Or at least it is if you accept the Islamist version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, namely that any territory once under the political and military control of Islam must be forever regarded as Islamic territory. So why not return Spain?

The children's website Al Fateh, property of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, demands in its most recent issue the return of the Spanish city of Seville to the "lost paradise" of Al Andalus, as the Muslim part of Spain was called during its existence between 711 and 1492. The web magazine, whose name means "conqueror," says it is for "the young builders of the future."

That is the argument for refusing to accept the existance of Israel -- why should the existance of Spain be any more acceptable to the Islamofascists?

Could you imagine the outrage if any GOP candidate did this to a photo of a Democrat opponent? Leftwing darling and media heroine Colleen Rowley put this on her official campaign website – and then took it down when she got caught defaming the Congressman John Kline, a 25-year Marine vet.

Powerline reproduces Congressman Kline’s response.

Dear Mrs. Rowley,

It has come to my attention that you have placed on your campaign website a doctored photo of me in which my military uniform has been replaced by a Nazi uniform. I demand that you immediately remove from your website that outrageous and disgusting insult to me, my family, and every man and woman who has ever worn a military uniform in defense of our country.

No one knows better than I the rough-and-tumble of a political campaign, but we owe it to the voters not to cross the line of civility, respect and common decency. With regard to each of these, you have clearly crossed the line by portraying me as a Nazi.

I demand a personal apology from you, as well as an apology to every veteran.
Your attempts to smear my good name and 25 years of honorable service in the United States Marine Corps by equating me to a Nazi shows a lack of perspective, a lack of seriousness, and a lack of good judgment. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Sincerely,
John Kline
Member of Congress - Minnesota's 2nd District.

Captain Ed notes that in posting this on her site, she has run smack-dab into Godwin’s Law.

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches

Hugh Hewitt, who I disagreed with, raises this issue.

Where are the Democrats who should be denouncing this? The ones who, rightly, slammed the comments directed at Congressman John Murtha's service?

But at least the questions directed at Murtha were in regard to the accuracy of his statements and changes in his story over the years – no one accused him of being a Nazi or a Communist.

Heck, I get crap from the Left when I fairly and accurately point out the personal history of the senior hill-billy from West Virginia.

But then again, lying about Republicans is perfectly acceptable to the Left, while telling the truth about Democrats (or even questioning their veracity) is never acceptable to them.

Call him “Justice Alito” now.

Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. became the nation's 110th Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, confirmed with the most partisan victory in modern history after a fierce battle over the future direction of the high court.

The Senate voted 58-42 to confirm Alito _ a former federal appellate judge, U.S. attorney, and conservative lawyer for the Reagan administration from New Jersey _ as the replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a moderate swing vote on the court.

All but one of the Senate's majority Republicans voted for his confirmation, while all but four of the Democrats voted against Alito.

That is the smallest number of senators in the president's opposing party to support a Supreme Court justice in modern history. Chief Justice John Roberts got 22 Democratic votes last year, and Justice Clarence Thomas _ who was confirmed in 1991 on a 52-48 vote _ got 11 Democratic votes.

Alito watched the final vote from the White House's Roosevelt Room with his family. He was to be sworn in by Roberts at the Supreme Court in a private ceremony later in the day, in plenty of time for him to appear with President Bush at the State of the Union speech Tuesday evening.

Alito will be ceremonially sworn in a second time at a White House East Room appearance on Wednesday.

That makes two superb justices confirmed in the last few months – let’s hope we get another couple before Dubya leaves office on January 20, 2009.

I’ve long rejected the notion of open primaries. After all, why should members of one party have a voice in the selection of another party’s candidates? That is rather like giving the Buddhists a voice in selecting the Pope.

In two states, the GOP has taken steps to tighten-up their nominating process. This could doom a McCain run for the presidency, as the two states, Michigan and Washingon, were both strong for John McCain in 2000 because of cross-over voters.

Republicans in states that gave Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) victories or near victories in the 2000 GOP presidential primaries are looking to bar non-Republicans from voting in their primaries in 2008, which would make it even more difficult for the Arizonan to win the nomination should he run in two years.

Michigan’s Republican Party Central Committee more than a week age approved a plan that calls for holding the Republican and Democratic primaries on the same day, forcing voters to cast ballots in either a Republican or Democratic primary but not both, GOP executive director Saul Anuzis said in an interview.

The expectation is that there will be fewer so-called crossover ballots if voters can only participate in one primary, Anuzis added.

The GOP head must now confer with his Democratic counterpart, Mark Brewer. Democrats are thought to support the change.

In Washington state, where Republicans chose the presidential nominee in 2000 through a combination of local caucuses and a statewide primary, the party is looking to shift more power to the caucuses.

Traditionally, conservative activists, from abortion opponents to gun-rights proponents, have dominated caucuses, in Washington and elsewhere.

“Pat Robertson won every caucus state in 1988 except Iowa,” said Chris Vance, who recently stepped down as Washington state’s GOP chairman and managed Sen. Bob Dole’s 1988 presidential campaign.

In both Michigan and Washington, the people deciding who should be the next president of the United States are almost certain to be, as a whole, more conservative than the people who did so in 2000.

And lest liberals raise a fuss, consider this – do you really want me and my fellow GOPers coming over to the Democrat primary to vote for Joe Lieberman?

Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has gone on to join her husband in the presence of the Lord.

Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband's assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died at the age of 78.

Flags at the King Center were lowered to half-staff Tuesday morning.
"We appreciate the prayers and condolences from people across the country," the King family said in a statement. The family said she died during the night. The widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005.

Though I did not always agree with the path she advocated to reach a just and equal society, I honor her commitment to a goal which we both agree upon – her husband’s dream of a society which judges people not upon the color of their skin but upon the content of their character.

May God richly reward her in his heavenly kingdom.

What led to this attack? Was it a robbery? A random attack? Gang-related? A hate crime?

A UPS driver was savagely beaten by middle school students while delivering packages in the western suburbs.

The attack happened in Bellwood along the 3200 block of St. Charles.

In a CBS 2 excusive, Joanie Lum talked to the man who was savagely beaten just trying to do his job.

UPS driver Thomas Murphy says he was beaten by a group of school kids on busy St. Charles Road in Bellwood, the route he has driven for 12 years.

He says a teenager walked out in front of his delivery truck Friday at about 3 p.m. When he stopped the truck, 15 to 20 youths surrounded him.

"Somebody clocked me with a pipe. I took kicks from my right. My eyes caked over. I tried to get up and defend myself as best I could," Murphy said.

He was beaten from his head to his ankles.

"I remember being down on one knee, falling to the ground with kids on top of me," Murphy said.

He thinks a passing motorist called for help.

The Bellwood police believe the attackers came from Roosevelt Middle School, located a couple of blocks away. They have stepped up patrols in the area.

“If other delivery drivers are going to face this, we want our patrols in the area," said Bellwood Police Chief Robert Collins.

“Somebody should be held accountable for these kids. They run wild like a pack of wolves, where's the parents?" Murphy said.

In spite of his trauma, Murphy says he wants to get back to work.

"I have every intention of getting back on my route. I'd like to do it with some sense of security," he said.

Police say an anonymous witness has come forward with the names of several people involved in the attack. Murphy identified a couple of people in a photo lineup Monday afternoon, but no one's been arrested yet.

Photos indicate the victim was white. The story gives no indication as to the race/ethnicity of the attackers. A quick check of the information on the school mentioned in the article shows that its test scores are abysmal and that it is 98% minority. I’ve not been able to locate crime statistics for the area. The article makes me wonder, though, what we are not being told about the attack.

CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is making demands of President Bush in advance of tonight’s State of the Union Address.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, says President Bush should avoid using "loaded and imprecise terminology" when he refers to Islam in his State of the Union address.

In a letter to President Bush, CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed suggested that the president be careful to "avoid the use of hot-button terms such as 'Islamo-fascism,' 'militant jihadism,' 'Islamic radicalism,' or 'totalitarian Islamic empire'" in his Tuesday night speech.

Ahmed reminded the president that, as Bush repeatedly has said, the war on terror is not a war on Islam. But Ahmed said the use of "loaded" terminology promotes that negative perception.

"I believe the repeated rhetorical linkage of Islam to terms of violence and extremism is counterproductive and complicates our legitimate foreign policy initiatives," Ahmed told the president.

Never mind that those terms accurately reflect the underlying ideology behind the Islamist jihad being conducted by militant fundamentalist Muslims.

I've always loved a good parody -- especially when it is used to satirize the hypocrisy of a political opponent. John Cornyn certainly did a masterful job creating and delivering one last week, delivered against Jabba the Kennedy (D-Delerium Tremens).

“In the America of [Alito’s] opponents,” Cornyn said, “no plaintiff ever loses a case; no entrepreneur ever wins, no matter how frivolous the claim of employment discrimination; police departments never win a case, no matter how desperate the claim of a criminal defendant; government agencies, ... could never win a case, no matter how outlandish the request for government benefits.”

Shades of Kennedy's "Robert Bork's America" libel of 1987 -- with the added benefit of accurately reflecting the truth, something that could never have been said of Kennedy's scurrilous attack on one of America's preeminent legal minds.

This is the sort of stuff we Texans have long known and loved from Cornyn -- a former Texas Attorney General and Texas Supreme Court Justice. Wouldn't he be marvelous as a candidate for higher office?

Somehow I doubt we’ll be shrill screeches of condemnation from the Left regarding this case – after all, vote fraud is how they have controlled East St. Louis and St. Clair County for decades.

A former Democratic election worker in this battered city was sentenced Monday to a year and a half in federal prison and a City Hall volunteer got probation for scheming to buy votes in the November 2004 election.

Noting that the case reflected an American election process "under attack" by fraud, U.S. District Judge G. Patrick Murphy ordered former precinct committee member Sheila Thomas' prison sentence to be followed by two years of supervised release.

Murphy rejected a prosecutor's request that Yvette Johnson, 47, get 10 to 16 months in prison and he gave her two years' probation, including five months of home confinement.

"I'm just glad that it's over," Johnson told reporters afterward.

Thomas, 31 and her attorney, Paul Sims, declined comment.

Last June, Johnson and Thomas were convicted of conspiracy to commit vote fraud. In the same trial, local Democratic Party chairman Charles Powell Jr., former city director of regulatory affairs Kelvin Ellis, and Democratic precinct committee member Jesse Lewis also were convicted of conspiracy to commit vote fraud.

Thomas, Johnson, Ellis and Lewis also were convicted of election fraud for allegedly paying or offering to pay at least one person to vote.

Johnson and Thomas were the first to be sentenced of the nine people who either were convicted or pleaded guilty in the alleged scheme.

That is all well and good, but I am a bit outraged by this.

In sentencing Thomas, Murphy rejected her attorney's request that she get probation because she was merely a courier of some of that money.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Cutchin argued that Thomas abused the public's trust, pressing that "this kind of conduct can not be tolerated, especially when we're dealing with something so sacrosanct" as elections.

The judge said Thomas "was used by more powerful, experienced, conniving men," but still sentenced her to prison.

Murphy did grant Johnson's request for mercy, citing her rise from poverty and that, aside from the election fraud, she had no criminal background.

Sorry, but I think Judge Murphy got this one dead wrong. I don’t give a rat’s ass that Yvette Johnson once was poor, or that she has no other criminal background. Her crime was nothing less than an attack on the integrity of the American political system. As such, she should have been doing hard time along with Sheila Thomas and the rest of these folks who engaged in a full frontal assault on the voting rights of each and every one of us. Both knew what they were doing, and that it was fundamentally wrong.

Pope John Paul the Great may be one step closer to beatification (and eventual canonization).

The Vatican may have found the "miracle" they need to put the late Pope John Paul one step closer to sainthood -- the medically inexplicable healing of a French nun with the same Parkinson's disease that afflicted him.

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Catholic Church official in charge of promoting the cause to declare the late Pope a saint of the Church, told Reuters on Monday that an investigation into the healing had cleared an initial probe by doctors.

Oder said the "relatively young" nun, whom he said he could not identify for now, was inexplicably cured of Parkinson's after praying to John Paul after his death last April 2.

"I was moved," Oder said in a telephone interview. "To think that this was the same illness that destroyed the Holy Father and it also kept this poor nun from carrying out her work."

John Paul suffered from Parkinson's Disease during the last decade of his life. His body trembled violently and he could not pronounce his words or control his facial muscles.

"To me, this is another sign of God's creativity," he said, adding that the nun worked with children.

He said Church investigators would now start a more formal and detailed probe of the suspected miracle cure.

Let us prayerfully wait and see what conclusions are drawn.

Why, oh why, do we even allow this man to put an (R) after his name?

U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., Monday said he would vote against the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito, the first Republican to do so.

Chafee, in a statement on his Senate Web site, said he was 'concerned about (Alito`s) philosophy on some important constitutional issues. In particular I carefully examined his record on Executive Power, women`s reproductive freedoms and the commerce clause ...'

Chafee is the first Republican to come out against the Alito confirmation but three Senate Democrats -- Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- have said they would vote in favor of Alito`s joining the court.

A running tally by C-SPAN shows support for Alito by 55 senators while 35 have stated opposition. He needs 51 votes to win a seat on the court.

One more reason that I’m urging folks to send their money directly to Steven Laffey’s campaign.

Well, here is a Jesse Jackass campaign that I can support.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday a coalition of black city and state leaders will mount a public initiative for housing and jobs aimed at bringing home every displaced New Orleanian who wants to return.

Jackson kicked off the drive in the pulpit of Central City's New Hope Baptist Church, where he called on church members suffering from Hurricane Katrina to demand rapid access to jobs and housing so they can rebuild their shattered neighborhoods.

"You have the right to return," Jackson told a standing-room-only crowd of 300 or so, including about 70 church members who were bused in from Houston.

He urged the congregation to join a mass public march across the Crescent City Connection on April 1. For many, the bridge has become a symbol of injustice after people trying to escape the growing chaos at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on Aug. 31 were turned back by Gretna police on the West Bank. Gretna officials said that city had no facilities to accept any more fleeing families.

