I’ve waited a week to write this piece. It has taken me this long to get enough perspective to say what I want to say, and to relate the stories in a way that I think does them justice. It has also taken me this long to get my life back in order so that I can really take the necessary time to do it right.

Let’s go back to last Wednesday, September 21. At 5:00 PM we got a reminder call from the city of Seabrook, telling us that our evacuation time was 6:00 PM. Well, we were ready to be on the road by 6:45, and so left our home to catch the evacuation rout to the area we planned to stay – Beltway 8 to Hardy Toll Road to I-45, and thence through Dallas-Fort Worth to Ardmore, Oklahoma. At 7:00 we got on the Beltway at Fairmont Parkway in Pasadena. It was then that Hell began.

By 10:30, we had traveled along the Beltway to I-10 – a grand total of 11 miles that would usually take about 12 minutes to drive. It didn’t get much better, as we spent the night talking about how we would rebuild our house (10 feet above sea level, 4 blocks from Galveston Bay) after the Category 5 storm sent a 25 foot storm surge into our neighborhood. I know that I cried as we talked about rebuilding our lives, and I think I saw a couple of tears in Paula’s eyes as well.

By 7:00 the next morning, we had only been able to creep a total of 45 miles to I-45 and Rayford Road, which is usually less than a 1 hour trip. We were sucking fumes, and there was not an open gas station in sight. When road service dispatched a tow truck to bring me gas, they had none – but the owner of the garage was kind enough to tell the driver to bring us in to the shop, where they had gas in storage tanks to use in generators. Those two gallons of gas that Paula and I were given were heaven-sent, and I would like to thank the wonderful folks from Milstead Automotive in Spring, TX for their kindness and generosity, especially since they would not even take money for the gas. That was the first act of true kindness and compassion that I encountered in what was shaping up to be a really lousy day.

Back on the road by 8:00 AM on Thursday, it seemed to me that we might get lucky and find gas – but my hopes were pretty dim. But around 11:00, having traveled about another 10 miles, we happened upon a Sam’s Club with full gas tanks, so we were set.

And then the unthinkable happened. At 2:10 PM, just past the Outlet Mall in Conroe, TX (about 65 miles from where we got on the Beltway 19 hours before) we felt a jolt from behind. A Dodge Ram pickup had hit my new car (a Suzuki Forenza) from behind. The driver not only did not stop, but he and his girlfriend/wife smiled and waved at us as they pulled around us into an open spot in the next lane and drove off. Paula, with her medical history, was transported to the hospital in Conroe for treatment in the ER, and was released about 4:45 PM. At that point, aching and exhausted, I called one of my colleagues who lives in Conroe and asked for a place to stay the night. Ann, her husband Doug, and her daughters treated us so very kindly that evening, and sent us on the way the next morning with directions that got us away from I-45 and over to Highway 6, through Bryan-College Station, and on to I-35 at Waco.

The rest of the trip was relatively easy. We met some great folks at the volunteer fire department in Marlin, TX, where the Red Cross and the fire department had set up a rest stop for evacuees. When we left, they were trying to find shelter for an extended family of about 40 who were traveling together, as well as helping them get some medication that had run out.

At last we reached the Super 8 in Ardmore, which was the closest place we could find that would let us bring our dog, Carmie, with us. Upon arrival, we found that the manager had not only held our room for us, but had moved us into a room that would be better for Paula after the accident. We watched the storm make landfall, and were happy to see coverage from Nassau Bay (Fox News) and Baytown (MSNBC) that confirmed that the storm would not do great damage to our home.

We stayed through the weekend and drove home Monday. We had to do a lot of “on the fly” navigation to make sure that we were not caught in traffic, and made it home in about 9 or 10 hours.

Would I evacuate again? Yeah, I would. I’d prefer to take the back roads rather than follow the recommended evacuation routes, but I know I cannot stay in my house when the big one is expected to come blowing. I might even be willing to go as far as Oklahoma again – but I will probably want to make my reservations sooner so that I don’t have to.

My evaluation of the state and local response is mixed. I think the plan worked well on the drawing board, but had several flaws, many of which have been commented upon since the evacuation. I do, however, want to comment on them to make it part of the public record here on the blogosphere.

First, I believe the contraflow lanes should have been opened at the same time the evacuation began – and certainly no later than Wednesday night, when the evacuation was in full swing. Had this been done at 8:00 PM on Wednesday rather than noon on Thursday, much of the congestion would have cleared up during the overnight hours.

Second, there needed to be more gas available readily available. One of the most infuriating things I heard on the radio was Governor Perry’s comment that “some people obviously did not follow my directions” to make sure their gas tank was full. I head this some 16 hours into my trip, having traveled no further than 50 miles and having burned a full tank of gas in the process. I had left home with gas enough to reach any of the state designated evacuation states, and even to make it to the site of my choice in Oklahoma. What I could not plan for was the gridlock.

Third, I believe that there needed to be more professional behavior from some members of law enforcement. We passed one constable on the Hardy Toll Road (I believe a Harris County Precinct 4 officer, but I could be wrong) playing solitaire on his in-vehicle computer. We honked the horn, but he would not even acknowledge us. When he did, about 30 minutes later, respond to a group of vehicles that were stalled on the side of the road next to us, we shouted a question to ask about gasoline availability. He simply laughed at us and shouted “good luck”. I suggest this pot-bellied, white-haired constable with a mustache (if this isn't him, then his twin also works for Precinct 4) probably needs to be retired by his boss, Constable Ron Hickman – and if action isn’t taken, perhaps Hickman needs to be retired by the voters for poor management of his officers during the crisis.

Lastly, I think there needs to be consideration of the use of other highways besides those suggested for evacuation. State officials knew that I-35 was running freely – but never put up suggestions that we could find better traffic if we went only 30 minutes west on a smaller highway. What’s more, most of the towns along those roads had gasoline, which would have solved a second problem. The problem was that none of those roads began in Harris County, so the planners didn’t think about directing people to them. That needs to be reconsidered, with additional state involvement and coordination to make the plan truly regional.

Ultimately, I have to say that we were very lucky in the Houston area. The storm turned in a manner that we never expected. The area was saved, at a high cost to others in the region. The people of Houston were generous with those harmed by Katrina, and I fully expect that generosity to continue with those whose lives were disrupted by Rita.

And let me say “Thank you” to all who offered up prayers or kind thoughts, during this time, when we needed them desperately – and also to my guest blogger, Rhodey, to the lurker from Bryan who out of the blue offered my family shelter (you don’t know how touched we were by the offer, but I didn’t get the message until we had reached Ardmore), and to all who just looked in to see how we were doing.

Finally, some more media coverage of the case of Seabrook City Councilman Rick Sammons' arrest on weapons charges back in July. All charges have been dropped.

During City Council's Sept. 20 meeting, Sammons, 36, who is not eligible for re-election in May because of term limits, made his first public comments about his arrest.

Reading from a prepared statement, he said he was awakened by the sound of a man's voice in Sammons' home on July 23 about 12:30 a.m., which prompted him to grab a gun to "protect my family and my property."

Sammons said the man's voice was that of his neighbor, who told him there was a situation at the man's home he was "unable to control."

Sammons said he went to the neighbor's home, where he discovered a domestic dispute between his neighbors.

He said he then left the residence to return to his home and in doing so, encountered the sister of one of those involved in the squabble.

"I (informed) her I had a gun and I was going back into my house," Sammons said in his statement.

Shortly thereafter, he said, Seabrook police arrived.

He said he walked out of his home to talk to them about the situation, but was quickly arrested.

"The officer immediately read me my rights and put me in the back of the squad car and explained I was being charged with deadly conduct," Sammons said in his statement.

Now this is all well and good,, but I am still quite concerned about the media coverage -- or, more accurately, the lack thereof -- of this situation.

Other than scanty coverage in a couple of locations, there was no coverage of the arrest. There were no follow-up stories about the case in any media source. It was as if a great curtain of silence had descended around the incident.

It lead me to wonder what other stories are not being covered in the Houston press.

There have long been questions about the location of Ithaca, the home of Homer’s great hero, Odysseus. Scholars may have found it.

Homer's legendary hero Odysseus wandered for 10 years in search of his island kingdom, Ithaca. Now, a British amateur archaeologist claims to have ended the ancient quest to locate the land described in "The Odyssey."

Although the western Greek island of Ithaki is generally accepted as the Homeric site, scholars have long been troubled by a mismatch between its location and geography and those of the Ithaca described by Ancient Greece's greatest poet.

Robert Bittlestone, a management consultant, said Thursday that the peninsula of Paliki on the Ionian island of Cephallonia, near Ithaki, was the most likely location for Odysseus' homeland. He said geological and historic evidence suggested Paliki used to form a separate island before earthquakes and landslides filled in a narrow sea channel dividing it from Cephallonia.

"Other theories have assumed that the landscape today is the same as in the Bronze Age, and that Homer perhaps didn't know the landscape very well," Bittlestone told a central London news conference. "But what if the mismatch was because the geography has in fact changed?"

Two eminent British academics said they backed Bittlestone's theory. They have co-written his book, "Odysseus Unbound -- The Search for Homer's Ithaca."

James Diggle, a professor of Greek and Latin at Cambridge University, said the hypothesis worked because it explained why in one passage Homer describes Ithaca as "low-lying" and "towards dusk," i.e. lying to the west of a group of islands including Cephallonia and Zakynthos.

The Paliki peninsula is largely flat and connects to Cephallonia's west coast, whereas Ithaki is mountainous and lies to the east. Bittlestone's theory suggests that Ithaki corresponds to the island Homer calls Doulichion.

"I have never for once doubted that the theory is right because it explains all the details," Diggle told The Associated Press.

Cool stuff!

Look at this find from Creete -- life-size statues of Hera and Athena found in their original setting!

The works, representing the goddesses Athena and Hera, date to between the second and fourth centuries - during the period of Roman rule in Greece - and originally decorated the Roman theater in the town of Gortyn, archaeologist Anna Micheli from the Italian School of Archaeology told The Associated Press.

"They are in very good condition," she said, adding that the statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom, was complete, while Hera - long-suffering wife of Zeus, the philandering king of gods - was headless.

"But we hope to find the head in the surrounding area," Micheli said.

Standing six feet high with their bases, the works were discovered Tuesday by a team of Italian and Greek archaeologists excavating the ruined theater of Gortyn, about 27 miles south of Iraklion in central Crete.

Micheli said the goddesses were toppled from their plinths by a powerful earthquake around A.D. 367 that destroyed the theater and much of the town.

The statues fell off the stage, and were found just in front of their original position, she said.

"This is one of the rare cases when such works are discovered in the building where they initially stood," she added.

Hopes are high that other parts of the theater's sculptural decoration will emerge during future excavations.

"Digging has stopped due to the finds, but we suspect there may be more statues in the area," she said.

The town where the statues were found, Gortyn, has been occupied since around 3000 BC, and was a major center of the Minoan civilization that predated the Mycenaean Greece of Homer. It later served as the Roman capital of Crete, and was one of the cities in which St. Titus would have preached the Gospel.

Colorado Senator Ken Salazar is a lying political hack who will break his word to the voters of Colorado and his fellow senators if President Bush nominates either of two highly qualified female jurists to the Supreme Court.

Saying President Bush sometimes acts "like a king," Sen. Ken Salazar warned Friday that he would vehemently oppose Bush's next Supreme Court pick if it turns out to be one of two controversial U.S. Circuit Court judges or someone else he considers an unqualified ideologue.

During a conference call with reporters, Salazar said he would oppose Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla Owen, two circuit court judges the U.S. Senate recently installed on the bench following a blistering confirmation process.

By singling out Brown and Owen, Salazar made his most specific warning to the White House yet, calling for more advance consultation before the president makes a nomination to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

"This president, frankly, sometimes acts like a king," Salazar said. "He's imperious. He believes he controls Washington and controls our country, and does so sometimes in a way that, it's his way or the highway, and doesn't take into account what other people are thinking...when they have a different point of view or are (from) a different party."

Salazar wants the president to take an unprecedented step of publicly releasing its so-called "short list" of Supreme Court candidates before making an official nomination, which could come at any time.

"I have never filibustered a judicial nominee and I hope that I never have to," Salazar said. "I'd hope that if the president does move forward with someone like Janice Rogers Brown, many Republicans would join us in basically telling the president, 'No, we won't accept somebody who is professionally unqualified and is an ideologue...'"

But hold on, Senator – you told the voters of Colorado that you would give nominees an up or down vote. You also signed on to an agreement that specifically allowed Owen and Brown to be confirmed to their respective appellate seats and promising not to use the filibuster. Are you telling us that your word to your fellow senators is no good – and that you allowed two “unqualified” nominees to be placed on the federal courts when you made that agreement? Oh, and by the way, on what basis do you call them unqualified, given their many years of distinguished judicial service on the highest courts of their respective states – as well as their approval by the ABA, which leading Democrats once called the “gold standard” for judicial nominees?

No, Ken, it is clear that you are a partisan hack who lacks the integrity to abide by his word. Resign from office, sir, and allow the people of Colorado to elect someone worthy to serve in the Senate.

Talk about an outrage! How could this guy even be considered for the position of chaplain with the New York City Fire Department?

An imam slated to be sworn in Friday as the second Muslim chaplain in Fire Department history said he questioned whether 19 hijackers were responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and suggested a broader conspiracy may have brought down the Twin Towers and killed more than 2,700 people.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Imam Intikab Habib, 30, a native of Guyana who studied Islam in Saudi Arabia, said he doubted the United States government's official story blaming 19 hijackers associated with al-Quaida and Osama bin Laden.

"I as an individual don't know who did the attacks," said Habib, 30, a soft-spoken man who immigrated to New York in July 2000 after spending six years in Saudi Arabia getting a degree in Islamic theology and law. "There are so many conflicting reports about it. I don't believe it was 19 ... hijackers who did those attacks."

Asked to elaborate on his reasons for doubting that story, he talked about video and news reports widely disseminated in the Muslim community.

"I've heard professionals say that nowhere ever in history did a steel building come down with fire alone," he said. "It takes two or three weeks to demolish a building like that. But it was pulled down in a couple of hours. Was it 19 hijackers who brought it down, or was it a conspiracy?"

Actually, that isn’t true. There are not that many conflicting reports – virtually the whole world agrees that the attack as a bin Laden production. Heck, Osama himself claims responsibility. The only folks who deny that the attack was an Islamist production are those with an anti-American or anti-Semitic (or both) agenda.

Questioned about who he believed was responsible for the attacks, Habib said he didn't know. He said, however, that he did not expect to raise his doubts with rank-and-file firefighters -- nor did he share them two weeks ago when he participated in several Sept. 11 memorials on behalf of the Fire Department.

