to express a simple wish."

A 1993 study of 49 patients found that 18 of them, or 37 percent, "were diagnosed inaccurately.
...
Stevens said this is all the evidence that should be needed to call for a higher standard when it comes to diagnosing a patient as being in a persistent or permanent vegetative state.
...
"Your intent is not to remove a burdensome therapy," Stevens concluded. "Your intent is to remove a burdensome patient."

Or in Michael Schiavo's case, using the patient to hurt those who he despised.

Gowain

New York Times, Others Scheme to Oust Tom Delay

2005-04-11T13:51:00.000-05:00

Robert Novak has a story on the efforts of the MSM to remove Tom Delay from Congress

Notice that NOBODY says that Tom Delay ever did anything illegal. Just trying to create smoke, and eventually fire, from non-flammable tinder. If they convince enough people that there actually is smoke, they won't have to produce the fire.

"WASHINGTON -- On March 24, former Congressman Bob Livingston was sent an e-mail by a New York Times editorial page staffer suggesting he write an op-ed essay. ... In a subsequent conversation, it was made clear the Times wanted the prominent Republican to say DeLay should step aside for the good of the party.

...this remarkable case of that august newspaper fishing for an op-ed piece makes it appear part of a calculated campaign to bring down the single most powerful Republican in Congress. The Democratic establishment and left-wing activists have targeted DeLay as the way to end a decade of Republican control of the House.

...The assault on DeLay did not begin until he redistricted Texas congressional seats, which changed the 2004 election from a net loss to a net gain for House Republicans.

At least 18 news organizations now have assigned reporters to cover DeLay, but the quest by The New York Times for a prominent Republican to suggest his resignation may cross a line....

New York Times editorial page staffer Tobin Harshaw sent the March 24 e-mail to Livingston...

...Harshaw's e-mail suggested Livingston might want to write "a short op-ed on DeLay's political future." Terrell said he telephoned Harshaw, saying his boss would "write a favorable piece," then asked: "Is that really what you're seeking or is that what you would print?"

It clearly was not. While Harshaw asserted "we would welcome any thoughts" by Livingston, Terrell quoted him as saying "we are seeking those who would go on the record or state for the good of the party he [DeLay] should step aside."

...Would this editorial start a chain reaction of Republican House members abandoning DeLay, much as Democrats turned against Speaker Jim Wright in 1989? Those defections doomed Wright, whose fall was followed in five years by the Republican capture of the House. Since Bob Livingston would not get the ball rolling, the campaign to get DeLay still needs a major anti-DeLay Republican to go public."

Novak's Article

Gowain

Do Not Allow Her to Perform Oral Sex On You

2005-04-10T07:52:00.000-05:00

She may get another craving for "bite size chunks"

ALAMOSA, Colorado -- A woman accused of killing and cannibalizing her boyfriend will be allowed to leave a state mental hospital as long as she continues to take her medication and undergoes therapy, a judge ruled. Psychiatrists at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo had recommended the release of Jane Lynn Woodry, 51, who changed her name from Carolyn Gloria Blanton in 1999. Prosecutors opposed the request.

After reviewing two outside evaluations, District Judge Pattie Swift on Friday agreed to release Woodry under certain conditions.

Woodry had been held at the hospital since her 1994 arrest for the murder of her boyfriend, Peter Michael Greene, 51, whose mutilated body was found at his home near Alamosa. He had been shot several times.

During a February 1995 hearing in which she pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, investigators testified that they found "bite-sized chunks of human flesh" in a cooking pot at Woodry's home.

Gowain

It Is Time for You To Die, Grandma

2005-04-08T18:30:00.000-05:00

The Terri Schiavo case has set the stage for things like this.

Granddaughter yanks grandma's feeding tube
81-year-old neither terminally ill, comatose, nor in vegetative state

April 7, 2005

...an 81-year-old widow, denied nourishment and fluids for nearly two weeks, is clinging to life in a hospice in LaGrange, Ga., while her immediate family fights desperately to save her life before she dies of starvation and dehydration.

Mae Magouirk was neither terminally ill, comatose nor in a "vegetative state," when Hospice-LaGrange accepted her as a patient about two weeks ago upon the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, 36, an elementary school teacher.

