One of my favorite Houston radio personalities, Dan Patrick of KSEV-AM, (no, not Dan Patrick of ESPN, though Houston's Dan Patrick is also a former sportscaster) has filed to run for the Texas Senate in SD7.

Radio talk-show host Dan Patrick signed off the air Thursday when he officially filed in the Republican primary for state Senate District 7.

Patrick's filing makes him the last of previously announced candidates to formally enter the four-way GOP race that also includes state Reps. Peggy Hamric and Joe Nixon and Houston City Councilman Mark Ellis. State Sen. Jon Lindsay is not seeking re-election in the heavily Republican district.

F. Michael Kubosh, a Harris County bail bondsman, has filed for the seat in the Democratic primary.

With the large field, the race is likely to be decided in a runoff between the top two vote getters. Several of Patrick's opponents have conducted polls, and each poll shows its candidate coming in second.

I think it likely that Dan Patrick will not need a runoff to win, given his high name recognition and grassroots support. One poll shows him with 54% of likely GOP primary voters supporting him. In addition, there are other signs of support.

* Of the 125 serving precinct chairs in Senate District 7, over 85 (or 68%) have endorsed Dan Patrick for Senate and have pledged to help get out the vote for Dan. More precinct chairs are expected to endorse after the filing deadline (January 2, 2006).

* More than 700 have signed on to volunteer for the Dan Patrick Campaign.

* The Dan Patrick for Senate Campaign has received contributions from over 800 individuals who support Dan’s message for change in Austin.

Here are the six points Dan has been emphasizing for years as a broadcaster, and on which he is running for the legislature.

1. Reduce the appraisal cap to 3% per year on all residential property

Texans are being taxed out of their homes. We must end the stealth 8–10% annual tax increase on homeowners. If local governments feel a need to raise revenue, they should do so by raising the tax rate; not by hiding behind an automatic appraisal increase. Voters can then determine if the increase was necessary and if those elected officials are worthy of re-election.

2. Illegal immigration – secure our borders now

The Federal Government has failed to protect our borders as they are constitutionally required. It is time we use Texas taxpayers’ resources to protect our borders instead of providing services to those that entered this state illegally. It is time for Texans to protect the Texas border.

3. Reduce government spending now

We elected Republican majorities in the Texas House and Senate and expected them to be fiscally conservative. Our legislature has let us down. The most recent state budget includes a 20% increase in spending. We should focus on needs-based-budgeting, rather than revenue-based-budgeting.

4. Responsible education funding

School budgets and administrative positions have increased faster than student enrollment and classroom teacher positions. The legislature should require that 65% of school spending be dedicated to the classroom. We must focus education resources on the classroom instruction of our children.

5. Legislators should put tax cuts before their own pension increases

Legislators found the votes to increase their own pensions in the last legislative session, but after two special sessions could not find the votes to reduce your property taxes or lower the appraisal cap. We should focus first on cutting taxes before we increase legislator’s benefits.

6. We are the majority party and we should govern as such

I have called for an end to the so called “blocker bill� in the Senate. For years, this Senate tradition helped ensure civility in the upper house, but recently Democrats have used the practice to block meaningful legislation from being approved. We should end the practice of requiring 2/3 of the Senate to agree before a measure can be considered in the Senate.

I live on the opposite end of Harris County, in a different senatorial district -- but as the GOP Precinct Chair for Precinct 333, I would also like to offer my endorsement of Dan Patrick for Texas Senate District 7.

And speaking of my position as precinct chair, I'll be filing for reelection to that position on Monday afternoon.

Recent days have seen a couple of new twists in Texas politics. One involves the plans of a state officeholder and her lust for higher office at any cost, while the other relates to the DonQuixote campaign of a good conservative in the 22nd Congresional District.

Let's start with Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn [YOUR LAST NAME HERE], our comptroller and mother of former White House spokesman Scott McClellan. This long-time Austin Dem turned RINO announced for governor months ago -- but rumor has it that when she files on Monday it won't be as a Republican. Instead, it is possible that she will be filing as an independent. Strayhorn and her staff are pointedly NOT denying rumors to this effect.

Strayhorn spokesman Mark Sanders would not answer direct questions about whether Strayhorn will file Monday in the Republican primary or as an independent.

"Carole Keeton Strayhorn is a candidate for governor. She is a Republican. She will be filing for that office on Monday," Sanders said.

If that happens, next fall we will see a race for governor that includes Gov. Rick Perry as the GOP nominee, Kinky Friedman and Strayhorn running as independents, a Democrat nominee (former Congressman Chris Bell?) and the Libertarian candidate. It would not be surprising to see the winner take office with under 40% of the vote -- and the Democrat candidate finish behind at least one of the independent candidates.

And then there is the announcement of another candidate to run against Tom Delay for Congress. This one sounds like someone I could support if the seat were open or held by a Democrat, but not when he is challenging one of the top leaders of the GOP.

A 50-year-old attorney from Sugar Land has filed to run against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay for the 22nd District in the Republican primary in March.

Thomas A. Campbell, who specializes in environmental law, is the third Republican challenger to take on DeLay, who has held the post since 1985.

Campbell paid the filing fee of $3,125 to the Texas Republican Party in Austin on Wednesday and entered his name in the race.

"We need to return some decency and civility to the way we conduct the public's business," Campbell said.

Campbell said he found it has become increasingly difficult for him to vote for DeLay, who was indicted in September and October on charges related to campaign finances. DeLay has since stepped down as House majority leader.

"I wish I had a choice," Campbell said. "And what I am trying to do is provide Republicans who are conservative a choice, an alternative."

Campbell served as general counsel for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

***

Campbell, who has never held elected office, said he knows taking on an entrenched incumbent in a race with two other challengers will be difficult.

"It is going to be a hard fight, but it is a good fight and it is one we can win," he said.

He is a partner in the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and said he will take a leave of absence from his job while he's campaigning.

Campbell said he would work toward reducing government bureaucracy as well as regulatory burdens on small businesses.

Campbell, who received his law degree from Baylor University, has been married for 28 years. He and his wife, Shauri, have five children and are adopting another.

The problem with this challenge is that it comes way too late, and at a time when the party needs to rally around a leader who is under partisan attack by an unethical prosecutor and is targetted by the national Democrats, who are bringing in lots of out of state money to influence the results in our congressional district. I'll concede casting a protest vote against DeLay in 2004 out of concern over the ethics charges. However, I have to stand with Fort bend County GOP Chairman Eric Thode on this one.

Fort Bend County Republican Party Chairman Eric Thode described Campbell as a credible candidate but one with low name recognition taking on a popular incumbent.

"He (DeLay) has represented us well, and I am confident he will be re-elected in the primary," Thode said Wednesday.

Thode said Campbell is not well-known among people active in the local GOP parties.

"He has no viable group of supporters," Thode said.

It's sad that Campbell has gotten into this race in a way that makes it impossible to take his candidacy seriously. But then again, if the seat does open up between now and 2008, perhaps Tom Campbell will have gained the name-recognition and respect needed to mount a real campaign. And, as Chris Elam over at Safety For Dummies points out, he could be the ideal"safety net" candidate in the event that Ton Delay is convicted or withdraws from the race.

The Left and the media (two ways of saying the same thing) demanded an investigation when someone legally leaked the name of Joe Wilson's non-covert CIA spouse. The result was a witch hunt which resulted in only a single indictment -- and that raising the issue of perjury rather than wrongdoing in making public Valerie Plame's role in selecting her husband for a trip to Nigeria.

So should it be any surprise that the leaking of truly sensitive national security information would be investigated?

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into recent disclosures about a controversial domestic eavesdropping program that was secretly authorized by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, officials said yesterday.

Justice prosecutors will focus their examination on who may have unlawfully disclosed classified information about the program to the New York Times, which reported two weeks ago that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the international telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens and residents without court-approved warrants, officials said.

The Justice Department's decision to reveal the opening of a criminal investigation is rare, particularly given the highly classified nature of the probe. Deputy White House press secretary Trent Duffy told reporters in Crawford, Tex., yesterday that Justice "undertook this action on its own" and that Bush had only learned about it from senior staff earlier in the day.

But Duffy reiterated earlier statements by Bush, who had sharply condemned the disclosure of the NSA program and argued that it seriously damaged national security.

"The fact is that al Qaeda's playbook is not printed on Page One, and when America's is, it has serious ramifications," Duffy said, reading from prepared remarks. "You don't need to be Sun Tzu to understand that," he added, referring to the ancient Chinese general who wrote "The Art of War."

Leak investigations generally begin with a referral to the Justice Department by the agency in question -- in this case the NSA -- which prompts a preliminary inquiry by prosecutors to determine whether a crime has been committed. The opening of a criminal investigation signals that prosecutors believe that laws barring disclosure of classified information by government officials were broken. It is likely to be a full-blown probe involving FBI agents and Justice investigators.

Now that seems perfectly reasonable -- especially given the impact of the leak on national security. Who could possibly object?

The American Civil Liberties Union Friday criticized a new Justice Department leak probe.

The Justice Department announced earlier Friday that it was launching an investigation into the disclosure of a secret National Security Agency domestic eavesdropping operation approved by President George W. Bush without specific legal or congressional authorization.

In a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the ACLU has called for the appointment of a special counsel to determine whether Bush violated federal wiretapping laws by authorizing illegal surveillance of domestic targets.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said, "President Bush broke the law and lied to the American people when he unilaterally authorized secret wiretaps of U.S. citizens. But rather than focus on this constitutional crisis, Attorney General Gonzales is cracking down on critics of his friend and boss. Our nation is strengthened, not weakened, by those whistle-blowers who are courageous enough to speak out on violations of the law.

"To avoid further charges of cronyism, Attorney General Gonzales should call off the investigation," Romero said. "Better yet, Mr. Gonzales ought to fulfill his own oath of office and appoint a special counsel to determine whether federal laws were violated."

Mr. Romero, please quit giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States and start giving a damn about the safety and seurity of American citizens during time of war. Attorney General Gonzales is fulfilling his oath of office by conducucting an investigation of the breaking of federal laws -- specifically those which forbid the disclosure of classified information related to national security to unauthorized individuals. The actions of the administration are legal and differ not one bit from activities conducted by every administration since at least Jimmy Carter, based upon the president's constitutional role as commander in chief.

UPDATE: One of the many fine pieces on the net defending the NSA program.

MORE AT Stop the ACLU, California Conservative, Crazy Politicos, Is It Just Me?, Conservative Dialysis, The Museum of Left-Wing Lunacy, ReidBlog

Massachusets Congressman Barney Frank (D - East Sodom & Gomorrah) has two words for those who want to let the people speak on the issue of redefining marriage as anything other than one man and one woman -- shut up.

That is the only conclusion that can be drawn from his comments regarding those seeking to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot to overturn the dictatorial misinterpretation of the Massachusetts Constitution (written by, among others, John Adams) by the state's highest court.

Massachusetss could face an "angry, divisive" fight if a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage reaches the 2008 state ballot, Rep. Barney Frank says.

The congressman blamed backers of the initiative petition for trying to provoke a new fight despite a lack of controversy over same-sex marriage.

"Basically, they're the disturbers of the civic peace," the Democrat said in a wide-ranging Associated Press interview Thursday. "We now have social peace in Massachusetts. They're the ones who want to stir it up ... This is a non-issue in Massachusetts."

***

"I think by 2008, people will say, 'Do we really need to have an angry, divisive debate over a non-issue,'" Frank said. "The question for the 50 legislators is: Do they want to make this a front-page issue again, leading the TV news?"

But Barney, don't you realize that everywhere in the United States wehre the voters have been given a say on the matter they have supported the traditional definition over the liberal social engineering of renegade judges and homosexual activists? If there is division being sown on this issue, it is by those of you who are seeking to bring about change of a fundamental social institution -- especially when you engage in name-calling against those who are seeking to peacefully use the democratic process to make their voices heard.

And though you claim this to be a non-issue, consider the results of the petition drive seeking to put the amendment on the ballot.

The Massachusetts Family Institute said the 124,000 certified signatures it gathered for the petition, nearly double the number required, was a sign of strong public support for outlawing same-sex marriage.

"All they want is an opportunity to vote on the definition of marriage," said the group's president, Kris Mineau. "Now that the people have spoken, the good congressman has decided this is a divisive issue."

But then again, Barney Frank is one of those whose party has gone from being the voice of the common man to one that seeks to frustrate the will of the people by using the courts to implement policies that are rejected by the American people at large.

I'm curious what you guys think of this bit of political theorizing from Newsday columnist James Pinkerton.

We like to think that we have made progress in the four centuries since, especially here in the United States. But we're up against a basic reality: As populations grow denser, and as technology improves, there's a natural need for more regulation to keep people's elbows, and machines, from banging into each other.

That's the reason why, for example, Wyoming is a more libertarian place than New York City. Out in the West, where miles might separate people, you can pretty much do what you want. But, if millions are going to live in close proximity to one another, then lots of red tape is going to thread itself around each resident, governing not only the obvious concerns, such as weapons and pollution, but matters such as noise abatement and cigarette smoking.

Do you people agree? I don't think it has to be that way. Does society necessarily become less free the larger it grows?

It seems that American pedophiles are traveling to Mexico in search of victims.

On a sweltering afternoon in this glitzy tourist resort, Alex Fernandez laughed and joked with a group of his fellow homeless teenagers until the subject of prostitution came up. Then his smile disappeared, and the face of the skinny 14-year-old turned to a cold, unblinking stare as he described how grown men, sometimes Mexicans and sometimes foreign tourists, regularly take him to hotels and pay to have sex with him.

"Yes, they buy me. The business gets me food. It gets me clothes," said Fernandez, sitting in the shade of a basketball stand to escape the blazing sun. "No one else helps me. What do you want me to do?"

Despite a concerted effort to crack down on pedophiles in both Mexico and the United States, child prostitution continues unabated in Mexican tourist resorts such as Acapulco and Cancun as well as border cities such as Ciudad Juarez. Investigators estimate the number of Mexican children who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation — including prostitution, pornography and human trafficking — has increased to 20,000 from 16,000 in the past five years. Many of those who pay for sex with the boys and girls are American, Canadian and European tourists.

What's more, this child sex trade is also being brought north. We've had several arrests here in Texas in recent weeks related to children being smuggled from Mexico to become prostitutes.

After all, it isn't like his name is Tom DeLay or anything like that. He is just one more corrupt cog in the on-going series of criminal activities by Democratic pols.

Former U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance walked into a spartan community center Wednesday night a felon who admitted diverting public money to his law firm, family and church.

But the more than 100 people who greeted him there saw him as nothing less than a civil rights hero who has been unjustly sentenced to four years in federal prison.

The event was a fund-raiser to help Ballance pay his legal bills. The former congressman said he had paid all fines and restitution with his own money. A rally held two weeks ago in Murfreesboro drew about 300 people.

The sponsors of Wednesday's tribute called it a "People's Freedom Rally," and it took on the feel of a church service with gospel songs and Bible quotations such as, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Could you imagine the outrage if such a rally/fundraiser were held on behalf of Tom DeLay BEFORE his conviction, much less after it?

Oh, and what was ithe crime of which he was found guilty? Stealing from a charity to enrich himself and his family.

Ballance, 63, is scheduled to begin his sentence Friday at a federal prison in Butner for steering roughly $100,000 in public money from an anti-drug program he founded to his law firm, church and relatives.

The money was among $2.3 million Ballance had directed to the John A. Hyman Memorial Youth Foundation from 1994 to 2003 while he served as a state lawmaker. But the nonprofit foundation failed to file federal tax returns and the required state financial reports. When that became public nearly three years ago, it triggered a state audit that turned up more than $325,000 in questionable spending.

On Nov. 9, 2004, Ballance pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy related to funneling $15,500 to his law firm, $20,000 to his son, Garey Ballance, to buy a Lincoln Navigator, and $5,000 to his daughter for computer services that she did not perform.

Garey Ballance, a state District Court judge, admitted evading taxes on the $20,000, and he received nine months in prison. He also is to report to Butner; the conviction cost him his judicial post.

But we shouldn't be surprised that Ballance would participate in such a fundraiser. After all, he has this to say about his upcoming sentencing.

"I've not done anything that deserves four years in prison," Ballance said.

If that is the case, then why did you plead guilty? Why didn't you stand up and argue that your actions were justified and trust a jury of your peers to bring back a not guilty verdict?

Imagine losing your spouse, only to be told that you will have no say in the final disposal of the remains because of an alleged religious conversion.

Imagine legal action being taken by a religious court to force teh burial of you spous's body according to the rites of that other religion -- and not being permitted to testify because you are not of that faith.