"My position as a chaplain is that whoever did it, it's a tragic incident," he said. "I feel sorrow for the families who lost loved ones and for the firefighters who died in it. Whoever did it, it was a very wrong thing. It's always wrong to take an innocent human life."

Sorry – not good enough. If you cannot even acknowledge the fact that your co-religionists murdered hundreds of firefighters in the name of Islam, then you do not belong with FDNY. You are the moral equivalent of a Holocaust denier, and the city has a responsibility to reject you as unfit to serve.

UPDATE: Good news! The defender of Islamist terrorists has stepped aside.

Now let’s deport him. There is no place for terrorist apologists in this country.

Looks like the sensitivities of Muslims override the preferences of infidels in parts of Great Britain.

NOVELTY pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office — in case they offend Muslim staff.

Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.

Bosses acted after a Muslim complained about pig-shaped stress relievers delivered to the council in the run-up to the Islamic festival of Ramadan.

Muslims are barred from eating pork in the Koran and consider pigs unclean.

Councillor Mahbubur Rahman, a practising Muslim, backed the ban. He said: “It’s a tolerance of people’s beliefs.”

I'm curious -- in light of the campaign of murder conducted by Muslims against Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims, will our sensitivities be respected -- by banning all Muslim symbols and all Muslims from governemt offices? After all, what's sauce for the infidel boar is sauce for the Muslim sow.

Christians around the world face persecution from those who hate the Christian faith. Some end up jailed for their faith. One place to find out about such modern-day martyrs is through Voice of the Martyrs and their excellent blog. This item from the blog recently caught my eye.

I want to thank those of you who have written to the prisoners so far. Yesterday we started around 286 on the Prisoner Alert page and now the number is 325! That's very good and encouraging, and I know these precious sisters will be encouraged too.

Please remember to tell your friends and let's keep this challenge going!

Yes, the internet can be used to encourage our imprisoned brothers and sisters in Christ, and to loby government officials for their release! To learn more, click here.

One more denial of human rights for Chinese Catholics -- one more reason to sanction the Chinese for their failure to live up to even the most minimal standards of religious freedom for those Catholics who follow the Pope and not Beijing in matters of religion.

The four Catholic bishops from mainland China who were named by Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) to participate in the upcoming Synod of Bishops will not be allowed by their government to attend, the AsiaNews service has confirmed.

With the Synod discussions opening in Rome on Sunday, October 2, none of the four bishops has obtained a passport, AsiaNews found. One of the four, Bishop Luke Li Jingfeng of Fengxiang, conceded that there is "very little" hope he can participate in the Synod.

Bishop Joseph Wei Jingyi of Qiqihar has been asking government officials every day for a passport. But local government officials told AsiaNews that the passport would not be granted-- and even claimed that "China and the Vatican agreed" on this decision.

AsiaNews said that the main opposition to the bishops' participation in the Synod appeared to come from the Catholic Patriotic Association, the government-approved body that aims to control the Church in China, maintaining its independence from the Holy See.

More information here.

We are back. I got the computer up and running this afternoon, but simply don't feel like making a long entry tonight.

What I will say -- for now -- is that we have virtually no damage (if it totals up to $500 I'll be surprised). Paula and I are well, though she is very sore after a miserable trip. Carmie has found her favorite spot to curl up under foot is still there, safe and dry. I go back to school tomorrow.

Many thanks to my guest blogger, Rhodey, for his keeping ths site alive while I was gone.

I will simply say that I now know that I have been blessed in many ways.

Got a phone message from Greg while the family and I were out this afternoon: Good news! Greg heard from a person in his hometown, and there was minimal damage reported there. The power is actually still on in his neighborhood! Obviously, that's a verrrry good sign. Looks like he'll be back on his way home tomorrow, although his school will be closed until Wednesday.

I got a call from Greg last night around 9:30pm ET. He and the family are doing fine -- they're safe and sound in Oklahoma. Did you see those massive traffic jams heading away from Houston? Greg was in 'em. It took him approximately 32 hours to drive a mere -- ready? -- 400 miles. 32 hours. Ugh.

At any rate, he wanted me to forward this info to y'all since he will be without an Internet connection for the time being. Keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

After President Bush briefed reporters about Hurricane Rita, a reporter asks him "Sir, what good can you do going down to the hurricane zone? Might you get in the way?"

After a sensible response, another reporter (maybe the same one) yells "Well, critics are saying this is an overcompensation for the response to Katrina."

Just. Can't. Win.

Hey all -- Rhodey here from The Colossus of Rhodey. Greg is still in transit, evacuating from the incoming Hurricane Rita, so he said I could throw a few posts in here every now and then until his return.

Those Air America nutcases just can't seem to get a decent analogy right. And that's putting it nicely. AA's Randi Rhodes recently compared to the evacuation of people from Hurricane Katrina to the Holocaust:

CALLER (continuing): The thing that really killed me was the fact that when they bussed some of them out of the Dome. They loaded them on the bus, and they wouldn't tell them where they were going.

RANDI: Yeah. What is that?

CALLER: That is like when you transfer prisoners to one --

RANDI (interrupting): Actually, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of a little visit I made to the Holocaust Museum, and I saw these cattle cars.

CALLER: Yes!

RANDI: And they took people to go on them, but they didn't tell them where they were going.

CALLER: Yes! They do that to prisoners. If they're taking prisoners from one high-security prison to another, they do not --

RANDI: So, what are you supposed to do? Just do a "faith-based evacuation"? (Changing voice, as if an evacuee) "I'm sure he wouldn't send me to Auschwitz."

CALLER: Yeaaw! But why were these people patted down? There was an assumption of criminality made because they were poor and they were black --

RANDI: Check this out. Let's just -- Think about it this way. People were taken one place. Their children were taken another place. THIS IS SO MUCH LIKE THE HOLOCAUST. I can't even -- You know, it's like, you're not supposed to forget the Holocaust so that it can't happen again. And here you have people being loaded onto transportation vehicles, not being told where they're going, and their children are being taken someplace else ...

If you've ever wondered why, given that President Bush's approval ratings are dismal, the Left just cannot gain any ground on him or other conservatives, just consider this idiot Rhodes and the other cretins that gab on Air America.

This is not good news.

Hurricane Rita intensified into a Category 4 storm today with winds of 135 mph, deepening concerns that the storm could devastate coastal Texas and already-battered Louisiana by week's end.

Mandatory evacuations have already been ordered for New Orleans and Galveston today, one day after Rita skirted past the Florida Keys as a Category 2 storm, causing minimal damage.

I'm halfway between Galveston and Houston proper -- this is not good at all.

NOTE: The Houston Chronicle is operating two very good blogs dealing with Hurricane Rita -- Sci Guy and Huricane Rita. How long they reamin up is, of course,an open question, givent he coming of the storm and its intensity.

UPDATE DURING LUNCH (2;30 PM) -- In light of current projections, Paula, Carmie and I will pull the trigger at midnight, regardless of what is left undone. It is eight hours -- at least -- to Huntsville, and that is only about 100 miles from here. Hopefully traffic will thin out then, but who knows?, given the mandatory evacuations kicking in.

Traffic crawled along Houston's freeways today as officials ordered the mandatory evacuation of vulnerable areas in advance of Hurricane Rita, which was chugging toward the Gulf Coast as a dangerous Category 4 storm.

Mayor Bill White and County Judge Robert Eckels said today that some mandatory evacuations would begin at 6 p.m. They encouraged residents to leave voluntarily if possible before the evacuations become mandatory, and it was clear that thousands of residents were heeding the advice.

Traffic was especially heavy on the south end of Interstate 45, the main evacuation route from Galveston and the Clear Lake area, moving somewhat faster north of Loop 610. Speeds averaged about 20 mph on I-45 through Houston.

Although evacuees departing during rush hour this morning reported arriving in Dallas in the usual five hours, as of 1:30 p.m., it was taking at least two hours just to get from Galveston to Houston on I-45, AAA reported.

One reason so many residents were trying to get out of town before they had to: Once a mandatory evacuation begins, residents will no longer get to choose their own evacuation routes. Roads will be blocked off to funnel traffic to evacuation shelters in designated cities further inland according to a resident's zone.

Michelle Malkin has a good piece on some differences from Katrina.

Plywood, screws, and tools are purchased -- I start to boarding the place up in the morning.

Hotel reservations are made and confirmed.

Evacuation route is printed and placed where it cannot be forgotten.

We are supposed to evacuate within 30 hourse of this post.

I don't know when I will post next, or where I will be.

Pray for Paula, Carmie, and I -- and for the rest of us in Rita's path.

I just hope I will have a home to come home to -- and that it will be fit to live in.

Is she coming to visit?

We don’t know, yet, but she may stay to the south of us, which means tropical storm-like weather instead of a Category 3 storm that would require evacuation.

Keep packing that suitcase and hold off on a sigh of relief, but the National Hurricane Center's latest official forecast names the stretch of coast just north of Matagorda Island as Hurricane Rita's most likely target instead of Galveston.

With landfall on the Gulf Coast not expected until Friday night, meteorologists caution that predictions remain unreliable: Long-range forecasts such as this are typically off by hundreds of miles, and different computer models call for different landfalls. Morever, the overnight course shift is small, so preparations continue in the danger zone from Brownsville to Lake Charles, La.

"We're definitely not out of the woods yet," said Kent Prochazka, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in League City.

If Rita does in fact hit closer to Matagorda than Galveston as a Category 3 hurricane, the Houston area would be in for high winds, heavy rain and possibly tornadoes, but that wouldn't be as dangerous for Houston as a direct hit on Galveston, Prochazka said.

Instead of devastating Galveston and then moving over downtown Houston still packing the 100 mph winds of a Category 2 hurricane, a hurricane making landfall near Matagorda would to be expected to roll over Houston with tropical force winds in the 70 mph range.

"The difference between that and making landfall in Galveston is huge," Prochazka said.

I made hotel reservations for our evacuation tonight, and the closest I could get was in the Ardmore, Oklahoma. – “only” 400 miles from home. Here’s hoping I get to call and cancel them rather than bugging-out.

Oh, and by the way – only four more storms until they run out of names for the year – meaning we could see “Hurricane Alpha” in the event we get five more this year.

A group of old soldiers gathered the other day to keep alive the memory one of their own -- 2nd Lt. Robert Ronald Leisy, who gave his life in Vietnam at age 24 so that others might live.

The day Leisy died, a reconnaissance squad of eight or nine men scouting a valley strayed into a North Vietnamese regiment of several hundred men and were being cut to pieces.

"We aren't going to leave those guys down there," Leisy said.

In the face of withering fire, Leisy raced to position his men and was moving with Baillargeon, calling in artillery, to the front of the line.

" 'Bernie, this is like the valley of the Little Big Horn.' That's the last thing he said to me," Baillargeon remembers.

And then Leisy saw a North Vietnamese sniper in a tree aim and fire a B-40 rocket at them.

In a fraction of a second, he smothered Baillargeon with his body. Gene Clark, 57 and a retired Macomb, Ill., police officer, was the medic who braved bullets to save lives that day. He saw that one of Leisy's hands was gone, his leg and abdomen shredded.

"He said, 'I'm not going to make it, am I?' " Clark recalls.

Yet Leisy continued to direct the fight, waving off Clark to help others.
Leisy was strapped into a litter, but the fighting was so intense no helicopter could approach, and he died within three hours.

Leisy’s heroism was recognized by a grateful nation when he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1971.

It seems to me like this FEC attempt to cripple the Club for Growth should wake up every American who believes that citizens have a right to participate in the electoral process.

The Federal Election Commission yesterday filed its first court challenge against so-called "527 groups," suing a powerhouse Republican advocacy group for violating campaign-finance laws from 2000 to 2004.

The FEC charges that the Club for Growth raised and spent at least $4 million more than the limit, and so the group should have had to register as a political committee and abide by donation and spending limits. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

"This litigation is an important test case on when 527 groups are required to register with the FEC and follow hard-dollar restrictions in federal law," said Michael E. Toner, the commission's vice chairman.

The 527 groups, named for the part of tax code that governs them, played a major role in the 2004 election, the first under the campaign finance rules that Congress passed in 2002. Those rules were intended to eliminate so-called "soft money," the large donations that political parties and interest groups used to flood the airwaves with issue ads.

Instead, the parties have to rely on limited "hard dollar" contributions.

The FEC justifies this action by saying that the Club for Growth refused to make a compromise agreement with the agency.

In the complaint, the FEC said it tried to work out an agreement with the club, but the organization would not agree to a remedy. The FEC is considering action against other 527s.

Any compromise would, of course, include limits upon the organization to engage in robust and unfettered political speech of the type envisioned by the Founders who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I think that the group’s president, former Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Toomey, has it right when he describes this action as an act of war against the First Amendment. To compromise, which would effectively be a surrender, would be a betrayal of the Club for Growth’s limited government principles.

I think the solution that needs to be adopted here needs to be framed along the following language.

Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . . .

Short, simple, and in harmony with our nation’s founding documents, this standard would make it clear that the FEC has only one task – closing up shop and ending its unconstitutional interference with the political speech of Americans.

I’ve never figured out why this guy in a costume enrages so many mouth-breathers out there.

The taunts, nasty gestures and occasional Frisbee or soda can tossed his way don't ruffle Kyle Lincecum's feathers. But days like Sunday, when he was pummeled and sent sprawling into the path of busy Fry Road traffic, make him feel like an endangered species.

Lincecum, 20, is the guy inside the oversized green and orange bird suit whose loony antics lure the weekend crowds to the Mattresses for Less store at Fry and the Katy Freeway. The Sunday afternoon attack, which pitted a young assailant against Lincecum in his 12-foot-tall Citrus bird suit, brought traffic to a screeching halt.

The assault was the second time in his 2 1/2 -year career as an advertising bird that Lincecum has been pitched into traffic. But there have been other attacks; in January 2004, he was featured in the Houston Chronicle after being assaulted by a gang of skateboard-riding teens.

"Like every job," Lincecum said Monday, "this one has its ups and downs."

Uhhhh—yeah. Folks trying to kill you while you are trapped in a 12-foot-tall aluminum mesh and fake-fur costume certainly qualifies as a down-side in my book. Is the up-side the opportunity to stand out in Houston’s often-unbearable heat and humidity while wearing the costume?

In recent weeks, we have heard that it is racially discriminatory public policy for the GOP to insist that photo ID should be required to vote. So what does the private bi-partisan Commission on Federal Election Reform urge as one of the tools to make sure the exercise of the right to vote easier and more secure?

Warning that public confidence in the nation's election system is flagging, a commission headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James A. Baker III today will call for significant changes in how Americans vote, including photo IDs for all voters, verifiable paper trails for electronic voting machines and impartial administration of elections.

Now I like some of these proposals, but not all of them. But notice, please, the call for photo ID. Are we to believe that those on the commission who supported this recommendation, including Carter, are crypto-racists who want to disenfranchise black voters? Or are they patriots who are seeking to ensure that Americans can vote in an easy, secure manner?