Also upon Gaddy's request and without prior legal authority, since March 28 Hospice-LaGrange has denied Magouirk normal nourishment or fluids via a feeding tube through her nose or fluids via an IV. She has been kept sedated with morphine and ativan, a powerful tranquillizer.
...
The dehydration is being done in defiance of Magouirk's specific wishes, which she set down in a "living will," and without agreement of her closest living next-of-kin, two siblings and a nephew: A. Byron McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ga.; Ruth Mullinax, 74, of Birmingham, Ala.; and Ruth Mullinax's son, Ken Mullinax.

Magouirk's husband and only child, a son, are both deceased.

In her living will, Magouirk stated that fluids and nourishment were to be withheld only if she were either comatose or "vegetative," and she is neither. Nor is she terminally ill, which is generally a requirement for admission to a hospice.

...

Claiming that she held Magouirk's power of attorney, Gaddy had her transferred to Hospice-LaGrange, a 16-bed unit owned by the same family that owns the hospital. Once at the hospice, Gaddy stated that she did not want her grandmother fed or given water.

"Grandmama is old and I think it is time she went home to Jesus," Gaddy told Magouirk's brother and nephew, McLeod and Ken Mullinax. "She has glaucoma and now this heart problem, and who would want to live with disabilities like these?"
...

Gaddy, however, was not dissuaded. When Ken Mullinax and McLeod showed up at the hospice the following day, April 1, to meet with Todd and arrange emergency air transport for Magouirk's transfer to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, Hospice-LaGrange stalled them while Gaddy went before Troup County, Ga., Probate Court Judge Donald W. Boyd and obtained an emergency guardianship over her grandmother.
...

So, when are you going to wake up and realize that the Culture of Death now has its foot in the door? And if you don't take action, the "right to die" will become the "obligation to die" whenever those who have control over you decide it is time for you to go. Whether you want to or not.

www.worldnetdaily.com

Gowain

Man Arrested, Handcuffed for Using $2 Bills

2005-04-08T18:18:00.000-05:00

Looks like this fellow may have a basis for suing the pants off Best Buy and Baltimore County, Maryland.

A man trying to pay a fee using $2 bills was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail after clerks at a Best Buy store questioned the currency's legitimacy and called police.
...

After Best Buy personnel reportedly told Bolesta he would not be charged for the installation of a stereo in his son's car, he received a call from the store saying it was in fact charging him the fee. As a means of protest, Bolesta decided to pay the $114 bill using 57 crisp, new $2 bills.
...

"She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money – like she's doing me a favor."

Bolesta says the cashier marked each bill with a pen. Other store employees began to gather, a few of them asking, "Are these real?"

"Of course they are," Bolesta said. "They're legal tender."

According to the Sun report, the police arrest report noted one employee noticed some smearing of ink on the bills. That's when the cops were called. One officer reportedly noticed the bills ran in sequential order.
...

Bolesta was taken to the lockup, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons while the Secret Service was called.
...

Secret Service agent Leigh Turner eventually arrived and declared the bills legitimate, adding, according to the police report, "Sometimes ink on money can smear."

Commenting on the incident, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

www.worldnetdaily.com

Gowain

Valerie Has Plamed Out

2005-04-08T13:55:00.000-05:00

The Valerie Plame covert-operative-who-has-been-outed-by-nefarious
-Republicans story was BIIGGG NEEWWWS! back in the day.

I said then that that no crime had been committed. But the-vast-left-wing-conspiracy machine convinced most of the country that "Karl Rove should be frog marched out of the Whitehouse, in handcuffs" etc.,etc. This is eeerily similar to the present Tom Delay smoke/mirrors tar/feathers exercise.

"The special prosecutor investigating whether Bush administration officials illegally revealed the identity of a covert CIA operative says he finished his investigation months ago, except for questioning two reporters who have refused to testify."

...

"That special prosecutor's characterization of his efforts led to indignation among press advocates who learned of the filing yesterday. They said it bolsters their suspicion that Fitzgerald has put two journalists in jeopardy of incarceration though he may not have sufficient evidence to indict someone for the felony he was appointed to investigate."

Oh, the irony! Seein' as how it was the reporters who beat the drum for a special investigation in the first place.