Imagine the civil courts declaring themselves powerless to intervene and provide you with the opportunity to present evidence that there was no conversion.

The widow of Malaysian mountaineer M. Moorthy lived exactly that horrific scenario this week.

A Malaysian mountaineering hero will be buried as a Muslim, against the wishes of his Hindu wife, who denied he had converted to Islam before his death.

The decision follows a High Court ruling that it cannot override the country's Islamic courts in matters of religious conversion.

An Islamic court had said the man, M Moorthy, had become a Muslim last year.

Lawyers say the case highlights problems faced by non-Muslims dealing with Malaysia's Islamic justice system.

"So much for good interracial relations," Haris Mohamad Ibrahim, a lawyer representing Malaysia's Bar Council, told The Associated Press.

"The judge has just told the widow and her family to go back and leave the body of their beloved to be buried by strangers."

Moorthy's brother and some of his former army colleagues claimed that he had convertedlast year. But only two months ago, he gave an interview about his preparations for the Hindu religious festival of Diwali. The family was forbidden from providing testimony or evidence before the Sharia court, rendering the proceeding nothing more than a barbaric farce (not that Sharia courts are capable of being other than a barbaric farce). And the civil courts provided no due process or source of redress for the Hindu family.

In dismissing the application by Moorthy’s widow, S. Kaliammal, Raus noted that the main issue brought before him was whether Moorthy had converted to Islam or was still a Hindu.

"The civil court has no jurisdiction to review the Syariah High Court decision," he told a packed courtroom.

Raus also said although there were affidavits filed by Kaliammal, her brother and a friend stating that Moorthy participated in Hindu rituals, the question of jurisdiction to decide the matter still lay with the Syariah court and not the civil court.

For this reason, he said, he could only grant one relief sought by the widow — that she was the deceased’s lawful wife until the time of his death on Dec 20.

Kaliammal, in her originating summons filed on Wednesday, sought a declaration that Moorthy was a Hindu and followed Hindu rituals, a declaration Moorthy was not a Muslim, and a declaration that documents proving Moorthy’s conversion were null and void.

After the judge handed down his decision, M. Manoharan, lawyer for the widow, applied unsuccessfully for a stay of execution for them to appeal to the Court of Appeal.

In other words, the Sharia court had full and unreviewable authority to steal the body over the objections of the family based upon claims of a conversion that not even his Muslim brother claims to have been aware of until after Moorthy's death.

The body was then seized and buried according to Muslim rights, with the Hindu family not attending the funeral which was an affront to their faith and basic decency.

MORE AT: Maobi, Reduced and Recycled, Rajan Rishyakaran, KTemoc Konsiders, Retake Constantinople, Politics 101 Malaysia, Mental Block, Daniel Pipes, The Enemy Is You.

The latest meme sweeping the blogosphere is the 10 Worst American list, courtesy of All Things Beautiful. I find this an intriguing exercise, and hope my contribution to the discussion provides some enlightenment. I've intentionally excluded living individuals, and military and political leaders from the Civil War. Also excluded was Benedict Arnold, the inclusion of whom is simply too trite.

1) Margaret Sanger -- A eugenist who admired Hitler's racial cleansing laws, she started out to make sure blacks, Jews, Slavs, and other "inferior races" didn't outbreed the superior WASP and Germanic stock that she felt merited a privileged place in American society. her legacy continues in the form of the genocidal organization she started, Planned Parenthood.

2) Aaron Burr -- Certainly a murderer, arguably a traitor, Burr was the prototype for the power-hungry politician out for his own interests above those of the US. Had he managed to beat Jefferson in 1800, it might have been the end of the American constitutional system.

3) Julius & Ethel Rosenberg -- One could argue that the Soviets would have gotten the A-bomb in a few years without these spies, but together with Alger Hiss they made the anti-Communist hysteria of the late 1940s and 1950s seem perfectly reasonable. While their supporters claim that they were framed, the Verona documents make it clear that they were guilty as homemade sin.

4) Alger Hiss -- Betrayed his country to the Soviets for years as he climbed his way through the State Department.

5) Hugo Black -- The only Klansman to serve on the Supreme Court, he is the person responsible for incorporating Jefferson's "wall of separation" analogy into legal dogma. He built his career on the anti-black, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic platform of the KKK, and never really renounced the religious bigotry that went with that affiliation.

6) Thaddeus Stevens -- This Radical Republican was among the most malignant of his breed in Washington during and after the War Between The States. He was instrumental in implementing harsh Reconstruction policies that ultimately harmed the freed slaves he sought to help, and he was key to the efforts to hamstring Andrew Johnson, leading eventually to the impeachment of Johnson on charges of violating a law that did not apply to his actions.

7) Alfred Kinsey -- Pervert extrordinaire who paid pedophiles to molest kids as a part of his research. His work provided the scholarly justification for the Sexual Revolution, one of the more harmful social developments of the 1960s.

8) Richard J. Daley -- His corrupt power in Chicago was such that he could provide graft galore and steal a presidential election with impunity. Not even Boss Tweed could manage the latter.

9) Elbridge Gerry -- Ever wonder why they call it gerrymandering? This is the guy who created the practice of drawing political district lines for partisan advantage.

10) J. Edgar Hoover -- For all the good he did, his rogue operation of the FBI gave that agency inordinate power with little supervision. He is the very exemplar of what we should fear in the way of government run amok.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS: Elijah Muhammad, John F. Kennedy, Joseph Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Roger Taney, Andrew Jackson, Tim McVeigh, Gus Hall, Al Capone.

Living figures who will be eligible for inclusion five years after their deaths: Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, George Soros, Ibrahim Hooper, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakahn, John Walker, Jr. Johathan Pollard, Bill Clinton, Teddy Kennedy, Ward Churchill, Jane Fonda, John Kerry, Maxine Watters, Cynthia McKinney.

You have to love it when those in the mainstream media stop running liberal talking points long enough to look at the facts. The Chicago Tribune did a serious piece on the multiple justifications for going to war in Iraq, examining what was said, what we now know, and the veracity of the original claims. The results must be disheartening if one lemmings chanting the mantra "Bush lied, thousands died!"

Biological and chemical weapons

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID

The Bush administration said Iraq had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. Officials trumpeted reports from U.S. and foreign spy agencies, including an October 2002 CIA assessment: "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions."

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

Many, although not all, of the Bush administration's assertions about weapons of mass destruction have proven flat-out wrong. What illicit weaponry searchers uncovered didn't begin to square with the magnitude of the toxic armory U.S. officials had described before the war.

THE VERDICT

There was no need for the administration to rely on risky intelligence to chronicle many of Iraq's other sins. In putting so much emphasis on illicit weaponry, the White House advanced its most provocative, least verifiable case for war when others would have sufficed.

In other words, the President was wrong in magnitude but did not lie.

Iraq rebuffs the world

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID

In a speech that left many diplomats visibly squirming in their chairs, President Bush detailed tandem patterns of failure: Saddam Hussein had refused to obey UN Security Council orders that he disclose his weapons programs--and the UN had refused to enforce its demands of Hussein.

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

Reasonable minds disagree on whether Iraq's flouting of UN resolutions justified the war. But there can be no credible assertion that either Iraq or the UN met its responsibility to the world. If anything, the administration gravely understated the chicanery, both in Baghdad and at the UN.

THE VERDICT

Hussein had shunted enough lucre to enough profiteers to keep the UN from challenging him. In a dozen years the organization mass-produced 17 resolutions on Iraq, all of them toothless. That in turn enabled Hussein to continue his brutal reign and cost untold thousands of Iraqis their lives.

The President spoke the truth, though one can question the necessity of war based on this point..

The quest for nukes

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID

Intelligence agencies warned the Clinton and Bush administrations that Hussein was reconstituting his once-impressive program to create nuclear weapons. In part that intel reflected embarrassment over U.S. failure before the Persian Gulf war to grasp how close Iraq was to building nukes.

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

Four intel studies from 1997-2000 concurred that "If Iraq acquired a significant quantity of fissile material through foreign assistance, it could have a crude nuclear weapon within a year." Claims that Iraq sought uranium and special tubes for processing nuclear material appear discredited.

THE VERDICT

If the White House manipulated or exaggerated the nuclear intelligence before the war in order to paint a more menacing portrait of Hussein, it's difficult to imagine why. For five years, the official and oft-delivered alarms from the U.S. intelligence community had been menacing enough.

That is what had been concluded by the intelligence community for years. Relying on that conclusion was proper, though some of the details may have been incorrect.

Hussein's rope-a-dope

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID

The longer Hussein refuses to obey UN directives to disclose his weapons programs, the greater the risk that he will acquire, or share with terrorists, the weaponry he has used in the past or the even deadlier capabilities his scientists have tried to develop. Thus we need to wage a pre-emptive war.

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

Hussein didn't have illicit weapons stockpiles to wield or hand to terrorists. Subsequent investigations have concluded he had the means and intent to rekindle those programs as soon as he escaped UN sanctions.

THE VERDICT

Had Hussein not been deposed, would he have reconstituted deadly weaponry or shared it with terror groups? Of the White House's nine arguments for war, the implications of this warning about Iraq's intentions are treacherous to imagine--yet also the least possible to declare true or false.

A judgement call that ultimately comes down to how much faith and trust one wishes to place in Saddam Hussein. Based upon his past behavior, the President made a legitimate call -- but those of you who hate Bush can side with the deposed Iraqi leader who had used such weapons against his own people if you think he has greater credibility.

Waging war on terror

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID

Iraq was Afghanistan's likely successor as a haven for terror groups. "Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror ... " the president said. "And he cannot be trusted. The risk is simply too great that he will use them, or provide them to a terror network."

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

The White House echoed four years of intel that said Hussein contemplated the use of terror against the U.S. or its allies. But he evidently had not done so on a broad scale. The assertion that Hussein was "harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror" overstated what we know today.

THE VERDICT

The drumbeat of White House warnings before the war made Iraq's terror activities sound more ambitious than subsequent evidence has proven. Based on what we know today, the argument that Hussein was able to foment global terror against this country and its interests was exaggerated.

In other words, the intel pointed to this, but there remains serious doubt about how serious Hussein was about sponsoring terrorism. But again, there was no lie.

Reform in the Middle East

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID

Supplanting Hussein's reign with self-rule would transform governance in a region dominated by dictators, zealots and kings. The administration wanted to convert populations of subjects into citizens. Mideast democracy would channel energy away from resentments that breed terrorism.

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

U.S. pressure has stirred reforms in Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and imperiled Syria's regime. "I was cynical about Iraq," said Druze Muslim patriarch Walid Jumblatt. "But when I saw the Iraqi people voting . . . it was the start of a new Arab world... The Berlin Wall has fallen."

THE VERDICT

The notion that invading Iraq would provoke political tremors in a region long ruled by despots is the Bush administration's most successful prewar prediction to date. A more muscular U.S. diplomacy has advanced democracy and assisted freedom movements in the sclerotic Middle East.

Spot on correct judgement of the situation.

Iraq and Al Qaeda

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID

President Bush: "... Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy--the United States of America. We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.... Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases."

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

Two government investigative reports indicate that Al Qaeda and Iraq had long-running if sporadic contacts. Several of the prewar intel conclusions likely are true. But the high-ranking Al Qaeda detainee who said Iraq trained Al Qaeda in bombmaking, poisons and gases later recanted.

THE VERDICT

No compelling evidence ties Iraq to Sept. 11, 2001, as the White House implied. Nor is there proof linking Al Qaeda in a significant way to the final years of Hussein's regime. By stripping its rhetoric of the ambiguity present in the intel data, the White House exaggerated this argument for war.

The case was not nearly as clear-cut as the President stated it. What he said was true -- but was it accurate?

The Butcher of Baghdad

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell: "For more than 20 years, by word and by deed, Saddam Hussein has pursued his ambition to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East using the only means he knows--intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his way."

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

Human Rights Watch estimates that Hussein exterminated 300,000 people. Chemical weapons killed Iraqi Kurds and Iranians; Iraqi Shiites also were slaughtered. Tortures included amputation, rape, piercing hands with drills, burning some victims alive and lowering others into acid baths.

THE VERDICT

In detailing how Hussein tormented his people--and thus mocked the UN Security Council order that he stop--the White House assessments were accurate. Few if any war opponents have challenged this argument, or suggested that an unmolested Hussein would have eased his repression.

The world stood by too long in the face of massive human rights violations in Iraq. The President called a spade a spade and acted to bring an end to the manifest evil of the murderous Iraqi regime.

Iraqis liberated

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID

President Bush and his surrogates broached a peculiar notion: that the Arab world was ready to embrace representative government. History said otherwise--and it wasn't as if the Arab street was clamoring for Iraq to show the way.

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

The most succinct evaluation comes from Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.): "Every time the 27 million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam Hussein was overthrown, they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000 terrorists offer them."

THE VERDICT

The White House was correct in predicting that long subjugated Iraqis would embrace democracy. And while Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites have major differences to reconcile, a year's worth of predictions that Sunni disaffection could doom self-rule have, so far, proven wrong.

Once again, the call seems to have been correct.

In other words, a fair view of the resons for the war shows that Bush spoke the truth as he knew it -- even if he overstated some of the evidence -- when the war began. Those who accuse him of lying are engaged in the "Big Lie" themselves, presumably for their own political advantage.

(Hat Tip --, Right Wing Nut House, Blogs for Bush, Sister Toldjah)

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will take up the DeLay case in an expedited fashion. It has given Travis County prosecutor prostitutor Ronnie Earle a week to file briefs supporting a continued denial of the constitutional right to a speedy trial in the prosecution persecution of Congressman Tom DeLay.

The state's highest criminal court has agreed to hear Tom DeLay's latest request for a quick resolution to money laundering charges that forced him to give up his leadership post in the U.S. House, his spokesman said Tuesday.

The all-Republican Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that both sides have a week to submit arguments, DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said in an e-mail. DeLay's attorneys asked the court either to dismiss money laundering charges or to order a lower court to try him immediately.

DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin took the case to the criminal appeals court Friday, one day after the 3rd Court of Appeals denied his request that the case be sent back to the trial court or expedited through the appeals process.

DeGuerin and a spokesman for Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle did not return phone calls seeking comment Tuesday night.

DeLay, a Republican from Sugar Land, was forced to step aside as House majority leader after he was indicted on money laundering and conspiracy charges in September.

He denies wrongdoing and has been pressing for a quick resolution to his case so he can regain his post before his colleagues call for new leadership elections. His case was put on hold, however, when prosecutors appealed a judge's partial dismissal of the criminal charges.

Even if the case is handled in an expedited fashion by the Court of Criminal Appeals, that does not guarantee a quick trial. Judge pat Priest has refused to rule on other pending motions until this appeal is complete, meaning that there will be at least one more round of appeals before a trial can start. Among the pending motions is a DeLay request for dismissal of all remaining counts based upon Ronnie Earle's prosecutorial misconduct in disclosing confidential grand jury information, tampering with the deliberations of a grand jury and grand jury shopping.

If the proceedings are allowed to drag on in this manner, it is likely that Earle will accomplish his goal of permanently removing DeLay from his leadership position, even if he is unable to get a conviction.

PREVIOUS POSTS:
Latest DeLay Bid For Immediate Trial
No Due Process For DeLay
DeLay Screwed By Judge Priest
Ronnie Earle's Assault On Free Speech
DeLay Team Targets Ronnie Earle's Unethical Prosecutorial Conduct
Ronnie Earle Goes Fishing
So Much For A Right To A Speedy Trial
A Victory For DeLay
DeLay Wants No Delay
Plea Possibility Considered
I Love It!
Earle Offered Plea Bargain
Evidence? Ronnie Doesn't Need No Stinking Evidence!
Unethical Prosecutorial Conduct
Grand Jury Shopping
Liberal Austin Paper Criticizes Earle
A Note On The New DeLay Indictments
"The Law And The Truth On My Side"
Ronnie Earle Whitewash In Washington Post
Prosecutorial Misconduct?

Hazing by fraternities and other groups on college campuses is ILLEGAL.

When caught, those involved are subject to criminal penalties, and the organizations involved are ordinarily suspended for some period of time, often until all current members have graduated.

That is why the decision to ban the Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity at the University of Texas came as no surprise when it was determined that an 18-year-old pledge died as a result of alcohol poisoning as a result of hazing activities.

In fact, any other penalty would have been a surprise.

But Lambda Phi Epsilon is special, don't you know. After all, it is a fraternity that is ovewhelmingly Asian, and therefore deserves special treatment -- at least acording to the only Asian in the Texas legislature.