Stephen Markman supplies us with a vocabulary list of words and phrases to use to discern judicial activism. Some examples follow.

Spirit of the Law: Where the actual language of the law is incompatible with the policy preferences of a judge, it is not uncommon for a judge to claim that the “spirit of the law” nonetheless compels the preferred result. A judge may invoke such a “spirit” as a basis for decision-making as if somehow, via this necromancy, that which is not within the law may be conjured into it. Opinions relying upon a "spirit," nowhere incorporated in the actual language of the law, should be scrutinized carefully.

Balancing: The process of “balancing” rights and interests is predominantly a legislative, not a judicial, function. When, in the course of interpreting the law, a judge purports to engage in a “balancing” determination, more often than not he has misconstrued one of the allegedly-competing rights or interests. Concluding that one interest or right is entitled to a 30-percent weight, instead of a 70-percent weight in the “balancing” process not only constitutes an essentially standard-less, legislative decision, but it also implicitly concedes that neither of the rights or interests established by the lawmaker will be accorded full respect.

Public Policy: A judge will often resort to “public policy” as a basis for disregarding the words of the law. Unless such policy is grounded in the actual words of some law, this is simply another way for a judge to replace the determination of the lawmaker with his own determination of what the law ought to be. The most reliable basis for ascertaining “public policy” is for a judge not to examine his own sense of conscience, but to examine the principle repository of such policies in a democratic society, the actual enactments of representative, public bodies.

Notice, please, that each of these is based upon the premise that something other than the text of the Constitution or the law in question is superior to the text or texts being examined. That ultimately becomes the judge’s sense of what ought to be, rather than the views of the legislative and executive branches of government or of the people themselves. Thus, to take one example, the spirit of the laws forbidding racial discrimination requires racial discrimination as a matter of implementing a public policy of affirmative action, which balances the rights of minorities to preferential discrimination in a manner that outweighs the rights of non-minorities to non-discriminatory under the Constitution and the nation’s civil rights laws.

Well, this certainly settles matters. Gwyneth Paltrow has spoken on the policies of George W. Bush and found them wanting.

"I've always been drawn to Europe. America is such a young country, with an adolescent swagger about it," she said.

"But I feel that I have a more European sensibility, a greater respect for the multicultural nature of the globe. And it's a strange time to be an American now."
"I feel like we're really in trouble. I just had a baby and thought 'I don't want to live there.' Bush's anti-environment, pro-war policies are a disgrace."

I mean, what is the purpose of having any further discussions on the issue. After all, America’s most prominent and revered political commentators pointed out the obvious some years ago.

Actors – is there anything they don’t know?

Thank you, Homer Simpson, for helping us understand why we should heed Ms. Paltrow’s sagacious utterances.

Looks like we have one senator who cannot understand basic concepts from Economics 101.

Righteously incensed over the price of gas, government on all levels is springing into action.

Congress has been busiest of all, conducting hearings, holding news conferences and drafting legislation. One bill being written by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., would make price gouging a federal offense and heavily fine violators. Another bill to be introduced in the House will call for increased fuel efficiency, and still another, to be introduced in both houses, would impose a windfall profit tax on oil companies.

So, we are now going to have a federal law dictating gas prices? Does this mean that we will see the ever-efficient federal government telling us what acceptable profits are, no doub via an efficiet bureaucratic structure akin to the Post Office?

And listen to Senator Cantwell's reasoning for her bill.

"We need to make price gouging illegal," Cantwell said Wednesday. "We need to make sure that there is a federal price-gouging law on the books, so that in times of national emergencies, oil companies aren't tempted to rake in outrageous profits."

Cantwell is seasoned by her experience with the West Coast electrical crisis of 2001, when Enron traders manipulated the market in California and drove prices to record highs across the West.

In that case, she says, government regulators insisted that spiraling prices were the result of normal market forces. Only years later was it proven that energy traders manufactured the crisis.

Cantwell sees a parallel in the price of gas.

"Oil barons are making $200 million a day in profits," she said. "There is absolutely no reason for gas to go up in Washington as the result of a hurricane."

The problem is that there were sound economic reasons for prices to go up after the hurricane. The reason was an increase in demand and a perceived decrease of supply.

Let me explain.

As Katrina smashed into the Gulf Coast, we were told to expect a decrease in production, combined with shortages. Suddenly, the value of inventory on hand went up as the expected cost of replacing that inventory also increased. A prudent businessman in such a situation raises his prices accordingly because of questions regarding the supply of his product. In this case, that meant an increase in gas prices based upon an expected increase in wholesale gas prices.

At the same time, hearing of a potential shortage, people all over the country rushed out to buy gasoline. I know I did after getting a frantic concerned ( I am reliably informed by said wife that she was NOT frantic, therefore I retract the earlier characterization in the interest of marital bliss) call from my wife about possible shortages due to the expected disruption of production in the New Orleans area. And as anyone who got a C or higher in Economics 101 knows, increased demand leads to higher prices. Station owners raised prices accordingly.

But let's look what happened.

During the last week of August, I was paying $2.52 a gallon at the corner station. By the end of that week, gasoline was up to $2.99 at the same station due to market forces. The the following Monday, they had dropped back to $2.85 -- and one local station had gas for $2.79. Yesterday I could buy gas at the place on the corner for $2.57. Given recent oil price fluctuations and minor supply disruptions, this is not an unreasonable increase from what the prices were three or four weeks ago, especially considering we are all now aware that there is no real shortage, simply a perceived one that created a panic-induced spike in prices. In other words, Adam Smith's invisible hand has worked just like it is supposed.

Maria Cantwell, of course, doesn't get this. She sees these price increases as the nefarious actions of unethical businessmen and women -- she calls them "oil barons". I call them capitalists -- and I call her a socialist. She wants us to live in a land of governent controlled prices. I prefer to live in a land of free markets. But then again, I can understand the basics of economics, and Cantwell can't.

John Paul the Great's final words were released to the world today.

"Let me go to the house of the Father."

I cannot help but believe that the late pontiff's final words were an invocation of Psalm 122.

1 A song of ascents. Of David. I rejoiced when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD."

2 And now our feet are standing within your gates, Jerusalem.

3 Jerusalem, built as a city, walled round about.

4 Here the tribes have come, the tribes of the LORD, As it was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.

5 Here are the thrones of justice, the thrones of the house of David.

6 For the peace of Jerusalem pray: "May those who love you prosper!

7 May peace be within your ramparts, prosperity within your towers."

8 For family and friends I say, "May peace be yours."

9 For the house of the LORD, our God, I pray, "May blessings be yours."

Indeed -- may we all go, rejoicing, to the house of the Lord.

This line from K. M. Semmel's Washington Post column sort of leaped out at me.

For me, voting Democratic has always been a no-brainer.

[INSERT YOUR JOKE HERE]

You have to wonder if the lack of hurricane and flood preparedness in Louisiana might have had something to do with state and local government corruption. After all, charges were already pending before the Katrina hit. It seems that$60 million in FMA funds granted to the the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness are missing -- and the federal government had requested the return of $30.4 million back in March.

Much of the FEMA money that was unaccounted for was sent to Louisiana under the Hazard Mitigation Grant program, intended to help states retrofit property and improve flood control facilities, for example.

The $30.4 million FEMA is demanding back was money paid into that program and others, including a program to buy out flood-prone homeowners. As much as $30 million in additional unaccounted for spending also is under review in audits that have not yet been released, according to a FEMA official.

One 2003 federal investigation of allegedly misspent funds in Ouachita Parish, a district in northern Louisiana, grew into a probe that sprawled into more than 20 other parishes.

Mark Smith, a spokesman for the Louisiana emergency office, said the agency had responded to calls for reform, and that "we now have the policy and personnel in place to ensure that past problems aren't repeated."

He said earlier problems were largely administrative mistakes, not due to corruption.

But federal officials disagreed. They said FEMA for years expressed concerns over patterns of improper management and lax oversight throughout the state agency, and said most problems had not been corrected.

They point to criminal indictments of three state workers as evidence the problem was more than management missteps. Two other state emergency officials also were identified in court documents as unindicted co-conspirators.

I wonder -- if that money had been properly spend, might we be seeing significantly fewere problems in Louisiana in the aftermath of this horrific storm? And if the waste, mismanagement and fraud came at the state and local level, isn't that again where much of the blame belongs for the inadequacy of the disaster preparedness and response that we have seen?

ANd please note some of the examples of how this money (what can be traced) was spent.

The report also said the Louisiana agency had misspent $617,787 between May 2000 and September 2003.

Questionable expenditures identified by the inspector general included $2,400 for sod installation, several thousand dollars for a trip to Germany by the deputy director, $1,071 for curtains, and $595 for an L.L. Bean parka and briefcase. The inspector general also challenged unspecified spending for camera equipment, professional dues and a 2002 Ford Crown Victoria.

And we won't get into the fact that 97% of disbursed funds from one of the FEMA grants have no receipts at all to account for spending.

Only about 17% of summoned jurrors show up for duty in the Houston area. That cna cause serious problems with holding trials.

Here's what one local county did.

Dozens of people avoided contempt of court charges and possible fines by agreeing to appear for jury duty in the next 90 days. ADVERTISEMENT

A Fort Bend County judge summoned the people to court and asked them to explain why they didn't appear for jury duty last month.

"The intent is not to generate fine money for Fort Bend County but to get people to comply with the process," state District Judge Thomas Culver said Friday to about 120 people in the courtroom.

Almost all the potential jurors said they never received the jury duty summons, while one person said she was in Louisiana doing relief work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The decision to summon the no-shows to court was made because on Aug. 23, the county did not have enough people to fill juries for the day's trials. Bailiffs had to roam courthouse hallways and press into service whomever they could find for jury duty.

It was the first time in several years the county ran short of jurors. But Culver said judges have been concerned recently that fewer people are appearing for jury service and the decision was made to summon all the people who did not show up for the Aug. 30 jury call and have them explain why they were absent.

State law says failing to appear for jury duty can result in contempt of court charges with fines ranging from $100 to $1,000.

"I am going to defer the contempt of court and a $200 fine if you will agree to appear within 90 days for jury duty," Culver told almost every person who stood before him Friday.

So remember -- SHOW UP!

How are the kids displaced by Huricane Katrina being received in Texas? Pretty well, it seems, if this Houston school is an example.

The governor, along with state and federal education officials, visited a southwest Houston middle school on Friday where more than 50 students displaced by Hurricane Katrina have enrolled.

U.S. Secretary of Education and Houston Independent School District alumni Margaret Spellings, Gov. Rick Perry, Texas Commissioner of Education Shirley Neeley and Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams toured Pin Oak Middle School at noon.

Educators and classmates at the school have welcomed the displaced students with open arms. Pin Oak Principal Michael McDonough and the school's social worker, Alyson Bricker, sat down individually with each student and his or her family during the enrollment process to talk about their needs.

The displaced students were assigned a regular Pin Oak student as a buddy, given three Polo shirts with the school's logo on it, a spirit shirt that can be worn on Fridays and a school planner. School officials also organized a clothing drive for the families.

More than 1,200 students attend Pin Oak, located at 4601 Glenmont, which has served as a middle school in the district for four years and offers a foreign language magnet program.

Officials said the district has enrolled more than 4,000 students evacuated from the Gulf Coast region.

I teach at a high school in a neighboring district, and I can tell you that we've done many of the same things. We've gotten kids needed clothing and school supplies, assigned them buddies, organized a support group,and started to integrate them into our extracurricular activities.

The three students I have are wonderful -- a shy and quiet girl, a young lady with a melodious laugh that I hear often, and a serious, studious football player who can't wait to get in the game. We've got 50 in all on our campus , and we are ready to take more if they come. I can tell you without a doubt that every Houston educator feels the same way.

Look who is seeking to make money off of her grief and notoriety. I wonder what this does to her unassailable moral authority.

There are moments in history when the courageous actions of one individual act to galvanize a movement – whether for civil rights, women's rights, pro-democracy, or against a war.

The summer of 2005 will forever be remembered with one mother's vigil for her lost son at President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Cindy Sheehan has re-energized the nation's anti-war movement with her unflagging desire to meet with the president to ask: “What is the noble cause for which my son died in Iraq?”

Cindy Sheehan has become a national symbol of the powerless confronting the powerful, of a mother mourning the loss of her child and seeking answers from the nation's commander-in-chief, the man who made the case for the war in which her son lost his life.

Sheehan's activism has not ended with the president returning to Washington after his vacation. She is now involved in public speaking to groups around the country: one mother with one voice and one mission – to find a way to bring our troops home and spare other parents the grief of losing a child in an unjust war.

For additional information on Cindy Sheehan and her public speaking availability, visit www.speakingmatters.org.

I guess the “personal matters” she needed o deal with when she abandoned her bus caravan last month might have been arranging for a lucrative public speaking contract.

UPDATE: Look at this shameless grave robber's latest outrageous comment.

George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power.

Incredible!

(Hat Tip -- StrataSphere, Bogus Gold, Combs Spouts Off, California Conservative, and Blogs for Bush)

Does CAIR want to call this racial profiling?

When FBI agents walked into Mahmoud Maawad's spartan apartment at 3557 Mynders # 5 on Sept. 9, they found a desk, chair, computer and a Koran.

They also found an airline pilot's uniform, a chart of Memphis International Airport, and instructional DVDs, including one called "How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act."

A federal magistrate Thursday ordered Maawad, a 29-year-old University of Memphis student from Egypt, jailed until his trial on charges of wire fraud and fraudulent use of a Social Security number.

"The specific facts and circumstances are scary," Asst. U.S. Atty. Steve Parker said, arguing against Maawad's release.

Since Maawad can't get a Social Security number, "he can't get a pilot's license, and can't go to flight school," Parker said. "But he wants to get behind the wheel of an aircraft."

Parker said "we don't know either way" if Maawad is a terrorist or connected to any terror groups.

U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Thomas Anderson ruled that Maawad be held without bond.

Oh, yeah – he’s here on an expired visa.

Sound familiar?

(Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin)

When California paramedic Michael Sprinkles was killed on his way home from work by immigration criminal Juan Bibinz, it was a preventable accident. Bibinz, you see, had been arrested several times before by the LAPD and has been convicted of multiple felonies. He was even deported once – but that was insufficient to get LAPD to hold him and turn him over to immigration officials. Why not? A little something called Special Order 40.

How can an illegal alien be arrested again and again, yet sent home only once? Maybe because it’s official L.A.P.D. policy that officers can’t ask about a suspect’s citizenship. “Special Order 40, enacted in 1979, bars police from enforcing federal immigration laws,” is how the ACLU put it in a 2001 news release. And, it noted, “the Police Commission’s own Independent Review Panel noted how critical the Order is to ensure public safety.” Tell that to Michael Sprinkles.