Anyway, it turns out I was right. There WAS no crime committed. I am waiting for an apology from all you Lefties who made hay back then..........but, of course, I will not hold my breath.

www.washingtonpost.com

Gowain

Leftist American Loon Kills Cop

2005-04-08T10:58:00.000-05:00

I guess throwing a pie isn't the worst thing the Left can dish out.

How very, very disgusting!

"At 1:27 a.m. on Nov. 19, 2002, Officer David Mobilio of the Red Bluff Police Department... As he stood beside the car, the 31-year-old husband and father of a toddler was shot three times, twice in the back and once in the head, at very close range...

Beside Mobilio's dead body, someone left a handmade flag with a picture of a snake's head and the words "Don't Tread on Us."

...No station attendant on duty. No witnesses. It was a killing that might have never been solved.

That is, until a confession appeared on the Internet...

It began: "Hello Everyone, my name's Andy. I killed a Police Officer in Red Bluff, California in a motion to bring attention to, and halt, the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country. Now I'm coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility."

The tract -- which managed to mingle an almost chirpy tone with leftist cant -- was signed by "Andrew McCrae," later found to be an alias for Andrew Mickel, a student at a liberal arts college..."

Gowain

Moneybags Soros Funds Tom Delay Critics

2005-04-06T10:07:00.000-05:00

It turns out that Democrat Moneybags George Soros is behind most of the attack stories about Tom Delay. A story in "The Hill", a Washington newspaper, details the efforts of these critics to smear Delay, and through association, all Republicans.

When you read, or hear, about Tom Delay and what a scum-bag he is, consider the source.

"The research shows that members of these groups’ boards have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and political organizations and several of their staff members have previously worked for Democrats. The groups have also accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Open Society Institute, an organization founded by Soros, who spent millions trying to defeat President Bush in last year’s election."

"Over a five-day span, ending last Thursday, TV and radio stations and print publications from around the country featured at least 290 stories either about a controversial junket he took to Scotland in 2000, his response to criticism about the propriety of that trip or his offer to discuss the matter with the House ethics committee, according to a survey. The articles by The Associated Press, Reuters, Knight Ridder and The Washington Post were picked up by news outlets around the country."

READ THE WHOLE STORY

Gowain

Reagan and Pope John Allied to Protect Poland from USSR

2005-04-05T08:12:00.000-05:00

Just another brick in the monument that will eventually be built to honor Ronald Reagan.

After forming a close alliance with Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan was prepared to go to war with Russia to stop a planned invasion of Poland...

Judge William P. Clark, President Reagan's National Security Adviser (1982-1983), revealed just how close the world came to the brink of war and possible Armageddon in the early 1980s. ...

The Russians had become unnerved by the discontent brewing in Poland, a nation that had remained a Soviet satellite since Russia "liberated" her from Nazi occupation after World War II.

As early as 1981, the Reagan administration had warned both Moscow and the Polish government against taking action against Poland's growing Solidarity movement.

When the Russians appeared to be on the brink of an invasion - similar to ones they had launched to crush freedom movements in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, President Reagan's White House made clear the U.S. would not be acquiescent again....

"We in the Reagan administration were prepared to recommend the use of force if necessary to stop such an invasion."...

Richard Allen, Reagan's first National Security advisor [was quoted as declaring] ‘This was one of the great secret alliances of all time.'"

Judge William P. Clark, Reagan's national security adviser, said that the alliance between the two men emanated from a shared common view on the nature of the Evil Empire.

"The pope and the president shared the view that each had been given a spiritual mission - a special role in the divine plan of life," Clark told NewsMax. "The two men shared the belief that atheistic Communism lived a lie that, when fully understood, must ultimately fail."

Both also shared the remarkable experience of almost dying at the hand of an assassin - and miraculously surviving the ordeal....

In the end, however, Soviet domination of Poland and Eastern Europe ended, along with the Soviet Union itself, without a shot being fired, thanks to the alliance between Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II - an alliance formed between two men who understood the evil nature of communism and knew how to bring it down.

89 Allegations Against Shiavo Sealed

2005-04-04T15:15:00.000-05:00

I wonder if we will ever know the whole story? Not if Judge Greer has anything to say about it!