Jackson also announced that his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition has set up a local office and named state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, its statewide coordinator.

Jackson's latest effort to bring back displaced New Orleans residents will be his second since the Aug. 29 hurricane. In October, his coalition organized a caravan of five buses that were supposed to be filled with 200 displaced New Orleanians, but instead were filled with adventure seekers and homeless people from cities across the Midwest and South. Only 14 passengers in the group were New Orleans residents.

Regarding his latest attempt, neither Jackson nor Fields proposed policy specifics in an interview Sunday. But they made clear they felt emerging state and city plans to redevelop New Orleans do not do justice to people -- most of them African-American -- who remain in cities like Atlanta and Houston and are unable to return to New Orleans.

We here in Houston will be quite glad to shove most of the New Orleans evacuees back onto buses and get them out of our city as soon as possible. We would like that crowd of whiners, complainers, grifters, robbers, and killers to go back where they came from.

There is a move afoot to put a stop to discrimination on our college campuses. The perpetrator of the discrimination? The American Red Cross. The proposed solution? Ban blood drives!

And while one school has refused to give in, there are other schools considering taking precisely that course of action.

The University of Vermont won't ban American Red Cross blood drives on campus despite a complaint from the school's affirmative action office that the organization violates UVM's non-discrimination policy.

"Donating blood is an individual choice and action -- not rising to the definition of protected activity in the case of discrimination or equal protection," Michael Gower, UVM's vice president for administration, wrote in a Jan. 17 letter detailing the school's position.

The letter was addressed to Kathryn Friedman, the executive director of the affirmative action office. Friedman had recommended that UVM curtail Red Cross blood drives on campus, arguing the Red Cross policy violated UVM's non-discrimination policy.

According to the letter, Friedman's office decided to oppose Red Cross campus blood drives after a former UVM student filed a complaint accusing UVM of permitting discrimination against gay men by allowing the Red Cross on campus.

Officials for the Red Cross blood center in Burlington were unavailable for comment late last week. Nationally, the organization's position has been that the Food and Drug Administration won't allow it to accept blood from sexually active gay men.

Among the many questions a prospective Red Cross blood donor is asked is whether the person is "a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977."

The policy is meant to keep HIV-positive blood from contaminating the nation's blood supply. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. The FDA last considered whether to revise its policy in 2000, when a panel of FDA specialists voted 7-6 to maintain the ban.

Peter Jacobsen, executive director of Vermont CARES, said he understood the Red Cross was bound by the FDA policy but said the time had come for the FDA to revisit its stance.

"Personally, I think it's unfortunate," he said of the policy. "HIV-testing technology has made such incredible advances. It is able to sort out any HIV-infected blood."

The university president argues that the ban would not be in the best interest of the students or the community. But since when do left-wing ideologues give a damn about anything but their cause? So what if a few thousand people die, so long as nobody gets their feelings hurt by being excluded from donating?

Other regional universities, including the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire, are considering whether to allow the Red Cross to continue to stage blood drives on their campuses.

The University of Maine's student government has voted to ban Red Cross blood drives on its Orono campus. The University of New Hampshire's Student Senate last year passed a resolution calling on the Red Cross and the FDA to revise their policies.

Here is a proposal – anyone offended by the current blood donation guidelines should refuse all blood products until the ban is changed. No whole blood, not platelets, no plasma, or anything else. Have your refusal tattooed in a prominent location on your body. That way your conscience won’t be offended – and there will be blood for human beings who are less concerned about PC politics and more concerned about the health and safety of the nation’s blood supply.

Mike Adams is skewering feminists in a series of columns. In the process, he raises an interesting point about the disregard feminists have for human life.

11. When faced with uncertainty, feminists have less self-control than hunters.

Once when I was deer-hunting in Ivanhoe, North Carolina, I saw something moving in the brush about 100 yards away. It was foggy outside and I was looking through a 4 X 32 scope mounted on a Marlin 30-30. I never take a shot over 100 yards with that little brush gun. And I never shoot at anything unless I know exactly what is out there.

That day I got to thinking about the feminist approach to abortion. Feminists often justify abortion by saying that the procedure is no different than picking a scab. That’s when I start asking questions.

I often ask feminists about a film I saw of a fetus in the so-called “first trimester” of development. The baby (sorry, that is my opinion) was yawning, rubbing its eyes, and even rolling around and playing in the womb. I like to ask feminists whether they have ever seen a scab yawn.

When I press them on the issue, they seldom admit that the fetus is a person. But they seldom state unequivocally that it is not. They usually say they “don’t know for sure.” And they say that I “don’t know for sure” either.

That really epitomizes our differences. When I know it is a deer in the brush, I pull the trigger. When I know it is a human, I hold my fire. When I don’t know, I also hold my fire.

The feminist who “doesn’t know” whether it is a person, has the abortion anyway. She just pulls the trigger. That really says it all, doesn’t it?

Yeah, it really does say it all.

After all, if one is unwilling to err on the side of human life when uncertain, what regard does one really have for human life?

After all, Mexican officials are involved in aiding and abetting the border-jumping criminals – so how can we expect them to help end the problem?

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested a Mexican immigration official who was allegedly trying to help a group of undocumented migrants sneak into the United States, the Mexican government said Sunday.

Immigration agent Francisco Javier Gutierrez was arrested at a checkpoint near Alamogordo, N.M., about 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the Mexican Interior Department said in a news release.

Gutierrez had been fired on corruption allegations last year but returned to his job after winning a court case in which he claimed he had been unfairly dismissed, according to the National Immigration Institute.

The Mexican government promised to cooperate with U.S. authorities in the case. A spokesman for the Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas, declined to comment Sunday.

Gutierrez's arrest comes just days after the Mexican and U.S. governments exchanged terse diplomatic notes about security on the border.

We must acknowledge that, in this, the Mexican government is our enemy, not our ally.

Let’s set aside the First Amendment issues here fore a moment – and they are significant – and just consider whether the punishment is appropriate for the offense in question.

PITTSBURGH - A high school senior who was transferred to an alternative school as punishment for parodying his principal on the Internet is suing the district, arguing it violated his freedom of speech.

Justin Layshock had used his grandmother's computer and the Web site MySpace.com to create a phony profile under the principal's name and photo.
The site asks questions, and Justin filled in answers peppered with vulgarities, fat jokes and, to the question "What did you do on your last birthday?" wrote "Too drunk to remember," according to the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

School officials questioned the teenager about the site on Dec. 21, and he apologized to the principal, the ACLU said.

On Jan. 6, the district suspended Justin for 10 days and transferred him to an alternative program typically reserved for students with behavior or attendance problems, according to the lawsuit. He also was banned from school events.

The lawsuit seeks Justin's immediate reinstatement to his regular school.

Alternative school? For a juvenile attempt at humor that happened off campus and outside of school hours? You must be kidding! The suspension is even an overreaction, but one could argue that it is appropriate if the site caused a major problem at the school or contained threats, but not for insults.

Looks like someone with the district, probably the principal, got his panties in a wad and decided to “make an example” of the student.

Bad move – because the taxpayers of the district will be paying for the bad judgment of the individual who made the decision.

Every week, Watcher of Weasels sponsors a contest among posts from around the blogosphere.

The Council has cast their ballots for last week's submitted posts.

Council Member Entries: In a tie vote in which The Watcher had to cast the deciding vote, Done With Mirrors, took first place with Chaos or Community. Dr. Sanity's Ronald Reagan -- A Personal Recollection was the runner-up.

Non-Council Entries: Winds of Change was the winner in the non-council category with their entry, Just A Second – It’s Not That Dark Yet (And We Have A Really Big Flashlight).

That is the message of today's Las Vegas Review Journal. It pointedly castigates Senator Harry Reid.

Taking his marching orders from the hyperliberal Ted Kennedy wing of his party, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid will apparently vote this week with Democrats who hope to filibuster the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito.

At least three of the Senate's 44 Democrats have announced they'll vote to elevate Judge Alito. One or two others appear to be leaning that way. Meanwhile, 53 of the Senate's 55 Republicans have signalled their intention to confirm the judge.

In other words, Judge Alito has more than enough support in the Senate to become the newest justice on the nation's highest court -- if he's actually given an up-or-down vote.

But Sen. Kennedy and his Massachusetts partner, Sen. John Kerry, are trying to drum up support among fellow left-wingers to prevent that from happening. They would need at least 41 senators to join in the charade. "It's an uphill climb at the current time," Sen. Kennedy said Friday, "but it's achievable."

Is it? Even Sen. Reid conceded late last week that, "Everyone knows there are not enough votes to support a filibuster."

That's because months of dirt-digging and days of circuslike hearings have turned up no compelling reason why minority Senate Democrats should deny President Bush his choice to fill the seat of retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

So why doesn't Sen. Reid take the filibuster threat off the table? Why go forward with what is obviously a counterproductive political exercise? Is the whole charade simply an attempt to curry favor with the liberal interest groups that help the party mainline cash?

If Sen. Reid votes to support a filibuster against Judge Alito, he threatens to further alienate himself from Nevada's more moderate voters. Does the name Tom Daschle ring a bell, senator?

It's worth noting that Sen. Reid likely wouldn't lend his name to these tactics were he up for re-election this year, instead of 2010.

In other words, this is politics and not principle leading to the attempt to stop a highly-qualified mainstream jurist from serving on the Supreme Court.

Rhe paper has this to say to Senator Bill Frist.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has announced his intention to quash the filibuster move in a Monday vote. But if Teddy & Co. somehow conjure up the votes necessary to block a vote on Alito, Sen. Frist shouldn't hesitate to:

-- Force Democratic obstructionists to conduct an actual filibuster and hold up Senate business for weeks while they drone on reading from the Communist Manifesto.

-- Employ the so-called "nuclear option" that was in play when Democrats kept blocking votes on Bush appellate court nominees.

Anything less would be a complete capitulation.

Agreed -- and we must not capitulate to an obstructionist minority. Personally, I prefer forcing a real, honest-to-God filibuster. Let the people see exactly what the Democrats are up to with their baseless attacks on a good man. Show precisely the lengths to which they will go to get their own way, even when it clashes with the will and desires of the American people -- their own constituents.

Even Senator Barack Obama sees the filibuster as pointless and wrong.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., predicted today that an effort to try to block a final vote on Alito would fail on Monday. That would clear the way for Senate approval Tuesday of the federal appeals court judge picked to succeed the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Democrats fear he would shift the court rightward on abortion rights, affirmative action, the death penalty and other issues.

"We need to recognize, because Judge Alito will be confirmed, that, if we're going to oppose a nominee that we've got to persuade the American people that, in fact, their values are at stake," Obama said.

"There is an over-reliance on the part of Democrats for procedural maneuvers," he told ABC's "This Week."

* * *

Obama cast Alito as a judge "who is contrary to core American values, not just liberal values."

* * *

"There's one way to guarantee that the judges who are appointed to the Supreme Court are judges that reflect our values. And that's to win elections," Obama said.

I agree with the sentiments, Senator, but would like to note that the problem is that your values do not reflect those of the American people. Those sentiments are best reflected in the values of the Bush administration, the GOP, and Judge Samuel Alito.

So Democrats, show some guts, and some integrity.

Vote.

And accept the results.

If you respect the American people.

I've written on this topic before, having experienced the racist attitude that often prevents the adoption of non-white children by white families. In today's Houston Chronicle, there is discussion of the sound reasons for rejecting the racist attitude (promulgated primarily by the National Association of Black Social Workers and other liberal groups) that transracial adoption should be discouraged and prevented -- those who are more interested in racial identity than in human need.

In 2002, the last year for which there are national statistics, 300,000 women aged 18 to 44 were seeking to adopt a child and had taken specific measures to do so.

It's not surprising that about half of the women preferred a single nondisabled child under the age of two. What is significant are the racial preferences of these black and white women toward the race of any future adopted child.

Eighty-four percent of white women seeking to adopt would "prefer or accept" an African-American child as compared with 75 percent of African-American women who would "prefer or accept" a white child, a difference of only 9 percentage points.

Supporting these changing racial preferences, 93 percent of black women seeking to adopt would "prefer or accept" an adoptee other than black or white as compared to 95 percent of white women seeking to adopt who would "prefer or accept" an adoptee other than black or white.

These strikingly similar figures, a difference of only two percentage points, speaks to a fundamental shift in family creation and, indeed, reflects a shift in defining what it means to be a family member.

In other wods, most of those seeking to adopt are more inteested in the need of the child than the race of the child. Most of those seeking to adopt have the place in their hearts and homes for a child, regardles of race. And as we move towards a society that is more and more color-blind and multi-racial society (despite attempts by the racists of NABSW and other such groups to frustrate that goal), it is simply unacceptable to live by an ideology that is horrificly wrong and immoral, and which harms children.

For 30 years, scientific data has rejected the idea that children raised in cross-race adoptive families are any less African-American, Asian, etc., than their counterparts raised in racially similar environments. Sure, in a perfect world there would be no need for trans-racial adoption or adoption in general. But the world is very far from perfect and children need families, and families want children.

Morgan Freeman was castigated by some for saying in a 60 Minutes interview that one way to eliminate racism was to not talk about it. Why not try that when it comes to adoption? There is little to no risk.

What is the alternative for thousands of children available for adoption — to remain in foster care when we know the long-term detrimental effects of such long-term placement? How about not talking about race in relation to adoption?

If there's a goodness of fit between an available child in foster care of a race different from an eligible adoptive family, don't talk about race, as Freeman suggests. Just place the child.

Why reject what we know: Children of one race raised in families of another race develop into productive, emotionally healthy, assured, racially comfortable adults.

And let's be very clear -- we know that loving relationships can and do transcend racial boundaries. Over the years, I have had students in foster care and eligible for adoption who my wife and I would have considered bringing into our home, but for the barriers placed in the way of interracial adoption by allegedly well-meaning but thouroughly racist social workers. It didn't matter that their actions violated federal law -- the ideology prevented our moving forward. As a result, kids stayed in the system until they "aged-out" at 18.

In other words, the system is broken and will remain so until there is an actual change in attitude and behavior regarding interracial adoption.