The ACLU claims that Special Order 40 is “essential.” But a better word for it would be “illegal.” The state’s penal code reads, “Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.” Not much ambiguity there.

Special Order 40 is useful, though. It explains why the United States is facing an illegal immigration crisis: We don’t take illegal immigration seriously.

So because Los Angeles police won’t follow state law and help enforce federal law, a good man died.

Nice going, Los Angeles – here is hoping that Sprinkle’s family ends up owning your city by the time litigation is finished, and that several city officials end up in jail. After all, city officials acted illegally in order to aid a known criminal, resulting in Sprinkle’s death. That is more than mere negligence.

Well, we’ve already got the first opportunistic government official filing suit against the insurance industry in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The attorney general of Mississippi sued five major insurance companies on Thursday, alleging that they're cheating Hurricane Katrina survivors.

The five companies are divisions of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., State Farm Fire and Casualty Co., Allstate Property and Casualty Co., the United Services Automobile Association and Mississippi Farm Bureau Insurance.

The suit is the opening shot in what's expected to be a protracted legal battle over homeowner and business claims after the nation's most devastating storm.
Attorney General Jim Hood sued in state court in Jackson, Miss., alleging that the insurance companies are skirting claims by insisting that damage to homes was caused by flooding, which isn't covered under homeowner policies.

"Is it right to write in the fine print a provision that takes away the reason for the contract in the first place?" Hood asked in an interview after filing suit. "You can't put this stuff in fine print and bankrupt half the coast and say, `Oh well, they should have known.'"

Interestingly, one of these companies is my insurance company, so I am familiar with their practices. When I bought my house, four blocks from Galveston Bay, I was EXPLICITLY told that the policy didn’t cover flood damage. I was EXPLICITLY told I needed to get flood insurance to cover such damage. So when the next hurricane rolls up the Texas coast towards Houston, I’m covered, whether the water comes from above through a hole in the wall or roof (homeowner’s policy) or from below as the water rises (flood policy).

For whatever reason, these people didn’t get the message. Now they want their policies to cover excluded damage, and you have a politician trying to get money out of these companies on behalf of those who did not act in a proactive manner. Look at Mississippi.

FEMA officials have acknowledged that 60 percent of the affected property owners in Katrina's zone of destruction may lack federal flood insurance. To rebuild, they'll have to take out low-interest government loans.

For the 40 percent who have flood policies, the federal government pays claims of up to $250,000 for residences and $500,000 for commercial property. It doesn't cover living expenses until a home is rebuilt.

In Mississippi, there were only 42,320 flood policies in place at the end of last year, a fraction compared with a hurricane-prone state such as Florida, with more than 1.8 million flood policies.

Ahhhhhhh – I see. Folks decided to save a buck, figuring that they would continue to dodge the bullet. Now they want someone else to pay for their choice not to spend the money to protect themselves. Got it.

Toss this suit out of court – with extreme prejudice. And sanction those who filed it.

So, Gov. Blagojevich, would you care to explain this allegation? Did you attempt to steer state contracts those who agreed to make donations to your campaign?

Blagojevich said he had "no knowledge whatsoever" about any pension deals being traded for contributions to his campaign. "Absolutely not," the governor said. "I know nothing about any of that."

Cari's 17-page plea offers no indication he ever spoke directly to Blagojevich or anybody from his political fund-raising operation, but the document laid out a broad "fund-raising strategy" outlined to Cari by Levine. Levine told Cari that he and Blagojevich's two fund-raisers would "not let an Illinois public pension fund . . . invest in a private equity fund" unless that firm hired a consultant they chose, and that consultant agreed to make "certain political or charitable contributions."

Blagojevich was not specifically named in the Cari plea, which referred to him as "Public Official A." Sources confirmed to the Chicago Sun-Times that the governor is Official A. The administration said it had no idea who Official A is.

Top Blagojevich fund-raisers Antoin "Tony" Rezko and Christopher G. Kelly were referred to in the plea as "two close associates" of the governor who helped him "pick law firms, investment banking firms and consultants that would help Public Official A." The Sun-Times confirmed their identities through the same sources.

Blagojevich, Kelly and Rezko have not been charged with any wrongdoing. Attempts to reach Kelly and Rezko were unsuccessful.

Also Thursday, former teacher pension board outside counsel Steven Loren, 50, pleaded guilty to tax-related charges tied to the alleged scheme. Both Cari and Loren are cooperating with prosecutors.

The scheme outlined in Cari's plea deal is similar to allegations raised earlier this year by Blagojevich's estranged father-in-law, Chicago Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), who accused Kelly of orchestrating appointments to state boards and commissions in exchange for contributions to Blagojevich

Why is it that “Public Official A” Blagojevich is getting a pass from the national media for actual corruption involving the diversion of funds into his campaign coffers, while House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is being tarred by allegations that relate to accounting questions and technical definitions? Could it be that the reason relates to the letters R & D, not the letter A?

This comes as no surprise to me -- I've alread had one of the Katrina kids at my school tell me his family is staying.

Fewer than half of all New Orleans evacuees living in emergency shelters here said they will move back home, while two-thirds of those who want to relocate planned to settle permanently in the Houston area, according to a survey by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.

The wide-ranging poll found that these survivors of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath remain physically and emotionally battered but unbroken. They praised God and the U.S. Coast Guard for saving them, but two weeks after the storm, nearly half still sought word about missing loved ones or close friends who may not have been as lucky.

However, I do have a methodology question about this poll. So does the Post, but they bury that nformation deep in the article.

A total of 680 randomly selected evacuees living temporarily in the Astrodome, Reliant Center and George R. Brown Convention Center, as well as five Red Cross shelters in the Houston area, were interviewed Sept. 10 to 12 for this Post-Kaiser-Harvard survey. More than 8,000 evacuees were living in these facilities and awaiting transfer to other housing when the interviewing was conducted.

More than nine in 10 of these evacuees said they were residents of New Orleans, while the remainder said they were from the surrounding area or elsewhere in Louisiana. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus four percentage points. Potential differences between these evacuees and those not living in shelters or those who lived elsewhere in the affected Gulf Coast region make it impossible to conclude that these results accurately reflect the views of all Gulf Coast residents displaced by Katrina.

Most of the evacuees never resided in our big public buildings or the Red Cross shelters. Those who were in those public buildings were among the poorest of the poor, according to reports. Those left there are often among the hardest-luck cases. And more importantly, theey are likely very unrepresetative of the 70-80 thousand who never lived in any of those locations. After all, those who never went to the shelters would have self-evacuated and are therefore less likely to be hard-core chronic poor.

But we will live this and see what happens.

(More from Captain's Quarters, Neo-Neocon, and Publius Rendevous)

Look what the GOP has found in the state of New Jersey.

At a news conference in Trenton, Republican officials said their analysis found:

# 54,601 people were registered in more than one county, and 4,397 appeared to have voted twice in the 2004 presidential election.

# 170,558 people were registered to vote in New Jersey as well as other states. Of those, 90,025 voted in New Jersey last year, and 6,572 appeared to have voted in two states.

# 4,755 individuals listed in county records as deceased also were listed as voting last year.

Voting from the grave has long been the stuff of Jersey lore, especially in Hudson County. But the GOP analysis found matches between the lists of the dead and the lists of the voting in all 21 counties around the state.

The highest number, 609, was found in heavily populated Bergen County. Monmouth (450), Camden (430), Essex (354) and Union (325) all had more than Hudson, which tied with Morris at 298.

How serious do the Democrats take documentation of such voter irregularities?

Richard McGrath, spokesman for the Democratic State Committee, reacted skeptically. "If the Republican Party conducted the investigation, it's safe to assume the facts and figures are wrong and the findings are suspect," he said.

Given that response, it is safe to assume that the fraud benefits the Democrats and they will fight solving the problem tooth-and-nail.

America, it is time to ask a pointed question.

How much more evidence is necessary to force a complete purge of the voter rolls, the implementation of mandatory photo identification on election day, and other common-sense voting reforms in this country?

Look at what the people that Cindy Sheehan and other Leftoids call "freedom fighters" and the moral equivalent of our Foundng Fathers did in the town of Tel Afar.

When the terrorists took over the city, McMasters said, they replaced all the imams from the mosques with Islamic extremist laymen; replaced all teachers from the schools with people who "preached hatred and intolerance"; and kidnapped and murdered large numbers of people, "including a Sunni Turkmen imam and a city councilman who was shot about 30 times to the head in front of his family.

"The enemy here did just the most horrible things you can imagine," McMasters said, "in one case murdering a child, placing a booby trap within the child's body and waiting for the parent to come recover the body of their child and exploding it to kill the parents."

Would someone explain to me why the Saddamites paints the US as the attrocity-committing bag guys because of unintended collateral damage, but won't point out this sort of gross evil when it is committed intentionally by terrorists?

(Hat Tip: Jawa Report

Lest you think that the friendly Islamofascists at CAIR don't want to impose Ssharia law on unwilling women and men here in America, look at this entry from Robert Spencer's JihadWatch.

What happens if a woman shows up for a CAIR photo-op without a hijab? No problem! They'll just Photoshop one on!

Seeing is believing -- and the pictures (both versions) are up at JihadWatch. Not only was one of the speakers at the press convference given a Photoshop hijab, so werre two women just standing in the audience!

Here in Houston, we've been trying to integrate Katrina's kids into our classrooms. As far as I know, this has worked well, with the exception of one unfortunate incident. Many of these children, though, are going to be dispersed in the community before long, so any impact on a single school will likely be short-term. But what about areas where there will be a significant student population in a single location for a longer period of time. How should their education be handled? That issue is being looked in several locations around the country.

Consider the situation in San Antonio where 25,000 evacuees are living on a colsed military base. If only 20% are children, that means an influx of 5000 students into a districtt. In the "real world" of rnning a school district, you would have several years to "ramp-up " to such an influx of kids, but not in this case. If a subdivision or three were being built in a district, neighborhood schools would be built to accommodate them. But that did not -- and could not -- happen in the case of this calamity. When you have such a situation, you have to improvise a solution. It is, by definition, unforeseeable.

So what some officials are proposing is that evacuee children in such settings be educated in their shelter setting. That would require a waiver of the McKinney-Vento Act, which forbids segregating homeless children. In the case of evacuee children, many of whom are black, there are also racial segregation questions.

Let's look at the Texas situation I mentioned above.

Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley, noting that 25,000 evacuees are housed at a closed Air Force base in San Antonio, asked the federal Education Department last week for "flexibility" to serve students "at facilities where they are housed, or otherwise separate from Texas residents during the 2005-2006 school year." U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, introduced legislation Monday that would grant Secretary Spellings authority to waive McKinney-Vento.

Such proposals are arousing consternation among advocates for the homeless, who fear that nearly two decades of gains in public-school enrollment for homeless children will be wiped out. They note that the act, which also requires school systems to enroll homeless children even without documentation such as health and residency records and to employ liaisons to the homeless, was vital to the swift, open-armed response of school districts to the student influx in the hurricane's aftermath. Also, they say, thousands of storm-battered children have already enrolled in public schools across the country without ill effects.

Gary Orfield, director of a Harvard University project that monitors school integration, said that segregating a predominantly black group of evacuees could raise "constitutional questions of racial discrimination." He also said that because many of them may be traumatized, have learning deficits, or come from failing schools, it would be "terrifically difficult" to teach a separate class of the displaced students, and that placing them in middle-class schools and communities would benefit them educationally.

William L. Taylor, chairman of the Citizen's Commission on Civil Rights, said the administration's plans to ease McKinney-Vento and No Child Left Behind could leave the displaced students warehoused and forgotten. "We need some focus on the needs of the children, and not go around waiving a lot of regulations without deciding whether there's a need," Mr. Taylor said.

Now let me begin by noting that the concerns about racial segregation are somewhat overblown. Racial segregation in schools is legal if it is de facto and not de jure. Government action did not create this situation -- nature did. Therefore the constitutional issue is really a red herring. And having worked for Dr. Neeley for a number of years, I can tell you that race is not even a consideration in this request -- she came to her position from a district that is substantially non-white and overwhelmingly low-income, and which was the largest majority-minority district in Texas to obtain an Exemplary rating.

No, what is being sought here is the ability to educate an existing community of students and keeping them together -- essentially neighborhood schools. The bulk of these kids will likely be heading back to Louisiana by next year, and so a separate program where there is a substantial population of students in an evacuation center will allow them to be taught using the Louisiana curriculum standards. These separate schools could also employ Louisiana teachers displaced by the storm. It creates a situation in which everyone wins, as far as I see. Am I missing something?

And for those who are concerned about undermining the educational rights of homeless kids, I do not see how you can argue with the logic of Pamela Atkinson, an advisor to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., and Senator Orrin Hatch.

But Pamela Atkinson, a special consultant to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., had other ideas. The displaced families had experienced "so much trauma, anxiety and separation" that the parents "wanted their children close by," said Ms. Atkinson. "Since we had classrooms at Camp Williams, it made more sense to keep them there."

She contacted Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, who then asked Secretary Spellings to seek to waive McKinney-Vento. "These displaced and homeless children are not the typical homeless children," Sen. Hatch wrote. "Nearly all of them are with their families. It is important to keep families together as the Katrina victims receive aid and support."

This situation is different than the situation facing most homeless kids. Their needs are different. Let's not try to make them fit into a mold designed for kids in a different situation.

Now I will agree with those who oppose concept making the rounds.

Businesses from charter schools to distance-education providers are already pressing for permission to teach the homeless in shelters and other makeshift housing, hoping to gain broader acceptance for their approaches to education. Mark Thimmig, chief executive of White Hat Ventures LLC, which educates nearly 5,000 students in Pennsylvania and Ohio via the Internet, said last week that his company would be eager to educate displaced students in the Astrodome.

Absolutely not -- there should be no experimentation on these kids. It simply is not acceptable to use them to "try out" approaches that are not generally accepted. These kids need a normal school experience, whether they are integrated into local schools or are educated in their own special school. As for the Astrdome, those kids are scheduled to be out by Saturday, so that is a moot point.

The important thing is that these kids are educated, no matter where they are. If they are integrated into local schools, as is happening in my district, that is wonderful. But if logistics make a separate program the optimal solution for Katrina's kids, then regulations be damned.

Additional commentary from liberal bloggers at Think Progress, Huffington Post, Liquid Toast, Cory Holt. Hopefully conservative bloggers will pic this story up and contribute to the discussion.

Another California judge has ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.

Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was ruled unconstitutional Wednesday by a federal judge who granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist who lost his previous battle before the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

However, I detect one flaw in the argument made by the judge.

Since the Supreme Court tossed out the Newdow case on the standing issue, shouldn't that have vacated the entire set of rulings on the case, including the Ninth Circuit decision? Doesn't that mean that the ruling by the Ninth Circuit was nullified and of no effect? And wouldn't that mean that the decision of the Nith Circuit has no precedent value whatsoever?