Rep. Hubert Vo wrote UT President Larry Faulkner last week that the university should consider alternative punishments such as probation, community service or alcohol abuse training for the members of Lambda Phi Epsilon, rather than canceling the registration of the entire group.

Group punishment, Vo said, is unfair and could send the wrong message to the Asian community by destroying an important social and support network for Asian students, many of whom are children of immigrants and first-generation college students.

Vo said Tuesday his concern has nothing to do with race and that he doesn't expect Asians to get special treatment at UT.

"This is not about Asians or black or brown or white," he said. "This is about education and cutting off these resources from all the students. It's a big blow for all the students who might have to look for some alternative ways to complete their college degrees."

"The University has stopped short of saying that hazing caused young Mr. Phoummarath's sad death," Vo wrote in the Dec. 22 letter. "Surely there is a solution to this tragic circumstance that also stops short of canceling the fraternity's status while paying tribute to Phanta Jack Phoummarath's yearning for a better future."

So, it has nothing to do with race or ethnicity -- but normal procedures shouldn't be followed because applying standard policy sends the wrong message? Which isit, Hubert? Is it about race or isn't it? You have said it is and it isn't. Would you be taking this position if the fraternity were predominantly white?

And let's not overlook the others who support giving special treatment to a group which is morally culpable in the death of a young man.

But Vo, a Democrat who emigrated from Vietnam about 30 years ago, said UT's decision may discourage Asian students who need all the resources they can get while pursuing their education. "Cutting off a fraternity like this means cutting off the support network for the students," Vo said.

For many Asian students, Vo said, fraternities provide moral support, educational guidance and career advice that parents may not be able to give. He said they also offer vital networking opportunities for minority groups who need a leg up in today's competitive job market.

Lily Truong, board director of the Asian Alumni Association at the University of Houston, agreed that UT should try to find a way to keep the Asian fraternity intact. "They look forward to these fraternities. I know the fraternities are helping them," Truong said of students. "If they don't have the fraternity, they could get lost and I don't think they would know what they're going to do next."

So, Asian students have special needs that should exempt them and their organizations from the same rules and laws that apply to other students. If required to follow the same rules, they will not have the support they need to succeed -- despite the fact that Asian students are among the most successful on any college campus.

Shame on you, Representative Vo. A young man is dead -- one of those very Asian students you claim to support -- and you want those who created teh contditions that led to his death held to a lower standard because they are Asian. Shame!

Muslims demand the right to preach their faith and convert Christians to it. On the other hand, they consider efforts by Christians to convert Muslims -- and the conversion of Muslims to other faiths -- a crime worthy of death. That's why one of the most important books of the last decade has been banned in Muslim countries -- and in some countries with substantial Muslim minorities.

Can you name the book which has the Islamic world in an uproar, and caused the United States government to deny any involvement with it? The book banned in the world’s most populous democracy? No, not Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, a cause celebre among the literati. The book in question is published by evangelical Christian Arabs, and the American media couldn’t care less about it.

Islam considers apostasy a crime punishable by death. It is very easy indeed to convert to Islam, but once the requisite phrases have been uttered, exit is not permitted. While Muslims are free to proselytize in most of the world, most Islamic countries refuse to allow Christian evangelists, or evangelists for any other faith for that matter, to operate freely. Severe criminal penalties exist in some states like Saudi Arabia, for inducing a Muslim to leave the faith.

There has never been an adequate translation of the Bible into classical Arabic. Such translations as exist are subject to ridicule by those trained in the poetry of the Quran, which is the standard used to define classical Arabic.

Nevertheless, there are Christian evangelists who wish to bring their religion and the teachings of Christ to Muslims. In 1999, two pseudonymous Arab Christian authors produced a book, The True Furqan (Furqan is another word for Quran), written in classical Arabic, intended as a tool to evangelize Arabs in particular, and Muslims in general. It is written in the style of the Quran, as a series of poetic verses, and contains Arabic verses and an English translation, side by side. But it brings the message of Christianity’s Good News.

To appease its resident Islamists, India banned The True Furqan in September.

Custom Non-Tariff Notification

No: 78/ NT (07-Sep-05) Govt prohibits import of book titled ‘The True Furqan’, subtitled ‘The 21st Century Quran’ published by USA-based publisher

The Central Government, for the maintenance of security of India, absolutely prohibits import of the book entitled “The True Furqan�, subtitled “The 21st Century Quran� published in the United States of America by Omega, 2000 and Wine Press, including any extract there from, any reprint or translation thereof or any document reproducing any matter contained therein.

Interestingly enough, this decree could be seen as banning the Bible, as much of The True Furqan is quotes from Scripture.

I encourage readers to look at the text of the book at the link above, and to pass it on to Muslim friends.

I've wondered how they would cover the failure to remove the perjuring, justice-obstructing adulterer.

The topic is covered briefly in middle school texts. McGraw Hill's "The American Journey" offers a description that is representative of other accounts — balanced and methodical.

"Although there was general agreement that the president had lied, Congress was divided over whether his actions justified impeachment," the book says.

In McDougal Littell's "The Americans," a high school text, the topic merits two paragraphs. The same book gave more space to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.

"The American Vision," a McGraw Hill high school book written by Brinkley and others, spends five paragraphs on Clinton's impeachment and one more on his uncertain legacy.

"Compression is a tremendous challenge," Brinkley said. "Five paragraphs on a topic is a lot for all but the most important issues."

Sometimes, the language gets blunt.

"A History of the United States," a Pearson Prentice Hall high school text, refers to the impeachment scandal as "a sorry mess" that diminished Clinton and his rivals.

Polls showed most Americans did not believe Clinton's "tortured explanations of his behavior," the book says, but also did not think his offenses warranted his removal.

By the time students get to college, the textbooks, as expected, offer more sophisticated detail of the impeachment and the way it all changed American public life.

Yet at all levels, the salacious details of the Lewinsky affair are nowhere to be found.

Middle school texts describe it as "a personal relationship between the president and a White House intern." In high school books, it is Clinton's "improper relationship with a young White House intern," or Clinton "denied having sexual relations" with an intern.

As a practical matter, I wonder how many US History classes will even reach the 1990s -- and how many teachers will choose to skip the only impeachement of an elected president in US history, out of concern for discussing the pronographic details.

And will the approach change if the Hildebeast is elected in 2008?

Washington State is preparing to consider legislation that will give special protection to professional information providers, but not to citizen-journalists who provide news content as a hobby or side-activity.

The fact that New York Times reporter Judith Miller's badge of courage has been tarnished does not diminish the need for shield laws to protect journalists' use of anonymous sources in the legitimate pursuit of information.

Congress would do well to pass a national shield law that allows states to adopt broader protections. In the meantime, Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna has proposed a bold but reasoned shield law for professionals in this state.

The legislation already has an impressive list of sponsors going into the legislative session that begins Jan. 16., including Sens. Adam Kline, D-Seattle; Stephen Johnson, R-Kent; Karen Keiser, D-Kent; and Dave Schmidt, R-Mill Creek.

McKenna proposes absolute protection against court-ordered disclosure of an anonymous source and qualified protection for a journalist's work product -- unpublished notes, photos and tape recordings. The measure would set conditions for disclosure in criminal or civil cases.

The proposal also is valuable in that it would define members of the "news media" as those in the regular business of disseminating news or information to the public and who earn "a substantial portion of his or her livelihood" that way. Included in that definition are researchers and scholars.

The reason journalists need such a shield is because information is an essential check when governments go too far.

Unfortunately, the definition leaves out those of us in the blogosphere who engage in citizen-journalism with no salary. It would provide less protction to student-jpurnalists on college newspaper than to their professional colleagues. And it would permit a journalist to withhold a source in a criminal case even when doing so could result in a miscarriage of justice.

Ultimately, journalists are no different than any other citizen of the United States. Laws regarding subpoenas and the production of information in criminal and civil cases must apply to them in the same fashion as they do to every other American.

Looks to me like we need to can a bunch of local employees in Egypt -- they are the bureaucratic cousins of al-Qaeda. It seems that these Muslim employees have been denying visas to Coptic Christians when they appear at the embassy for processing.

State Department officials are closely examining 15 to 20 Egyptian employees of the embassy's consular section after top officials received complaints from lawyers and human-rights groups about discriminatory behavior toward the Copts seeking visas to the United States, sources said.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, may have been wrongly denied visas, sources said.

In a recent meeting organized by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), top State Department officials were told that these employees, who conduct prescreening interviews and translations, appear to have unusual influence over a process that is supposed to be controlled by Americans.

"This is a widespread problem that we have been aware of for some time. Now, however, there are people stepping forward and are making formal complaints," said Father Keith Roderick, head of the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights, who attended the meeting.

Among those making complaints to the State Department is a Christian man who was seeking to donate a kidney to an uncle in New Jersey.

He says he was twice told to remove the cross he was wearing if he wanted a visa. He refused and was denied a visa.

Another is a woman who was scheduled to speak at a recent human-rights conference in Washington about what it is like to live in a Muslim-dominated country.

She claimed embassy officials demanded to see her speech.

She and two other Egyptian Copts were denied a visa while Egyptian Muslims were granted visas.

They have asked that their names not be made public for fear of retaliation in Egypt.

There have also been complaints that these employees keep posters in the embassy promoting supporters of the Hamas terror group.

Fire these terrorist-loving Islamist pigs. Heck -- fire every last Egyptian Muslim employee of the Embassy and replace them with Copts as a sign of our displeasure at the official abuse of Copts by the Egyptian government that has been copied by these swine.

And consider this frm one of the individuals who has helped document this abuse of members of a religious community that dates back to the first century of the Christian era.

"This should be a concern because if they can influence who they can keep out of the United States, they could also influence who can get in," said Caroline Doss, a Jersey City immigration lawyer who presented State Department officials with affidavits from Coptic Christian clients.

How many terrorists have they given visas? Do we have any way of finding out?

UPDATE: Great commentary on the issue at All Things Beautiful. More at DhimmiWatch, and Gates of Vienna. Also, a great older post on this issue from The Free Copts.

The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are The Idiot's Guide To Victimhood -- Getting It and Keeping It by Dr. Sanity, and Legal Analysis of the NSA Domestic Surveillance Program by The Volokh Conspiracy.  You can find the full results of the vote here.

1 And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
2 This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.
3 So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.

4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,
5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child.
6 So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered.
7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Glory in the Highest

8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.
10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.
11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.�

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

14 “ Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!

15 So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.�
16 And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger.
17 Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.
18 And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
19 But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.

Yesterday we found that the Google has a sex toy as the top search item for the words "baby jesus".

Today we find that the internet giant, which usually acknowledges holidays with seasonal graphics, ignores "the reason for the season" entirely.

I guess the only folks it is safe to offend and ignore in the name of "tolerance and diversity" are Christians.

MORE AT: Wizbang, Verum Serum

In the 5199th year of the creation of the world, from the time when in the beginning God created heaven and earth;
from the flood, the 2957th year;
from the birth of Abraham, the 2015th year;
from Moses and the going-out of the people of Israel from Egypt, the 1510th;
from the anointing of David as king, the 1032nd year;
in the 65th week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the 194th Olympiad;
from the founding of the city of Rome, the 752nd year;
in the 42nd year of the rule of Octavian Augustus,
when the whole world was at peace,
in the sixth age of the world:
Jesus Christ, the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by His most merciful coming,
having been conceived by the Holy Ghost,
and nine months having passed since His conception
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary,
having become man.

The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.

It's only been a couple of weeks since British cops tried to silence children's author Lynette Burrows. Now the same thing has happened to a British couple because they asked to place literature on an equal footing with a homosexual group.

POLICE questioned a retired couple for 80 minutes about their “homophobic� views after they asked their local council if they could display their Christian literature next to gay rights leaflets, it was reported last night.

Joe and Helen Roberts said that police officers warned them that their actions “were close to a hate crime� after they complained to Wyre Borough Council about its gay rights policies.

The couple claimed that the police told them they were “walking on eggshells�.

Mr Roberts, from Fleetwood, Lancashire, said he had been offended because of the council’s distribution of the gay rights leaflets and its promotion of its theatre as a venue for civil partnership ceremonies.

He said he complained to Paul Deacon, the council officer responsible for Wyre’s part in the Navajo Charter Mark campaign being run by several local authorities to offer assistance to gay and lesbian people.

Mr Roberts, 73, told the Daily Mail: “I told him I was offended. I asked him if I could put Christian literature on display alongside the gay material. He said I couldn’t because it would offend gay people.

“I said we had no objection to gay people, but we thought that homosexual practice was wrong and we were offended by the gay culture which the council is promoting.

In other words, what Mr. and Mrs. Roberts did was an act of pure speech, petitioning their government to allow them equal footing to that of others placing literature. They sought to have their views placed on par with those of others. None of that is unreasonable.

They got the following response from the council.

Mr Roberts had asked if the council would display Christian leaflets, and was told all applications would be considered, but nothing that would offend minority groups would be approved.

In other words, the council won't offend minorities -- but is more than willing to offend the beliefs of Christians.

What the request also got them was a visit from the local police and the threat of possible criminal charges. Mr. Roberts, in fact, asked a question that the police refused to anwer -- and that silence is, in and of itself, quite telling.

“They warned me that being discriminatory and homophobic is in line with hate crime. The phrase they used was that we were ‘walking on eggshells’. I asked the officer, if I phoned the police with a complaint that the council were discriminating against Christians would he go to interview them?�

Got that -- holding and expressing the wrong beliefs places one in jeopardy of being arrested, tried, and potentially imprisoned. That's a far cry from the the vaunted rights of Englishmen, the violation of which inspired our own Founding Fathers to revolt against English tyranny.

Lancashire police said its visit to the Robertses’ family home was a matter of routine after a complaint from the council. A spokesman added: “Words of suitable advice were given and we will not be taking any further action.�

What this really means is that the police told them that if they dare to speak their mind again on the subject of homosexuality, they will go to jail -- and maybe even a reeducation program modelled on those of Mao's Cultural Revolution. If you think I am overstating the matter, consider the response of the council spokesperson to questions from the Times.

A council spokesman said the couple had “displayed potentially homophobic attitudes�.

He added: “The council referred this matter to the police for further investigation with the intention of challenging attitudes and educating and raising awareness of the implications of homophobic behaviour.�

Or, put differently, they had attitudes and beliefs which are seen as criminal -- welcome to the world of real thought crimes!

One more proof that those who demand tolerance of diverse views will tolerate any view except diverse ones.

(LINK TO: Pirates! Man Your Women!)

You have to love stories like this one -- love, generousity, and patriotism all rolled together.

A Marine who's planning to marry a Texan got an early Christmas present: A fellow shopper picked up the tab for a $3,000 diamond engagement ring after the two struck up a conversation in a jewelry store.

The 54-year-old Dallas woman who paid for the 1-carat, princess cut diamond ring wants to remain anonymous, Helzberg Diamonds spokeswoman Stacey McBride told The Associated Press on Friday.

The woman's father was in the military, her brother was a Marine who died in Vietnam and her nephew just got back from Iraq, McBride said.

Marine James Lynaugh, 28, of Patuxent River, Md., was shopping Thursday at the Helzberg Diamonds store at a mall in Tyler.

Lynaugh and the anonymous shopper discussed their mutual military connections. Lynaugh opened a store credit account to buy the ring, then left with it.

After the other shopper paid for her items, she inquired whether Lynaugh's credit charge could be reversed. She didn't even ask about the cost of the ring, McBride said.

"So we were able to reverse that charge, and she paid in full with a check," McBride said.

A representative of the North Kansas City., Mo, company later contacted Lynaugh with the good news.

"He did say that he broke the news to his fiancee" that someone else paid for the ring, McBride said.

Lynaugh's fiancee is from Athens, about 40 miles southwest of Tyler in East Texas. The Marine also has family in Huntsville.

He did not immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press on Friday afternoon.

And the greatest of these is love.

I'm sure you've heard the one about the student questioned by the student in Massachusetts who was questioned by the FBI regarding a request for Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. And you may have even read the piece by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Chivas Regal) commenting on it.

Guess what -- the alleged victim of this intrusive government spying on innocent Americans admits that it is a lie.

Or so one of the professors involved tells us -- because he won't identify the student. Neither will the Boston Globe, which interviewed the student this week.

It rocketed across the Internet a week ago, a startling newspaper report that agents from the US Department of Homeland Security had visited a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth at his New Bedford home simply because he had tried to borrow Mao Tse-Tung's ''Little Red Book" for a history seminar on totalitarian goverments.