"Florida's Department of Children and Families had received nearly 90 allegations that Michael Schiavo had abused his wife in recent years - but a Florida judge ruled yesterday that DCF summaries of those allegations must remain secret.
The St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune had filed suit for the release of the abuse summaries, which covered 89 reports - the Times said Friday.

But state Judge George Greer ruled Friday the records belong to DCF, and although Terri Schiavo's husband can have access to the abuse files, the records cannot be made public, The Associated Press reported.
During a hearing Thursday, just hours after Terri Schiavo died, DCF attorney Jennifer Lima-Smith asked Greer to keep its records sealed, saying, "It's time to end this case."
Just a few weeks ago, however, the agency was pressing for a full-blown abuse probe.
In the petition filed with Greer's court in early March, the DCF asked him not to remove Schiavo's feeding tube until the agency could investigate 34 pages of materials documenting allegations of abuse, the Orlando Sentinel reported at the time.
The DCF petition said the materials were sent to its abuse hotline on Feb. 18 and Feb. 21, and by law, the agency had to conduct an investigation. "The allegations in the abuse reports go to the heart of whether abuse, neglect and/or exploitation has been perpetrated by the guardian [Michael Schiavo]," the DCF's 10-page petition said, according to the Sentinel. The allegations were based partly on bone scans showing Terri Schiavo suffered fractures, as well as statements she made to family and friends that she was unhappy in her marriage, the AP reported Friday.
Responding to allegations of abuse in 1992, Michael Schiavo told the Tampa Tribune: "I've never, ever struck a woman, especially my wife. I was raised better than that." He called the abuse allegations "utterly ridiculous," suggesting instead that Terri's injuries may have been caused during physical therapy sessions."

Newsmax.com, 4-2-2005

THE NEWSMAX VERSION

Gowain

64 Days Ago, John Kerry Promised to Sign Form 180...

2005-04-04T08:51:00.000-05:00

As of this morning, he still has not signed it.

Terri Schiavo, In memorium

2005-04-03T10:45:00.000-05:00

Phishing Alert, Fake E-mail

2005-03-31T14:08:00.000-06:00

Phishing is the term used to name the practice of sending legitemate looking e-mails with links to a website that has been specially set up in order to harvest the victim's passwords and other info.

Below is a screenshot of one I have recieved many times in the last few days.

Beware, if you own a PAYPAL account. Do NOT click on the link provided. Use some other path to go to your account.

GOWAIN

Well.......SHIT!

2005-03-28T13:56:00.000-06:00

It's crap like THIS that makes you wanna bawl and beat your head against a wall. How do these incompetent, ignoramuses get appointed to these positions? And why didn't anyone say anything about it. If it were not for the curiousity and tenacity of a single congressman, this would have probably never come to light.

"Ambassador Nancy Powell, America’s representative in Pakistan, refused to allow the distribution in Pakistan of wanted posters, matchbooks, and other items advertising America’s $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Mr. bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

Instead, thousands of matchbooks, posters, and other material — printed at taxpayer expense and translated into Urdu, Pashto, and other local languages — remained “impounded” on American Embassy grounds from 2002 to 2004, according to Rep. Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois." New York Sun

Score One...No, Three for the Good Guys

2005-03-23T09:45:00.000-06:00

These civilians turned the table on the bad guys.

Ordinary Iraqis Wage a Successful Battle Against Insurgents
By ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: March 22, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 22 - Ordinary Iraqis rarely strike back at the insurgents who terrorize their country. But just before noon today, a carpenter named Dhia saw a troop of masked gunmen with grenades coming towards his shop and decided he had had enough.

As the gunmen emerged from their cars, Dhia and his young relatives shouldered their own AK-47's and opened fire, police and witnesses said. In the fierce gun battle that followed, three of the insurgents were killed, and the rest fled just after the police arrived. Two of Dhia's young nephews and a bystander were injured, the police said.