I remember that day all too well. I had spent the morning at Illinois State University' Bone Student Center, in a giant room filled with teacher recruiters as I desperately sought employment.

I wanted to get rid of my resumes and other stuff before heading to the cafeteria, so my girlfriend and I went up to my dorm room in Watterson Towers to drop stuff off. She turned the television on to catch the news. After all, this was the "Teacher In Space" flight, and there had been much buzz about the impending launch at the teacher job fair.

That's when we saw the coverage.

They were looking for the shuttle.

And then they showed the replay as we watched -- horrified.

I remember shouting at the screen. I was later told that my words were "Where's the f#^%ing shuttle?" I was literally knocked to my knees by the force of what I was seeing as the tears began to roll down my face, brought on by a visceral understanding of images that my brain could not comprehend.

I knelt there and watched. And wept. We never did make it down to lunch, nor did I return to the job fair.

It must have been an hour or two later that the phone rang. It was Tony Zagotta, president of the ISU College Republicans (later the National Chairman) and one of my closest friends on campus. Could I meet him, Eric Nicoll, and the rest of the CR inner circle at the office to help organize a candlelight vigil in the quad.

Before I went to that meeting, I watched what is my favorite Reagan speech.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.

"Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But, we've never lost an astronaut in flight; we've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle; but they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.

"For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy.' They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.

"We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.

"And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.

"I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: 'Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it.'

"There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, 'He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.' Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.

"The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honoured us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'

"Thank you."

Apprpriately enough, it was those closing words that floatd into my mind nearly two decades later when Ronald Reagan died.

Today I can drive to Johnson Space Center in 10 minutes, including the time it takes to back out of the garage. A local school and the town youth center are named for astronaut Ed White, killed on the launchpad with Grissom and Chaffee in that flash of fire in the first Apollo capsule. I shared a zip code with one of the Columbia astronauts, and remember seeing the others in local stores. All of those who have lost their lives in the pursuit of space exploration have a special place in the heart of this community.

I claim a number of honest-to-God rocket scientists among my friends and acquaintances. Several of them were intimately involved with Challenger, and more were a part of the Columbia team. A few, the old-timers, knew and worked with the Apollo 1 crew. Each of them tells me that they are dedicated to the continuation of manned spaceflight. Why? Because those who have given their lives to push back that frontier would want it to continue.

And so, today, we honor and remember those who died in spaceflight.

X-15 Flight 191
Michael J. Adams

Apollo 1
Gus Grissom
Ed White
Roget Chaffee

Challenger -- 51-L
Dick Scobee
Michael Smith
Judith Resnik
Ellison Onizuka
Ronald McNair
Greg Jarvis
Christa McAuliffe

Columbia -- STS-107
Rick Husband
William McCool
Michael Anderson
David Brown
Kalpana Chawla
Laurel Clark
Ilan Ramon

AND LEST WE FORGET OTHER SPACE HEROES

Soyuz 1
Vladimir_Komarov

Soyuz 11
Georgi Dobrovolski
Viktor Patsayev
Vladislav Volkov

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Here is a cool archaeological discovery from Egypt.

A beautiful black granite statue of Queen Tiye, mother of the monotheistic king Akhnaten, was unearthed last Monday in Luxor, reports Nevine El-Aref. At Karnak's Mut Temple, a John Hopkins University archaeological mission stumbled upon the statue while brushing sand off the temple's second hall.

"The statue is mostly intact," said Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), who added that although the 160cm tall statue has a broken arm and a missing leg, it was still considered very well preserved. It features a standing Queen Tiye wearing a wig and a cobra-decorated crown.

Initial examinations revealed that the back of the statue is engraved with two columns of hieroglyphic text bearing different titles of king Amenhotep III, who ruled for 38 years during the 18th Dynasty. According to Sabri Abdel-Aziz, head of the SCA's Ancient Egypt Department, the inscriptions written on the statue also include a cartouche of a 21st Dynasty queen called Henutaw, which reveals that the same statue was used in a subsequent era.

In other archaeology-related news, the SCA and the Luxor Supreme Council agreed to enlarge the road around the two famous Memnon statues on Luxor's West Bank; they also discussed the possibility of constructing a visitors' centre -- similar to the one at the Abu Simbel Temple -- at the entrance of the Valley of the Kings.

And assuming that presumed family trees are correct, she was also King Tut's grandmother.

So, does the allegedly "unquestionable moral authority" of Cindy Sheehan extend beyond questions of war and peace in Iraq to include deciding who should or should not be on the Supreme Court? She thinks it does.

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has threatened to run for Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.) seat unless Feinstein filibusters Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Sheehan, who was in Caracas, Venezuela Friday attending the World Social Forum, heard that several Democrats planned to filibuster Alito but that Feinstein, who is up for re-election in November, announced that she will vote against Alito but would not filibuster the nomination.

"I'm appalled that Diane Feinstein wouldn't recognize how dangerous Alito's nomination is to upholding the values of our constitution and restricting the usurpation of presidential powers, for which I've already paid the ultimate price," Sheehan said in a statement.

Sheehan became a national figure representing the anti-war movement after her son Casey was killed in Iraq and she stood vigil outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch last summer demanding to speak face-to-face with Bush about her son's death.

Sheehan claimed Alito has "an extensive paper trail documenting the right-wing political agenda that he has actively advanced, not only as a high-ranking official in the Reagan Administration, but also as a judge."

She accused Alito of trying to restrict Congress' power and supporting "efforts to curtail privacy rights, including not only privacy from government surveillance and arbitrary arrest, but also other constitutional rights based on privacy, such as reproductive liberty for women."

Sheehan is scheduled to return from Venezuela on Monday and will travel to the nation's capital to take part in an alternative State of the Union event.

(Another good article appears in the Washington Post)

This dishonest narcissist who has dishonored her son by her anti-American antics doesn't realize that her 15 minutes are up -- and she doesn't get another, any more than she got another meeting with the President.

Hey, Cindy -- it isn't all about you!

UPDATE: DiFi KowTows

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today announced that she will vote no on cloture regarding the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

“Based on a very long and thoughtful analysis of the record and transcript, which I tried to indicate in my floor statement yesterday, I’ve decided that I will vote no on cloture.”

Lying coward!

(H/T Michelle Malkin, Blogs For Bush & GOPBloggers)

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To honor deceased President Ronald Reagan, the Georgia Legislature is considering a resolution to declare Feb. 6 to be Ronald Reagan Day.

But some are complaining about the failure to honor another former president.

Georgia lawmakers are proposing a resolution making February 6th Ronald Reagan Day, in honor of the 40th U.S. President. But according to Plains residents, there's just one small problem with that.

Former President Jimmy Carter, the only President from Georgia, doesn't even have his own day.

We got some strange reactions we got when residents found out that the 39th President of the United States, and their hometown hero, doesn't have his own day in the State of Georgia.

Jimmy Carter was born and raised in Plains. From his old high school, to City Hall, everyone we spoke to had good things to say about the former President.

"The Pharjac Grille is a local landmark that President Carter himself frequents often. While we weren't lucky enough to catch him there when we visited, the owners say the former President deserves his own day in the state of Georgia."

"Jimmy Carter brought the world to Georgia," says Pharis Short, owner of the Pharjac Grill. She knows President Carter well.

"It is logical that if we're gonna honor a President, Jimmy Carter ought to be the first one we honor," she told us.

Let me point out that Jimmy Carter is still alive – which makes the situations somewhat different. Let me also point out that Reagan was a significantly better president than Carter was.

But perhaps Georgia should honor Carter. Might I suggest declaring April 1 to be Jimmy Carter Day?

Look at what the actual facts and figures tell us about the capital gains tax cut. It increased revenue, even as it allowed folks to keep more of their money.

On Thursday the Congressional Budget Office released its annual Budget and Economic Outlook, and buried in one of its nearly impenetrable tables of numbers is a remarkable story that has gone entirely unreported by the mainstream media: The 2003 tax cut on capital gains has entirely paid for itself. More than paid for itself. Way more.

To appreciate this story, we have to go back in time to January 2003, before the tax cut was enacted. Table 3-5 on page 60 in CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook published in 2003 estimated that capital-gains tax liabilities would be $60 billion in 2004 and $65 billion in 2005, for a two-year total of $125 billion.

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

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

In other words, supply-side economics – AKA Reaganomics – works.

From the Detroit News:

It's time to throw out the tired union rhetoric about equal pay and solidarity. Why? Because some union bosses in cities such as Baltimore and Atlanta are hiring homeless people to walk picket lines, but they're not paying them living wages or offering the golden benefits they so proudly promote. Apparently getting the cheapest labor possible isn't such a bad idea after all.

Well said.

Sorry, Ann, but such comments are inappropriate. And I say that as someone who hopes Justice Stevens leaves the bench sooner rather than later.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, speaking at a traditionally black college, joked that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned.

Coulter had told the Philander Smith College audience Thursday that more conservative justices were needed on the Supreme Court to change the current law on abortion. Stevens is one of the court's most liberal members.

"We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said. "That's just a joke, for you in the media."

What you said is every bit as unacceptable as the comment by one liberal pundit that she hoped Clarence Thomas’ wife would feed him an unhealthy diet so he would have a stroke and die young like so many other black men.

I would like to pointedly suggest that you apologize – and really mean it.

After all, he is the only Klansman in the Senate, and he is 100% con-fed Democrat. Judge Alito deserves better than confirmation with Robert Byrd's vote.

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, whose confirmation seems certain in the Republican-run Senate, padded his modest Democratic support Thursday with endorsements by Sens. Robert Byrd and Tim Johnson.

Alito already was assured the votes of at least 51 of the 55 Republicans in the 100-member chamber - enough to be put over the top - when West Virginia's Byrd and Johnson of South Dakota joined Nebraska's Ben Nelson in saying they'll vote yes.

I wish would issue a public statement requesting that Senator Byrd vote against him -- as a matter of principle, as a demonstration of his opposition to racism and bigotry in all its forms.

After all, Byrd used to head an organization that expressed contempt for Catholics, immigrants, and those of non-Anglo-Saxo heritage. Alito qualifies on two counts, and his father fit all three.

(h/t: Blogs for Bush)

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Bill Frist is taking a preliminary step.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D., (R-Tenn.) on Thursday filed a cloture petition to close the debate on Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination to be the next associate justice to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The cloture motion agreed to in the Senate sets forth a cloture vote for 4:30 p.m. EST, on Monday. If cloture is invoked, then the Senate will proceed to a final vote on Judge Alito’s nomination at 11:00 a.m. EST, Tuesday.

Sen. Frist made the following statement regarding the voting schedule in the Senate:

“Next Tuesday, a bipartisan majority of Senators will vote to confirm Judge Alito as Justice Alito.

“After a thorough, fair, and robust debate on the Senate floor it is now time for Senators to go on record and vote up or down on this outstanding nomination.”

Why file for cloture? Because of threats by certain dishonorable Democrats.

Massachusetts Sens. John Kerry and Edward Kennedy, along with a small number of other Senate Democrats, have threatened a filibuster to block the vote for Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, FOX News has learned.

"Judge Alito has consistently made it harder for Americans to have their day in court. He routinely defers to the power of the government, no matter how extreme. And he doesn’t believe women have a right to privacy that’s protected by the Constitution," Kerry said in a statement.

"The president has every right to nominate Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. It’s our right and our responsibility to oppose him vigorously and to fight against this radical upending of the Supreme Court," he added before announcing he would return to Washington early on Friday from Davos, Switzerland, where a Senate delegation was attending the World Economic Forum.

If they try it, crush them completely. The American people have had enough of their antics.

If this bank operated here in Texas, I would be moving my business to them.

BB&T Corp., the second-biggest bank in the Washington area, said yesterday that it will not lend money to developers who plan to build commercial projects on land taken from private citizens through the power of eminent domain.

"The idea that a citizen's property can be taken by the government solely for private use is extremely misguided; in fact, it's just plain wrong," said John Allison, the bank's chairman and chief executive officer.

BB&T Chief Credit Officer Ken Chalk said the North Carolina bank expects to lose only a tiny amount of business, but thinks it is obligated to take a stand on the issue.

"It's not even a fraction of a percent," he said. "The dollar amount is insignificant." But, he added, "We do business with a large number of consumers and small businesses in our footprint. We are hearing from clients that this is an important philosophical issue."

Mr. Chalk said he knows of no other large U.S. bank with a similar policy.

Still, if more banks adopt a similar principled policy, they will more than make up for it with the increased business they receive.

The New York State Conference of the American Association of University Professors is objecting to the Academic Bill of Rights proposed in the state legismature. Let’s take a look at the portions of the legislation that they find so objectionable in their correspondance with their members.

Academic bill of rights.

1. A student enrolled in an institution of higher education has the right to expect:

a. A learning environment in which the student has access to a broad range of serious scholarly opinion pertaining to the subjects the student studies in which, in the humanities, the social sciences and the arts, the fostering of a plurality of serious scholarly methodologies and perspectives has a significant institutional purpose;

In other words, they are objecting to a mandate to provide students with a well-rounded education.

b. To be graded solely on the basis of the student's reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects the student studies and to not be discriminated against on the basis of the student's political or religious beliefs;

It seems that the students wish to permit grades to be based upon the student’s conformity to religious or political ideologies rather than their knowledge of the material and their demonstrated scholarship. This is at odds with the traditions of Western liberal education, which had as its goal the liberation of the individual mind rather than it’s shackling.

c. That the student's academic freedom and the quality of education will not be infringed upon by instructors who persistently introduce controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that has no relation to the subject of study and that serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose;

The professors seem to think that students have no right to expect that they will be taught the subject matter of the course and not the personal opinions and philosophy of the professor on matters unrelated to the subject matter of the class. They view students as a captive audience to be indoctrinated. The irony is that this clause is based upon a 1940 statement of the AAUP on academic freedom.

d. That the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience of students and student organizations are not infringed upon by administrators, student government organizations or institutional policies, rules or procedures; and

Contrary to the Bill of Rights and the repeated rulings of the Supreme Court, the AAUP believes that college students shed their civil liberties when they enter the campus.

e. That the student's academic institution distributes student fee funds on a viewpoint-neutral basis and maintains a posture of neutrality with respect to substantive political and religious disagreements, differences and opinions.