Judge, you weren't bound by anything except your own predilections.

More at Michelle Malkin, Ankle Biting Pundits, How Appealing, California Conservative, Stop The ACLU, Deep Freeze, Double Toothpicks, and Jawa Report

New Orleans teachers are receiving their last paycheck from before Hurricane Katrina -- and are being informed that they will not be paid again util schools reopen.

he paycheck issued this week to teachers is for the last pay period before the storm hit, said Bill Roberti, a director with the restructuring firm of Alvarez & Marsal, which runs the school system.

"This is the last payroll we will be able to issue for the time being," Roberti said in a briefing. "We were not able to move forward with the $50 million financing we were pursuing to keep the district afloat. We are very low on cash at this time."

The 7,000-employee, 116-school system was already in dire financial shape before Katrina hit, which is why the firm was pursuing the $50 million finance package.

A total of $13 million in payroll is available at Western Union branches across the country for teachers to pick up, Roberti said.

The state's schools superintendent said Tuesday he will ask Congress for $2.4 billion in aid for teacher benefits and salaries, and Alvarez & Marsal sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush as well, asking for help.

I pray for these teachers, since I know what terrible shape I would be in if the school where I teach closed and my salary were to be cut off.

And I am thankful that my district has found places for a few teachers, as have most of the other districts in the Houston area. Houston ISD itself held a job fair last week to try to find teachers for the 3000 extra students thay have taken in.

And while some of you may have seen the awful story from Jesse Jones High School, that is not typical of what is going on around here. Most of these kids are being welcomed with open arms at their new schools. I know the two in my classes are simply outstanding young people, and none of my colleagues have had a negative word to say about the evacuee kids in their classes, either.

John Roberts hit a homerun with this quote.

"The Constitution is the court's taskmaster and it's Congress' taskmaster as well."

If he had included the executive branch in there, it would have been a grand slam.

Remember -- every branch can check the other two, within the limits set by the Constitution. The ultimate arbiter is not the courts, but the Constitution itself.

I always liked the book 101 Uses For A Dead Cat. No, I don't hate cats that much (after all, they have some intrinsic value while they are still kittens), but the book did provide a lot of cheap laughs and sight-gaga.

Well, the updated edition will have to add this one.

A German inventor has angered animal rights activists with his answer to fighting the soaring cost of fuel -- dead cats.

Christian Koch, 55, from the eastern county of Saxony, told Bild newspaper that his organic diesel fuel -- a home-made blend of garbage, run-over cats, and other ingredients -- is a proven alternative to normal consumer diesel.

"I drive my normal diesel-powered car with this mixture," Koch said. "I have gone 170,000 km (106,000 miles) without
a problem."

The website of Koch's firm, "Alphakat GmbH", says his patented "KDV 500" machine can produce what he calls the "bio-diesel" fuel at about 23 euro cents (30 cents) a litre, which is about one-fifth the price at petrol stations now.

Koch said around 20 dead cats added into the mix could help produce enough fuel to fill up a 50-litre (11 gallon) tank.

But the president of the German Society for the Protection of Animals, Wolfgang Apel, said using dead cats for fuel was illegal.

"There's no danger for cats and dogs in Germany because this practice is outlawed in Germany," Apel told Bild on Wednesday in a story entitled "Can you really make fuel out of cats?"

"We're going to keep an eye on this case," Apel said.

Dead cats or dead dinosaurs -- which is a renewable resource?

(Cool -- thae Amazon link offers a bargain if you buy The Book of Bunny Suicides, too!)

Just so you don't forget what happens to private individuals when the government wants to seize their property to give to other private interests.

A group that won a Supreme Court victory allowing it to seize property for private development is telling some residents to vacate their homes in the latest flash point in a nationwide controversy.

Representatives of the homeowners accused the quasi-public New London Development Corp. on Tuesday of reneging on a promise not to seize the properties while lawmakers considered changing the state's eminent-domain laws.

State House Minority Leader Robert M. Ward (R) called for a special session to enact a moratorium on property seizures, and homeowners vowed to continue fighting.

"They're going to have to pry my cold fingers from the house," said Michael Cristofaro, who received one of several vacate notices sent this week.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) and state lawmakers had urged local governments to refrain from seizing property for development. Rell also favors a special session on the issue, a spokesman said.

But because the state had previously sanctioned the city's use of eminent domain for the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, it was unclear whether lawmakers could make New London delay its plans.

The notices order the property owners and tenants to vacate within 30 to 90 days and start paying rent to the development corporation during that period, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington-based group representing the homeowners. If residents do not comply, the agency has the option of pursuing an eviction in court.

The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in June that New London could take homes in Fort Trumbull to build a privately owned hotel and office space. The court also said states are free to ban the taking of property for such projects.

And by the way -- the "just compensation" that the property owners are to be paid will be pegged to the 2000 market-value of the propeties (when the homeowners and other property-owners filed suit against New London), not the value of the property today. That makes it unlikely that any of the displaced families or busineses will be able to remain in the community, while the city will receive 2005 market value from the private developers.

Could it have been the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 40 -year-old underutilized channel funnelled the storm surge into the New Orleans Industrial Canal and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway -- and from there into New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish and beyond?

Authorities have not yet concluded what caused the drowning of New Orleans, and most attention has focused on two breached floodwalls near Lake Pontchartrain, to the city's north. But now experts believe that the initial flooding that overwhelmed St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans came from the Gulf Outlet, a channel that was an ecological and economic disappointment long before Hurricane Katrina.

Satellite images show that levees along the outlet were severely damaged by storm surges. Flyovers by the Army Corps of Engineers have revealed a path of destruction consistent with Mashriqui's theory that the Outlet provided a pathway for storm surges from the Gulf and neighboring Lake Borgne.

Mashriqui had warned that the confluence of the MRGO and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway created a funnel that would direct storm surges into the New Orleans Industrial Canal and on into St. Bernard Parish. On the Friday before Katrina made landfall, the parish's state senator, Walter Boasso, complained at a congressional hearing that the federal government was "playing Russian roulette" with his constituents.

Katrina's first storm surges apparently shot up the Gulf Outlet and neighboring Lake Borgne from the southeast, then overtopped levees along the Outlet and the Industrial Canal. The floodwaters eventually breached the Industrial Canal's levees, and officials believe a large portion of the Outlet's levees have been destroyed as well.

"That funnel was a back door into New Orleans," said G. Paul Kemp, an oceanographer at the LSU Hurricane Center. "I don't think there's much doubt that was the initial cause of the disaster."

In other words, it may have been a failed attempt to create an efficient port that caused the flooding and the levee breakage, not the storm itself.

Oh, and by the way, please note this.

Before Katrina, the Corps was already studying whether to close the canal. The initial conclusion was no, but the Bush administration ordered the agency to redo its analysis.

The main advocates for the channel were the Port of New Orleans and its supporters in the Corps of Engineers and in Louisiana's congressional delegation. "You had the people of St. Bernard Parish against the Port of New Orleans," Boasso said at a community meeting Monday. "And the Port of New Orleans had the clout."

* * *

John Paul Woodley Jr., the assistant Army secretary who oversees the Corps, said the Bush administration had to instruct the agency to restart its study of whether to close the channel, because it hadn't taken into account the channel's destruction of wetlands, even though it was conducting a separate study of a $14 billion project to restore Louisiana's coastal wetlands. Woodley said there was also concern that further erosion could merge the channel with Lake Borgne -- which happened after Katrina.

So, whose priorities resulted in this catastrophe? Sounds like those local congressional delegation, not the president.

More at Strata-Spere and Liberal Common Sense (the title of this blog is the only way you'll ever see those three words adjacent to each other on RWR)

It seems that the New York Times was against levee and drainage projects in Louisiana before they were for them. Unfortunately, the paper didn't come out for those projects until after Hurricane Katrina.

Look at this from April.

"Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America's rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects, this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences.

"This is a bad piece of legislation."

The legislation, S. 728, would have spent $512 million on hurricane and storm damage reduction.

Now the Times wants is complaining that money wasn't given to the Corps of Engineers for hurricane and storm damage reduction projects.

I guess hindsight is 20/20.

A recent sting by the Houston Police Department aimed at getting a burglar resulted in the arrest of a number of illegal aliens. There has, of course, been an outcry about the operation from all the usual liberal suspects.

Today the Houston Chronicle weighs in, taking a thouroughly predictable position.

On any given day, dozens of would-be laborers mill about Washington and Shepherd streets. Residents, many of them Latino, complained that the men were disrupting traffic by wading into the street whenever potential employers passed. So the local HPD unit devised a plan: Masquerading as contractors, officers hired dozens of day laborers from the street, then promptly arrested them. The ruse didn't yield the burglar; it did lead to 30 charges of solicitation by pedestrians — a Class C misdemeanor. Days later, most of the men were back on the streets.

Neighborhood residents were delighted, but the police sweep smacked of entrapment. It also sent the wrong message to Houston's immigrants, compromising public safety. Police, the arrests implied, were the enemy of people just trying to get work.

Actually, the arrests implied that if you break the law you are subject to arrest. In all honestly, the bulk of those cited should have been turned over to federal officials for deportation. -- but they weren't. Some laws, you see go unenforced by the Houston Police.

My question to the Chronicle and its supporters is a simple one -- When will you accept that these people are in violation of our nation's laws, and that they should be treated accordingly?

I swear this is a real news story -- I could not have made it up to save my life.

At 10.15pm on Thursday the relative brought the 32-year-old woman to the bomoh’s house in Permatang Badak, near here, to seek a cure.

After relating her problem to the bomoh, he asked her to lie down.

He then took an egg and rolled it over her body, purportedly to sap out the spirit that was dwelling in her.

He then allegedly fondled and sucked her breasts.

Stunned, she immediately got up and demanded an explanation from the bomoh, to which he replied that she was “unclean” and he wanted to remove the bad spirits from her body.

Do you really mean it wasn't strange before he started to fondle and suck her breasts? Heck, that seems like the most normal part of the whole story.

(Hat Tip -- Raging Right Wing Republican)

I just found this in my site log.

Referring Link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wallace b. jefferson&btnG=Google Search

Host Name: wdcsun26.usdoj.gov

IP Addres: 149.101.1.126

Countr: United States

Region: District Of Columbia

City: Washington

ISP: US Dept Of Justice

Who is Wallace B. Jefferson? He is the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.

The link takes you to this old post of mine from November.

Does it mean anything?

After all, I hear there is an opening on the US Supreme Court -- and a second African-American justice on the Court could mend some storm-damaged fences.

Could someone explain why I would want to?

Come Monday, Sept. 19, fans of New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, and David Brooks will have to break out their credit cards. Sept. 19 is the launch date of TimesSelect, a new subscription service designed to diversify the newspaper's revenue stream beyond traditional Web site advertising.

The popular Op-Ed columnists are the main selling point behind the $49.95 a year subscription. (The service will be free for the paper's home delivery subscribers). The paper's news, features, editorials, and analysis will remain free, as will interactive graphics, multimedia, and video.

I feel overcharged paying nothing for Krugman and Dowd – and can get Brooks from other sources. Ditto most of the major articles I would want to access.

Hey, if it is acceptable to take the tissues of slaughtered innocents for scientific experimentation, why not the tissues of the guilty for consumer products?

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.

Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

Think about it. The killings are legal under Chinese law, and the tissues arguably benefit others. And unlike aborted babies, the criminals whose tissue is used are actually guilty of a crime, so their execution does not raise the same moral concerns as using the stem cells of infants killed for convenience. The Chinese have even tied the two issues together as part of their research and marketting.

The agent told the researcher: "A lot of the research is still carried out in the traditional manner using skin from the executed prisoner and aborted foetus." This material, he said, was being bought from "bio tech" companies based in the northern province of Heilongjiang, and was being developed elsewhere in China.

He suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. "In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that western countries can make such a big fuss about this," he said. Speaking from his office in northern China, he added: "The government has put some pressure on all the medical facilities to keep this type of work in low profile."

The agent said his company exported to the west via Hong Kong."We are still in the early days of selling these products, and clients from abroad are quite surprised that China can manufacture the same human collagen for less than 5% of what it costs in the west." Skin from prisoners used to be even less expensive, he said. "Nowadays there is a certain fee that has to be paid to the court."

So see, there is even a societal benefit to this product, for the government makes money selling the skin of the executed prisoners. So why be skittish about this? Is it really so different from the harvesting of fetal stem cells? What is the real difference?

The story also notes that this is not out of line with Chinese practice. Stories of organs and other tissues being harvested from executed prisoners in China have been circulated for years.

Of course, I oppose these products and the ghoulish practices that lead to their creation. But then again, I also have serious moral reservations about the use of fetal stem cells for medical research. I guess it just comes down to a question of respect for human life and the reduction of human beings to commodities.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on questions for John Roberts, here are some others that are a bit more whimsical from John Tierney.

If Roe v. Wade were a tree, what kind of tree would it be?

In your best judgment, did Brad and Jen really just grow apart, or was it Angelina's fault?

From your analysis of constitutional history, would you classify James Madison as a dog person or a cat person?

Suppose you'd been in Solomon's place when he proposed cutting the baby in two. And suppose neither woman objected. Would you have cut the baby? Flipped a coin? Or opted for foster care?

Would Thomas Jefferson have preferred the Beatles or the Stones?

When you were a clerk at the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Warren Burger was disliked for his pretentiousness. What nickname did the clerks have for him? Burger King?

The rest are equally amusing, though my favorite has to be this one.

Ashley or Mary-Kate?

Enjoy!

The right to free exercise of religion is clearly found in the Constitution.

The right to an abortion is, at best, an abstraction constructed from extensions of and inferences from the Constitution.

Why is it, then, that every time the two meet head-to-head, the supporters of abortion demand that the right of an individual to choose to exercise his/her religious freedom be limited or quashed altogether?

A group representing obstetricians and gynecologists is under attack for asking Congress to force doctors who morally object to abortion to give their patients referrals to doctors who will perform the procedure.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is guilty of "hypocrisy," according to the Christian Medical Association (CMA), for promoting the freedom to have an abortion on one hand, but opposing the choice of doctors to oppose the procedure on the other hand.

"Promoting choice has been the rally cry, but now they're saying we don't want our doctors having choice," CMA Associate Executive Director Dr. Gene Rudd said.

An Aug. 30 letter from ACOG to U.S. senators asked them to "require doctors with moral objections to refer abortions."

So I guess being “pro-choice” on abortion means being “no-choice” on the First Amendment.

And you thought that the cafeteria food at YOUR school was weird.

A public junior high school in Japan's northern port town of Kushiro had a new item on the menu for its students Monday _ rice topped with whale curry.

The meat is from minke whales the local whalers had caught just off the coast of Kushiro on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, Kyodo News agency reported.