"We attacked them before they attacked us," Dhia, 35, his face still contorted with rage and excitement, said in a brief exchange at his shop a few hours after the battle. He did not give his last name. "We killed three of those who call themselves the mujahedeen. I am waiting for the rest of them to come and we will show them."
...
The battle was the latest sign that Iraqis may be willing to start standing up against the attacks that leave dozens of people dead here nearly every week. After a suicide bombing in Hilla last month that killed 136 people, including a number of women and children, hundreds of residents demonstrated in front of the city hall every day for almost a week, chanting slogans against terrorism. Last week, a smaller but similar rally took place in Baghdad. Another demonstration is scheduled for Wednesday in the capital.
...
Just hours before the gun battle this morning, an Interior Ministry official was gunned down in Doura as he drove to work, officials said.
...
After a group of insurgents fled, leaving the Honda and three of their dead behind them, one was left behind, said the Doura police chief. The gunman broke into a nearby house and hid there, holding the residents at gunpoint, until his friends arrived and drove him away, the police chief said.

The owner of the house, who spoke on condition that he not be named, said the gunman entered through the garage and made his way to the living room.

"I heard the screaming of the women, so I went to see what was the matter and I saw a guy holding an AK-47," the man said.

The homeowner said the gunman then shouted: "Keep me here for a short time until I can leave the area or I will kill you all. I don't want anyone to leave this room."

They obeyed. The gunman telephoned some friends, and stayed for about an hour until they arrived to pick him up. Before he left, the owner of the house said, he issued a final warning: "If you scream or call the police, my friends will come and kill you. They know where you are."

Two of Dhia's nephews who were with him during the attack, one aged 13, one 24, were wounded, family members said. After the police arrived, they recovered the bodies of the three dead insurgents, who were identified through documents in their clothing as Abdul Razzaq Hamid, Abdul Hamid Abed, and Zaid Safaa, officials said.

Hours later, Dhia was still furiously cursing the mujahedeen when he spoke to a reporter in his carpentry shop. A Shiite cleric quickly told him to stop talking, and he complied.

Meanwhile, a group of armed neighborhood men stood watch on the roof of the house, guarding the streets leading to the Husseiniya mosque and Dhia's shop.

"I am sure they will be back," one of the guards said. "We killed three of them."

Censorship Coming Soon to the Web?

2005-03-23T07:58:00.000-06:00

The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Law may one day be interpreted so YOU can't comment on anything political.

"The problem facing the FEC is that McCain-Feingold broadly restricts coordination with, and contributions to, political candidates. So what is the agency to do with all those people who use their Web sites to praise a candidate? Computers and Web access cost money, which could be construed as a financial contribution to a campaign. Ditto bloggers who link to politicians' Web sites, or any individual who forwards a candidate's press release to a list of buddies. All this is to say nothing of blogs that are affiliated with political campaigns and coordinate their activities.

To its credit, the FEC tried to avoid this headache in 2002 by exempting the Internet from campaign-finance rules. This proved far too sensible for the sponsors of the law, who sued the commission for allowing "loopholes" and got a federal judge to strike down the exemption. The FEC must now decide just how it intends to monitor and penalize all those attempting to corrupt the U.S. political system via modem."

Read the whole story.

When the time comes, remember who sponsored the bill and remember who sue sued to make it apply to YOU.

Gowain

Congress has the power to curb Judicial overreach.

2005-03-02T12:41:00.000-06:00

The federal courts have grown too big, even for robes as capacious as the ones they inhabit! They have overstepped their bounds time after time with decisions that have thwarted the will of the People, have been made up out of whole cloth, and, in some cases, put the People in jeopardy (i.e. War on Terror). It is time for this to stop!

The United States is governed at the behest of the the People through their representatives (Congress). Congress has the power to configure (make or dissolve lower courts) and REGULATE the Supreme Court.

With the power vested, by the Constitution, in the U.S.Congress, they can decide, through legislation, what kind of cases the Supreme Court can review, the parameters the Court can use, and the existence, or non-existence, of lower courts.

Section 2 of Article 3 reads " ...with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." This gives Congress the power to decide what cases can be reviewed by the Courts, and under what criteria. Congress should remove the power of the courts to review "enemy combatant" cases so the war on terrorism can be fought, unhampered. Congress should also stop the Courts from using precedents from foreign sources, as in the recent decision removing the threat of execution from criminals who committed their crimes before they turned eighteen.