A fair and equitable distribution of mandatory student fees is somehow threatening to academic freedom?

2. A faculty member or instructor at an institution of higher education has the right to expect:

a. Academic freedom in the classroom in discussing subjects while making the students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other than that of the faculty member or instructor and encouraging intellectual honesty, civil debate and the critical analysis of ideas in the pursuit of knowledge and truth;

I cannot understand what is objectionable here – unless the requirement that a professor provide students with a well-rounded education is a threat to current practices.

b. To be hired, fired, promoted, denied promotion, granted tenure or denied tenure on the basis of competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of expertise of the faculty member or instructor and not on the basis of political or religious beliefs; and b. To not be excluded from tenure, search and hiring committees on the basis of political or religious beliefs.

Non-discrimination is supposed to be a good thing, according to the Left. Could it be that they hypocritically apply such matters only to themselves and their favored groups, and not to those who do not share their worldview?

3. An institution of higher education shall fully inform students, faculty and instructors of the rights under this section and of the institution's grievance procedures for violations of academic freedom by notices prominently displayed in course catalogs or student handbooks and on the institutional publicly accessible site on the Internet

4. The governing board of an institution of higher education shall develop institutional guidelines and policies to protect the academic freedom and the rights of students and faculty under this section and shall adopt a grievance procedure by which a student or faculty member may seek redress of grievance for an alleged violation of a right specified in this section..

A governing board under this subdivision shall:

Publicize the grievance procedure developed pursuant to this subdivision
To the students and faculty on every campus that is under the control 27 and direction of the governing board. .

We can’t be telling students that they have rights, can we? That would threaten the ability of the unbalanced professor to indoctrinate his captive audience!

In light of the inoffensive and reasonable nature of these provisions that the AAUP is objecting to in NY State, it can only be assumed that the requirement of professional conduct is offensive to the groups and that the legitimate rights and expectations of students need protection.

Maybe the time has come for the New York taxpauyers to cut the public college and university system loose as irredeemable corrupt, and see if the one-sided and biased faculty can survive on their own in the marketplace.

Not only are the cabrones running the Mexican government denying the possibility that their troops are helping smuggle drugs into the US, but now they are accusing the US military of doing so.

Mexico's top diplomat suggested Thursday that American soldiers disguised as Mexican troops may have been in the military-style Humvee filmed earlier this week protecting a marijuana shipment on the border.

Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez also told a news conference that U.S. soldiers had helped drug smugglers before. However, he offered no evidence.

* * *

Derbez said Thursday that the men photographed by Texas law enforcement could have been Americans.

"Members of the U.S. Army have helped protect people who were processing and transporting drugs," Derbez said. "And just as that has happened ... it is very probable that something like that could have happened, that in reality they were members of some of their groups disguised as Mexican soldiers with Humvees."

Yes, there have been stray individuals who have done so -- and they are arrested, indicted, prosecute, and imprisoned. These things do not happen in Mexico to police and military.

And then there is this little outrage.

Derbez also said his country will send a diplomatic note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanding that U.S. officials tone down their comments on Mexico's security and immigration problems.

Why don't we send some troops over the border into Mojado Land to do something about its security and immigration problems instead.

The Palestinians have voted the terrorists in as their leaders.

It is only a matter of time until the “blown to pieces” process revs into high gear.

These folks are un-reconstructed terrorists out to destroy Israel. I have no problem with whatever Israel does to deal with them. Neither does Captain Ed.

Unless someone can show widespread voter fraud on behalf of Hamas, the Palestinians should be judged by the choices they have made this week. They have chosen war and the annihilation of Israel over the two-state solution favored publicly (if not fervently) by Fatah. Europe and the United States need to wake up from their delusional dreamland of a situation where both sides in this conflict want a peaceful conclusion and a world without hatred for their children and grandchildren. Clearly, the Palestinians want war, and they have made no secret of using their children and grandchildren as bomb fuses in order to perpetuate it.

The first item on our list should be an absolute end to all aid to the Palestinian territories and government. The US should not subsidize Hamas, nor should it give money to a people whose only aim appears to be genocide. Second, the US should allow Israel to respond militarily to any and all provocations -- no more pressure from Washington on Tel Aviv to moderate their responses to suicide bombings and missile attacks. And if Hamas and the Palestinians still want to wage war after that, then let the IDF roll across the West Bank and Gaza Strip and push the whole lot of them right into the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. That's what total war means, and as soon as the world stops preventing the Palestinians from the risks of their own choices, the sooner they will conclude that war is the worst possible choice for them.

The stated goal of Hamas is the destruction of Israel. I therefore have no problem with Israel adopting the stated goal of destroying Hamas and the palestinia Authoity along with it.

UPDATE: President Bush also puts it well.

I don't see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform. And I know you can't be a partner in peace if your party has an armed wing...I will continue to remind people about what I just said...I've talked to Condi twice this morning. She called President Abbas...

The United States does not support political parties that want to destroy our ally, Israel...

Well said, Mr. President.

AN OBSERVATION FROM A FRIEND:

Got an email from a colleague this evening, making the observation.

Remember all those folks who could not accept the small discrepancies between the exit polls in 2004 and the results of the election, claiming that they were certain proof of fraud and election theft? They seem mighty silent, now that the discrepancy favors teh "kill the Jews" lterrorists in the Middle East.

Could it be that they have greater faith in the integrity of the terrorists than they do in their own country?

Hmmmmm.....

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That is what one Florida radio station has termed Dave F. Swafford, who walked into a classroom and punched out a teacher's aide who his daughter accuses of inappropriately touching her.

An angry father who marched into a classroom and punched a teacher's assistant in the face said Wednesday he was protecting his 15-year-old daughter, who had accused the man of inappropriately touching her.

Dave F. Swafford, 42, was charged with felony battery on a school employee after he hit the 35-year-old aide in front of a class full of students at Lakewood Ranch High School near Bradenton Tuesday morning, authorities said. He was also named ``Father of the Year'' by a local radio station for his actions.

``I'm not real proud of what I did,'' Swafford told The Associated Press Wednesday. ``You have to protect your children, and my daughter does not lie to me.''

It seems Mr. Swafford was unwilling to allow school procedures to be invoked and investigations to be made. He wanted action taken immediately because, after all, his daughter doesn't lie to him.

And that is why I think he is a sad and pathetic excuse for a parent (and for a man, for that matter). This is the situation that led to his assault.

Swafford, the part owner of an air conditioning company, said he came to the school to meet with officials about allegations made by his daughter and other female students about the assistant's inappropriate touching and conduct. When he saw that the man was not in the meeting, he asked his daughter to take him to the classroom.

``I wanted to know why the guy was in a classroom teaching after my daughter came forward,'' he said.

A verbal exchange became heated, and ``I lost control,'' he said. He spent about 10 hours in jail and got out later Tuesday after posting bond.

You see, he wanted the man to lose his job based solely on his daughter's say-so. No need to investigate, no need to find the facts -- take the word of a 15-year-old and a couple of her friends and just fire the guy. This guy is such a hot-head that he didn't even bother to wait for his meeting with the administration -- he had his daughter lead him down to the guy's room so he could assault him. After all, his daughter has spoken, and she doesn't lie to him.

You may ask why I am not taking a hard line against child abuse. Quite simply, it is because I am not sure that there is abuse here. What I am sure is that we have another case of a parent walking into a school and committing an act of violence against school personnel. That isn't acceptable.

And as for the accusation made, I'd rather wait for there to be some investigation before drawing a conclusion. After all, kids do lie to their parents, even about this sort of stuff

I watched a colleague suffer through such an accusation a few years ago. A decent, compassionate, dedicated man, he had a trio of girls who were doing poorly in his class accuse him of giving them lewd looks and groping them. It wasn't true -- they just wanted out of his class so they could get As instead of Bs. He was suspended from work, and had to go home and tell his pregnant wife about the accusation (it was a difficult pregnancy, and his wife lost the baby that week). Once cleared, he was still the subject of rumors -- even though one of the girls admitted that she had lied. Even today, four years later, there still lingers a hint of scandal around his name, and certain parents will insist that their children be assigned to other classes. It is certain that he will never be hired as an administrator in this or any other district, despite completing his certification requirements a few weeks after the accusation was made; I wonder if he could even get a teaching job outside of the district. After all, there will always be those who will remember the accusation and be certain that these girls didn't lie.

So I'll be honest here -- I hope Swafford ends up serving the maximum sentence for the felony he committed, regardless of the guilt of the guy accused by his daughter. No one should be able to walk into a school and assault an employee, no matter how righteous their cause is alleged to be.

UPDATE: O'Reilly says the school has tape of the accused in a different location at the time of the incident -- and daddy has a violent rap sheet.

This report makes it clear that the "Father of the Year" attacked a man who was falsely accused by his lying daughter.

It turns out the daughter made it all up, the Manatee School District says.

The parent of a Lakewood Ranch High School student punched a teaching assistant at the school Tuesday, and said he was justified because his daughter claimed the teacher had touched her inappropriately.

But the girl's entire story was made up, school officials said today, and now the father faces a felony battery charge that could bring prison time.

The girl, who had been in a school-suspension classroom at the high school, was apparently motivated by revenge, Superintendent Roger Dearing said.

The teacher assistant, Deon W. Mathis, had turned the girl in to the office after seeing her pour soda onto another student from the second floor of a school stairwell.

Dearing said the district has statements from several other students and footage from a school security camera that proves the teaching assistant did nothing wrong. Video tapes show Mathis wasn't even in the classroom at the time the girl claimed the sex harassment took place.

Dearing said the district would pursue criminal charges against the parent, Dave F. Swafford, who has been making national TV rounds justifying the violence. He was slated to appear on the O'Reilly Factor tonight.

Dearing called Mathis a respected and caring educator. He is expected to return to work Monday after being put on paid administrative leave.

Oh, and by the way -- daddy was still defending his daughter and accusing the teacher on national television (O'Reilly) after the evidence was released. here's hoping for a big-time libel award in addition to a long jail sentence.

MORE COMMENARY (including much that is misguided): Southchild, Unknown Professor, PC540, Attu, Opinion Bug, Just Iggy, Evil Overlord, Right Thinking from the Left Coast, Teacher Children Hell, It's All Greek To Me, The Political Teen

TRACKBACKS: Stop the ACLU, Wizbang, Samantha Burns, Gribbit, Conservative Cat, MacStansbury, RightWingNation,, PointFive, Adam's Blog, third world country, Bacon Bits, Stuck on Stupid, Real Ugly American, Liberal Wrong Wing, Uncooperative Blogger, Publius Rendevous, Bullwinkle, Voteswagon

I love it when a liberal becomes a complete hypocrite – insisting that his right to free speech and an audience trumps everyone else’s right to raise a voice in opposition.

There is such a thing as bad publicity after all.

Creators of "Jerry Springer - The Opera," the musical that sparked outrage among conservative Christians when shown on British television, say protests and lobbying have dented ticket sales for a tour in what they call a blow to freedom of speech.

The outcry, which culminated in more than 60,000 people complaining to the British Broadcasting Corporation when it aired the profanity-laden show last year, has also undermined plans to take the award-winning musical to Broadway.

"Despite having a show which has won all the best musical awards and critical praise, I would say that it looks to me like (lobby group) Christian Voice are winning the audience battle," said Jon Thoday, the show's producer.

So it seems that the threat to free speech here is the speech of Christians calling the show blasphemous and profane – a description that most would argue fits the show.

Sorry, Mr. Thoday, but the peaceful speech of your opponents is not a threat to free speech – it is the ultimate triumph of free speech.

I cannot believe that the Supreme Court is going to consider this case.

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to decide when death row inmates may challenge lethal injection as a method of capital punishment, in a surprise decision issued after the justices dramatically stopped the execution of a Florida prisoner who was already strapped to a gurney preparing to die.

Clarence E. Hill, 48, convicted of murdering a Pensacola police officer in 1982, had refused a final meal and needles had punctured his arm when the Supreme Court stayed his execution. The court said it would hear his claim that he should have an opportunity to argue that his civil rights would be violated because the chemicals used to execute him would cause excessive pain.

Excuse me, but the entire process is about KILLING someone. I frankly don’t care if it hurts – their crimes are of such magnitude that they are being put down like the mouth-frothing rabid dogs that they are. If they suffer, so be it – it is merited pain and suffering.

No, this is just one more attempt to prevent the just punishment of the worst among us.

but heaven forbid that a citizen enroll is child on the “wrong” side of a school district border.

In San Jose, Calif., many parents want to get their kids in Fremont Union schools because they're so much better than neighboring schools. So parents sometimes cheat to get their kids in. At least cheating is what local officials call it. Steve Rowley, district superintendent, said, "We have maybe hundreds of kids who are here illegally, under false pretenses."

Illegally. False pretenses. Sounds like the kids are criminals. All they're doing is trying to get a good public-school education. Don't the public schools' defenders insist all children have a right to a good public-school education?

And that is exactly the argument used for education border-jumpers and their offspring – they need a good education to succeed. But we won’t allow America kids to jump the borders of school districts to get one.

Read John Stossel’s column and you will be truly and righteously outraged.

Bravo to these five teachers who refuse to place a pro-gay poster in their classrooms, despite a district mandate.

Five teachers at San Leandro High School have refused to comply with a school district order to display a rainbow-flag poster in their classrooms that reads, " This is a safe place to be who you are," because they say homosexuality violates their religious beliefs, Principal Amy Furtado said. The high school's Gay-Straight Alliance designed the poster, which includes pink triangles and other symbols of gay pride. In December the school board approved a policy requiring all district teachers to hang the posters in their classrooms.

District officials said the poster is an effort to comply with state laws requiring schools to ensure students' safety and curb discrimination and harassment. They say that too often teachers do not reprimand students who use derogatory slurs or refer to homosexuality in a negative way.