Whale meat returned to public school lunches in Kushiro, the former whaling hub about 560 miles northeast of Tokyo, last year for the first time in 38 years as part of the city-sponsored campaign to promote whale meat.

Whale meat dishes, however, are not on the menu every day.

The whale curry will be served at elementary schools in town on Tuesday, and whale meat croquettes are planned in January, Kyodo said.

I still think it beats “mystery meat”.

Conservative criticism of the judiciary has been called a threat to judicial independence and un-American by American liberals, who see the judicial branch as the only way of enacting their preferred policies over the objection of the American people.

What do these liberals have to say about this comment from an Ohio abortionist?

[Akron Women's Medical Group executive director Carol] Westfall didn't mince words about the decision issued late Thursday by U.S. District Judge Sandra Beckwith in Cincinnati. That decision upheld a 1998 state law that requires teenage girls to obtain parental consent before getting an abortion.

It also requires adults seeking abortions to meet in person with a doctor at least 24 hours beforehand to get a description of the procedure and information about alternatives. Under the former law, that information could be given over the phone or by videotape.

It was the 24-hour requirement that was causing problems at the local clinic.
``This ruling came out at quarter to five on a Thursday night. It was impossible to get a hold of these patients,'' Westfall said. ``My opinion is, the judge should be lynched.''

Excuse me? Lynched? For making a ruling you find inconvenient to your business interests? Doesn’t your threat against the life of a federal judge compromise judicial independence?

I look forward to Ms. Westfall’s indictment and arrest.

It seems that the Gitmo hunger strike is growing.

Military officials have characterized the protest as a "fast" of prisoners aimed at grabbing attention, and say it involves 128 prisoners. They say its significance is exaggerated by their lawyers.

Weir said no detainees are in danger of dying and that the military's treatment is preventing them from losing critical nutrition. Of the 18 people hospitalized, 13 are being force-fed through nasal tubes and five are being given intravenous hydration.

Hey – their bodies, their choice. I’m opposed to stopping any enemy of the United States from committing suicide -- provided they are not taking innocents with them. Just call me “pro-choice”.

Wow!

Rising land prices and falling attendance will close Houston landmark Astroworld at the end of the current season on Octover 30.

Something of that size will probably become a mixed-use development, including multifamily housing, retail and office, said Edmonds, who described the property as one of the largest contiguous pieces of land near the Medical Center.

Harris County officials said they did not know that Six Flags would be putting AstroWorld on the market, but they were not completely surprised.

"The park seems to underperform in comparison to some of their other parks," said County Judge Robert Eckels.

Mike Surface, chairman of the Harris County Sports & Convention Corp., which oversees Reliant Park, said: "There have been discussions for years about the viability of that location. You have a park that was obviously an aged park and limited in space needed for expansion."

Surface estimated that the land along the Loop, Kirby and Fannin could be worth $1 million an acre and that non-frontage property might go for $600,000 an acre.

After AstroWorld closes, an investor will likely build an amusement park in the Houston-area suburbs, some said.

"There is strong market in Houston for this type of facility," Eckels said.

Six Flags will continue to have a presence in the Houston area with Six Flags SplashTown water park.

I don't know about building another amusement park. Six Flags has FiestaTexas over in San Antonio, and Six Flags over Texas in the Dallas. Between the water parks in the Houston area and the additional parks in San Antonio (SeaWorld). I wonder how much interest there really will be in another amusement park -- especially depending on where it is located. After all, AstroWorld was close to downtown and centrally located -- any replacement is likely to be out towards katy and the west suburbs, bringing it ever closer to San Antonio .

The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Katrina: Response Timeline by Right Wing Nut House, and 10 Things I learned From Hurricane Katrina. by Varifrank.  The full results of the votemay be found here.

The Watcher's offer of link whorage may be found here.

The New York Times published five sets of five questions for Judge Roberts in today’s edition, set forth by various legal professionals. Some are mundane, some are arcane, and some are actually pretty good. I’d like to highlight some of them.

From Stanford Law professor Kathleen Sullivan:

2. As a student of history, you know that the past is not always prologue. What are three constitutional issues you think will be more important by 2020 than any on which we are focusing now?

From former attorney general Dick Thornburgh:

5. Do you believe that it would further citizens' understanding of our judicial process if arguments before the Supreme Court were to be broadcast or televised live?

From Ron Klain, a former Democrat Judiciary Committee staffer and Clinton judicial selection director:

4. In a memo you wrote in 1981, you criticized affirmative action "preferences" based on race, calling them "objectionable." If preferences given to those born into families that have suffered past discrimination are objectionable, what is your view of preferences given to those born into the families of privilege - namely, the preferences that many universities give to the families of their alumni?

5. Chief Justice William Rehnquist held an annual Christmas celebration in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court, complete with avowedly religious carols, despite periodic objections from some of his colleagues and non-Christian law clerks. As chief justice, will you continue with this practice, and do you find it at odds with the spirit of the court's edicts regarding church and state?

From Marshall University Professor and John Marshall biographer Jean Edward Smith:

1. Chief Justices John Marshall, Charles Evan Hughes and Earl Warren were extraordinarily effective working with colleagues from diverse backgrounds and with differing political views. Can you think of any characteristics these men may have shared that facilitated this?

3. Is it important for a chief justice to have had judicial experience?

5. One of John Marshall's first actions upon becoming chief justice was to take his colleagues out of their multicolored robes and put them in simple black. Do you intend to revert to that tradition, and retire that Gilbert and Sullivan chief justice costume William Rehquist designed?

From the Instapundit himself, University of Tennessee Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds:

1. The Ninth Amendment provides that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Do you believe that this language binds federal courts, or do you believe - as Robert Bork does - that it is an indecipherable "inkblot?" If the former, how are federal courts to determine what rights are retained by the people? On the other hand, if the Ninth Amendment does not create enforceable rights, what is it doing taking up one-tenth of the Bill of Rights?

3. Could a human-like artificial intelligence constitute a "person" for purposes of protection under the 14th Amendment, or is such protection limited, by the 14th Amendment's language, to those who are "born or naturalized in the United States?"

5. Is scientific research among the expressive activities protected by the First Amendment? If not, is Congress free to bar research based solely on its decision that there are some things we're better off not knowing?

From a purely intellectual standpoint, I love many of the questions that appeared. I encourage readers to look at them all, if only for the fun of having fodder for discussion and rumination.

Jonah Goldberg points to this little gem from the latest al-Qaeda communiqué.

"Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing. And this time, don't count on us demonstrating restraint or compassion," the tape warns. "We are Muslims. We love peace, but peace on our terms, peace as laid down by Islam, not the so-called peace of occupiers and dictators."

Restraint? Compassion? Really?

Sounds to me like these terrorists accept the notion of Islam as a religion of peace – provided that it is an Islamic peace extorted through murder and mayhem, imposed upon those to cowardly to fight back.

For that reason alone, we must institute a full-blown Crusade Against Islamic Terror.

After all, how could one possibly see anti-Semitism in this?

As the last IDF soldiers were heading out of the Gaza Strip early Monday morning, thousands of celebrating Palestinians took to the streets and made their way to the abandoned Jewish settlements.

Palestinian bulldozers began on Monday afternoon to knock down the synagogues left in Gaza.

In Neveh Dekalim – formerly Gush Katif's urban center – Palestinians set fire to what was just last month a yeshiva.

Gunmen from several Palestinian factions stormed through the settlement. One group planted a flag from the ruling Fatah movement on the roof of the yeshiva, while others set a fire inside.

Flames also shot skyward from the synagogue building in the isolated settlement of Morag in southern Gaza.

I guess the “drive the Jews into the sea” mentality is still prevalent, even when the Israelis unilaterally give into the demands of the Palestinians.

It is always interesting to watch an atheist wave his hand and dismiss the faith-based claims of religious believers as so much hogwash. That is usually followed by an assertion that religion is the greatest force for evil in society and the greatest blight upon the history of mankind. What one rarely sees is such a rejection of the articles of faith combined with an acknowledgement that religion makes believers better people, not worse. Yet that is what one gets in today’s edition of the Guardian, courtesy of Roy Hattersley.

I believe a good Fisking is in order.

Hurricane Katrina did not stay on the front pages for long. Yesterday's Red Cross appeal for an extra 40,000 volunteer workers was virtually ignored.

The disaster will return to the headlines when one sort of newspaper reports a particularly gruesome discovery or another finds additional evidence of President Bush's negligence. But month after month of unremitting suffering is not news. Nor is the monotonous performance of the unpleasant tasks that relieve the pain and anguish of the old, the sick and the homeless - the tasks in which the Salvation Army specialise.

Actually, Roy, there won’t be any need for evidence – the press will simply make some up, or accept the charges of partisan hacks as holy writ.

The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character.

Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.

While the most notable private charity involved in relief is the American Red Cross, I agree with your more general point – it is religious charities and faith-based groups that are doing the bulk of the work in this country. When one considers that many of the volunteers are, in fact, part of organized groups from churches and other houses of worship, the degree of religious involvement in the relief effort is staggering. And, of course, most charity work in this country has some faith-based component anyway.

The arguments against religion are well known and persuasive. Faith schools, as they are now called, have left sectarian scars on Northern Ireland. Stem-cell research is forbidden because an imaginary God - who is not enough of a philosopher to realise that the ingenuity of a scientist is just as natural as the instinct of Rousseau's noble savage - condemns what he does not understand and the churches that follow his teaching forbid their members to pursue cures for lethal diseases.

Well known? Perhaps. Persuasive? Obviously not, given the degree of adherence to religious belief around the world.

As for the Irish problem, it has less to do with sectarian division than it has to do with a longstanding British policy of subjugation of the Irish to English control in their own homeland – a policy that predates the Reformation by centuries. Though Henry VIII, Oliver Cromwell and the Stuart Pretenders give the matter a religious gloss, it is more properly understood as based in ethnicity than in theology.

And I won’t even dignify the argument on stem-cell research with a response, for the personhood question is grounded as much in philosophy as theology. For that matter, it is grounded as much in biology as it is in either theology or philosophy.

Yet men and women who believe that the Pope is the devil incarnate, or (conversely) regard his ex cathedra pronouncements as holy writ, are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others. Last week a middle-ranking officer of the Salvation Army, who gave up a well-paid job to devote his life to the poor, attempted to convince me that homosexuality is a mortal sin.

Of course they are. After all, they accept that there is something to life that extends beyond the simple pleasures of the world. Life has meaning because it leads to something beyond life. For those who believe that there is nothing else, why waste a moment of life on pursuits that are other than hedonistic?

Late at night, on the streets of one of our great cities, that man offers friendship as well as help to the most degraded and (to those of a censorious turn of mind) degenerate human beings who exist just outside the boundaries of our society. And he does what he believes to be his Christian duty without the slightest suggestion of disapproval. Yet, for much of his time, he is meeting needs that result from conduct he regards as intrinsically wicked.

But that is where you are wrong. I do not doubt that your companion does view these individuals as degraded and degenerate. But Christianity teaches that we are ALL degraded and degenerate because of our sinful nature. The reason for the lack of disapproval is that he recognizes that he is no better than those to whom he ministers, not that they are no worse than him. If asked, he will probably tell you that he, too, is a sinner and that he, too, has areas in his life in which he manifests behavior that is equally wicked in the eyes of God.

Civilised people do not believe that drug addiction and male prostitution offend against divine ordinance. But those who do are the men and women most willing to change the fetid bandages, replace the sodden sleeping bags and - probably most difficult of all - argue, without a trace of impatience, that the time has come for some serious medical treatment. Good works, John Wesley insisted, are no guarantee of a place in heaven. But they are most likely to be performed by people who believe that heaven exists.

So, we are uncivilised if we view the trade in human flesh as contrary to the laws of God? We are not up to your standards if we see addiction to be wrong in the eyes of God? My, what a sad thing your “civilization” is! What you fail to see is that we seek to end prostitution and drug addiction and a host of societal ills because they promote actions that block one’s relationship with God. All the acts of charity you list are about meeting the basic needs of our fellow man so that they are in a position to encounter God – something that is hard to focus on when one is starving or seeking one’s next fix.

The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand. The close relationship may have something to do with the belief that we are all God's children, or it may be the result of a primitive conviction that, although helping others is no guarantee of salvation, it is prudent to be recorded in a book of gold, like James Leigh Hunt's Abu Ben Adam, as "one who loves his fellow men". Whatever the reason, believers answer the call, and not just the Salvation Army. When I was a local councillor, the Little Sisters of the Poor - right at the other end of the theological spectrum - did the weekly washing for women in back-to-back houses who were too ill to scrub for themselves.

What you fail to recognizes is that religious faith, particularly Christianity, is often based around a call to charity. It isn’t “Do good because it is pleasing to me.” Rather, it is “Do good because it is pleasing to God.” If one sees oneself as a God’s servant rather than one’s own, there is a tenaciousness to serve one’s Master by helping to bring about the order God seeks.

It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian or, better still, to take Christianity à la carte. The Bible is so full of contradictions that we can accept or reject its moral advice according to taste. Yet men and women who, like me, cannot accept the mysteries and the miracles do not go out with the Salvation Army at night.

But it isn’t. A Christian life is infused by grace, which comes through faith. The rejection of faith is the rejection of grace – the putting of self ahead of God and the rejection of his gift.

The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army.

Exactly – true faith does have a packet of moral imperatives that makes believers morally superior to atheists. That you have discovered this truth should tell you that the atheism you hold to so fervently might not be truth at all. Could the problem be that most atheists ultimately believe in “government” or “society” as having responsibility to act – and therefore write off the importance of a personal commitment to do good, while religious individuals see such action as a part of their duty to God? In short, are the fruits of belief in God proof of the existence of God – and the lack of fruits from atheism the proof of that belief system’s ultimate bankruptcy?

They are already looking to re-open one French Quarter strip-joint. The only things missing are water, electricity, and, oh yeah, strippers.

Not that the owner is worried.

But Jones, a corpulent man with a strawberry blond beard wearing a black t-shirt reading "I'm smiling because they haven't found the bodies yet," foresaw few problems getting strippers.

"It shouldn't be too hard. Everyone's going to come back in town and want to work. You know, if you've got 50 dancers in Houston and they're not making money, they're going to spread out," he said.

At the risk of trashing my own town, Jones obviously does not know Houston.

The Bayou City features more strip-joints than I had ever seen in my life before I had moved down here.

I think he might just have a problem getting the girls back after all.

The design of the memorial to the Heroes of Flight 93 has caused a furor. A.M. Siriano offers this analysis of what is wrong with the design -- not merely the inclusion of a Muslim crescent, but also of a structure that mimics a Muslim minaret!