Section 1 of Article 3 gives Congress the power to "ordain and establish" lower courts. Throughout the history of this nation, lower courts have been dissolved and established as needed. If a lower court keeps making decisions without regard to the preceden! ts set by the Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals comes to mind, then that court could and should be abolished by Congress.

The fact that Congress has these powers at it's disposal is not new, or hidden. It was used to stop the supreme court from reviewing Ex parte McCardle, in 1869 and several times before and since. It is routinely used to protect pet legislation. In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Congress used it on 12 occasions to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

It is time for our representatives in Congress to, take a deep breathe, step up to the plate, take the bull by the horns, and exercise the Constitutionlly granted right to put the Courts back in their place.

gowain

It's Their Nature

2004-12-24T07:17:00.000-06:00

James S. Robbins writes in NRO that the Jihadis do what they do more out of the desire for violence than any high minded conviction. A point that I've tried to make many times. Robbins conclusion about Mohammed Atta;

He was a sociopath who found a compelling vehicle in radical Islam to legitimize and externalize his need to destroy.

It is useless to wonder why, or to cavil with these guys. They must be met with force and neutralized one way or another.

Gowain

Ronnie Earl, moralizing hypocrite and Nut.

2004-11-26T13:25:00.000-06:00

I think most people would agree that Ronnie Earl, District Attorney of Travis County, Texas, is kinda nuts. He once indicted, pleaded guilty, and fined HIMSELF $200 for untimely reporting of campaign finances. A fine, by the way, that is the lowest assessed to any public official "convicted" by Earl in his career. I also think that he sometimes uses his office to accomplish political goals. He once indicted then State Treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison then dropped the charges in the middle of the trial. Nearly all of his "convictitions" are the result of plea bargaining. And the total jailtime served by ALL officials he has prosecuted is 60 DAYS! When an indicted official goes to trial, eg, Hutchison, Mattox, they are acquitted, or the charges are dropped. Earl, the DA in the only blue county in Texas, Travis County, has written an opinion piece for the New York Times. My responses are in [brackets].

WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD

By Ronnie Earle, Special to the New York Times

AUSTIN - It is a rare day when members of the U.S. Congress try to read the minds of the members of a grand jury in Travis County. Apparently Tom DeLay's colleagues expect him to be indicted. [ With Earl's past record of using his office for political hatchet jobs, can they be blamed??]

Last week, congressional Republicans voted to change their rule that required an indicted leader to relinquish his post.[ After a review by a committee, to determine if the indictment actually has merit and was not POLITICALLY motivated. He forgot to add that little detail.] They were responding to an investigation by the Travis County grand jury into political contributions by corporations that has already resulted in the indictments of three associates of DeLay, the House majority leader.

Yet no member of Congress has been indicted in the investigation, and none is a target unless he or she has committed a crime. [I suspect that now, they will not be indicted. Since Ronnie can't accomplish his goal of knocking out Tom delay from the leadership position.]

The grand jury [Composed of partisan Travis County Democrats, just like the DA.] will continue its work, abiding by the rule of law. That law requires a grand jury of citizens, not the prosecutor, to determine whether probable cause exists to hold an accused person to answer for the accusation against him or her. Politicians in Congress are responsible for the leaders they choose. Their choices reflect their moral values. [ It certainly does! And I don't think Earl can stand it because Tom Delay did the same thing for the Republican's in 2001 that Martin Frost did for the Democrats in 1990.]

Every law enforcement officer depends on the moral values and integrity of society for backup; they are like body armor. The cynical destruction of moral values at the top makes it hard for law enforcement to do its job. [He wraps himself in the mantle of a law enforcement officer. What a disgusting load of cynical, self serving CRAP!!]

In terms of moral values, this is where the rubber meets the road. The rules you apply to yourself are the true test of your moral values. [Hmmm. Would that you would apply the same to yourself.]

The thinly veiled personal attacks on me by DeLay's supporters in this case are no different from those in the cases of any of the 15 elected officials whom this office has prosecuted in my 27-year tenure. Most of these officials -- 12 Democrats and three Republicans -- have accused me of having political motives. What else are they going to say? [If they said anything else, it would not be the truth.]