"This is not about religion, sex, or a belief system,'' said district Superintendent Christine Lim, who initiated the poster policy. "This is about educators making sure our schools are safe for our children, regardless of their sexual orientation."

“Not about religion, sex, or a belief system”? Really? So if a student expresses his firmly held religious belief that homosexual activity is immoral and that practitioners thereof are going to burn in Hell, they won’t be reprimanded? Heck, given the official endorsement of homosexuals as a protected class, will students who adhere to traditional moral and religious beliefs feel that “this is a safe place to be who you are”? I don’t think so.

Speaking as a teacher, I don’t accept anyone giving crap to anyone else over sexual orientation, race, or any of the other protected statuses. Not because these kids are “special”, but because all kids are special. My kids know that they will not get away with that sort of crap in my presence – and they learned that from their older siblings and cousins before they ever set foot in my room.

But I wouldn’t put the poster up. It gives an imprimatur to one side of the homosexual rights issue that I think should not be given in a classroom setting. It is implicitly a tool of indoctrination.

And if you disagree with me, consider this – how long would this poster be allowed to remain in any public school classroom anywhere in the United States?

You want to tell me again that this isn't about special treatment for one group based upon their sexual practices, or the disfavoring of a point of view -- especially if it is religious?

UPDATE: I found the poster online. Look close and see what is missing.

Yep, that is right -- straight kids are pointedly not included among those for who the classroom is declared to be a safe place to be themselves.

UPDATE – 1/27/06: Looks like the teachers have given in. That is too bad.

"We are a diverse staff. We have teachers here who are active in their churches, and we respect their beliefs," Furtado said Wednesday. "But none of those teachers have said they won't put up the posters because of that."

Teachers have a week to hang the 8 1/2-by-11 posters, which were designed by the 30 or so students in the school's Gay-Straight Alliance. Furtado will check all 200 classrooms next week to see if the posters are visible, and she said she'd have "a private conversation" with teachers who don't comply.

"The expectation is compliance," she said. "It's board policy. But what's great is that today we have some very conservative teachers who've already put it up."

Too bad than none had the guts to stand their ground. The poster’s contents are exclusive, divisive, and oppressive – not inclusive, uniting, and liberating.

MORE AT: Right on the Left Coast, Joanne Jacobs, Dispatches From The Culture War, California Conservative

TRACKBACKS: Stop the ACLU, Wizbang, Samantha Burns, Gribbit, Conservative Cat, MacStansbury, RightWingNation,, PointFive, Adam's Blog, third world country, Bacon Bits, Stuck on Stupid, Real Ugly American, Liberal Wrong Wing, Uncooperative Blogger, Publius Rendevous, Bullwinkle, Voteswagon

I criticized the initial plan – this change is an improvement, though the earlier version will make this plan tainted in the eyes of many on both the Left and Right.

A conservative activist dropped his offer to pay students up to $100 per class for providing information on what he called "radical" professors at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The activist, Andrew Jones, said Monday he would continue his effort with unpaid volunteers.

Jones' Bruin Alumni Association had offered UCLA students up to $100 to supply tapes and notes from classes to expose professors he considered to be pushing liberal political views on their students.

After news reports about the plan, Jones was criticized by faculty members who complained of a "witch hunt." Several prominent members of his organization's advisory board, including a former congressman, resigned from the group after details of the payment plan became public.

Jones, 24, a 2003 graduate and former head of the campus Republicans, said he was concerned about the level of professionalism among teachers at the university. He said the payment offer had become "a distraction from the real problem, which has been all along the issue of classroom indoctrination by UCLA professors."

The University is still opposed – and implicitly threatening to punish any student who dares to speak out and supply proof of classroom bias.

Lawrence H. Lokman, a UCLA spokesman, said University of California rules bar the distribution of course materials unless permission is granted by the instructor and campus chancellor. As a result, he said, Jones' campaign violates UC policy even if no payments are involved.

I’m suspicious of this rule, because it prevents the public from finding out about the workplace conduct of public employees. Does that not constitute an unconstitutional restriction on the right to speak on a matter of public concern, and to petition for the redress of grievances?

And besides, wouldn’t the students in question be whistleblowers – who are, we are told, nothing less than patriots out to secure the public’s “right to know” and disclose the unsavory actions of government institutions and officials.

Environmentalism trumps health.

Asthma sufferers may not be able to buy nonprescription inhalers much longer because the devices contain propellants that some think harm the ozone layer.

An advisory panel voted 11-7 Tuesday to recommend that the Food and Drug Administration remove the "essential use" status that Primatene Mist and other similar nonprescription inhalers require to be sold, spokeswoman Laura Alvey said. Final revocation of that status would mean a de facto ban on their sale.
The FDA usually follows the advice of its outside panels of experts, though a decision can take months. If the agency opts to follow the recommendation, it would begin a rule-making process that would include public comment, Alvey said.

Wyeth Consumer Healthcare estimates that 3 million Americans use Primatene Mist for mild or intermittent cases of asthma. About two-thirds also use a prescription inhaler but rely on Primatene as a backup. About 700,000 use the inhalers because they don't have a prescription or lack health insurance.

The incredible arrogance of government is enough to take one’s breath away – literally.

He’s moved to the Middle East, and now he’s wearing a abaya – will this guy ever stop the move into Bizarro-World?

MANAMA, Bahrain — Pop star Michael Jackson was spotted shopping in a Bahrain mall today, hiding his face behind a veil and donning a black robe traditionally worn by women in the Gulf.

He was with three children, apparently his own, who also had their faces covered by dark scarves. An unidentified woman accompanied them.

The pop star, who seems to be settling in the Persian Gulf, was seen leaving Marina Mall in the Bahrain capital, holding a child by the hand. On the way out a back door, he shook hands with security guards.

The woman — also dressed in the black robe called an abaya, jeans and a scarf that partially covered her face — had the two other children. All three children were wrapped in black scarves and wore yellow shirts and sweatpants or khakis without robes.

Since his June acquittal on child molestation charges in California, Jackson has made several trips to Bahrain as a guest of Sheik Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the son of Bahrain's king. He reportedly was negotiating a position as a consultant with a Bahrain-based company that plans to set up theme parks and music academies in the Middle East.

On the mall outing, Jackson wore an abaya, pants, a white shirt and men's shoes. His head and face were wrapped in a black veil and he also wore black gloves.

The veil, abaya and gloves were of a style typically worn by conservative Bahraini women.

Uhhhhhhh…. Yeah.

You know, just to make it clear that we are serious about cross-border incursions by the Mexican military? Especially if they are helping to smuggle drugs or illegal aliens.

Men dressed as Mexican Army soldiers, apparent drug suspects and Texas law enforcement officers faced off Monday on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, an FBI spokeswoman said today.

Andrea Simmons, an agency spokeswoman in El Paso, told The Associated Press that Texas Department of Public Safety troopers chased three SUVs, believing they were carrying drugs, to the banks of the Rio Grande during Monday's incident.

Men dressed in Mexican military uniforms or camouflage were on the U.S. side of the border in Texas, she said.

Simmons said the FBI was not involved and referred requests for further details to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario, Calif., reported today that the incident included an armed standoff involving the Mexican military, suspected drug smugglers and nearly 30 U.S. law enforcement officers. It said Mexican military Humvees were towing what appeared to be thousands of pounds of marijuana across the border into the United States.

The incident follows a story in the Bulletin on Jan. 15 that said the Mexican military had crossed into the United States more than 200 times since 1996.
Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department told the newspaper that Border Patrol agents called for backup and were joined by Hudspeth County deputies and DPS troopers. Mexican army personnel had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border, the newspaper said.

Doyal said deputies captured a Cadillac Escalade that had been reported stolen from El Paso, and found 1,477 pounds of marijuana inside. He said Mexican soldiers set fire to one of the Humvees stuck in the river.

The site is near Neely's Crossing, about 50 miles east of El Paso, it said.

Why no shooting in this situation (or any of the other 200+ incidents)?

"It's been so bred into everyone not to start an international incident with Mexico that it's been going on for years," Doyal said. "When you're up against mounted machine guns, what can you do? Who wants to pull the trigger first? Certainly not us."

The border in this area is clearly marked – it is called the Rio Grande – and such crossings are frequent. They are denied by the Mexican government.

It is time for the US to make this a shooting war. It might be the only thing that will get the attention of the Mexican authorities and make them realize that the US is serious about border security.

If we really are serious about border security.

MORE AT: Michelle Malkin, Jawa Report

Joel Stein is against the troops.

That says it all.

I’ll waste no more bandwidth on him.

MORE AT: Michelle Malkin, Jawa Report, Wizbang,

Gov. Erlich is ahead in the polls as he seeks reelection in Maryland. Lt. Gov. Steele is in the lead in the race for Senate. The GOP is growing in once solidly Democrat Maryland.

What are the Democrats doing to counter this trend? Seeking out new voters – convicted felons.

Democratic lawmakers, who have long pushed to restore voting rights to Maryland felons, say racial politics and election-year considerations make this the year they open the polls to every ex-convict.

"This law seriously disenfranchises a large number of African-Americans," said Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat who is gathering sponsors for a voting-rights restoration bill she plans to submit.

"Their disenfranchisement impacts the power of African-Americans in this state," said Mrs. Marriott, whose bill would give all felons the vote immediately upon release from prison.

If Mrs. Marriott's bill succeeds this time -- it has died in committee the past three years -- an estimated 150,000 felons would be able to cast ballots in Maryland. About 85,000 of them are black and likely Democrats, according to Justice Maryland, a penal reform group that supports felon voting rights.

These convicted murderers, rapists and armed robbers could vote as early as the Nov. 7 general election, if the law takes effect on the traditional Oct. 1 start date. And felons could sway the results.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican, won the 2002 governor's race by 66,170 votes, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections.

Mr. Ehrlich's re-election bid this year is expected to be an even closer contest against either of the Democratic candidates -- Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley or Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan.

"That might be the line used by Democrats as to why they should support the bill," said Tara Andrews, executive director of Justice Maryland.

And let’s make matters perfectly clear here – this measure primarily benefits violent felons and career criminals. First offenders who committed non-violent crimes generally have their rights restored three years after their release from prison.

That should make it obvious whose side the Democrats are on in Maryland – and it isn’t the side of the law-abiding.

MORE AT: Michelle Malkin

Mike Adams reports on this coalition of conservative and libertarian students to overturn a rule at University of North Carolina-Greensboro that infringes upon freedom of association.

“The Anti-Discrimination statement must include that student organizations may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, gender, age, national origin, disability, military, veteran status, political affiliation or sexual orientation.”

After reading your report, members of the College Libertarians and College Republicans recognized that their rights as political organizations are being circumvented by this patently unconstitutional policy.

It is clearly unreasonable to request political organizations to admit members of opposing political parties. To require them to do so would sabotage the level of political discourse on campus. Therefore, these two groups have asked UNCG to change this policy. They have asked that the anti-discrimination statement be altered to except political groups from the political affiliation portion of the statement and religious groups from the religion portion of the statement.

Until the anti-discrimination statement is officially altered, the Republicans and Libertarians are refusing to include the full statement in their respective organizational constitutions. They are also refusing to otherwise comply with the unconstitutional policy. And, best of all, they have warned the UNCG administration that they are prepared to pursue legal action to remedy the situation.

The university is retaliating, recently billing them $238 for copying a few dozen pages of public records related to donors to UNCG. I’d like to encourage folks to help defray the cost of copying – and other related expenses – by donating a couple of bucks their way. You can do so at the following address: UNCG College Republicans, Elliot University Center, Box N3, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170. If you would rather have your money go to the UNCG College Libertarians, they can be reached here: UNCG College Libertarians, 110 Odell Place, Greensboro 27403 (make checks payable to Guilford County Libertarian Party). Give what you can to help advance reasoned political debate on one campus.

From Bruce Bartlett’s column at Townhall.com.

Ever since Watergate, a key media template has been that the Republican Party is the party of corruption. Thus every wrongdoing of any Republican tends to get page one treatment, while Democratic corruption is treated as routine and buried on the back pages, mentioned once and then forgotten.

Yet any objective study of comparative party corruption would have to conclude that Democrats are far more likely to be caught engaging in it than Republicans. For example, a review of misconduct cases in the House of Representatives since Watergate shows many more cases involving Democrats than Republicans.

Skeptics can go to the web site of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, popularly known as the House Ethics Committee. Click on “historical documents” and go to a publication called “Historical Summary of Conduct Cases in the House of Representatives.” The document was last updated on November 9, 2004 and lists every ethics case since 1798, when Rep. Roger Griswold of Connecticut attacked Rep. Matthew Lyon of Vermont with a “stout cane” and Lyon responded with a pair of fireplace tongs.

By my count, there have been 70 different members of the House who have been investigated for serious offenses over the last 30 years, including many involving actual criminality and jail time. Of these, only 15 involved Republicans, with the remaining 55 involving Democrats.

I’ve regularly pointed out that the Democats are the party of corruption in this country – so corrupt that the media doesn’t treat corrupt Democrat public officials as newsworthy. I’ve had folks minimize the importance of Democrat corruption in their comments here. But the numbers tell the story quite clearly.

They must have thought this guy was a union employee on the job.

It took more than six hours for anyone to realize that a 64-year-old Brooklyn man had died on a New York City subway train.

Eugene Reilly, who died of a heart attack, likely got onto a Brooklyn-bound Q train just before 1 a.m. Thursday. He wasn't found until 7:15 a.m. when a curious commuter touched his shoulder, trying to wake him, the New York Daily News reported.

Reilly, a mail handler, worked the 4 p.m.-to-12:30 a.m. shift and was headed home, his wife said. He was sitting up in his seat, which transit officials said was likely the reason their workers left him alone for so long, the newspaper said.

"The policy is that if someone is sitting up, employees are not allowed to touch them," said Deirdre Parker, a city transit spokeswoman.

A different transit official said employees probably saw Reilly, who was in the last car of the train, but thought he was sleeping.

"People sleep on the train all the time," an official said. "No one thought anything of it."

I know this happened in NYC, but I can’t help but think of an old song.

Did he ever return, No he never returned And his fate is still unlearn'd He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston He's the man who never returned.