The story, first reported in last Saturday's New Bedford Standard-Times, was picked up by other news organizations, prompted diatribes on left-wing and right-wing blogs, and even turned up in an op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Globe.

But yesterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.

The professor, Brian Glyn Williams, said he went to his former student's house and asked about inconsistencies in his story. The 22-year-old student admitted it was a hoax, Williams said.

''I made it up," the professor recalled him saying. ''I'm sorry. . . . I'm so relieved that it's over."

The student was not identified in any reports. The Globe interviewed him Thursday but decided not to write a story about his assertion, because of doubts about its veracity. The student could not be reached yesterday.

Williams said the student gave no explanation. But Williams, who praised the student as hard-working and likeable, said he was shaken by the deception.

''I feel as if I was lied to, and I have no idea why," said Williams, an associate professor of Islamic history. He said the possibility the government was scrutinizing books borrowed by his students ''disturbed me tremendously."

I have several reactions to this.

First, I never doubted that the story was a hoax. That particular book wouldn't get you watched when the Cold War was at its height -- why would it today?

Second, why won't those who know identify the hoaxer? They were more than willing to report the story -- why not "the rest of the story"?

Third, will UN-Dartmouth take disciplinary action against the student?

Fourth, are criminal charges an option given the seditious nature of the lie that was told?

A certain segment of the American public hates this country and identifies with its enemies. They are willing to lie, steal, and commit acts of violence to undermine the US in the Crusade Against Islamist Terrorism. There needs to be a cost to such misdeeds -- and a high one.

(H/T -- Blogs for Bush, GOPBloggers,, Politburo Diktat)

UPDATE: Looks like Senator Kennedy (DUI-Chappaquidick) is not backing down from his column -- and is saying that the truth doesn't matter.

But Kennedy isn’t apologizing. Far from it, his spokesman is adopting a variant of the Dan Rather fake-but-accurate line:

Laura Capps, a Kennedy spokeswoman, said last night that the senator cited ‘’public reports� in his opinion piece. Even if the assertion was a hoax, she said, it did not detract from Kennedy’s broader point that the Bush administration has gone too far in engaging in surveillance.

So the Senator’s negative opinion, based on fiction, somehow is still real. Because feelings matter more than facts, I suppose.

If Kennedy were a man, he would publicly apologize to President Bush for repeating a vicious lie about him and giving it credence. But of course, if Kennedy were a man, Mary Joe Kopechne would be alive.

Indeed.

MORE FROM: Michelle Malkin, Right Wing Nut House, In The Bullpen, Pirates!, Verum Serum, Slant Truth, Paladin Blog.

Last time I checked, al-Qaeda is our major adversary in the Crusade Against Islamist Terrorism. Why, then, is a Boston government agency selling land to a group associated with al-Qaeda to build a mosque in the heart of Boston's Roxbury neighborhood? And why did the group get the land at a below-market price? Those questions are being asked by one Boston city councilman.

Boston City Councilor Jerry McDermott imminently intends to call for a public hearing on the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s sale of land in Roxbury for the construction of a large mosque to the Islamic Society of Boston, which has been dogged by charges of links to Islamic extremists.

The hearing comes at the urging of the lawyer for the David Project, the pro-Israel group currently being sued by the ISB for defamation, who sent a letter to McDermott and local media earlier this month alleging that the ISB trustees’ current president had signed a petition in support of the pre-trial release of Abdulrahman Alamoudi. The founder of the ISB in 1982, Alamoudi is now in prison in Saudi Arabia on terrorism funding-related charges.

Lawyers for the BRA and the ISB had rebuffed McDermott’s request to participate in hearings in April, citing pending litigation in a lawsuit brought by a Mission Hill resident over charges that the BRA violated the separation of church and state in selling the land for the mosque at a below-market price in exchange for several services, including a lecture series on Islam, to be provided by the ISB.

“I understand if folks at the BRA can only answer limited questions, but I also think it’s fair to provide the opportunity to come in and ask questions,� said McDermott, who chairs the Post-Audit and Oversight committee. “I think the public, as well as any elected official, has the right to ask questions concerning whether the sale of this public parcel was handled properly and whether the sale price was in the taxpayers’ best interest,� McDermott said, adding that he intends to file the request for a hearing after the first of the year.

ISB lawyer Albert Farrah said that the ISB will not participate in hearings. “Any legitimate issues that have been raised about the transactions between the BRA and the ISB will be resolved before a court of law, not before Councilor McDermott’s subcommittee,� he said.

This deal stinks, and needs to be stopped. No other group -- and certainly not one with documented ties to the enemies of the United States -- would get such preferential treatment. Let them pay market rates for the land, and then only if they can prove that they have completely eliminated their ties to the enemies of the United States.

(H/T: Hub Politics)

More from the education front of the War on Christmas, courtesy of Hub Politics and Blogs for Bush. Seems that one Massachusetts school(couldn't you have guessed that) removed all mention of Christmas from its holiday program -- and even ordered that red trim on elf hats be replaced with white so as to not use traditional Christmas colors!

Even those who are supporteers of the false "sensitivity" of political correctness can recognize the absurdity of the decision.

A Grinch-like Medway middle school has ordered children to ditch religious songs in tonight’s holiday concert, refer to Christmas trees as “magical trees� and even purge the red from their elf hats.

“I can see a religious holiday being offensive to those who don’t celebrate it,� said Dale Fingar, whose sixth-grade son brought home 10 red and green elf hats and requested she replace the red fabric with white. “But red and green hats? Come on.�

Frankly, I don't see how a religious holiday can be offensive to those who don't celibrate it. After all, I'm not offended by Chaunakah or Diwali, despite not being Jewish or Hindu -- and I'm not even offended by Ramadan, except for the fact that some schools go to incredible lengths to acommodate muslim students whild suppressing Christian expression. Frankly, one would have to be a hete-filled bigot (and usually a Leftist) to take offense at someone markign a day that is of significance to them.

The flap has made Medway the new battleground for the Florida-based Liberty

Counsel, a group backed by evangelical Christian minister Jerry Falwell that has waged a nationwide war to protect Christmas.

“What is going through the school administrator’s mind?� said Liberty Counsel president Matthew Staver. “It’s ridiculous and an act of stupidity to call something green and prickly a magical tree when all of the children know that it’s a Christmas tree.

“These actions by the school administrator are not mere ignorance of the law. No one in their right mind thinks the law requires this kind of censorship or hostility,� said Staver, whose group forced Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino to acknowledge that the city’s holiday tree is a Christmas tree.

I'll take it a step further -- such actions are indicative of a blatant hostility toward religion, and particularly towards Christianity, whichis the dominant faith in this country and the one usually marked for such suppression.

Medway parent Tracy Goldrick and her 11-year-old daughter Tess were both disturbed by the school’s decision, which came after two parents complained about references to Christmas in the program.

“Aren’t we supposed to embrace each others differences?� said Goldrick, who said she has spoken to at least 20 other parents who are annoyed at “the watering down of Christmas.�

“The solution isn’t to take Christmas out of the (school events). The solution is telling people to lighten up,� she said.

No, Tracy, you haven't got the latest Leftist talking points. You are supposed to embrace the differences of minorities, and cower like a whipped cur in the face of the mavens of political correctness who have decreed that traditional American culture can never be acceptable -- especially when it has Christian roots.

And now comes the idiot educarat -- the sort that this teacher despises and does his best to ignore when one is encountered.

But Medway Superintendent Richard Grandmont said the decisions to pull “Jesus Christ Superstar� songs from the sixth-grade holiday pageant and have the kids switch the red in their elf hats to white is, in fact, the district’s way of embracing diversity.

“In general, it is expected that the staff be sensitive to the culturally diverse environment in which they work and cognizant of their responsibility to avoid activites that could be perceived as a school endorsement of religion,� he said.

Someone was doing "Jesus Christ Superstar" at a Christmas concert? I don't know why, since that is a musical all about holy Week and the death of Jesus the Christ, not his birth. I rather suspect that his reference to "Jesus Christ Superstar" songs is a dismissal of the importance of Christianity and Christian beliefs. His idea of "embracing diversity" and being "sensitive to the culturally diverse environment" is to denigrate the beliefs of the majority as no more relevant than those of the minority -- a demand that we all be diverse in the same way.

One parent, Paul Dehaney, was angry yesterday after leaving a third-grade holiday concert at Memorial School when he heard the tots sing “We wish you a swinging Holiday,� in place of “We wish you a Merry Christmas.�

“I’m not adovocating for a Christian-based celebration,� he said. “But don’t ignore the white elephant in the corner called Christmas.�

And I don't know of anyone who wants schools having religiously-based celebrations. But when the sensitivity police of the political correctness movement insist that we can celebrate a "swinging holiday" without ever mentioning any of the holiday's in question -- not even the one celebrated by all but a pathetically small handful of Americans -- the we have really turned the notion of inclusion on its head and created a system of exclusion.

(LINK TO: Pirates! Man Your Women!)

Confederate Yankee discovered this Christmas outrage while seeking an image for a Christmas post using Google. Guess what came up when he entered the words "baby jesus".

Notice that the top search result is for a sex toy that mocks Jesus.

Other results on this search results page have more link traffic. A quick review of page's code shows no HTML meta information that should give it a favorable ranking. The page itself has a raw relevance ranking (search word divided by total words) of less than five percent. The only conclusion I can draw is that this page position ranking was done manually by a Google staffer.

And who says there is not a war on Christmas and Christianity?

MORE AT: Wizbang, Verum Serum

This situation raises some real concerns for me regarding the Iraqi elections.

An Iraqi court has ruled that some of the most prominent Sunni Muslims who were elected to parliament last week won't be allowed to serve because officials suspect that they were high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

Knight Ridder has obtained a copy of the court ruling, issued Thursday, which has yet to be circulated to the public.

The ruling is likely to dampen Bush administration hopes that the election would bring more of the disaffected Sunni minority into Iraq's political process and undermine Sunni support for the insurgency. Instead, the decision is likely to stoke fears of widening sectarian divisions in a nation already in danger of descending into civil war.

Adil al-Lami, the head of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said he would honor the court's decision and that none of the accused Sunnis would appear on the final list of parliament members.

And thoe disqualified are not just minor individuals -- they include a number of leading Sunni candidates.

But preliminary results showed that some of the prominent Sunni politicians on the list had likely won seats. Among them: Adnan al-Janabi, the second-highest-ranking member of the constitutional committee and a top candidate on U.S.-backed former prime minister Ayad Allawi's slate, and Rasem al-Awadi, a National Assembly member and also on Allawi's slate. Five members of the Iraqi Accord Front, the principal Sunni electoral slate, also were on the list.

Saleh Mutlaq, a prominent Sunni politician, said that the ruling would agitate already frustrated Sunnis who are questioning the validity of the elections.

The commission said it would have the final list of winners sometime next month.

So what we have here is the post-election disqualification of candidates who have won seats in the new parliament. Such a move is, in my view, corrosive of the ethos of democracy that we have been attempting to instill in Iraq. The candidate lists have been out there for some tome -- and several of those disqualified were even involved in writing the new iraqi constitution -- why wait until the election is over?

Given that Sunnis are already protesting the results of the election and questioning their legitimacy, I can't help but think that this ruling will simply magnify the problem.

It is a sad commentary on some of the most undeservedly over-privileged individuals in America when they can't be bothered to show support for the men and women serving our country in the Crusade Against Islamist Terrorists.

During world war two American troops away from home for Christmas were entertained by Marlene Dietrich, Bing Crosby and the Marx Brothers. Even in Vietnam Bob Hope was guaranteed to put in an appearance. But soldiers in Iraq are more likely to get a show from a Christian hip-hop group, a country singer you have probably never heard of and two cheerleaders for the Dallas Cowboys.

Just as the seemingly intractable nature of the war has led to a growing recruitment crisis, so the United Services Organisation, which has been putting on shows for the troops since the second world war, is struggling to get celebrities to sign up for even a short tour of duty

t is a far cry from the days following the September 11 2001 attacks, when some of the biggest names in show business, from Jennifer Lopez to Brad Pitt, rallied to the cause. "After 9/11 we couldn't have had enough airplanes for the people who were volunteering to go," Wayne Newton, the Las Vegas crooner who succeeded Bob Hope as head of USO's talent recruiting effort, told USA Today. "Now with 9/11 being as far removed as it is, the war being up one day and down the next, it becomes increasingly difficult to get people to go."

Newton said many celebrities have been wary of going because they think it might be seen that they are endorsing the war. "And I say it's not. I tell them these men and women are over there because our country sent them, and we have the absolute necessity to try to bring them as much happiness as we can."

Fear is also a factor. "They're scared," country singer Craig Morton, who is in Iraq on the USO's Hope and Freedom Tour 2005, told USA Today. "It's understandable. It's not a safe and fun place and a lot of people don't want to take the chance."

O course, there are some -- on all sides of the political spectrum -- who are willing to travel to bring some cheer to the troops.

Some of the entertainers still willing to travel are die-hard true believers - rock musician Ted Nugent carried a Glock handgun to shows in Iraq last year and said in a radio interview that he manned a machine gun on a Humvee. But many of the USO's regular performers are fierce critics of the war, among them the comic and star of Good Morning Vietnam, Robin Williams, who told USA Today he would like to return to the Middle East in the spring for what would be his fourth tour since 2002. "I'm there for the [troops], not for W," he said in a reference to the president. "Go, man. You won't forget it. You'll meet amazing people," is his message to stars that ask him about the tours. But the comedian said he mostly tries to keep politics out of the show after he did a few jokes about Bush's brainpower at a base in 2003 and got a chilly reception.

Other critics of the war who regularly perform include the leftwing comedian Al Franken (who is headlining the current tour along with Christian hip-hop group Souljahz) and the punk legend and actor Henry Rollins, one of the Bush administrations most vocal critics.

The tradition of beautiful women thrilling the troops has continued - although while Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell showed up in Korea and Vietnam could boast Raquel Welch, in Iraq they have had to make do with sometime pop singer and reality TV star Jessica Simpson.

Others who have travelled to Iraq include 50 Cent, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

But it appears that a lot of these folks have now retreated to a September 10 mentality.

They look like minority businesses and qualify for the plum jobs available only to minority firms under affirmative action programs -- but they aren't. In a case highlighting just the sort of fraud that such unconscionable government-sponsored discrimination programs inevitably spawn, a major highway contractor has been penalized for setting up several puppet firms to qualify for work that it could not otherwise get.

Williams Brothers and its owner and chief executive, James D. "Doug" Pitcock Jr., are Texas construction legends. Formed 50 years ago to take advantage of the new Interstate Highway Act, the company has built and rebuilt virtually every freeway in Houston and had more than $400 million in revenues in 2004, virtually all from the Texas Department of Transportation.

The state transportation department started its program for "historically underutilized businesses" in 1983.

Anyone receiving federal highway dollars would have to make sure a percentage was subcontracted to women and minorities, later changed by court cases to anyone who could prove a disadvantaged background.

According to FHWA case files and depositions, Pitcock asked two of his Hispanic workers if they would like to become a company.

Williams Brothers sold the men equipment it had been using to mix concrete, loaned them part of the money for the purchase and co-signed on loans for the rest. The men did business exclusively with Williams Brothers.

The FHWA and state transportation department both argued the subcontractor wasn't independent enough, and the state eventually decided to "graduate" it from the affirmative action program for exceeding the program's cap of annual business.

The company folded soon thereafter.

The federal penalty concerns a second and third subcontractor.

Williams Brothers sold the equipment from the defunct subcontractor to a man who in turn leased it to his wife. She sold concrete back to Williams Brothers.

Such programs invite this sort of fraud. By awarding contracts based upon critereia other than quality and price, there is always an incentive to find a way to "buck the system." There is no telling how much money such programs have cost the taxpayer over the years -- and cases like this show that a fair chunk of it was spent enriching those engaged in fraud.

Looks like there was massive vote fraud down in McAllen, Texas during a recent mayoral election -- with over 90% of the mail-in ballots cast having been done so fraudulently.

They charm their way into the homes of elderly Hispanics and other vulnerable souls along the Texas-Mexico border. They help them with ordinary tasks, picking up their groceries or taking them to the doctor.

Then suddenly, these intruders steal a cherished thing from their victims: Their vote.

The indictment Wednesday of nine people in an alleged voter fraud scheme in McAllen opened a window into the hidden world of politiqueras, the paid political activists whose controversial ways are under scrutiny in South Texas.

Hidalgo County authorities allege that politiqueras bought and sold votes before the May 7 mayoral race in McAllen. The indictment charges nine people with electoral violations. They include Elvira Rios and her sister, Alicia Liscano Molina, two politiqueras known for their activism in the Rio Grande Valley.