For most of my tenure, the Democrats held the power in state government. Now Republicans do. Most crimes by elected officials involve the abuse of power; you have to have power before you can abuse it. [He should know. He has the power, and he abuses it.]

There is no limit to what you can do if you have the power to change the rules.[ Or apply them selectively. Eh, Ronnie?] Congress may make its own rules, but the public makes the rule of law and depends for its peace on the enforcement of the law. Hypocrisy at the highest levels of government is toxic to the moral fiber that holds our communities together. [ This statement is simply jaw-dropping in it's hypocricy!]

The open contempt for moral values by our elected officials has a corrosive effect. It is a sad day for law enforcement when Congress offers such poor leadership on moral values and ethical behavior. We are a moral people, and the first lesson of democracy is not to hold the public in contempt. [ Thus concludes the lesson in morals from a person who does not possess a single strand. He would not know a moral if it jumped out and bit him in the ass!!]

Gowain

I Am Thankful...

2004-11-25T11:11:00.000-06:00

I am thankful. I believe that I, and all Americans, have won the Lottery of the Human Race. To have the phenomenal luck to be born in this country, at this point in history defies all the odds.

Consider:
At no other time, and in in no other nation, has the standard of living for the average person been higher than it is in America now.

Food. In my lifetime, and I am nearly 60 years old, no one, in America, has starved to death because food was not available. In the entire history of the USA no one has died in America because of famine. The biggest health problem faced by our "poor" is obesity.

Home Ownership. More people own their homes in America than there are people who rent places to live.

Automobiles. There are more cars in America than people. The gasoline to propel them is cheaper than in any other industrialized country. And we have the finest, longest, widest road system in the world and in the history of the world to drive them on. We can travel distances in a day that takes weeks in other parts of the world.

Longevity. At no other time and no other place on Earth have ordinary people had the prospect of living as long and healthily as in the USA. Conditions and diseases that would have been a death sentence 40 years ago are routinely dealt with and the patient sent home, cured.

Freedom. In America, we have the right to say almost anything we want, do almost anything we want to do, and go almost anywhere we want to go. The civil rights of the average person is protected and looked after more closely than in any other country at any time in history.

Choice of rulers. We have the right to select the people who govern us, and if they don't please us, we can throw them out and choose someone else. It is called voting.

We are blessed with more material wealth,long life, and freedom than any other group of people in the history of Mankind.

Thank you GOD!

Gowain

Female Genital Mutilation in Egypt, Its a big deal!

2004-09-19T21:34:00.000-05:00

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has an interesting article on the controversy raging in Egypt about Female Genital Mutilation.

Here's a discription of FGM from the article "The practice involves the excision of the external genitalia, most often the clitoris."

And this little tidbit: "According to demographic surveys conducted in Egypt in 1995 and 2001, 97 percent of married women of childbearing age had been circumcised."

And this: "The Prophet [Muhammad] commanded women to perform circumcision using the expression, 'Perform circumcision for girls.'" This phrase, he says, includes a clear endorsement of circumcision under specific circumstances, while understanding the difficulty and complexity of the issue regarding girls: "Removing the entire organ that causes the woman pleasure clearly contradicts the pure Sunna [tradition of the Prophet], because this is likely to cause disease and emotional complications to girls, and thus prevent them from realizing their natural rights. Conversely, not performing the circumcision is likely [to] cause girls infections and sometimes even diseases."

Apparently there is quite a to and fro about it. Here are some paragraph headers:

"First Lady Suzanne Mubarak: 'Women's Humanity Must No Longer be Forfeit'"

"Former Al-Azhar Sheikh: 'Nothing Religious, Moral, or Medical Requires Circumcising Girls'"

"Possible Actions Against the Practice of Circumcising Girls"

"The Islamists – Proponents of Circumcising Girls: 'Circumcision is the Merit of Girls'"

"Dr. Ahmad Suleiman of Cairo University: 'Circumcising a Girl Brings Modesty, Honor, and Emotional Balance'"

"Circumcising Girls Prevents AIDS and Prostitution"

"The Attempt to Prevent Circumcising Girls is a Western Conspiracy"

"Circumcising Girls Prevents Unnatural Sexual Pleasure"

"The Religious Establishment – No Definitive Stand"

Read the whole thing: MEMRI.org