I can think of no greater affront to American honor than to slap a blatantly Islamic symbol across a 9/11 memorial, but that is exactly what is in the works. The winning entry for the Flight 93 National Memorial, unveiled on September 7th, just four days before the fourth anniversary of 9/11, includes both the Islamic symbol of the Crescent--the "Crescent of Embrace"--and, more carefully disguised, a minaret-like structure called the "Tower of Voices" whose chimes continually "celebrate a living memory of those who are honored." Just who is being honored is in question.

The Los Angeles-based architect who submitted this disgraceful design is Paul Murdoch, who insists that no connection to Islam was intended, that his memorial is "not about religion, per se," but is to be a spiritual, sacred place open to all. So is this much ado about nothing? ...a mere coincidence?

If you believe that, then you don't understand the nature of artists, which is what architects are. (Try to debate with them that they are not; you will get an earful.)

The inclusion of symbols of the malign theology that led to the deaths of the passengers and crew of Flight 93, as well as of so many other Americans on 9/11 is unacceptable.

Especially because of what will not be included at Ground Zero.

But let's imagine that Murdoch had, by naïve coincidence, incorporated a giant Cross in his designs, and nearby a building that looked something like--by sheer chance, mind you--a cathedral. Imagine the atheistic outcry from the left!

The fact is, that very thing has already happened, at Ground Zero itself, when a Cross of Steel was found amidst the rubble and hoisted high for the faithful to come and offer prayers. Some folks, like me, wanted to see that Cross become a permanent fixture of the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan (it never mattered to us if it was a natural or supernatural manifestation, only that it was a worthy and comforting symbol). The American Atheists and other groups killed the proposal with little trouble. The Cross, discovered by a Christian, Frank Silecchia, now resides on "the high walkway over West Street." How's that for a weak testimony to the Christian heritage upon which this country was founded?

Yes -- the symbol of the faith of so many of the honored dead of 9/11 will not be inculded at the site of their deaths -- but the symbols of their murderers will be included at another 9/11 memorial.

I urge those responsible to scrap the current Flight 93 memorial plan and to go back to seek another design.

(More on Flight 93 Memorial here and here.

I'm not a Ray Nagin fan, and think that many decisions made on the local level made this disaster worse. I find his analysis of the president's response to Hurricane Katrina to be rather surprising, and refreshing, given some of his comments early in the recovery process.

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin yesterday said President Bush "made things happen" in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but offered no praise for Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, who remains in control of the National Guard and refuses to order a mandatory evacuation of the devastated city. Mr. Bush has been criticized by Democrats for the federal government's response to the storm, but the Democratic mayor -- whose own actions are now under scrutiny -- suggested major mistakes were made on the state level. "I think [Mr. Bush] was probably getting advice from some of his key advisers or some low-level folk that had been on the ground that this was serious, but not as serious as it ended up being," Mr. Nagin said. "My interactions with the president, at any time I talked with him and gave him what the real deal was and gave him the truth, he acted and he made things happen," Mr. Nagin told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Take that, Kanye West and the rest of you ranting liberals.

The AP offers this report from Massachusetts about the likely failure of a compromise constitutional amendment on the gay marriage question.

A fragile coalition of lawmakers cobbled together to support an anti-gay marriage amendment is falling apart, virtually assuring that same-sex marriage will for now remain legal in Massachusetts, according to an Associated Press poll.

The survey, conducted between Sept. 6-9, found at least 104 lawmakers who plan to vote against the proposed constitutional amendment, which would ban gay marriage but create civil unions.

The amendment, which is scheduled for a vote on Wednesday, needs the support of at least 101 of the state's 200 lawmakers to get on the 2006 ballot.

I'd like to remind members of the Massachusetts Legislature of the following words from the Declaration of Independence.

. . . Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. . .

I urge members of the Massachusetts legislature to permit the people of massachusetts the opportunity to alter the Massachusetts Constitution, as is their fundamental right as a free people.

UPDATE: Jefferson weeps in the Great beyond -- people of Massachusetts denied the right to alter their state Constitution.

Will this usurpation by the Massachusetts legislature result in the denial of the right of the citizens of all 49 other states to determine what constitutes marriage in their states?

Robert Novak seems to think that Judge Priscilla Owen of the Fifth Circuit Court Of Appeals is the leading candidate for Supreme Court.

With Senate confirmation of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice virtually assured, the struggle for the Supreme Court returns to replacing retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The belief in legal and political circles is that President Bush will name a conservative woman, and the front-runner is federal Appellate Judge Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit, Austin, Texas).

According to White House sources, Bush met secretly with Owen last week. While not decisive evidence, this was no mere get-acquainted session beginning a long exploration. He knows and admires his fellow Texas Republican. The countervailing political pressure on Bush is to name a Hispanic American, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a Texas Republican the president knows and likes even better than he does Owen. But signals last week he might name Gonzales probably should not be taken seriously.

Novak notes that Owen's four months on the appeals court is more than what David Souter had when he was nominated by the first Bush -- and that she has over a decade of experience on the Texas Supreme Court. A negative is that she just survived a very close confirmation vote, having been filibustered for four years by Senate Democrats, though her recent confirmation could be a positive given the deal to end the filibuster. This analysis from the Supreme Court Nomination Blog in July lays out some interesting arguments in favor of her nomination.

Originally Posted on September 11, 2004

So many died that horrible day.

One was my classmate at Washington and Lee University, Commander Robert Allan Schlegel.

I would love to tell you he and I were close. That would be a lie.

I would love to share stories of great times together. I don't have any.

What I can tell you is that I remember Rob Schlegel as a good guy, a friend of some friends. I remember him as being a bright guy, sitting a couple rows over and a couple seats back in a US History class. One of those classmates you later wish you had gotten to know when you had the chance.

Rest in Peace.

May all all the victims of September 11 and the many men and women of our armed forces who have died fighting terrorism since that day rest in peace.

And let us not forget those heroes who still live.

I've always questioned the showing of graphic photos of the dead to children. Yeah, I know that they were a staple of driver's education -- but they were not local photos. If you show local photos, you risk something like this.

A 12-year-old girl saw her father's remains in a gruesome photograph shown during a presentation by police warning teenagers about the dangers of drunken driving.

The girl's mother, Marla Cabbage Higginbotham, said her daughter was traumatized by the experience at her middle school last month in which she saw her father lying in a pool of blood with a crushed skull and mutilated face and torso.

She said the family did not know he had been drinking when he died.

An attorney representing the mother and daughter sent a letter to the Knox County law director's office calling for an investigation.

"Why are we showing 12-year-olds mutilated dead bodies when they can't even drive a car for four more years?" attorney Gregory P. Isaacs said Friday. The police "are good people with good intentions who have made a terrible, terrible mistake."

Police officers say the names of the victims about to be shown and ask if any students knew them. They called out the name of William F. Cabbage before showing pictures of the wreck.

The girl did not recognize his name because she knew her father as Lynn Cabbage.

I'm sorry -- this is unacceptable. Shouldn't there have been family permission before using the photos in any presentation? Shouldn't there have been family permission before the kids were subjected to the photos?

When the man is right, he's right. And on the issue of appointing Alberto Gonzales to the Supreme Court, he is definitely right.

``I believe it's a little too soon for Attorney General Gonzales to move up,'' Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' program. ``He's an able fellow, but we just went through a tough confirmation hearing, and my sense is that the national interest would be best served if he stayed in that job right now.''

The confirmation fight was bruising, but ultimately some folks voted for him because a president is really entitled to have the peopel he wants in the Cabinet. An appointment to the Supreme Court will draw much more fire -- and would very likely be defeated even without the opposition of members of the political right who are concerned about the former Texas Supreme Court justice's judicial philosophy.

For the sake of the country, sir, pick somenone else.

The evacuees in the shelter in the People's Republic of Austin were pleased to see the Vice President of the United States.

At the convention center, where some 1,500 evacuees remained Saturday, Cheney met briefly with 23-year-old Telisha Diaz, who told him she spent four days at the New Orleans convention center before being brought to Austin a week ago.

"It's overwhelming that the state of Texas is giving so much, just giving us everything — jobs, food," Diaz told the vice president, who was surrounded by local officials and congressmen.

Cheney said Diaz's sentiments of gratitude were echoed by all of the evacuees he had spoken with in the two weeks since the hurricane pummeled Gulf Coast communities in Louisiana and Mississippi. He applauded Texas' response to the disaster and the outpouring of support from the state's leaders and residents.

"I was impressed with the caliber of the effort that was mounted here, and it's a good place to come learn some valuable lessons," Cheney said.

But for about two dozen residents of the state's officially designated sanctuary city for endangered socialists, it was an opportunity to take a national tragedy and expolit it for political purposes, chanting "Cheney, Cheney, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.".

While the evacuees seemed to appreciate Cheney's visit, protesters saw it as an opportunity to voice frustration over a Halliburton Co. subsidiary's involvement in emergency repairs at Gulf Coast naval and Marine facilities.

Cheney headed Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, and Democrats have questioned whether the company has gotten favorable treatment because of his connection.

"Cheney is profiteering off of murder," said 36-year-old Debbie Russell of Austin, who flashed an obscene gesture at the vice president when he waved at her and other protesters as he got into his vehicle.

Nice show of class, Debbie. You seem to have ignored the fact that the company was the low bidder for the contract whenit was awarded over a year ago.

Louisiana Libertarian, having survived Katrina relatively intact (and having scared a number of us by his long silence -- good to have you back, dude!), gives us this round-up from the persepctive of a survivor. One of his links is to a story about Gov. Blanco and her apparent decsision to avoid the evacuees.

At the Rayne Civic Center, emotions are high. The people are desperately waiting the arrival of Governor Blanco. All they are looking for are answers.

"I want her to tell us that she's going to find a way very soon for us to get housing," says Sidney Matthews, an evacuee from New Orleans.

"All we're asking for is help," exclaims Cassandra Dellihoue. "We're not here to badger anybody. We're not here to lose control. We're asking for help."

Despite the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, Beverly Godfrey remains positive. "No, I'm not. I'm not ever giving up hope."

As a glimmer of hope pulled into the parking lot, Governor Blanco is not on the bus, only her representatives.

"The governor wished she could be here," explains Connie Nelson, a Blanco representative.

"Here everybody's under the impression the Governor coming here and she's sending representatives," says one evacuee. "She's not here. It's nothing but lies and lies constantly. Enough is enough."

"I'm very disappointed because I feel like I'm being brushed away," says Dellihoue.

Lynette Byrd has been a Blanco supporter for years but her loyalty is beginning to shift. "I've always been for Governor Blanco, always. I'm a woman. But right now, I feel she's let us down."

And what about the answers to all of the evacuees questions?

Blanco representative Nelson had this to say to evacuees. "We don't have those answers and I have to apologize that we do not have those answers but we will get those answers to you."

"When you need us, we are there," says Dellihoue. "When you need our votes, we are there. Now that we need you, come and get us. We need you now!"

Lynette Byrd makes a final plea. "Governor Blanco, I'm begging you to get us some help. Please!"

Somehow, though, Blanco never has a problem finding the media. Maybe if we shipped those folks some video cameras and microphones, they might get some attention fom their governor.

The speculation is out there. Will President Bush replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a Hispanic or a woman? Thre are some of both on everyone's list -- but over at RedState.org, we are hearing that the eventual choice may not be a that was widely mentioned.

That got me to asking about possible nominees who fill BOTH categories. Why not a Latina?

If the President does go that direction, there are a few possible nominees with the experience.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who's sat on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York for seven years, often is mentioned, though far down the list. A Princeton University and Yale Law School graduate, she worked as a prosecutor in New York and was put on the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush. Maybe it works against her that President Bill Clinton promoted her to the appellate court.

If Bush wants his own appeals court judge, he might consider Consuelo Maria Callahan, who has as much time on the 9th Circuit as Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. had on the D.C. Circuit. Callahan graduated from Stanford University and Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento (where Justice Anthony Kennedy once taught), then worked as a prosecutor and judge in California.

If he prefers Ivy Leaguers, Bush could try U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga, whom he appointed in 2003. After graduating from Yale Law School, she worked as a Miami-Dade County prosecutor and was appointed to a state circuit court seat by Gov. Jeb Bush before moving to the federal bench.

Altonaga has dealt with a case involving a nativity scene on public property and a lawsuit over same-sex marriage laws. She even sentenced a child pornographer to 100 years in prison. (Full disclosure: In 1984-85, she lived a floor above me in a Yale residence.)

I'll toss the question out there to folks -- what do you know about these judges? Are any of them Supreme Court material?

No, I'm not kidding. The choice of athletic wear for an Indian Muslim tennis player has resulted in a fatwa from an Islamic cleric in India.

Sania Mirza, 18, who became the first Indian woman to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam at the US Open last week, is hugely popular in India.

The fatwa - in effect, a demand that she cover up - was issued by a senior cleric of the Sunni Ulema Board, a little-known group. Similar fatwas have been issued against Mirza, who comes from a devout Muslim family, but none has ever gained popular support among India's 130 million Muslims.

"The dress she wears on the tennis courts…leaves nothing to the imagination," Haseeb-ul-hasan Siddiqui told The Hindustan Times. "She will undoubtedly be a corrupting influence."

He said she should follow the example of Iranian women who wore long tunics and headscarves to play in the Asian Badminton Championships.

There is mixed reaction in India and abroad.

Expressing shock, Nanduri from Werribee, Australia writes, "Sania is an Indian and is Muslim by birth, and not by her own choice. She represents India and not the Muslim group of such self-centred religious leaders. India should ban such leaders from making such rubbish statements."

"Sania goes to the field to play the match and not to portray her religion. And one does not become a Muslim by growing beard and by wearing a veil," says Ambrin, another reader from Dubai. Avnish from the US flashes a cogent argument, "Indonesia has 90 per cent population, which is Muslim and most ladies wear skirts above the knees?"

But there are other views as well, Javed, from Toronto says, "Why can't a woman wear a long sleeve shirt and sports pants and play tennis if men can do it? Nadal wears pants that go below his knee. Why can't Sania wear pants that go all the way to her ankles?" he argues.

Taking a broader perspective on the subject Badri Raina from New Delhi says, "The very fact that Sania is out there playing suggests that she has the correct perspective on history; from the time of the first organised human societies, residual notions have sought to make targets of select individuals and events to attempt continued survival in the face of the knowledge that they are on the way out."

My question is what comes next -- will Sania be the next Muslim girl murdered for her failure to follow a sharia dress code?

More at MasalaSpice, Pickled Politics, Fine? Why Fine?, IsraPundit, In The Bullpen, and Instant Kaapi,

I read the Washington Post's editorial on Jose Padilla with great interest -- given that it essentially concedes the correctness of yesterday's ruling which effectively says that Padilla may be detained until the end of the conflict with al-Qaeda.

And strangely enough, I found myself -- sort of -- in agreement with the position that the paper takes at the end of the article, namely that the time has come to prosecute Padilla.