"Our investigation revealed these politiqueras were preying on elderly voters," said Texas Ranger Israel Pacheco, who headed the inquiry.

After befriending their victims, the political activists allegedly took their mail-in ballots and made sure that the names of the activists' favorite candidates were checked off before sending them in, authorities say.

"They would go to them under the pretext of assisting them in voting. But the investigation showed none of them (the victims) knew who they voted for; the politiqueras took off with the ballots," Pacheco said.

"Unfortunately, the politiqueras crossed over the line," said Nedra Kinerk, president of Futuro McAllen, a citizens group that examined 902 of the 961 mail-in ballots in the May 7 election. "From what I saw of the mail-in ballots, they were full of illegal assistance."

About 40 percent of the applications for mail-in ballots were received at City Hall on the same day, indicating they likely were mailed in batches, Kinerk said.

"We even had three dead people apply for ballots, and sign their names. And we had applications for one voter from three different politiqueras," she said.

Almost all the political workers who allegedly took part in the scheme were Hispanic women who gained the trust of their victims by helping them with such tasks as making doctor's appointments or applying for government benefits, officials said.

Now the interesting thing is that nopolitical parties are mentioned anywhere in the article on this massive vote fraud. Now I realize that most municipal elections in Texas are non-partisan, but those invlved are usually closely affiliated with one of the major parties and are generally identified as auch in news stories. That the Chronicle fails to do so here leads me to draw a conclusion as to the party of those involved. -- and given voting patterns in the Valley, they would not be Republicans.

Lawyers for Congressman Tom DeLay have filed a motion with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the state's highest criminal appelate court) seeking either an immediate trial on the charges brought against him or the dismissal of all charges.

In a last-ditch effort to secure a speedy trial, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's attorneys today asked the state's highest criminal court to dismiss charges against him or order a lower court to try him immediately.

The money laundering and conspiracy case against the Republican congressman has been on hold while prosecutors appeal a judge's dismissal of some of the charges.

DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin took the case to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals a day after a lower appeals court denied his request that the case be sent back to the trial court or expedited through the appeals process.

DeLay has been pressing for a quick resolution to his case so he can regain his post as majority leader before his colleagues call for new leadership elections next month.

The congressman is accused of illegally funneling corporate campaign contributions to GOP candidates for the state Legislature. Under Republican House rules, he was forced to step down when he was indicted in September.

DeGuerin said he asked the criminal appeals court for an expedited ruling, which he speculated could come as early as Tuesday.

Good luck, Congressman. Here's hoping you get a belated Christmas present from teh court -- your rights under the Constitutions of the United States and the state of Texas.

And you would have to be a racist to read anything other than economics into a decision to change radio station formats.

A Denver radio station's switch from R&B to country is drawing criticism from a Denver city councilwoman.

KDJM's "Jammin" made the switch this week. The station fired its 7-member on-air staff and management.

On Tuesday afternoon, city councilwoman Elbra Wedgeworth went to CBS Radio of Denver to voice concerns.

"I'm not really comfortable (with the situation), but I think that the bigger picture is how we move forward and how we work with this station in the future," said Wedgeworth, who said she's concerned about the "constituencies that have lost their station."

Don Howe of CBS Radio of Denver told Wedgeworth was ratings and not race that prompted the move away from the urban format.

"In the last few reports, (when consulting) Arbitron rating reports, it became even more clear that the format was really never gonna crack ... the barriers that we needed it too," Howe said. "The audience simply wasn't there."

Hey, Elbra you whack-job, they gave the R&B format SIX YEARS to work. folks were not listening at a level needed to make a profit. You know -- profit -- that reason people invest their money in companies to begin with. I know that goes against all of your leftist beliefs, but it is simple Econ 101 stuff. "The Man" is not out to "oppress" your "People" by taking away their favorite radio station. in fact, if it were their favorite radio station there would be no reason to make the change of formats.

Now don't you have some work to do on behalf of the people of Denver -- like working to lower crime and ridding the city of law-breaking border-jumpers?

(Hat Tip: Right Wing News)

The First Amendment is very important to liberals -- unless it allows someone to speak truths that the Left finds inconvenient -- like the fact that John Kerry is a traitorous fraud.

In that case, the government needs to strip media outlets of their broadcast licenses and award them to those who are more politically correct.

Local media activists in Iowa are preparing to file a petition with the FCC to deny a license renewal for Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ABC affiliate KGAN Cedar Rapids. The group, Iowans for Better Local Television, says the station violates FCC’s ownership rules by failing to provide sufficient local news, supplying inadequate broadcast signals and failing to meet standards for children’s programming.

The group has been working for more than a year to gather evidence and support for its petition. Former FCC commissioner Nick Johnson, a well known critic of big-media ownership, has been advising the efforts.

KGAN’s license came up for renewal in October, and, under FCC guidelines, the public has until Dec. 30, 2005, to file its petition. The Local Iowans group is calling on the FCC to hold a public hearing to determine if KGAN has met its “statutory public interest� standards before renewing the license.

Iowans for Better Local TV originated last fall, outraged by Sinclair's airing of the documentary Stolen Honor, which called into question presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) Vietnam service and subsequent anti-war activities. In advance of its broadcast, local activists called on advertisers to boycott the station.

After the election, the group joined up with former University of Iowa professor Ted Remington, who had started a blog to counter on-air editorials by Sinclair PR chief Mark Hyman. The segments, called “The Point,� air on most Sinclair stations as part of its centralized news operation, News Central. Critics say Hyman's editorials are a way for the company to push a right-wing agenda over public airwaves.

The Iowans say they’ve reached out to local KGAN managers asking for meetings but they have been rebuffed.

So what we have here is a group that admits that it wants censorship -- after all, they are concerned about the "right-wing agenda" of the broadcaster. But refusing to renew a broadcast license over the"pushing' of such an agenda would be content-based censorship -- a clear violation of the First Amendment.

However, part of me hopes that the effort succeesd and is upheld by the courts. Could you imagine the fun we could have shutting down every NPR and PBS station, all of Pacifica Broadcasting , the affiliates of Air America, and the entire CBS network!

Be careful what you ask for, folks -- you might just get it in spades.

You have to love the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party's House Negroes from the Congressional Black Caucus. They bitched and moaned about the allegedly unconscionable length of time it took FEMA to respond to Hurricane Katrina (local resources are to respond for the first 72 hours), but they won't be spending any of the money they raised to help with the recovery for at least another month or two.

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which slammed the Bush administration for its allegedly slow and racially insensitive response to Hurricane Katrina, has yet to spend any of the estimated $400,000 that it raised for the victims of the Aug. 29 storm.

"We are collecting all the way up through the very end of the year and then our board has set aside a committee who is going to administer the funds," Patty Rice, spokeswoman for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday. The Foundation is an offshoot of the Congressional Black Caucus and was founded in 1976.

In other words, no money is going out until sometime in January or February -- a shocking FIVE MONTHS after Hurrican Katrina hit the city.

But one interesting detail that might be overlooked is the early claims oabout the amount raised by the CBC.

The CBCF then launched its own relief fund on Sept. 21, with a stated goal of raising $1 million to help Gulf Coast residents rebuild their lives. As Cybercast News Service previously reported, the CBCF claimed immediate success, telling reporters on Sept. 21 that it had already received $700,000 in corporate pledges.

But on Wednesday, exactly three months after the news conference launching the CBCF relief fund, Rice told Cybercast News Service that the Foundation has actually raised "somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 to $400,000." She added that the distribution of the money would not begin until January or February of 2006 at the earliest.

So what happened to the rest of the money, folks? Was it misappropriated by the CBC for political chicanery? Or are we simply looking at a situation where The CBC Lied And People Died? Neither would surprise me -- they did the bidding of their DNC white masters by shucking and jiving for the television cameras, spinning the disaster as an example of Bush Administration racism.

I think we all know what is going on here. They will eventually get around to giving the money to a few politically connected black firms, which will then donate it all back to Black Caucus members. Call it the typical graft engaged in by the Democrats -- the kind that rarely gets prosecuted and gets overlooked by the MSM.

MORE AT: Michelle Malkin, LaShawn Barber, Old Controller, Kokonut Pundits, Say What Now?, Independent Conservative, Preaching Politics, Lifelike Pundits, Blogs for Bush, Psycmeistr's Ice Palace, Common Sense and Wonder, Clear and Present, Mis-Informed Comment, The Loft

I guess that the guarantees of the US and Texas Constitutions regarding the right to a speedy trial are null and void if you are a Republican politician being prosecuted persecuted by Travis County prosecutor prostitutor Ronnie Earle.

A state appeals court has rejected motions filed by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay to help him get a speedy trial, an essential step in the Sugar Land Republican's efforts to regain his congressional leadership post.

In an order made public today, the intermediate appeals court rejected DeLay's bid to be tried on a money laundering charge while prosecutors appeal the dismissal of a related charge accusing DeLay of violating the election code.

DeLay's attorneys said they would take the matter to the state's highest criminal appeals court.

The panel of two Democrats and one Republican also overruled a motion to expedite the appeal by shortening the time for filing briefs from the customary 20 days per side to five days.

DeLay's lead lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, said DeLay will seek emergency relief from the Court of Criminal Appeals.

``We're not through. We're going to the top,'' said DeGuerin.

The reality is that the dismissed charge is fatally flawed in that the statute allegedly violated did not go ino effect until after the alleged firnancial transaction -- thereby making the charge a violation of the constitutional prohibition on ex post facto application of the law. In addition, the effects of delaying the trial impact not just Tom DeLay, but also the voters of his district (this delay means the trial will not be complete until after the March primary, and possibly not until after the November election) and the House GOP caucus (GOP caucus rules -- but not Democrat rules -- require that an indicted member relinquish leadership roles until after acquittal). As a matter of justice, the trial needs to begin immediately.

I am a Houston Texans fan -- a hard statement to make this season, I know, but a true one.

Over the last four seasons, I have watched my team play the Indianapolis Colts eight times, and I have come to have a great respect for their coach, Tony Dungy. By all accounts, he is a decent man.

Tragedy has struck the Dungy family.

The 18-year-old son of Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony Dungy was found dead in his Tampa-area apartment early yesterday. Police said there was no sign of foul play and that an autopsy to determine the official cause of death will be conducted this morning. Results were expected to be announced later today.

James Dungy, the second oldest of five children of Dungy and his wife Lauren, was a student at Hillsborough Community College and had graduated last spring from North Central High School in Indianapolis. Over his father's 10-year tenure as an NFL head coach, he had been a frequent presence at practice and on the sideline on game days when Dungy coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1996 to 2001 and, over the last four seasons, the Colts.

My deepest condolences to the Dungy family.

I guess that the best and brightest of New Orleans went somewhere else, leaving Houston with the dregs of New Orleans society. How else do you explain the great leap in murder and other crimes in the city since the start of September?

An upward swing in the city's homicide rate — up by nearly a quarter from last year — isn't the only thing concerning Houston police. Officers say they are seeing more stranger-on-stranger crime, a resurgence of gang activity and more violence around apartment complexes, especially those swelled with an influx of Katrina evacuees.

Not, of course, that the police are willing to come out and say that there is a relationship between the influx of huricane refugees and the increase in crime.

Though officials acknowledged that at least eight of the homicides involved hurricane evacuees, Houston Police Department Chief Harold Hurtt said Wednesday that it was incorrect to assume that "the reason that crime is up in the last quarter of this year is evacuees from Louisiana. A lot of this is (attributed) to homegrown citizens."

To date, 324 homicides have been reported this year, unofficially, compared with 263 in the same period in 2004, he said. That's up more than 23 percent.

Most of the spike has come since mid-November, when 14 homicides were reported during the four-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Police and city officials, who said they already had been aware of an increase in crime since earlier this year, then launched a series of initiatives intended to increase police presence in high-crime areas.

That high death toll hits close to home for me -- one of the victims was a former student, the brother of a girl I currently teach. And while that killing was likely not related to the Katrina evacuees, it is part of a general increase that we have seen in violence in Houston. I know everyone saw the mini-riot a few weeks ago at one Houston high school -- that was related to the influx of gang members from New Orleans. Not even the ever-so-PC HPD can deny that there is an increase of gang activity related to Katrian evacuees.

Eight slayings have involved hurricane evacuees as suspects, victims or both, officials said.

"You're bringing people with different cultures, different backgrounds; they have different lifestyles there in New Orleans than we have in Houston," said Capt. Dale Brown of the homicide division. "The equilibrium was thrown out of whack, with people competing for jobs, competing for turf, or whatever it is."

* * *

Hurtt said that after talking with state and regional officials, he is "pretty certain that (Louisiana) gang members did relocate here to Houston."

Capt. Brown said the department is still gathering intelligence on what role, if any, Louisiana gangs may have played in recent homicides.

"Is it possible and probable that there were gang members involved in some of those, I think the answer's yes," he said. "We're just not prepared to say it's a Louisiana problem at this time."

Hurtt said the department is "making headway" in gathering intelligence about Louisiana gang members in the city, despite difficulties obtaining information from a database of known gang members from Louisiana authorities, whose records were damaged by the hurricane.

Now i will concede that there is a connection to local gangs as well.

Capt. Brown said a number of recent homicides have been pinned on the increased activity of one local gang, and a gang murder squad within the division will more closely target gang crimes.

"The face of murder in Houston over the last year or so has changed somewhat and we're seeing more groups of individuals involved in violent crimes," Brown said.

Seven members of the Houston based La Tercera Crips gang were arrested and charged Friday in connection with various violent crimes committed during the last year, including 10 slayings — four of them in the last two months.

"They're rapidly getting more and more dangerous ... and more and more bold," said Sgt. Brian Harris of the homicide division.

I would not be terribly surprised to find that the increase is due to a conflict between the new arrivals and the local gangs.

A column in today's Washigton Post points out how the decision in the Dover case tries to differentiate between science and religion.

The opinion written by Judge John E. Jones III in the Dover evolution trial is a two-in-one document that offers both philosophical and practical arguments against "intelligent design" likely to be useful to far more than a school board in a small Pennsylvania town.

Jones gives a clear definition of science, and recounts how this vaunted mode of inquiry has evolved over the centuries. He describes how scientists go about the task of supporting or challenging ideas about the world of the senses -- all that can be observed and measured. And he reaches the unwavering conclusion that intelligent design is a religious idea, not a scientific one.

This case is of great interest to me, because the issue it grapples with is an issue I have to deal with as a history teacher. After all, my course involves the origins of homo sapiens sapiens. How do you deal with that issue in a class in which a percentage of students accept the first couple of chapters of Genesis as history rather than allegory? What does one say when a student takes a stance which claims that the entire first week of your class is an assault upon their religion? Those are serious questions -- especially as a teacher whose understanding of human origins are best classified as theistic evolution.

To begin with, I take the bull by the horns. On the first day of class I state that we will be dealing with the origins of mankind from an evolutionary perspective. I acknowledge that there are other belief systems out there, but that evolution is the dominant view within the fields of history and science. I further explain that regardless of whether or not they accept the evolutionary model, they will need to be familiar with it for my class and on the college level. Understanding a point of view is not the same as accepting it. And ineveitably, some kid raises, usually without realizing it, an issue of metaphysics (which includes both the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science as a part of its overarching mandate).

The same sorts of issue get raised again and againin my world history class. The syllabus does not give me the time to look at the philosophies of Socrates. Plato, or Aristotle in any great depth. Ditto the Renaissance humanists, or the great minds of the Enlightenment. We spend a disproportionate amount of time on Marx, but pnly because students are tested on sociaism and communism as a part of the TAKS test.. Jean-Paul Sartre? No way.

It should be obvious by now what ithink is missing in American education today -- the study of philosophy. Philosophy is a field that teaches the individual not what to think but how to engage in thought. It is a starting point for questioning, not an ending point. It helps to provide a framework for asking the questions that mankind has asked over the ages. And yes, that includes the questions of being that underlie Intelligent Design -- for such question have been asked by philosophers since at least Socrates.

So what say you, my friends -- is there a place for philosophy in the school curriculum today? I, for one, hope so.

(AN INTERESTING POST on whether this decision constitutes an establishment of atheism is found at Blogs for Bush -- and I disagree with Matt on the isue)

I've long struggled with the problem of anonymous sources being cited in news stories. Such sources create a serious problem when it comes to assessing the validity of information passed on. How can I, as a reader, evaluate the significance and veracity of information from such a source, especially the more cloaked in secrecy the identity of such a source is.

Take this story from today's Washington Post.

We'll start with the headline.

Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest Jurist Concerned Bush Order Tainted Work of Secret Panel

All right. On the face of it, this seems like there may be some real meat in the story. But then you read the first few paragraphs. I'll highlight what I consider to be the significant bits of information.

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work.

Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to comment when reached at his office late yesterday.

So let's recap here. Judge Robertson submitted his resignation without any explanation, and refuses to elaborate upon it. Two other people ascribe a motive for his resignation, but Robertson himself pointedly does not do so. It really seems hard to call it a protest if the man utters not one word of protest, isn't it?

But we go much further on in the artcle, and find this bit of information.

Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.

"They just don't know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants -- to kind of cleanse the information," said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA warrants. "What I've heard some of the judges say is they feel they've participated in a Potemkin court."

Ah -- the word of an anonymous source who is repeating information about private conversations. Was this source a party to the conversations in question, or is the information second or third hand? We don't know. Information to assess the credibility of the source is utterly absent -- and the Post (consumate violator of national security related restrictions on classified information) boldly asserts a national security basis for not identifying the source! Never mind that identifying the judge or judges (the membership of the FISA court is public information) raising such questions in no way discloses anything about the cases, and therefore violates no restrictions on classified information.

So what we have here is a story that says "A FISA court judge resigned without further information -- but the gossip we hear is that it is over the domestic spying information made public despite the harm to national security. You'll have to trust us though -- disclosing the sources would be a violation of national security."

Incredible!

I'm not one for offering parayer requests on my site, but I have two that i would like to put out today. One is a source of concern, the other a source of joy.

The first strikes too close to home. As I've said many times, my darling wife has several health problems. Late this afternoon we got a call from our family doctor, who discussed hospitalizing her immediately because of some test results. The decision was to keep her home for a couple of days on absolute bed rest, with the tests to be run again on Thursday. Pray for a quick recovery and good results.

The second involves a friend. At the start of last year, I got a new colleague in the room across the hall, fresh out of college. I've watched her grow personally and professionally since then. I also heard a lot about a certain young man. They married this afternoon in Utah, surounded by loved ones. May God bless them today and in all their days and years together.

UPDATE -- 12/24/05: My darling wife was not hospitalized, but the test results do indicate some additional problems. Some of them may have to do with how medications interact with each other, but one may require some longer term lifestyle adjustments. More tests next week.

Hey, libertarian buddies (and anyone else, for that matter).

Vin Suprynowicz has this in his column today -- an opportunity to help someone outand get a good book in the process. It involves a gift he gave to author Claire Wolfe, and how it ended up on E-Bay.

Like a small stone starting a landslide, you never know where some small act of generosity may lead.

A couple of weeks back, I sent an autographed copy of the leatherbound collector's edition of "The Black Arrow" to Claire Wolfe, a fellow author whose contributions to the freedom movement include "Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet)" and most recently (with Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) the young people's novel "Rebelfire: Out of the Gray Zone."
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It's Christmas time. I wanted to acknowledge Claire's help and support. As an act of generosity, sending off a book that retails at $48.95 was not exactly something to write home about.

As it turns out, Walter Bark, the founding webmaster and guiding spirit of The Claire Files discussion forums has cancer, and is not expected to be with us much longer. Claire reports that, up Montana way, his friends Elias Alias, Basil Fishbone, and Iloilo Jones have been bearing the entire cost of the herbal (and other) medicines that are making Bark's final days tolerable.

Claire e-mailed to ask if I would object to her putting her autographed book up for auction on e-Bay, with the proceeds going to cover some of the costs of Walter's care.

I said fine -- it's her book now, after all. Hers, as well, is all the credit for this generous gesture. I did joke that I'd try to resist the Philistine urge to someday declare that a copy of one of my books had "sold for hundreds of dollars on e-Bay."

We both laughed at that "hundreds of dollars" part. The book went up for bids Wednesday, with an account of the charitable use to which the proceeds would be put, at a starting bid of $19.95, and a reserve of $39.95.

Claire was very pleased when the reserve was reached within hours. She offered to take back her expression of amusement about my "hundreds of dollars" comment when, by suppertime, it hit $305. She proceeded to declare herself "speechless" at around $400, I believe. As I sit down to write this at lunchtime Thursday, bidding has reached $615.

Make no mistake: no one thinks a single copy of this book is worth $615. What's happening is a spontaneous outpouring of generosity, without compulsion, without publicity (well, till now), without any firm guiding hand of government telling anyone how much it's his or her "duty to share."

It's tempting to say we don't know the ending, since the auction doesn't wrap up till Monday.

But in fact, we already know this story has a happy ending. Don't we?

Merry Christmas.

You stil have time to get the book and make a dying man's last days comfortable, so bid NOW.

God bless you Vin. God bless you, Clair. And most especially, God bless you Walter, whose writings i've never read -- may your days, be they many or few, be filled with comfort, joy, and love.

Can you believe that only six decades after the liberation of Auschwitz and the other National SOCIALIST death camps, a major international leader wants to argue that it didn't happen -- and condemns those who object to his abrogation of documented historical fact as emotional and illogical?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust is a matter for academic discussion and the West should be more tolerant of his views, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

Ahmadinejad last week called the Holocaust a myth and suggested Israel be moved to Germany or Alaska, remarks that sparked international uproar and threaten diplomatic talks with Europe over Iran's nuclear programme.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi defended the president's remarks, which also drew a rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.

"What the president said is an academic issue. The West's reaction shows their continued support for Zionists," Asefi told a weekly news conference.

"Westerners are used to leading a monologue but they should learn to listen to different views," he added.

Some 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945.

Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guardsman who was elected president, also said in October Israel was a "tumour" that must be "wiped off the map".

A statement drafted by European Union leaders described last week's Holocaust comment as "wholly unacceptable". The White House termed the remarks "outrageous".

Asefi denounced international condemnation as emotional and illogical.

"The EU statement is not based on international diplomatic norms. They should avoid illogical methods," he said.

"Westerners are used to leading a monologue, but they should learn to listen to different views."

Fine -- you want scholarly debate and discussion? I'll give you a proposition to debate in a scholarly fashion, and demand that you not engage in emotional and illogical responses.

Muhammad (may pigs shit upon him) was a deranged pedophile whose demented ravings, as recorded in the unholy Koran, have been the leading source of untold misery and evil over the last 14 centuries.

Now stick that in your hookah and smoke it, Mahmoud.

I don't go to movie theaters. In fact, I think the last time I went to a movie theater to see a first run film was a couple of years ago when my wife and I received some free movie passes as a gift from a friend, and so went to see (loathe as I am to admit it) Scooby-Doo. We check out movies from the public library (Harris County does a good job of getting relatively current DVDs) or, once in a great while (perhaps three times in the last five years) renting them from Blockbuster. Otherwise we wait for thm to show up on commercial television.

Even more than cost, the main reason we don't go to movie theaters is the fact that medical issues cause my wifeto have a difficult time sitting that long in an uncomfortable theater seat with folks crawling over her in the dark.

But if we did go, I have totell you that the following story would be reason enough for me to quit going.

The National Association of Theater Owners wants the Federal Communications Commission to allow the blocking of cell phone signals in theaters.

John Fithian, the president of the trade organization, told the Los Angeles Times theater owners "have to block rude behavior" as the industry tries to come up with ways to bring people back to the cinemas.

Fithian said his group would petition the FCC for permission to block cell phone signals within movie theaters.

Some theaters already have no cell phone policies and ask moviegoers to check their phones at the door, Fithian said.

I don't think so. I'll put my phone on vibrate, but I won't check my phone at the door. And I sure as hell won't go someplace that would have the audacity to block me from receiving or making an emergency call unless using the phone endangers the lives of others (like at a hospital). For theaters to demand a special exemption from laws prohibitting the blocking of cell phone signals is obscene.

In an unwarranted move to delay consideration on an important legal issue, Judge Pat Priest yesterday cancelled a December 27 hearing at which he was to have considered prosecutorial misconduct charges against Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle in seeking a second indictment agaisnt Congressman Tom DeLay.

A state judge said Saturday he will not immediately consider separating two criminal charges against Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) to allow an early trial, another blow to the former House majority leader's hopes of regaining his post.

Earlier this month, Judge Pat Priest dismissed a conspiracy charge against DeLay but refused to throw out more serious allegations of money laundering. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle served notice Monday that he intends to ask an appeals court to reinstate the conspiracy charge.

DeLay's attorneys had hoped Priest would separate the charges in an effort to move forward on the money-laundering charge while waiting for the appeals court decision.

DeLay, who denies wrongdoing, has been pressing for a quick resolution to his case so he can regain the majority leader's position before his GOP colleagues reconvene in late January and call for new leadership elections.

Priest rejected the defense bid on Saturday, saying he would not act until after the state's 3rd Court of Appeals rules. Priest also canceled a Dec. 27 hearing at which he was expected to consider the defense team's allegations of misconduct against prosecutors who brought the charges.

Now I don't find Priest's decision not to sever the charges to be unreasonable, despite the potential for violating DeLay's right to a speedy trial. As he notes in his ruling, appeals courts are supposed to expedite decisions in cases regarding dismissals of indictments. However, his failure to consider the misconduct allegations raises the specter of a second dismissal of charges and a second appeal by Earle -- which would further slow the process in a manner that makes a mockery of DeLay's right to a speedy trial.

DeLay's two co-defendants in the alleged scheme to violate a ban on corporate contributions to Texas candidates are not seeking a speedy trial. Priest said that although DeLay may be entitled to sever the charges, he thinks that "to go to trial on his case alone would require at least two trials where otherwise one would suffice for all three defendants."

"Out of considerations of judicial economy, I have determined to let my decision concerning a severance of counts wait until after the Third Court of Appeals of Texas, sitting at Austin, has made its ruling," Priest wrote.

Priest noted that state law directs the appeals court to give precedence to this sort of appeal, and he said he is "confident the court will act with all reasonable dispatch."

DeLay, in Washington on Saturday, said the judge's ruling does not mean the case will drag on for months. But even an expedited appeal could take six weeks, said his attorney Dick DeGuerin, of Houston, dimming the congressman's prospects for a January trial.

DeGuerin said he plans to file a motion Monday morning asking the appeals court to dismiss the appeal.

The desire of DeLay's co-defendents not to seek a speedy trial has, from what I can see, no bearing upon the right of DeLay to a speedy trial. Furthermore, the timing of the indictment brought by the partisan hack from Austin was intended to get the trial heard right during the heart of election seaso here in Texas, in an obvious attempt to influence the outcome of DeLay's race and those of other Republican cnadidates/

DeLay said Earle is being driven by a "living hate" and "makes so many mistakes he's actually helping us expedite this process." The congressman commented on the latest legal twist in his case after attending a closed-door meeting in the U.S. Capitol with fellow House Republicans, who were discussing the completion of legislative business.

DeGuerin also said Saturday that he thinks Earle is bringing the appeal solely to postpone the trial.

"I disagree with the judge's ruling, but what I'm most upset about is that the state is being so unscrupulous about how they're doing everything they can to drag this out, make it last as long as possible," he said.

What we have here is a political prosecution brought by the lowest form of vermin infesting the judicial system -- a corrupt prosecutor. Judge Priset should reconsider his cancellation of the December 27 hearing and issue a ruling on the prosecutorial misconduct charge at the earliest opportunity, so that the appeal of that ruling and the earlier dismissal of a charge of violating a non-existant stute can be heard at the same time, vindicting the right of Tom DeLay to a speedy trial.

Confederate Yankee points to this article from the News-Observer about the Wilmington Riot of 1898.

The 1898 riot that killed an unknown number of blacks in Wilmington was part of an organized, statewide effort to put white supremacist Democrats in office and stem the political advances of black citizens.

And in the wake of the riot, white supremacists in state office passed North Carolina's Jim Crow laws.

Those laws disenfranchised African Americans until the civil rights movement and Voting Rights Act of the 1960s.

In a 460-page document released today, the Wilmington Race Riot Commission describes the riot and accompanying coup d'etat as a watershed moment in North Carolina history.

"Because Wilmington rioters were able to murder blacks in daylight and overthrow Republican government without penalty or federal intervention, everyone in the state, regardless of race, knew that the white supremacy campaign was victorious on all fronts," the report says.

Democratic leaders, including News & Observer editor Josephus Daniels, developed a strategic campaign to put white supremacist leaders in the General Assembly and U.S. Congress during the 1898 elections. The Democrats were working to drive out a coalition government of Republicans and Populists, which had the support of black voters.

In Wilmington, Democrats fueled a push against a Republican-controlled city council. The day after the 1898 election, a mob of several hundred white men burned the building of a black-owned newspaper. African Americans in the city fled as the building burned, with families hiding in swamps and cemeteries for days with little more than the clothing on their backs, said LeRae Umfleet, a researcher with the state Office of Archives and History who authored the report.

The white mob overthrew the democratically elected city council and had all black city workers fired. Leading black figures were forced out of town.

No one was arrested for this act of rebellion against lawful authority during time of war (treaty negotiations to end the Spanish-American War were still underway in Paris), and Josephus Daniels, whose active support for white supremacy in the pages of his newspaper led to him being referred to by one historian as the "precipitator of the riot", eventually became Secretary of the Navy for the entire two terms of the Wilson administration.

So the next time you hear Democrats and their allies start talking about the "Bush regime" and "taking back our country", remember that this is their heritage -- they have done it before and will do it again given the chance.

Is it any wonder that they fear the Second Amendment -- for a well-armed citizenry is the bulwark against such nefarious deeds.

If this stands, I suspect I will need to be available on December 27, since the partisan vermin hack running the Travis County Prostitutor's Prosecutor's are seeking to intimidate those who dare to engage in free speech in support of Tom DeLay.

Could the Travis County D.A. possibly be using his office to persecute his political opponents? Perish the thought!

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has subpoenaed two officials at the Free Enterprise Fund in connection with ads the conservative group has run criticizing him for his indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). The ads attacked Earle, who has a history of indicting his political enemies in both parties, comparing him to an attack dog.

The draft subpoena served to the organization demands that FEF communications director Todd Schorle and executive director O’Brien Murray testify in Texas at DeLay’s change of venue hearing on Dec. 27 — the Tuesday after Christmas.

In the subpoena, Earle also demands "any and all documentation regarding the advertisements that have been produced or paid for by the Free Enterprise Fund.

Excuse me, but doesn't this smack of an egregious violation of the constitutional rights of Americans ? After all, if criticism of a public official will bring a court order to appear on pain of imprisonment, won't that discourage such speech?

Ronnie Earle needs to be removed, disbarred, and imprisoned for his abuse of office.

UPDATE: The Washington Times reports that there is a particular item that Ronnie Earle wants to get his hands on.

What Mr. Earle wants, a source with special knowledge of the request tells this column, is a copy of the organization's donor list, so he can find out who paid for the ads.

The better to go after political opponents with, my dear -- a move clearly reminiscent of past Democrat prosecutors, who tried to shut down the NAACP by demanding lists of members and donors during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are America's Kids and Two Days of Infamy by The Education Wonks, and An Open Letter by Silent Running. 

Here are the full results of the vote.

After all, we can’t allow a city festival to be hijacked by Christians mentioning Jesus Christ, can we? Folks might be offended.

At the city's annual holiday celebration, a rabbi lighted a menorah. A dance troupe performed a traditional prayer to the gods.

But six young girls were told they they couldn't perform because they were wearing shirts emblazoned with a silver cross and the words "Jesus Christ" on the front.

The "Jesus Christ Dancers," a group of 8-to-12-year-olds who describe themselves as Christian hip-hop dancers, were scheduled to make their citywide debut at the Dec. 3 holiday festival.

Moments before taking the stage, employees from the city's Parks and Recreation Department barred them from performing, saying they did not want to convey a religious message in the show.

According to the group's dance instructor, Lita Ramirez, the dancers was asked to turn their shirts inside out. The group was also asked if its music had a religious message.

"I told him our music says 'You are my God' and 'We will worship You,'" Ramirez said. "I also said I think it mentions Jesus."

So let’s make it clear what the rules are in this country where most folks are (at least nominally) Christian.

Rabbis lighting menorahs – OK.

Prayer to pagan gods – Acceptable.

Hip-hop music with Christian themes and shirts that mention Jesus – Absolutely not.

After all, it isn’t like Christmas is His birthday.

From the Kennedy Klan.

AS an environmentalist, I support wind power, including wind power on the high seas. I am also involved in siting wind farms in appropriate landscapes, of which there are many. But I do believe that some places should be off limits to any sort of industrial development.

Yeah, like anyplace where you and your fellow wealthy/liberal friends might have to ever see it or think about it.