Just days after the NYC transit workers’ union rejected the contract they were offered following their illegal strike, this picture appeared in the New York media.

Note the date and time – 1/22/06, 1:13 PM.

Needless to say, your average New Yorker, who was not supportive of the pre-Christmas strike, is outraged.

"I can't believe this. If they want more money, they should have to work for it," steamed commuter Carolyn Brand, 23, of New Jersey, told The Post after being shown the picture.

* * *

Jordan Saxe, 26, who spotted the sleeping clerk and snapped his photo, said he thought the man "might be sick or hurt or dead."

"I tapped on the glass to see if he was OK," Saxe said. "Then I realized he was snoring. He was out cold and didn't budge. To me, this is a moral issue. I work in corporate America. You just can't do that in broad daylight."

* * *

Jani Coupour, 29, said he doesn't understand why transit workers are entitled to special treatment.

"If I was caught sleeping on the job I would be fired," he said. "These people don't have to worry about that, because of their union."

Passengers said the clerk also wasn't helping make the union's case that the MTA is wrong to try to remove agents from the booths.

"That's typical of them," said William Bookin, 40, a doorman who lives on the Lower East Side. "They don't want to be bothered. If you ask them for help, and if they are awake, they're rude to you."

* * *

"I'm worried about a possible strike," said Bill Thompson, 38, who works for the Medical Examiner's Office.

"The transit workers are extremely well paid. I'm a union worker and I have to pay $30 a paycheck for health."

Most riders said transit workers must be dreaming if they thought they would fare better after rejecting the contract.

"They're screwing themselves," said Chris Kannick, 28, of Murray Hill. "They won't get a better offer. In fact, they're lucky they have what they have."

The union, of course, is fully prepared to defend Sleeping Beauty here, and to refuse arbitration.

I think it may be time for Mayor Bloomberg to go PATCO on the transit workers’ union. Sounds like the public would support him.

What possesses supposedly professional educators to do stuff like this?

BEAVER FALLS -- A 17-year-old high school student said he was humiliated when a teacher made him sit on the floor during a midterm exam in his ethnicity class -- for wearing a Denver Broncos jersey.

The teacher, John Kelly, forced Joshua Vannoy to sit on the floor to take the test on Friday -- two days before the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Broncos 34-17 in the AFC Championship game. Kelly also made other students throw crumpled up paper at Vannoy, whom he called a "stinking Denver fan," Vannoy told The Associated Press.

Kelly said Vannoy, a junior at Beaver Area Senior High School, just didn't get the joke.

"If he felt uncomfortable, then that's a lesson; that's what (the class) is designed to do," Kelly told The Denver Post. "It was silly fun. I can't believe he was upset."

Fire this idiot for unprofessional conduct.

Yeah, it might make him uncomfortable -- that will be a lesson, and what the his termination is designed to do.

And by this I do not mean the average, run-of-the-mill liberal (usually a decent, reasonable person who is merely wrong) -- I mean the chronically discontent activists who would not be content with the actions of the United States and the current Administration even if George W. Bush went on national television, announced his capitulation to their policy demands, beheaded Dick Cheney and Karl Rove and then lit a match after dousing himself in gasoline.

Feminism and Marxism and other similar movements "have the ambitions of a monotheistic faith, offering a feminist [or Marxist] answer to every moral and social question, a feminist [or Marxist] account of the human world, a theory of the universe....It drives the heretics and half-believers from its ranks with a zeal that is the other side of the inclusive warmth with which it welcomes the submissive and the orthodox."

I'm not so sure about that last part. I don't think the protesters have a coherent world view that answers all questions; rather, I think they are suffering from debilitating, free-floating resentment that paralyzes them and makes realization of their ideas -- or indeed having any ideas -- impossible. The best examination of the problem of resentment came in the 1914 book Ressentiment (the French spelling is in the original) by Max Scheler. Scheler, a forgotten genius, was a philosopher whose work influenced the future John Paul II. According to Scheler, resentment is "an incurable, persistent feeling of hating and despising" that happens in certain people due to certain "psychic, mental, social, or physical impotencies, disadvantages, weakness or deficiencies of various kinds." It's less about social problems than mental illness.

James Hitchcock, interpreting Scheler, broke it down further: Resentment, he wrote, is about moral values themselves. It was the role of certain people, whether through mental problems or some other disadvantage, to hate the idea of morality itself. This is why resentment is incurable, and different from hatred or jealousy. If you're jealous of your neighbors sports car, you get over it when you by your own. If you resent him because he's a Christian -- well, there's really nowhere to go with that, other than to this year's protest march. It's also why resenters can't forge a coherent philosophy. If you're problem is with the natural law and morality itself, you're not going to be happy in this life. Yes, yes, we all know Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman et al hate Bush, the war, etc. But what are they for? The world may never know.

This lack of vision distinguishes resenters from terrorists; indeed, it is the Left that likes to talk about the resentment of terrorists -- because of the evil USA, they are forced to murder innocent people, and so on. In fact, terrorists have an absolutely clear plan. The want to conquer the world and set up sharia law. They don't hate morality, they just have a demonic understanding of it. They are evil. Yet if they ever attained their (impossible) goals, they would no longer feel hatred. One gets the sense that unlike them, Maureen Dowd just cannot be made happy. This is why the remarks about her problem not being political but a resentment at her failure to attract a man -- remarks I for a long time considered out of bounds -- may have some validity. If this attractive woman has not been able to get and keep a mate, perhaps the fault lies not in the stars or the Republicans.

And that is what differentiates my wife or Dan (a regular commenter here and author of Gone Mild) from the ranters and ravers like Cindy Sheehan and Harry Belafonte -- the latter suffer from a pathological resentment of those whose disagree with them.

And yes -- I will concede that we on the right have a few of that ilk in our midst as well. Just not as many.

The Cut-&-Run-ocrats don't support the mission in Iraq or the troops that are are successfully carrying it out. But they are more than willing to use their deaths for political purposes in Buks County, PA.

A Republican group is calling for the removal of a death count of American servicemen in Iraq from the Doylestown headquarters of the Bucks County Democratic Committee.

Democrats have a sign in the front window of their Court Street office that includes the words "We honor our fallen heroes" and a running tally of U.S. military deaths in Iraq.

The count stood at 2,224 on Saturday.

Don Petrille, chairman of the Bucks County Federation of Young Republicans, said his group thinks Democrats are "using the numbers for political gain, and that's not something we think helps our mission or is an appropriate use for our soldiers."

Democrats defended the sign, though, saying it's a valid way of honoring fallen service members.

Your party has come out infavor of making their sacrifice meaningless -- it is therefore disingenuous to claim that you are honoring the dead.

Take down the sign -- or support them and their mission.

Free speech has become no speech in Polk County, Florida.

Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus won't be making any more legal appearances on the lawn of Polk County's administration building.

The County Commission on Jan. 11 voted unanimously to close the "free-speech zone'' that it created less than one year ago.

The free-speech zone was implemented last year after a church group in December 2004 built a Nativity scene on the lawn of the Neil Combee Administration Building without county permission. In the zone, individuals and groups were allowed to express themselves with displays or other forms of expression.

Care to guess why they decided to end a policy that facilitated the exercise of a fundamental civil liberty? Because of the objections of a so-called civli liberties group.

In late 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union and two co-defendants filed suit against the county over policies in the zone they think are unconstitutional.

After the suit was filed, county officials suspended some of the free-speech-zone regulations as part of a temporary agreement with the ACLU.

I guess the ACLU only supports freedom of for the speech they like.

Commies, Nazis, and Klansmen -- shout it out loud.

Christians -- Shut the f*&% up!

Earlier posts at Stop The ACLU

Every week, Watcher of Weasels sponsors a competition among posts from around the Blogosphere. The winning entries are determined by The Watchers Council.

The Council has cast their ballots for last week's submitted entries. The winners are as follows.

Council Member Entries: The Glittering Eye with Options on Iran II

Non-Council Entries: The Anchoress with NY Times Tipped Terrorists? (UPDATED).

Though the Chronicle is doing all it can to minimize his front-runner status.

Radio talker and former sportscaster Dan Patrick's entry into the state Senate District 7 race made the outspoken, hard-right, born-again Christian communicator the candidate to beat.

He's well-known in the area from years on the air and has a committed base of conservative fans. The three other Republicans vying to succeed retiring Sen. Jon Lindsay — former Houston City Councilman Mark Ellis, and state Reps. Peggy Hamric and Joe Nixon — are scrambling for second place.

With four strong candidates and more than a million dollars streaming in, it's likely no one will claim a majority March 7 and the nomination will be determined in a runoff.

The district is solidly Republican, so the GOP nominee will be the favorite in November against Democrat F. Michael Kubosh.

The article then goes on to claim that all of the currently serving politicians are seeking to run a grassroots campaign! Like Dan, the only non-elected official in the race, is not the ultimate grassroots candidate?

So far, Ellis and Hamric have been focusing on grass-roots efforts, conceding the public campaign to the better-funded Nixon and better-known Patrick.

Dan Patrick is the ultimate outsider -- to hear that incumbent politicians are running grass-roots campaigns is ludicrous!

Want a great example of dhimmitude in a supposedly secular country with a Muslim majority? Take a look at this piece from a Malaysian blogger.

The latest greatest document on Islamic treatment of non-Muslim minorities is a document published in AD 717 known as the Pact of Umar. Not surprisingly many Muslims (including your neighbours and colleagues) will find the occurences in today's Malaysia acceptable since this is where they get their guidelines on acceptable behaviour from.

First of all the Muslims term all the people who are kaffir as "dhimmis". This means they have to pay a jizya or a poll tax for protection. The local samseng back at school used to call this protection money. In the more refined Malaysia we give Muslims back tax dollars for monies paid to their religion. I once published a post or two on how Muslims are freeloaders because of this. I got condemned by a heavy hitting blogger but so far there has been no response from anyone as to why Muslims get their tax dollars back in equal amount for monies paid to the mosque and I don't get money back in equal amount paid to the church. Call it jizya, call it protection money or call it a mob shakedown. It's the first pillar of Islam in dealling with dhimmis. You pay more so that they can take more. Where I come from, that's called freeloading.

Let's see what else is in the Pact of Umar.

You'll have to go to Maobi to find out more about the Pact of Umar, and its de facto application in modern-day Malaysia.

My wife lives with constant pain from a chronic medical condition. One of the hard parts of this illness is the difficulty in getting enough medication to give her relief -- not because it is not available, but because doctors are reluctant to prescribe it. One physician quite prescribing some of her medications to any patient, and anoyhter tried to limit her to only enough to last two weeks between appointments (which would have more than doubled our out-of-pocket cost through insurance). Why? Because of federal prosecution of pain management doctors under drug trafficking laws.

That may change now, due to the recent Supreme Court decision on Oregon's assisted suicide law.

Doctors who specialize in pain management and their advocates are hoping that last week's Supreme Court decision upholding Oregon's assisted-suicide law will boost their efforts to defend colleagues accused by the government of illegally prescribing narcotic painkillers to their patients.

With dozens of doctors, pharmacists and patients now in jail or awaiting imprisonment after being convicted of drug trafficking, the specialists and their attorneys say the Oregon ruling supports their contention that prosecutors have reached improperly into the state-regulated practice of medicine.

"The prosecutors have been making a policy argument in court against the treatment of chronic pain as it's being practiced, and this Supreme Court decision makes clear that is not their role," said Eli Stutsman, an Oregon attorney who represented a doctor and pharmacist in the assisted-suicide case. He is now arguing appeals for several convicted pain doctors.

"Before I was just a lawyer with a legal analysis before the courts, but now I have a decision of the highest court of the land," he said.

The question is, will that decision be followed, or will doctors continue to be prosecuted for following the best medical practices?

Radley Balko, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, believes the government is being overly aggressive in prosecuting doctors, but he said he does not see the Supreme Court decision as a threat to the government's initiative against what it considers illegal prescribing.

"The justices carved out this little sphere of individual rights with the Oregon ruling, and I would hope that would migrate into the pain medication sphere," he said. "But I'm not all that optimistic because of other decisions they've made."

In particular, he noted, the court allowed the federal government authority to overrule state laws permitting the use of medical marijuana.

But John Flannery, attorney for a South Carolina doctor convicted in 2004 of illegally writing a handful of pain medication prescriptions after working at a pain center for only three months, said the decision has encouraged him about the prospects of an upcoming Supreme Court appeal of the case.

"The U.S. Supreme Court sent the Justice Department a powerful message, told them to back off, and to stop meddling in medical care in the states -- as it was none of their business," he said. "We can only hope that the courts don't stop with yesterday's decision, as there's more that the department's doing wrong -- terribly wrong."

The regulation of the practice of medicine is a state matter, not a federal one. The current federal proactice of prosecuting doctors for prescribing therapeutic dosages of medication is fundamentally wrong -- and hurts patients like my wife. The time has come for that practice to stop.

And I hope this decuision in the Oregon case brings such abuse of power to a sudden and permanent end.

The Washington Post covers the dispute over when to start school -- an issue being faced in many parts of the country.

The pressures of federally mandated exams have pushed public schools here and in several other states to begin classes weeks earlier than usual to squeeze in more days of instruction before the critical tests, sometimes striking August entirely from vacation calendars and devoting the month, traditionally left open for childhood leisure, to class time.

But a widespread backlash, led by disgruntled parents organized into loosely affiliated Save Our Summers groups across the country, is underway.

Legislators in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Pennsylvania are weighing bills this year that would peg school start dates to Labor Day. North Carolina, Texas, Minnesota and Wisconsin passed similar measures in recent years.

The issue is one of the most controversial aspects in the debate over the exams used to comply with the No Child Left Behind law, leading to widening opposition and adding to the litany of complaints about the side effects of what critics call "high-stakes" testing.

Public schools here, for example, began classes at the beginning of August; essentially wiping out a month many had counted on for a spell of unhurried pleasure. Sherry Sturner, a mother of two in Miami-Dade County, had been looking forward to a family reunion up north and time at the swimming pool. But the new schedule did not accommodate them.