At this stage, there is no good reason to keep holding Mr. Padilla in a status that raises so many troubling questions and that risks so much. His intelligence value is exhausted, and he would be as disabled from rejoining the fight in a federal prison as in a military brig. Instead of trying its luck before the Supreme Court, the administration ought to seek congressional legislation to regulate such cases. In the immediate term, it should file criminal charges against Mr. Padilla, if it continues to insist he is a dangerous terrorist. Allowing Mr. Padilla a full opportunity to defend himself in a regular criminal proceeding would not only protect liberties, it would avoid another damaging setback for presidential war powers by the high court.

So yes, I retract my support for Padilla's indefinite detention and lend my support for an immediate trial. But whereas the Post envisions a civilian trial for this al-Qaada operative, I propose instead the Executive Branch dispose of this case as was done with the Nazi saboteurs in Ex Parte Quirin. Yeah, that's right -- a military trial.

Padilla's crimes are essentially those of an enemy fighter acting unlawfully to make war upon the United States. Under American law and all international law precedents, a military court is the appropriate place to handle such a case. Supreme Court precedent makes it clear that this in no way violates the Constitution, and military courts are subject to the essential due process requirements of the Constitution. Furthermore, it would be a travesty of justice for one who entered teh US intent on making war upon it to be subject to greater legal protection than our own military personnel who have sworn to uphold, protect, and defend this country and its Constitution.

So let's begin the prosecution of Padilla (or should we be super-sensitive and call him by his chosen name, Abdullah al-Muhajir) before a military court -- to be followed, one should sincerely hope, by a swift and speedy execution upon his conviction.

(Hat Tip -- The Southern California Law Blog

Don't you just love it when the whack-jobs embraced by the Left turn and eat their own allies?

The Vacaville woman who made national headlines with a peace vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch brought her rhetorical guns to bear Friday on one of California's U.S. senators.

Cindy Sheehan — whose son, Casey, 24, was a soldier killed in Baghdad in April 2004 — met briefly with an aide to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., before telling reporters the lawmaker's reasons for supporting Iraq's ongoing occupation are "very bogus."

The Iraqi constitution the United States purportedly is supporting is based on Islamic law and severely curtails women's rights, she said, and the leaders America is protecting are "puppet leaders who George Bush put into place."

Iraqi soldiers the United States is training are seen as collaborators and can do little more than fight for survival, and Iraq's crucial infrastructure continues to be eroded by an insurgency fueled by our military presence, she said.

Feinstein previously has acknowledged that she and other lawmakers were lied to about the reasons for going to war, and that if she knew then what she knew now, she would not have voted to support the conflict, Sheehan said.

"Well, if she knows it's wrong, it's time to bring our kids home," she said.

But Barbara Boxer has lined up right behind Sheehan, who calls teh al-Qaeda affiliates who murdered her son "freedom fighters" and her son's fellow soldiers "terrorists" and "murderers" -- and who has declared America "not worth dying for."

UPDATE: The more mainstream press provides coverage, too.

"If she is a strong leader, and if she's strong about bringing the troops home, we will support her," Sheehan said. "If she is not, we will withdraw our support from her."

Sheehan said Feinstein's reasons for supporting the occupation in Iraq were "very bogus."

"There is no noble cause," Sheehan said. "This war is based on lies. To me, it's not rocket science."

Which Democrat will she start gnawing on next?

Who ordered this attrocity -- cops on one side of the bridge telling them to cross, and cops on the other side turning them back?

Police agencies to the south of New Orleans were so fearful of the crowds trying to leave the city after Hurricane Katrina that they sealed a crucial bridge over the Mississippi River and turned back hundreds of desperate evacuees, two paramedics who were in the crowd said.

The paramedics and two other witnesses said officers sometimes shot guns over the heads of fleeing people, who, instead of complying immediately with orders to leave the bridge, pleaded to be let through, the paramedics and two other witnesses said. The witnesses said they had been told by the New Orleans police to cross that same bridge because buses were waiting for them there.

Instead, a suburban police officer angrily ordered about 200 people to abandon an encampment between the highways near the bridge. The officer then confiscated their food and water, the four witnesses said. The incidents took place in the first days after the storm last week, they said.

"The police kept saying, 'We don't want another Superdome,' and 'This isn't New Orleans,' " said Larry Bradshaw, a San Francisco paramedic who was among those fleeing.

Arthur Lawson, chief of the Gretna, La., Police Department, confirmed that his officers, along with those from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office and the Crescent City Connection Police, sealed the bridge.

"There was no place for them to come on our side," Mr. Lawson said.

He said that he had been asked by reporters about officers threatening victims with guns or shooting over their heads, but he said that he had not yet asked his officers about that.

"As soon as things calm down, we will do an inquiry and find out what happened," he said.

Actually, Lawson, you need an inquiry now.

Looks like another screw-up on the state/local level. Wanna bet the Left tries to pin this one on the president, too.

(Hat Tip -- Instapundit and JustOneMinute)

Look at this incredible statement from DNC Chair Howard Dean. It appears that he believes that opposing the policies advocated by the Democrat Party makes you opposed to equality and a bad American. The bold-face type is mine.

DEAN: My point is that John Roberts has a record. John Roberts appears to be a wonderful, decent, family person, but, again, we get back to the question about whether you really care and whether you have compassion. It's not enough to say you care.

It's what you've done. John Roberts' legal career has been about taking away every protection for young girls and women who want to participate in sports, for African-Americans and Hispanics, who want the equal same right to vote as everybody else, for taking away for women who believe they should determine what kind of health care they have, instead of having politicians do it.

His entire legal career appears to be about making sure those folks don't have the same rights everybody else does. That's probably not the right thing to do two weeks after a disaster, where certain members of society clearly did not have the same protections that everybody else did because of their circumstances. Americans are fair people and they want a sense of justice. I know Judge Roberts loves the law. I'm not sure he loves the American people.

Let's clarify what Howard is talking about here.

Roberts differed with liberals on how Title IX should be applied. He questioned whether one provision of the Voting Rights Act -- a section requiring FEDERAL APPROVAL for every change in district lines, election dates, and polling place locations in some states but not in others, such as Vermont -- should be renewed. And he is a Catholic who really believes in the sanctity of human life -- and has worked to protect the First Amendment rights of pro-life protesters.

Based upon these mainstream political positions, Howard Dean contends that John Roberts hates the American people.

Based upon these mainstream political positions, Howard Dean is questioning the patriotism -- the Americanism -- of a sitting federal judge.

Shame!

Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right.

This right continues to be under attack in China.

China Aid learned that more than 210 Chinese house church pastors and believers have been arrested in Hubei, Hebei and Henan Provinces since July 2005. Two American tourists in China were also mistreated in this most recent crackdown on a house church in Hubei Province.

On August 2, 2005, while two American tourists were preparing to have Christian fellowship with 41 Chinese House church pastors and believers at their host family’s home in Lutou Town, Zaoyang City, Hubei Province approximately 30 Chinese plain-clothed police officers rushed into the house.

According to several eyewitness reports, the two American theological students, believed to be from Westminster Theological Seminary Campuses in Texas and California, were handled very unprofessionally. One sustained injuries to his wrists after being handcuffed because he wanted to put his shoes on before he was forced into an unmarked police car.

The police refused to reveal their identifications. The two Americans were neither permitted to contact the US Embassy nor permitted to show their US passports and other Identification cards. Both were taken to a government "hotel" for interrogation.

They were released at 5 pm following a 7 hour interrogation. Without explanation, some of their belongings, including their personal bibles, notebooks, and books on Westminster Confession of Faith were confiscated.

The same day, the 41 Chinese pastors and believers from the evangelical South China Church were taken to No. 2 Zaoyang Prison. At the time of this report 30 had been released. The remaining eleven, including 38-year-old Ms. Wang Hua and 32-year-old Ms. Wang Xiao, as well as the hostess, Ms. Ren Daoyun, are still in prison.

According to eyewitness reports, many of them were tortured. Sixty-year-old Ms. Ren has been repeatedly beaten by Mr. Lei Youxin, the director of the prison. He kicked her, punched her face, and beat her head against the wall with a prison chair. One eyewitness told CAA that Ms. Ren’s mouth was bleeding and swollen.

Another 17 year-old evangelist Mr. He Baobao was hospitalized for a serious nose bleed due to the repeated beatings by his interrogators.

CAA learned from a reliable source this raid was directed and led by Mr.Yang Kaihu and Mr Wang Zhiguo, the director of Domestic Security Protection Squad of Xiangfan PSB and Zaoyang PSB respectively.

The PSB confiscated blankets and 2300 RMB($290) and a check with 3000 RMB ($350) from the host family and broke the family’s television. About 5000 RMB ($625) was also confiscated from the pockets of those arrested.

So arrest, detention, and torture are the punishment for holding a Bible study.

Similarly, other acts of persecution continue in China.

According to CAA’s reliable sources, July 22, approximately 100 Christian high school aged students were arrested at Wanzhuang Town, Langfang City, Hebei Province. They were attending a Vocational Bible School (VBS) organized by their Christian parents. After being interrogated for hours, they were all released and ordered not to gather again by the local PSB.

July 1,2005 approximately 70 house church believers were arrested at Zhaolou Village, Sui County, Henan Province. That church was performing baptisms for 60 new believers at the home of a host family. Ten of them including Pastor Wang Baode were sentenced to 15-days administrative detention. All others were released after paying a 300 RMB ($35) fine without receipts.

CAA received information from a source in Shanghai that 400 members of a 16-year-old house church at Minhang District, Shanghai City was ordered to close by the Shanghai authority. The Religious Affairs Bureau and District Government of Minhang District placed a stamped official notice on the gate of the church building on July 26th declaring the gathering as “an illegal religious gathering and should end their service immediately,” otherwise, the leaders will face “severe administrative punishment.”

Contact the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC to protest these violations of the human right to worship, to pray, and to peacefully associate for religious purposes:

Ambassador Yang Jiechi
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington DC 20008
Tel: (202) 328-2500
Fax: (202) 588-0032
Director of Religious Affairs: (202) 328-2512

For more information on religious persecution in China.

For more on religious persecution worldwide.

The seminal account of the "Middle Passage" of African blacks to America for enslavement was written by Olaudah Equiano. His claim was to have been an African who survived the journey, and his story was purported to be a first-hand account in 1789.

But new evidence raises a question about the facts of Equiano's life -- and whether the story he told was true. And lest you think this is simply an obscure academic debate, please realize that Equiano's account is the basis for much historical thinking on the Middle Passage. I include Equiano's account when I teach about slavery, and it is either explicitly or implicitly a part of most textbooks used today.

Things began around 15 years ago, when Carretta, a professor of English at Maryland who had long been enamored of Equiano, ever since he started teaching his autobiography to undergrads, hopped a plane to England and started hunting. At Westminster Abbey, he stumbled on the documents that recast Equiano's beginnings in a completely unexpected light.

"No one had ever looked at his naval records," Carretta says, still sounding a little surprised. "He tells us the month and year and place he was baptized.

"I was indeed shocked. I said, 'This does not make sense, this shouldn't be. What do I do with it?' "

Carretta decided to test the waters: He edited a new edition of "The Interesting Narrative" for Penguin in 1995 -- and listed his discovery in a footnote. No one noticed.

So in 1999, feeling a little more adventurous, he printed his findings in a history journal, Slavery and Abolition. People noticed.

Some academics in African American studies saw Carretta's findings as an attempt to discredit Equiano, to depict him as the pawn of white abolitionists.

At an academic conference in 2003, scholars debated whether Equiano's claims of his origins were "most likely rhetorical exercises," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which first reported on Carretta's biography.

Carretta sees his findings as a twist in the narrative, one that intrigues but, he argues, in no way diminishes Equiano's authority.

"No one raises these questions about Ben Franklin," says Carretta, whose book is titled "Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man."

"No one believes Franklin's biography is absolutely unvarnished, true. Everyone selects, elaborates, enhances, embroiders. We expect that. To not, is to assume that someone is a transparent auto-Dictaphone, and can't shape anything, which is more demeaning.

"My Equiano is a literary genius. Other people's Equiano is more like a literary tape recorder: He says what he says."

Actually, I would argue that this could seriously undermine Equiano's authority. This is not a question of a self-serving varnish on one's autobiography, but instead is a question of complete fictionalization of one's life. Carretta is corrects in labeling him a literary genius -- but the problem is that his account is held up as a work of history. If what we have is a novel rather than a memoir, this important narrative of the Middle Passage loses much of its historical importance.

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They will be loosed upon trolls, spammers, and fools.

But I will continue to be your guide.

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We've heard it was the fault of the federal government that there was no food or water in the Superdome. However, look at why there was no food or water -- it was offered and rejected.

Louisiana officials told the American Red Cross not to plan to go into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit to provide relief to residents at the Superdome — and also refused help from the organization before the storm hit.

As its workers evacuated the city before the storm, the Red Cross offered to drop off food, water, cots and other emergency supplies to the Superdome, but officials declined the supplies, Red Cross spokeswoman Carol Miller said Thursday. The Red Cross was aware that the Superdome was a refuge of last resort for people who couldn't evacuate New Orleans.

Red Cross President Marty Evans said that officials for Louisiana's homeland security department told the relief agency not to drop off the supplies, Miller said. She didn't name the officials.

In the days after Katrina hit, television broadcasts from the Superdome showed thousands of people there complaining about the lack of food and water. Miller said the Red Cross didn't offer its own shelter in downtown New Orleans because it is the agency's policy to “not shelter in unsafe areas.”

So there is no more basis for saying it is the fault of the president or FEMA -- state and local government intentionally starved these people.

They may have tried to shut her down, but one woman with courage and a message managed to upstage the anti-American thugs of MoveOn.org who wanted to prevent her from exercising the freedom of speech that they demanded for themselves.

Clarice McMillan, of Alexandria, Va., was standing about 25 feet behind the MoveOn.org protesters holding a small, hand-written sign that read, "Support the president and love the people." She had been there for only a few minutes when she was confronted by a screaming MoveOn.org supporter.

"Damn you! Supporting the president's great, but supporting the people and the Constitution is more important," the unidentified woman screamed at McMillan. "The Constitution and the babies who died is [sic] more important than any president and you know that in your heart."

Another MoveOn.org supporter pulled the now crying woman away, telling her, "Don't make this the event." Other protesters criticized members of the media for videotaping the confrontation and interviewing McMillan, who said she understood the verbal assault.

"Well, she was upset. She was just upset. It's okay, I can understand that people get emotional," McMillan said. "I want the people to get help, but I don't think this is the time for blame and criticism or the time for MoveOn.org to take advantage of this."

MoveOn.org supporters continued to heckle members of the press and interrupt McMillan as she explained why she lodged her one-woman counter-protest.

Bravo, Ms. McMillan. You are proof that one person speaking the truth can overcome the lies of a mob.