I can't wait to see this Democrat cockroach exterminated by the DeLay's team.

Rep. Tom DeLay's attorneys filed a subpoena Thursday seeking the testimony of grand jurors, including those who indicted the former House majority leader and those who rejected charges.

DeLay's legal team wants to prove prosecutorial misconduct by District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who they say "shopped around" the campaign finance case against DeLay to three different grand juries before finding one that would indict DeLay on money laundering and conspiracy charges.

State law prohibits prosecutors from attending grand jury deliberations, but the defense alleges that Earle unlawfully participated in the second grand jury's deliberations and tried to force those grand jurors to indict DeLay. Earle denies the allegations.

Grand jury testimony is secret and Earle does not have to release transcripts unless he's ordered to by a court, so the defense has asked Senior Judge Pat Priest to allow the grand jurors to testify.

DeLay's legal team points to a flurry of grand jury activity beginning with his initial indictment Sept. 28 on a charge of conspiring to violate state campaign finance laws in 2002.

A second grand jury considered the case after questions were raised about whether the appropriate law was used to indict DeLay. That panel did not indict.

Days later, a third grand jury indicted DeLay on more serious money laundering and conspiracy charges. That grand jury is still seated and is under oath not to discuss their proceedings.

Earle has said he went to the third grand jury after finding new evidence, which he didn't specify. In court documents, Earle maintains that the prosecutorial misconduct allegation is not a sufficient reason to violate grand jury secrecy.

Delay lawyer Dick DeGuerin said he would be prepared to argue the misconduct case at a Dec. 27 pretrial hearing with or without grand jury testimony.

"I don't think it's make or break, but it's very, very important," DeGuerin said. "We have other outside evidence to present."

My personal opinion is that Ronnie Earle will be very lucky if he manages to stay out of jail, much less retain his law license, after the amount of unethical and potentially illegal conduct he has engaged in as part of this politically-motivated vendetta.

Can you believe Harry Reid's audacity in making this statement?

Democratic leaders sternly criticized President Bush yesterday for saying former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is innocent of felonious campaign finance abuses, suggesting his comments virtually amounted to jury tampering before DeLay stands trial.

"The president of the United States said a jury does not need to assemble, that Tom DeLay is innocent," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "To have someone of his stature, the president of the United States, prejudge a case is something I've never seen before."

Now hold on just a minute. Democrats have universally been painting DeLay as guilty ever since the original indictment (trying to engage in an ex post facto application of the law) was handed down. They see no need for a jury to assemble to determine Tom DeLay's guilt. Yet when the president expresses his confidence in the innocence of a long-time friend and supporter, they go ballistic!

Consider this quote from Screamin' Howeird Dean:

Tom DeLay is neither the beginning nor the end of the Washington Republicans' ethical problems. America can do better than leaders who use their power to promote their own personal interests instead of the interests of the American people who elected them.

Clearly this is a statement that DeLay is guilty.

Similarly, what about this one -- predating he indictment by several months -- in which Dean explicitly convicts DeLay without there even being a charge levelled.

“Tom DeLay is corrupt. No question about it,� Dean said Friday. “This is a guy who shouldn’t be in Congress and maybe ought to be serving in jail.�

The House ethics committee is investigating whether DeLay violated congressional rules by taking foreign trips paid for by lobbyists. The Texas Republican has not been charged with a crime, but Dean said he would not apologize for saying earlier this month that DeLay “ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence.�

Remember, please, that the jail sentence comment came in the same interview in which Dean expressed doubt about the guilt of Osama bin Laden in the 9/11 attacks.

You know, Hyppocritical harry Reid was silent about those statements. Could it be that he believes in the standard of "guilty until proven innocent"? Or even "guilty, and we don't give a damn if he's innocent"? Certainly he sees noting in such statements that might harm the man's right to a fair trial.

But heaven forbid that anyone express an opinion that Tom Delay is innocent -- that's jury tampering!

Terrorists supporting racial discrimination by government agencies disrupted a meeting intended to bring a government agency into compliance with a court order and Michigan law.

Following a raucous, table-tumbling protest involving a couple of hundred impassioned Detroit area students, a state elections panel bucked an appellate court order Wednesday and failed again to place an affirmative action ban proposal on next year's ballot.

The Board of State Canvassers voted 2-1, with one member not voting, to certify the so-called Michigan Civil Rights Initiative for the November 2006 ballot. It takes three votes to certify.

The meeting was disrupted by an opposition group, By Any Means Necessary, which recruited students from Cody, Cass Tech, Crockett and Mumford high schools in Detroit and Oak Park High School to swarm the meeting and keep the board from voting.

I want to hear no more comments from so-called civil rights activists about disenfranchisement. This bunch is pursuing an agenda to disenfranchise the entire state of Michigan by preventing the people from ever getting a chance to vote on an amendment that meets all legal requirements to appear on the ballot.

It is time for the governor to call out the National Guard and for the appellate court to hold in contempt the members of the Board of State Canvassers thwarting the will of the people and violating the order to certify the MCRI.

UPDATE: Much greater detail from Discriminations and Chetley Zarko.

OTHER VOICES: GOPBloggers, What If?, Politics [Michigan] and Discriminations. The last quotes Thomas Bray of the Detroit News.

A string of recent debates on the issue also suggests the difficulty that supporters of affirmative action are having in trying to mount a reasoned defense of such policies. In a recent debate with Ward Connerly, who led the successful California fight to end preferences, the dean of Wayne State University’s law school asserted that race-based admissions is a “civil right.� That left even the veteran Connerly slack-jawed with wonder, ignoring as it did the language of the Constitution and a century of efforts to define civil rights as equality – not inequality -- before the law.

Had a mob of student conservatives invaded a meeting of state officials, it would have been denounced as fascist. The fascism of the left tends to be excused, even by those who know better, as a case of overwrought idealism. But voters may not be so easily fooled.

Indeed. But let's remembr that Mussolini was primarily a man of the Left, and that his German ally was the head of the National SOCIALIST Party -- so it is most appropriate to call the BAMN rioters "fascists".

We don’t hear much about the federal marriage amendment these days. Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jay Brookman wants to ascribe that to insincerity and political opportunism.

Think back a little more than a year ago, to the political campaigns of 2004. One of the hottest issues in presidential debates and congressional campaigns was the threat to traditional marriage posed by gay people seeking the right to wed.

At the time, President Bush and others were warning that the threat could be averted only by the most serious step available under our political system, amending the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage outright.

You may also remember how heated and emotional some of the rhetoric became. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and probably the most influential of conservative religious leaders, reflected the tone quite well in his April 2004 newsletter.

"Barring a miracle, the family as it has been known for more than five millennia will crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself" unless the U.S.

Constitution is amended, Dobson wrote, charging that for more than 40 years, gay Americans have pursued a master plan "that has had as its centerpiece the utter destruction of the family."

That kind of rhetoric had its desired effect, driving conservative voters to the polls in large numbers, helping to re-elect President Bush and increasing Republican representation in Congress and state legislatures.

But a year later, it seems pertinent to ask: Have you heard or read a single word about a federal gay-marriage amendment since the election?

No, you have not, because this supposedly all-important issue has vanished from the political landscape. Judging from the available evidence, this dire threat to marriage and family, this looming peril to the very core of American society, has simply disappeared as a concern. Certainly, nobody's talking about it or trying to do anything about it any longer.

Now this is partially true. There just is not a lot being done about the federal amendment. The reason is simple – the votes in Congress simply are not there to get the thing sent on to the states.

That does not mean nothing is happening.

Just last month, Texas passed an amendment banning gay marriage. Several states have placed marriage amendments on their ballots for different dates over the next year. In addition, petition drives and legislative action to place them on the ballot in other states are also underway. In other words, the action is currently being found at the state level, since there is little likelihood of one passing at the federal level now.

So while it is possible to claim that the issue of gay marriage was simply a wedge issue in 2004, it is more accurate to see it as having been moved from one battlefield to another for the time being. But he is right on one matter – the issue will be raised in the 2006 elections.

Not as a wedge issue insincerely used to garner votes, but because more and more states are placing traditional marriage in their state constitutions because the will of the people is being ignored on the federal level.

How on earth can you sue the police dog simply for being – well – a dog?

One of the defendants has more than a leg to stand on in a lawsuit filed by a convicted drug dealer.

Andi has four legs. He's a dog used by the Athens County Sheriff's Department.
County Prosecutor C. David Warren said to his knowledge, it's the first time the county's dog has ever been singled out as a defendant. Warren has volunteered to handle Andi's defense personally.

"That dog could've done something to me or one of my attendants," said Wayne Francis Green, 46, of Albany, who filed the suit Nov. 18 in Athens County Common Pleas Court.

And the nature of the claim against Andi?

Green said Wednesday that he felt endangered by Andi's presence.

"They've got a mean ol' dog, you know what I'm saying? I take that pretty serious," Green said, adding, "I'm a dog lover, but that's the limit."

So the dog did nothing at all – he was just present.

But you have to love this part. Someone wih the county has a sense of humor about the situation.

Last week, Andi the German shepherd was informed that he's being sued, sort of. With a paw print, the dog "signed" the paper indicating he had been formally served with the complaint.

Still, Green is very serious about his idiotic complaint, proving that he has been using his own “merchandise�.

Green said he wants prosecutors to look into the dog's actions. "I want him charged with several different felony counts."

Felony counts? You can’t charge him with a felony, you moron. He’s a DOG!

Once kids reach high school, they tend to slack off in the “teacher gift� department. I’m glad, given the number of cheesy Christmas mugs and ugly Dollar Tree ornaments I’ve received, not to mention one pair of truly strange Christmas socks one I received my first year of teaching. After all, my student count usually exceeds 150 each year, and I would rapidly be drowned in mountains of “stuff� that serves no purpose but it would be rude to dispose of via the circular file. It was with this thought in mind that I read the following in today’s Houston Chronicle.

Now, before parents of school-age children indignantly huff and cross me off their holiday shopping list, or worse, send me a lump of coal, hear me out. I am one of you.

I am a parent. For years before I entered the classroom full time as a teacher, I sent my own elementary children to school toting beautifully wrapped packages containing that cute useless junk. In exchange, a thank you note dutifully penned by exhausted teachers returned home, and I patted myself on the back for my well-meaning gestures.

Until my second full year of teaching, I didn't understand the magnitude of holiday junk that visits elementary teachers each year, the variety of stuff that pours in! And the candy — we mustn't forget the candy! Towers of Chocolate (delicious, expensive, but obscene), candy that can't go to the attic, candy I'm no longer permitted to share with my students per the "Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value" policies. And try as I may to make my family eat it all, it beckons me until it is purged from my home. And then more candy and sweets magically appear, abandoned in the teacher's lounge. Even my big jeans won't fit until March. Trust me, your kids don't need an overweight, sugar-tripping, chocolate-high teacher.

So the non-edible holiday haul accumulates in my dining room. Eventually, it makes its way up to the attic with the rest of the holiday "stuff," and then it reappears the next holiday season as we pull Christmas down for decorating. It gets sent to my kids' school for their class holiday auction, to the nursing home, to Goodwill — or dare I say it, it gets regifted!

But wait — not all of it. That Starbucks card really came to the rescue the morning after that late-night grading marathon, and the movie gift card sure was a treat. The mall or department store gift certificate was an indulgence; I could pick what I wanted. How nice to have La Madeleine, Chili's, Panera, Pizza Hut and even a couple of those McDonald's "dollars" that gave me a night off from cooking dinner for my kids when I had a ton of papers to grade. The manicure gift certificate was prized, as were the gift cards for the bookstore, even the grocery store. One dollar, five dollars, 10 dollars — none of those gifts went to the attic, or to someone else.

I am a reformed Christmas junk-giver. I have taken the oath. My kids' teachers, scout leaders, Sunday school teachers, piano teacher and others get gift cards now, as generous as I can be (and believe me, I do understand the multiplication, with three children times five to seven school teachers each).

Let me say that I don’t feel that students have to give me gifts at all, especially given the socio-economic situation of some of their families. But if they do, I would much rather have it be something useful than something cute. Let it be something I can use in the classroom.

And no more mugs.

(Actually, I got a great gift last night. I ran into a former student last night at Walmart, having not seen her in four or five years. I got to catch up on old times and laugh with her as she was getting of work. It did my heart a world of good to be able to see that she had grown up into the very dear young woman I knew she would be – and to share some of her joys and pains. God bless you, Stephanie – and good luck as you start back to college in a few weeks.)

I can’t help but be amused by Richard Cohen’s criticism of Hillary! for supporting a ban on flag-burning.

The First Amendment is where you simply do not go. It is sacred. It protects our most cherished rights -- religion, speech, press and assembly -- and while I sometimes turn viscerally angry when I see the flag despoiled, my emotions are akin to what I feel when neo-Nazis march. Repugnant or not, popular or not, it is all political speech. Her sponsorship of the flag measure calls for reconsideration all around -- either by Hillary Clinton and her support of the flag bill or by liberals and their support of her.

Does anyone know if Cohen is so absolutist on freedom of political speech with regard to McCain-Feingold? Or does he privilege flag-burning and Nazi marches over citizen participation in the democratic process?

Here’s a suit I hope succeeds. After all, why should immigration criminals get btter tuition than American citizens?

About three dozen students sued the University of California on Wednesday, charging that it had violated federal law by allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates while maintaining higher rates for out-of-state students.

The students, all from out of state, are represented by a legal team that includes Kris Kobach, a former Justice Department official who shaped national immigration policy under former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Kobach said the policy discriminates against out-of-state students who are U.S. citizens and pay higher tuition than students who are in this country illegally.

The move plunges California into the midst of a national debate over how to handle the millions of students living in this country illegally.

Federal law requires state universities that offer in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants to do the same for students from other states, imposing a steep financial barrier to the policy. But since 2001, nine states, including California, have passed laws to circumvent that requirement.

Sadly, Texas is one of those states that passed such a law. Hopefully this lawsuit will lead to the overturning of this travesty.

Some stories (scroll down) stand without further comment.

The remains of a U.S. sailor missing for 63 years since his aircraft crashed on a northern Pacific island in World War II have been identified and returned home for burial, the Pentagon said.

Seaman 2nd Class Dee Hall of Syra, Okla., will be buried today with military honors at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio.

Hall was one of seven crewmen aboard a U.S. Navy PBY-5 Catalina that took off from Kodiak Island, Alaska, on June 14, 1942, to attack targets on Japanese-held Kiska Island. The aircraft encountered bad weather and heavy anti-aircraft fire near the target and crashed with all crewmen on board.

In August 1943, U.S. forces recaptured Kiska. Both the crash and burial sites were found and excavated in 2003. Military forensic experts identified Hall and the other missing crewmen, the Pentagon said.

A grateful nation humbly thanks you for your service and your sacrifice.

Rest in peace.

What else are observers to make of the statements of Jim Wallis and his supporters, given the conflicting statements of organizers of yesterdays protest rally in Washington.

Jim Wallis makes it clear that the rally is based upon their religious faith, to protest a budget that their understanding of Christianity views as immoral.

The group's founder, Jim Wallis, called the event "a revival," adding that, "We're here because of Jesus, because of our faith." The group complained that the federal budget is "immoral" because it cuts spending on social programs.

Not, of course, that they are willing to come out and honestly admit that they want the budget to reflect their religious values.

But when asked by Cybercast News Service whether he was urging the government to promote Judeo-Christian values, Rivera said he was not. "What we're saying is that ... whether you have a religious tradition like many people here do, or just come out of a human tradition, we don't think the country should balance its budget on the back of its most vulnerable citizens."

Rivera said his group believes that "budgets reflect your priorities and church people from all over the country ... are here with their leadership asking that this budget not be passed."

He said tax cuts should be rolled back and that spending billions of dollars on the war in Iraq "while cutting food stamps ... doesn't really reflect moral priorities."

So when it comes down to it, they are not willing to admit that what they want is THEIR interpretation of Scripture codified in the budget. After all, that would be (in the current parlance of the Left) the establishment of a theocracy – so they have to deny their religious motivations.

I think that is called “bearing false witness�.

UPDATE: Bob Ellis of Dakota Voice has a great piece on this issue.

UPDATE 2: I hadn’t seen this article about the different issues taken up by the religious right and religious left. It makes me question the Christian witness of Jim Wallis even more.

"It's not a question of the poor not being important or that meeting their needs is not important," said Paul Hetrick, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, Dobson's influential, Colorado-based Christian organization. "But whether or not a baby is killed in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, that is less important than help for the poor? We would respectfully disagree with that."

Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal Christian journal Sojourners and an organizer of today's protest, was not buying it. Such conservative religious leaders "have agreed to support cutting food stamps for poor people if Republicans support them on judicial nominees," he said. "They are trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They're being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical."

What Wallis misses, though, is that it is the very conservative Christians he is bashing who do a great deal of the “leg-work� to help the poor through private programs. One can legitimately question the balance of public vs. private involvement in helping the poor without being unbiblical. Indeed, I would argue that it is more biblical to support charitable private action on behalf of the poor than it is to call for mandated involuntary giving through increased taxes, spending, and transfer payments. Indeed, Wallis and his ilk are calling upon government to replace and assume the role of the Church – on the very theocratic model of Old Testament Israel that the Left in this country claims to reject.

Indeed, Wallis has to come up with his own personal translation of Isaiah 10:1-2 in order to even find a biblical leg to stand on.

"Woe to you legislators of infamous laws . . . who refuse justice to the unfortunate, who cheat the poor among my people of their rights, who make widows their prey and rob the orphan."

The verses are more commonly translated differently – and the closest thing I could find is the following from the New American Bible.

1 Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and who write oppressive decrees,

2 Depriving the needy of judgment and robbing my people's poor of their rights, Making widows their plunder, and orphans their prey!

But even if you accept the Wallis translation, you would first have to determine that the statutes are “unjust� (does one have, as a matter of justice, a right to the fruits of the labor of others?). Furthermore, you would have to get around the niggling little detail that the second verse is, based upon the original source, dealing with issues of failing to protect the rights of the poor, widows, and orphans in courts, not in terms of legislation. Wallis, I daresay, is clearly reading in to the text what he wants there rather than reading out of it what is there – a clear failure for one who wants to be taken seriously as a judge of what views are “unbiblical�.

There are two different versions of the resignation of Professor Paul Mirecki from his position as department chair of the Religious Studies Department at the Kansas University.

One paints the resignation as voluntary.

KU spokeswoman Lynn Bretz, in an e-mail to the Journal-World, said Mirecki met with Romzek on Dec. 6 to discuss the department’s recommendation that he resign from the chairman’s post. After the talk, Mirecki concluded he should submit a resignation, she said.

“At a computer in Strong Hall, away from his departmental office in Smith Hall, Professor Mirecki composed and typed the letter himself, with no one else in the room,� Bretz wrote. “He pushed the print command button, sending the letter to a printer in another room, next to a secretary’s desk. The letter was printed on the letterhead at hand. Professor Mirecki retrieved the printed letter from the secretary, signed it in front of the secretary and left it there. … In addition, Professor Mirecki had told at least one KU administrator on Dec. 5, following the departmental faculty meeting that day, that he felt the need to step down as chair.�

The other, put forth by Mirecki and his lawyer, is a bit different.

In a fiery statement to the Journal-World on Friday, Mirecki said he had “no choice about signing the resignation� and he pointed out the resignation letter was typed on stationery from the office of Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Mirecki’s attorney, David J. Brown, said the issue was a frequent matter of dispute in labor situations.

“If you’re forced to sign a resignation letter, have you voluntarily resigned or have you been fired?� Brown said. “If he’d typed his own resignation letter, it would probably have been on his stationery.�

* * *

“It’s not how he described things to me,� Brown said. “The point he made was very clear that the dean and another administrator made it clear to him that he had to resign.�

In the end, I do not see the differences as significant. The important thin is that Mirecki is out of a position in which he could no longer be effective. His colleagues in the department told him that they wanted him out, presumably because the controversy rendered him tainted goods that would harm the department.

I’ve offered an analogy other places in the blogosphere in comment sections. Imagine that a professor was chairman of the Department of Ethnic Studies at a major university and had a major gripe with the direction that the civil rights establishment was headed. Imagine that he submitted a letter to a semi-public internet forum in which he said he was going to offer a course demolishing the mythology of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement as a “slap in the face� to the “darkies� (or some other slur), and that the letter made it into the press. How long could this professor effectively continue to serve as department chair? How long, in fact, would he be likely to last as a member of the department at all, given his apparent hostility towards a major segment of those about whom he was teaching?

That is precisely the situation in which Mirecki finds himself – caught out in the open as hostile to a major segment of Christianity, using his position to push a hostile agenda, and using bigoted slurs to lash out at those he clearly despises. Personally, I have no problem with dealing with creation stories as mythology in a class – my Old Testament professors did as much when I was in the seminary.

What I see as problematic is the unprofessional agenda-driven nature of the proposal, which he intended to use to discredit the beliefs in a one-sided manner so as to denigrate those who hold them. That is simply unacceptable – and is ample reason for Mirecki’s departure, whether it was voluntary or not. Indeed, I would hope that such unprofessional behavior would be grounds for dismissal.

Sorry, Mr. Khan, but you are simply too soft on illegal immigration for my taste.

About 40 protesters, including Republican City Councilman M.J. Khan, appeared in front of City Hall on Tuesday to oppose a resolution that would require Houston police to enforce immigration law.

City Councilman Mark Ellis has introduced the resolution, which is not expected to get support from a council majority. Critics led by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now gathered for a protest before the second public hearing on the proposal.

Khan made it clear he strongly opposes illegal immigration. But he said it is the responsibility of specially trained federal officials to check for valid visas and passports.

Asking Houston Police Department officers to enforce immigration law would invite racial profiling, Khan said.

"Chances are, someone with broken English who looks like me is going to get detained," said Khan, a native of Pakistan and a naturalized U.S. citizen.

City offices are officially nonpartisan, but Khan is widely known to be one of the council's eight Republicans. Ellis has said Khan and Shelley Sekula-Gibbs are the only Republicans who haven't supported his proposal.

Yeah, you are right – it is likely that folks who look like you with poor language skills are going to be detained. Unfortunately, such individuals are more likely to be in this country illegally. But the measure in question is not going to require HPD to go around conducting immigration raids – it will simply be a citizenship check in conjunction with other law enforcement contacts, doing away with the de facto sanctuary policy that has been in effect for years in Houston. It is much more probable that someone who looks like you – broken English or not – will not ever be asked about their citizenship at all.

Oh, and Shelley – don’t expect me to be offering you any support when you seek higher office after the end of your term-limited service on City Council unless you get behind this proposal NOW.

What is more important – getting rapists and child abusers off the street or making sure that parents don’t know about significant events in the lives of their children? Normal people with even a scintilla of decency would pick the first option. Planned Parenthood picks the second – and boasts of it on their website.

The Web site for Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, the San Francisco chapter of Margaret Sanger's organization, features a section of "Shared Stories,", which it describes as "real stories" from its customers. Here is the top story listed in the section, exactly as it appears on the site [if that link doesn't work, the page is in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine]

It Keeps Us SafeI was raped at 11, by my 17 year old boyfriend. I chose not to tell my parents because I didn't think their involvement would help, that was the right choice for me. Planned Parethood helped me deal with the aftermath of the rape allowing me to deal and cope as best as I could in my own way. I was 14 when I decided to start having sex, the day I made that choice I made an appointment to get birth control pills. I'm 17 now, I've been with my current boyfriend for about two years. During that time i've been HIV and STD tested four times. Right now I'm
sitting in the waiting room while my boyfriend gets the results for his HIV test. We love each other so we're responsible and Planned Parenthood helps us to do that.

- name withheld -

"It Keeps Us Safe"? Safe from what? Safe from parents finding out their little girls were raped? It certainly doesn't keep children safe from rapists.

To recap: An 11-year-old girl walked into Planned Parenthood, saying she had been raped. Not just statutory rape, either; forcible rape.

Planned Parenthood assured the girl that it would not contact her parents, and it was true to its word. Likewise, it must not have contacted the authorities either, otherwise the parents would certainly have been notified.

Thanks to Planned Parenthood, the rapist remained at large, still free to attack other little girls.

Teachers, social service personnel, and medical professionals are required to report sexual abuse of minors. Either Planned Parenthood is operating in violation of California law or they go to great lengths to insulate their mandated reporters from coming in contact with or becoming aware of abuse details – a situation which certainly raises questions about the quality of their treatment and their concern for the young women. After all, just among the medical professionals the mandated reporters include the following.

Health care personnel who are mandated reporters include:

a physician and surgeon, psychiatrist, psychologist, dentist, resident, intern, podiatrist, chiropractor, licensed nurse, dental hygienist, optometrist, marriage,
family, and child counselor, licensed clinical social worker or any other person who is currently licensed under Division 2 (commencing with Section 500) of
the Business and Professions Code; any emergency medical technician I or II, paramedic, a person certified pursuant to Division 2.5 (commencing with Section 1797) of the Health and Safety Code; a psychological assistant registered pursuant to Section 2913 of the Business and Professions Code; a marriage,
family and child counselor trainee, as defined in subdivision (c) of Section 4980.03 of the Business and Professions Code; and unlicensed marriage, family and child counselor intern registered under Section 4980.44 of the Business and Professions Code, a state or county public health employee who treats a minor for venereal disease or any other condition, a coroner, or a medical examiner, or any other person who performs autopsies (P.C. 11165.7).

Regardless, it is clear that PP is so concerned with the privacy of minors that they would prefer that rapists and abuser run free, despite at a minimum having a moral obligation to take action. Do you want such folks operating in your city or town?

The Logan Act prohibits American citizens from disrupting American foreign policy via direct contact with foreign government or officials.

"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects."

In light of this long-standing statutory prohibition, will there be an indctment of this seditious loon?

The Irish Government must stop the US military using Shannon Airport to transport troops to the Middle East, American anti-war campaigner Cindy Sheehan demanded ahead of a meeting with Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern today.

The ‘Peace Mom’ spent the summer camped outside President George Bush’s Texan ranch waiting for him to speak to her about the death of her 24-year-old son in Iraq in April 2004.

Her actions galvanised the anti-war movement in the US and today she called on Irish people to stand up against their country’s involvement in the Iraq conflict.

Ms Sheehan said she wanted an end to the occupation of Iraq and to Ireland’s involvement in allowing troop flights to stop over in the airport.

And she wanted to show Mr Ahern the face of a grieving mother.

Ms Sheehan, who was wearing a badge with her son’s face on it, said: “I want him to see Casey, and to see the face of a mother and to say that it’s not just about right and left, not about politics, it’s about flesh and blood.�

The violation of federal law is clear here. Three steps need to be taken immediately regarding Ms. Sheehan.

Investigate.

Indict.

Imprison.

She has become a potential national security threat -- even if no one takes her seriously.

As Iraqis prepare to vote for a new Parliament, this disturbing development has taken place near the border with Iran.

Less than two days before nationwide elections, Iraqi border police seized a tanker truck on Tuesday that had just crossed from Iran filled with thousands of forged ballots, an official at Iraq's Interior Ministry said.

The tanker was seized by agents with the U.S.-trained border protection force at the Iraqi town of Badra, after crossing at Munthirya on the Iraqi border, the official said. According to the Iraqi official, the border police found several thousand partially completed ballots inside.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Iranian truck driver told the police under interrogation that at least three other trucks filled with ballots had crossed from Iran at different spots along the border.

The official, who did not attend the interrogation, said he did not know where the driver was headed, or what he intended to do with the ballots.

So not only are teh Iranians talking about destroying Israel, they are also seeking to undermine the government of Iraq at this crucial early stage. It becomes increasigly clear that the current regime is a danger to regional stability and must be contained.

UPDATE: Iraqi authorities deny the story. Confederate Yankee argues the original story is wrong. Captain Ed explains why the denial is quite plausible. Michelle Malkin questions the original report, too.

As if charging Tom DeLay with a crime that didn't exist and seeking to prevent a speedy trial were not prosecutorial misconduct enough, now Ronnie Earle is on a fishing expedition based upon reimbursed plane flights and a soured business partnership.

A Texas prosecutor has issued subpoenas for bank records and other information of a defense contractor involved in the bribery case of a California congressman as part of the investigation of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

District Attorney Ronnie Earle issued subpoenas late Monday afternoon for California businessmen Brent Wilkes and Max Gelwix, records of Perfect Wave Technologies LLC, Wilkes Corp. and ADCS Inc. in connection with a contribution to a fundraising committee at the center of the investigation that led to DeLay's indictment on money laundering charges.

Perfect Wave contributed $15,000 in September 20, 2002 to Texans for a Republican Majority, a fundraising committee founded by DeLay, R-Texas.

Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham resigned in late November after pleading guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to companies.

On Tuesday, Earle subpoenaed written testimony DeLay and two others gave in a 1994 lawsuit brought by DeLay's former pest control business partner. Ex-partner Robert Blankenship alleged in the suit that he was unjustly cut out of the business by DeLay and another man. The lawsuit ended in a confidential settlement in 1995.

DeLay gave differing stories about whether he was an officer of Albo Pest Control Co. during his deposition and when he filed a financial disclosure document with the House.

"He can subpoena all he wants, there's nothing there," said DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin. "I think he's trying to dig himself out of a hole. We're not concerned about it."

The subpoenas also seek correspondence and internal accounting records.

Wilkes, head of Wilkes Corp., is one of four unnamed coconspirators listed in Cunningham's plea agreement, Wilkes' attorney, Michael Lipman of San Diego, has said. Lipman did not immediately return calls for comment.

Defense contractor ADCS and Perfect Wave Technologies are subsidiaries of Wilkes Corp.

Gelwix was listed in federal campaign records last year as president and CEO of Perfect Wave Technologies. A message left at his office was not immediately returned.

Wilkes' company also hired Alexander Strategies, a consulting firm that employed DeLay's wife Christine. His private jet company, Group W Transportation, provided flights to DeLay three times. DeLay reimbursed Group W as required, records show.

The abuse of the office of prosecutor to destroy a political opponent is a serious act of misconduct -- and Ronnie Earle has a long history of doing so. When will this creep be disbarred for his unethical conduct.

MUCH BETTER ANALYSIS from Chris Elam, author of Fort Bend County's top poli-blog, Safety for Dummies. He also takes a look at Tom DeLay's GOP primary "competition". {snort! giggle! guffaw!}

I'm not a big ACLU fan, but I will acknowledge that they do get things right sometimes.

This is one of those cases.

A Pennsylvania student is off the hook after the American Civil Liberties Union defended his right to wear a political T-shirt to school.

Chris Schiano's T-shirt said "International Terrorist" and had a picture of President Bush.

A security guard at his high school north of Philadelphia told him to take it off. He refused.

Schiano says he's well versed in the First Amendment. He says he "knew right off they had no legal footing to stand on."

The principal says after hearing from the ACLU, school officials realized that the shirt, while potentially offensive, didn't violate the school's dress code. It had no references to sex, drugs, ethnic intimidation or explicit language.

Schiano says he's now wearing the shirt to school and no one's given him a hard time.

In this case, the ACLU is absolutely right -- Treason Boy has the right to wear his shiirt at school.

And every other student has the right to call him an America-hating moron.

You just have to ask that question when you read this article from Seattle.

It seems that people are questioning the effectiveness and procedures of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights because so few claims are resulting in the issuance of findings of discrimination.

The city agency charged with enforcing civil rights takes months to investigate a case. And when the inquiry by the office is over, chances are that not much will come of it.

Last year, the office discovered discrimination in about 1 percent of more than 200 complaints it handled. Some critics say that isn't impressive for an office that has a $1.8 million budget and 22 full-time employees, including six investigators.
The lack of actions has led to nothing but frustration for people like Don Ross, a psychoanalyst, who filed a complaint with the office two years ago. His son, Eli, then 14, was in an Albertsons store in Magnolia when an employee ordered him out.

The employee and co-workers confused the teenager, who is Latino, with another young man, also Latino, who had stolen wine from the supermarket. The employees weren't Hispanic. Don Ross says it was clearly discrimination. The store said it was a simple case of mistaken identity.

He complained to the civil rights office. Two years and two appeals later, Don Ross and his son have yet to get a ruling that the store discriminated.

But wait – I thought that is how it is supposed to work. There is supposed to be an investigation to determine IF there was discrimination, not an investigation UNTIL there is a finding of discrimination. Many times an incident involves no discrimination, and so there should be no finding of discrimination. There should not be an endless round of investigation and appeals until the “right� result is reached.

But that isn’t how the minds of the Left work. Instead, they want a process that tilts towards the accuser. They want the Seattle human Rights Commission to be able to reverse a decision of the Office of Civil Rights, not simply send a case back for further investigation.

It's rare that the commission referred cases back to the civil rights office. Last year, 25 appeals were filed. Only one or two were sent back to the civil rights office.

John Denooyer served on the Human Rights Commission for four years. His term ended in July.