Now I won't waste my time teeing off on Mama Sherry, who seems to forget that there are two other entire months for her to spend at family reunions and lounging by poolside with the kids. Instead, I'll deal with the real issue -- the unreasonable expectations of parents and legislators on issues of school calendars and testing dates.

You see, the length of the school year has grown increasingly longer over the years. When I was a kid, the length of the school year was 170 days. Now it is 180 days here in Texas -- but parents and legislators still want us to fit everything into the same neat little "Labor Day to Memorial Day" package that existed when we were kids. The school year has lengthened as we have tried to increase standards in education, to reclaim the high rankings the US once had in academic performance.

And, of course, there is the issue of testing. If the state is going to tell us that we test in February (as we do here in Texas), then we want to get in the maximum number of days before testing, especially since promotion and placement decisions for students may be riding on test results which take weeks to be scored and returned by the state and its contractors.

But mostly it is a question of the number of available days for instruction, as well as certain cultural/traditional calendar issues, that give rise to early starts. This is especially true when districts wish to place semester exams before the Christmas holiday.

Let's look at this example of a school calendar, from what we will call "Generic Independent School District". It is typical of districts here in Texas.

This district already has a problem -- next year it needs to start in the week of August 21, given legislation passed in the last session of the Texas Legislature. I suppose that would not be too difficult to do. Eliminate the Staff Development Day on October 10, sending the kids to school on Veterans Day. Cut three days at Thanksgiving, giving kids only Thanksgiving and the day after -- I hope Grandma is only over the river and through the woods and not in another state or country. Push semester exams back a day, keeping the kids in school through December 16 -- teachers will just have to stay late to get their grades in before break, or perhaps finish on that January 2 Staff Development day. I guess that wasn't that hard.

But what about this idea that we should not start school until after Labor Day and be out by Memorial Day? How will we get the additional 10 instructional days? This is where it gets trickier -- for that involves taking 10 more days out of First Semester and finding days to replace them. That is impossible, as we have left only two non-instructional days after Labor Day and before Winter Break (which, for purposes of this discussion, cannot be touched -- imagine the parental uproar).

This new change already means that we are going to have to move some of First Semester into January. Kids will have one week of review followed by semester exams. To facilitate this, we need to eliminate the January 2 staff development day. That is one day out of the way, so we need nine more.

We have eleven possible days available. They are January 16 (MLK Day), February 13 (Presidents Day), March 6-10 (five days of Spring Break), April 14 (Good Friday), April 28 (Staff Development), May 25 & 26 (Thurdsay and Friday prior to Memorial Day).

Our first casualty has to be Spring Break. After all, it eliminates more than half of the deficit. Similarly, the two days in May are obvious choices, because they are just slack days before the Memorial Day deadline. We still need two days, so we must get rid of the Staff Development day in April (don't worry -- teachers will just do all of the eliminated days in August before the school year starts).

And so, we need just one more school day. Take your pick -- MLK Day, President's Day, or Good Friday (a likely high absentee day). Which do you get rid of? Do you offend blacks, Christians, or patriotic Americans? Personally, I'd get rid of MLK Day on the basis of its closeness to Christmas break, since it makes no sense to have a day off two weeks after a two-week break. But I doubt that any school board would have the testicular fortitude to stand by such a reasonable decision in the face of complaints from outraged black citizens. Similarly, I don't think that most Texas school boards would be willing to fight the battle over Good Friday -- especially given the financial hit that the district could take over the low attendance that day. So, we will eliminate Presidents Day.

What does that leave us? School starts on September 6, and students will attend every weekday until November 24. They will be back in session fro November 28-December 16, and then break for two weeks. School resumes on January 2, and the semester ends on January 13. Following MLK Day, school runs continuously until April 14, and from April 17 through May 26. Parents will, of course, complain that the lack of days off leaves their children tired and overworked, but what can be done? After all, they wanted that full three months off in the summer -- Memorial Day to Labor Day, just like when they were young. We cannot add days to the calendar.

So parents, legislators, tourism industry representatives and other interested individuals -- you have a choice. We must have kids in school at least 180 days (personally, I advocate more). The question is where to put those days. You can have a full three months of school vacation in the summer -- but if you get that, you will sacrifice those other days off you have come to expect during the year. If you take a count, the calendar I proposed had exactly fourteen weekdays off from Labor Day to Memorial Day -- and ten of them were during the Christmas season. Of the remaining four, two are customary vacation days at Thanksgiving, one is an ethnically sensitive national holiday and the other is part of a major religious celebration. That is not my choice -- it is yours. And it doesn't change my work schedule at all -- I will still have to report for Orientation and Staff Development during August, though perhaps a few days later.

But this calendar does something that those advocates do not realize -- it eliminates eight days of instruction before the TAKS test (February 21-23) and shifts them after TAKS. Does this help the students, or does it harm them? Does the elimination of a week-and-a-half of instructional time before the test make them more or less likely to pass? Given that students will be denied a diploma, retained a grade, or required to attend summer school or take remedial classes based upon their performance, I think it harms them. And like it or not, these tests -- and the consequences of low student performance -- are not going away any time soon.

You folks decide -- just tell me when and where I'll find a classroom full of kids with my name on their schedules and I will give them my all. I just hope you will give up the unrealistic dream of fitting a 180-day school year into a package designed for a 170-day (or shorter) school year.

UPDATE -- 1/24/06: Looks like the issue is rearing its head in Washington DC, where the School Board is debating an August 14 start date.

You have to love the hypocrisy of the Islamofascist theocrats in Teheran that exists in this complaint directed at Jacques Chirac.

'The French president has increased ambiguities and fears by the world public opinion towards all world states possessing nuclear weapons,' foreign ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi was quoted as saying by news agency ISNA.

The remarks made by Chirac on Thursday, in an outline of France's expanded nuclear strategy, were widely regarded as an indirect warning against Iran and its ambitions to expand its nuclear programmes.

'The bitter experience of use of nuclear weapons in the second World War has been so catastrophic that it could neither be acceptable nor justifiable to repeat even the probability of its use,' the spokesman said in a first reaction to Chirac's comments.

Assefi added that human beings' logic, religious beliefs and humanitarian values could in no way accept production and use of weapons of mass destruction.

So, Mr. Assefi, does that mean that your nation is prepared to dismantle it's nuclear weapon's program?

I didn't think so.

One would hope that a responsible author would reject a book plug from terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Not William Blum.

Bin Laden said al Qaeda group was preparing more attacks in the United States but also told Americans, "It is useful for you to read the book 'The Rogue State.'"

"I was quite surprised and even shocked and amused when I found out what he'd said," Blum said on Friday in an interview with Reuters Television in his Washington apartment.

"I was glad. I knew it would help the book's sales and I was not bothered by who it was coming from.

"If he shares with me a deep dislike for the certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy, then I'm not going to spurn any endorsement of the book by him. I think it's good that he shares those views and I'm not turned off by that."

Not only that, but the hate-America crowd has rushed out to buy the book.

It has jumped to #30 from #209,000 on Amazon.com since the terroist leader endorsed the book during his latest threat to engage in terrorism in the United States.

Any question who the enemy is?

This bit broke yesterday on Drudge.

THE DRUDGE REPORT has learned Sen. Ted Kennedy's (D-MA) office is behind a last ditch effort to stop Judge Samuel A. AlitoÕs confirmation before next week's vote using a 2004 recusal request.

THE DRUDGE REPORT has obtained a complaint filed by H. Gerard Heimbecker of Upper Darby, PA accusing Alito of not properly listing the Heimbecker v. 555 Associates case in his Senate questionnaire.

Kennedy legal aide James Flug is behind the efforts to push this latest attack. The veteran aide has been criticized for Sen. Kennedy's misfires during the Alito hearing last week. Flug was reportedly behind the attacks Kennedy used against Alito related to the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP) and Vanguard recusal case.

In the 2004 case, Heimbecker not only filed a request for Alito to recuse himself but also the entire Third Circuit as well.

One Capital Aide aware the situation challenged Heimbecker's credibility. "The individual who filed this complaint is clearly a serial litigant. It will be interesting to see how far the Democrats will push this and what the mainstream media will make of it."

Now I'm not surprised to see Senator Kennedy (D-Who's You're Daddy?)engaged in more desperate attempts to smear a judge he disagrees with.What i am surprised about is his possible willingness to use a bizarre case like this one to do so.

A Delaware County retiree has filed a judicial-misconduct complaint claiming that Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. failed to disclose the man's case in his responses to a U.S. Senate questionnaire.

H. Gerard Heimbecker, 70, of Upper Darby, said Alito should have noted his efforts to have all the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges, including Alito, recuse themselves from hearing Heimbecker's appeal.

"Judge Alito holds himself and fellow judges above the law and the complainant beneath the law," Heimbecker wrote in the complaint filed Monday. The 3rd Circuit clerk's office docketed the case and said in a letter to Heimbecker that Alito had been given a copy of the complaint on Tuesday.

Heimbecker, a former fireman and sandwich-maker, describes himself as a conservative Catholic and lifelong Republican. He said Alito's alleged omission violates a rule requiring judges to avoid "impropriety and appearance of impropriety."

"He failed to be honest and totally truthful with the committee, for the reasons that he was protecting himself by not having to answer for his actions in covering up the actions of [another] judge," Heimbecker said yestserday.

Heimbecker is acting as his own lawyer in pursuing the complaint against Alito.

Sounds oh-so-serious -- until you look at the facts alleged in the case. This guy didn't just want Judge Alito from hearing his case -- he argued that the entire Third Circuit Court of Appeals was biased against him, and that NONE OF THE JUDGES should be allowed to hear his case.

Heimbecker wanted Alito and the other appeals judges to recuse themselves from presiding over one of a series of legal actions triggered when the landlord of his Bala Cynwyd sandwich shop did not renew his lease.

He asked the 3rd Circuit to recuse itself because of what he described as a witness' relation to a judge and because he claimed the panel was biased and prejudiced against him in not forcing another judge to step aside.

The landlord, 555 Associates, sued Heimbecker for malicious prosecution after he attempted to bring a private criminal complaint against it, said 555 lawyer Gerald E. Arth. The company won a default judgment in Montgomery County against Heimbecker, and he subsequently lost a lawsuit against it, its employees and others that eventually landed in federal court, Arth said.

"He was angry about what had happened in state court, and the resolution of that, and decided to file a lawsuit in federal court which had no merit, was dismissed," Arth said. "He's tried his hardest, I think, to claim that there was a grand conspiracy against him of lawyers, judges, insurance companies and everything else."

Heimbecker described it as "a case of arrogance. They're going to do what they want. I had the facts and the law and they disregarded all of it."

so what it appears we really have is an angry loser in a previous case seeking revenge. There appears to be no substance to his claim -- but since when does lack of substance (or truth) matter to Senator Kennedy (D-What bridge? What car? What dead girl?), who paid a college classmate to take a final for him and who tried to get his cousin to lie about Chappaquidick.

I personally agree with the White house spokesman about the complaint filed against Alito in this case.

"What this proves is that it's very easy in the United States, both to file suit and to file complaints," Schmidt said. "Every American has that right, no matter how frivolous it is."

It seems that there are those in maryland who are hell-bent on making sure than no one as unimportant as the citizens of Maryland get to have a voice on the definition of a fundamental societal institution.

First, a Maryland judge has struck down the traditional definition of marriage, claiming it is irrationally discriminatory.

In the long-awaited 20-page Maryland court ruling, Murdock took the position that banning same-sex marriage was no less discriminatory than outlawing interracial marriage, saying that "although traditions and values are important, they cannot be given so much weight that they alone will justify a discriminatory statutory classification."

In other words, a couple of thousand years of Western culture have no bearing on the laws of the state of Maryland.

Democrats are scrambling like cockroaches to avoid allowing the people a say on the issue -- they know it will hurt their party.

Even before the ruling yesterday, House Democrats took steps to try to prevent a constitutional ban from reaching a vote on the floor. House leaders made a technical change in procedural rules Thursday, over the objections of Republicans. Residual resentment from that move spilled into yesterday's floor session.

Minority Whip Anthony J. O'Donnell (R-Calvert) admonished his Democratic colleagues for what he said was an attempt to shield them from casting a tough vote in an election year. "We should not fear having a debate," he said.

Yesterday, House and Senate leaders met to discuss how to deal with the issue. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) have cast votes supporting the 1973 law against same-sex marriage.

But both also took the position that a constitutional amendment would be premature, because yesterday's ruling came from a single Circuit Court judge, not from the state's precedent-setting high court.

Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery), who chairs the Senate committee that would have to approve an amendment for it to advance, said he saw no reason to act before the Court of Appeals has ruled. "One Circuit Court judge's opinion is not cause for amending the constitution," Frosh said.

Political strategists said Ehrlich and Democrats in the legislature probably have recognized the potential for a ballot initiative to provide the governor with a significant political edge as he seeks reelection. Republican political consultant Kevin Igoe said the ruling was like "waving a red flag at a bull" for Ehrlich's conservative base. If the issue appears on a ballot, he said, it would almost certainly drive up GOP turnout.

And since Maryland does not allow mere citizens to petition for an amendment to the state constitution, it is likely that the voice of the people will never be heard on this issue.

Personally, I think he and his fellow spies should be shot -- and I don't care that Israel is a putative ally of the United States.

A former Pentagon analyst was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison on Friday for passing U.S. defense information to two pro-Israel lobbyists and for sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.

Lawrence Franklin, 59, who previously worked as an analyst in the office of the secretary of defense, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis. Franklin had pleaded guilty in October to sharing the information and also to illegally possessing classified documents.

Franklin had faced up to 25 years in prison. His sentence could still be reduced further because of his cooperation with the government which is still prosecuting a case against the two remaining defendants in the case -- former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group.

Ellis said Franklin would not have to go to jail to start serving his sentence until he is finished cooperating.

Franklin is expected to testify against the two former AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. They have both pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to communicate national defense information provided by Franklin. Their trail is scheduled to begin on April 25.

Franklin did not make any statement at the sentencing but he said previously that he had never intended to harm the United States.

Federal prosecutor Kevin DiGregory urged Ellis to give a tough sentence since Franklin had knowingly disclosed classified information to unauthorized people.

"The danger of such unauthorized disclosure, when you disclose national defense information ... is that the United States government loses control of such information," he said.

When he pleaded guilty in October, Franklin said he disclosed the national defense information to the two AIPAC officials from early in 2002 through June 2004.

Franklin said he met with the political officer from the Israeli embassy at least nine times from August 2002 through June of last year and admitted he gave the officer classified information that he was unauthorized to receive.

And here I thought the Israelis had said that spying operations in the US were banned after Pollard was caught.

MORE AT Michelle Malkin, John in Carolina, Six24, Unpartisan, It Shines For All, Jurist
, News Blog.

He was always a part of my life.

I was born in California in the early 1960s, and so it is no surprise that the first politician whose name I knew was Ronald Reagan. He became our Governor around the time I as three-years old, and since my father was stationed in California for most of the late 1960s, I heard that name often. He was a giant of a man in the eyes of the boy I was.

Jump forward to the mid-1970s. I was a kid living on Guam. I remember listening to radio commentaries by Ronald Reagan. Twelv-years-old, and I looked forward to hearing that voice, talking common sense about the issues that faced our country. I knew he was right when he spoke of the evils of Communism, for I had watched the refugees from Vietnam flood my island home in the spring of 1975. I cried the day he went off the air, saddened by the loss of a friend and teacher.

My family returned to the US in the heat of the 1976 primary campaign. My parents, of course, were supporters of Ronald Reagan. I hoped and prayed that my hero, my mentor, would snatch the nomination from Gerald Ford. It was not to be. But four years later it would, and I was ready to work on my first campaign -- the campaign of my hero, Ronald Reagan. Reagan's triumph in the primaries, his nomination in Detroit, and his victory in November excited me like nothing before.

Two days remain linked forever in my mind. The first, twenty-five years ago, was Ronald Reagan's inauguration, and the flight to freedom of the hostages in Iran. I think that day set a tone for the future of the Reagan Administration -- the next eight years would be about a strong America and freedom for captives. The second is that awful day in March -- the man I admired wounded by an assassin but spared by the hand of God. If any of us had doubted that Ronald Reagan was marked for greatness, that day seemed to dispel all doubts. And it was eight years of greatness.

I will leave others to recount the deeds of Reagan as president. What mattered to me was the vision he set forth of America as a shining city on a hill, a beacon of freedom. What inspired me was the call to live out the heritage of liberty imparted by the Founders, and to spread that freedom abroad. It was his ability to move us to seek to do great things, and to comfort us in moments of tragedy, such as the Challenger explosion. In all of this, Ronald Reagan inspired us to be something better than what we were, and pushed us to move beyond ourselves. It is this vision that led me to become an active Republican, and to remain one.

And then came the day when my hero died. I wept for Ronald Reagan that day, and in the days that followed -- tears of joy that his suffering was done, and tears of loss that this man I loved was gone.

But is he? Or does he yet live in the dreams of those who hold fast to his vision?

Let us be faithful to that vision.

It can be morning in America again.

MY FIRST REAGAN POST

GREAT POSTS AT MIKE'S AMERICA

This must not stand! If you thought the Kelo decision was obscene, wait until you read this.

And it is happening literally just down the road from me -- I pass the property on a daily basis during the last leg of my drive home from work.

Man awarded $1 for 105 acres Port condemned

For years, Seabrook residents have said building the Bayport container facility north of town would hurt property values.

They might be surprised at how much one man got for his tract of land - $1 for 105 acres.

Pasadena land owner Glenn Seureau, II, thinks he was robbed of his by the Port of Houston Authority. He plans to continue an uphill battle with the Port until he is paid fair market value for the land.

One civil court judge, on the other hand, seems to think $1 is compensation enough for Seureau's land, located just north of Seabrook.

Seureau fought for nearly three years to protect his property, in his family for more than 150 years, from the Port's power of eminent domain, only to lose his case in May of last year in the court of Harris County Civil Court Judge Lynn Bradshaw-Hull.

The judge ruled that having paid Seureau $1, the Port now owns the fee simple title to the property. Seureau was also ordered to give back the Port's previous payment of more than $1.9 million at 5.75 percent interest and pay the Port's court costs at the same interest rate.

Seureau has appealed the ruling, and he and his attorneys are currently in negotiations with the Port.

Port officials declined to comment on the case, but confirmed that they are working with Seureau to reach an agreement.

The conflict began in September 2002, when a special commission held a hearing regarding the Port's request to condemn Seureau's land. Seureau did not attend the hearing, and the commission ordered the Port to pay him approximately $1.9 million for the property.

The Port deposited the funds into the registry of the court, taking constructive possession of the land, but Seureau refused to take the money or relinquish the title to the property.

"I didn't think (the Port) had the right to take the property," he said, adding that the Port's need for the land seems to be based on private rather than public interests.

The Port plans to build a portion of the Houston Cruise Terminal on the property.

Seureau also believes $1.9 million is less than the market value for the land, which he had planned to develop with multi-family residences.

He was later advised by an attorney that he did not have the right to contest eminent domain and withdrew the $1.9 million to pay for further appeals regarding the market value of his land.

The Port brought Seureau to Bradshaw-Hull's court on May 16, 2005 to obtain the fee simple title that Seureau had withheld until that point.

On May 17, the judge excluded the testimony of both Seureau and his only expert witness, Louis Smith, saying that neither man could provide evidence that was relevant or reliable regarding the market value of Seureau's land.

According to court documents, the judge's final ruling was based on a lack of evidence to support Seureau's argument.

Seureau also made a motion to exclude the testimony of one of the Port's expert witnesses, Matthew Deal. The court denied that motion.

Seureau, who lives in his 180-year-old family home next door to the recently condemned property, said that although he is not familiar with the judge's intentions, he sees Bradshaw-Hull's ruling as a "punishment" for trying to challenge the Port.

"I was forced to settle for less than market value," he said.

Bradshaw-Hull declined to comment on the case since it is on appeal.

So let's get this straight -- the judge allowed no testimony on the value of the land -- and then awarded an absurdly low value because there was no evidence in support of the land's value. Never mind that we know that the land was considered to be worth at least $1.9 million by the special commission. And she added insult to injury by ordering the victim of her obscene ruling to pay back all money he received with interest, plus legal fees to the publicly-owned Port -- which means he is paying the Port for the privilege of having his land stolen.

Notice, please, that this story is covered only by the local "tossed on the lawn" paper, not any of the major media like the Chronicle or the local television stations, despite teh outrageous nature of this ruling. They all made money hand over fist during the bond election a few years ago, as the Port spent tax money selling this expansion to the voters -- and it still runs propaganda ads about how great it is for the community. I guess they don't want to see that cash cow dry up.

Oh, and by the way, Judge Bradshaw-Hull (email here) is running for re-election on the GOP ballot.

But Bradshaw-Hull has competition from Linda Storey in the race for judge of Harris County Court at Law 3. Assuming she is qualified, I will likely give my endorsement her way.

Let us hope that this decision does not stand -- and that this judge is off the bench..

TRACKBACK TO: Stop the ACLU, Publius Rendevous, Caos Blog, Right Wing Nation, Adam's Blog, Uncooperative Blogger, Linkfest Haven, Bullwinkle Blog, TMH Bacon Bits, Stuck On Stupid, third world country, Point Five, Conservative Cat, Samantha Burns, imagine kitty, Wizbang, Basil's Blog, Blogs For Bush

That this individual's terrorist son was permitted to live after being involved in treason against the United States and the murder of a CIA operative (not the disclosure of a name of a US-based non-covert employee, but the actual murder of an agent in the field) was an offense against America that will stink forever in the annals of history.

Now the terrorist is seeking clemency after cutting a plea deal, and his father is claiming that he has been abused.

The father of an American jailed for fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan said on Thursday his son had been tortured and unjustly punished amid public hysteria over the September 11 attacks.

"The maltreatment and imprisonment of John Lindh was -- and is -- a human rights violation," Frank Lindh told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "It was based purely on an emotional response to the 9/11 attacks, not on an objective assessment of the facts of John's case."

A 24-year-old Californian dubbed the "American Taliban," John Walker Lindh was captured in 2001 and jailed for 20 years under a plea deal. U.S. troops ousted the Taliban after they refused to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

At times fighting back tears, the father accused U.S. forces of torturing his son. He showed a photo of his son's body strapped to a stretcher at a military base in southern Afghanistan.

"I do not want to dwell today on the military's mistreatment of my son, but I will say categorically that he was treated in a way that is shameful to our nation and its ideals," said Lindh, an attorney at Pacific Gas & Electric.

"John Lindh did not need to be tortured to tell the American forces where he had been and what he had seen," the father said. "I cannot fathom why the military felt it necessary to humiliate him in this way."

Oh, dear, they had to restrain the little terrorist. Too damn bad.

And what is worse, this liberal lawyer wants to absolve his son from all guilt, despite the guilty plea.

After years of silence, the father of American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh called on President Bush on Thursday to grant clemency to his son, who he says was wrongly maligned as a traitor and murderer.

"In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man embarked on a spiritual quest," said Frank Lindh, swallowing back tears at times during a speech at the Commonwealth Club, a nonprofit organization.

Frank Lindh said that although his son had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks, they ended up adding dire consequences to his decision to join the Taliban, targeted by the U.S. after the 2001 attacks for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Your son may have started out as a decent and honorable young man -- screwed up, no doubt, because of your abandonment of him and his mother to take up in a sexual relationship with another man -- but he ended up as a hateful member of a murderous group of backwards thugs. The honorable kid is dead, replaced by a terrorist. Sorry you cannot see that because of a father's love, but it is the truth.

Fortunately, there is another father who has a thing or two to say about the release of your vile spawn. He carries more weight with decent Americans than you do, you pathetic excuse for a man.

As passionately as Frank Lindh is advocating for his son's clemency, there is another father fighting just as hard to extend John Walker Lindh's sentence by getting him convicted of murder or treason.

Johnny Spann is the father of CIA officer Johnny Micheal "Mike" Spann, who was killed in a prison riot after being videotaped speaking with John Walker Lindh.

Johnny Spann is conducting his own investigation into the origins of the riot at the Mazar-e-Sharif prison, where suspected Taliban supporters were held. Spann contends that the uprising began with a planned grenade attack inside the prison building rather than a spontaneous scuffle outside where his son was interviewing prisoners, including Lindh.

I wish Mr. Spann well in his endeavor, and look forward to the day that Lindh is executed for his crimes, like the diseased swine he is.

It seems that deviation from the party line will get you heaped with personal abuse and hate speech by the Left, even if you are a relaible liberal working for a thoroughly liberal part of the MSM like the Washington Post.

As a result, the Post has had to shut down comments on one of its blogs in the face of a seemingly coordinated assault upon its ombudsman based upon a technically erroneous statement in her Sunday column -- and a demonstably true and accurate correction today on the blog.

Jim Brady, the executive editor at washingtonpost.com, notified users of the post.blog that the public comment feature had been suspended "indefinitely" after "a significant number of folks" posted personal attacks, profanity, and hate speech.

Attempts by E&P to reach Brady have been unsuccessful so far. It seems likely the move is related to controversy in recent days over Sunday’s Post column by ombudsman Deobrah Howell. She has been heavily criticized by some political Web sites and bloggers for writing that indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both political parties, when most research shows he only gave directly to Republicans.

In response to the Post shutoff, bloggers critical of Howell quickly directed users to another blog that allows comments at the Post site, and dozens of comments ripping the paper for its latest move soon appeared there. Another blog published the Howell-related comments that had been deleted by the Post. A typical one concerning Howell reads: "She doesn't get the benefit of the doubt regarding her honesty. The Post ought to be ashamed of the way she is doing her job."

Just two days ago, Hal Straus, opinions editor at the Post's site, revealed that it was experiencing technical problems because of the more than 700 comments received concerning Howell's column. He said the Post had tried to remove about a dozen comment "that failed to make a substantive pointand were simply personal attacks on Howell and others."

Then, this morning, Howell responded at the Post’s blog, explaining that she had heard from “lots of angry readers” and wished that she had written that Abramoff "directed" contributions to both parties, adding: “While Abramoff, a Republican, gave personal contributions only to Republicans, he directed his Indian tribal clients to make millions of dollars in campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.

“Records from the Federal Elections Commission and the Center for Public Integrity show that Abramoff’s Indian clients contributed between 1999 and 2004 to 195 Republicans and 88 Democrats. The Post has copies of lists sent to tribes by Abramoff with specific directions on what members of Congress were to receive specific amounts.”

This explanation, in turn, drew an immense and sometimes nasty response to the comments section today, with some critics pointing out flaws in her reasoning and comparisons. A few hours later, Brady announced the blog comment turnoff, without explaining exactly why.

Funny, isn't it, that the Left calls conservatives fascists and terrorists while acting the part themselves?

Could you imagine the outrage worldwide if a group of Christians did this to a group of Muslims trying to open a mosque?

At least 12 people were injured in clashes in Upper Egypt when a group of Muslims attempted to stop Christians converting a house into a church. Security officials said the Muslims set fire to building materials for the building in Odaysat, near Luxor.

Several members of both communities were reported injured in the subsequent clashes, as well as two policemen.

It is the latest in a series of violent sectarian incidents in Egypt in the past few months.
A security source quoted by Reuters said the Christians did not have official permission to build the church.

Police arrested 10 young men and the owners of the house, reports say.
Correspondents say curbs on building churches have been one of the main grievances among Copts, although these restrictions have been eased recently by presidential decree.

The Coptic Christian community is believed to make up 10% percent of Egypt's population of about 70 million.

It doesn’t say, but typical Egyptian practice would be to arrest only the Christians, whose right to assemble, worship, and open or repair churches remains sharply limited.

Maybe those of us in the civilized world should impose similar restrictions on Muslim freedom until the Muslim world grants basic human rights to Christians. After all, what would they do -- declare jihad and start a worldwide campaign of terrorism? Oh, that's right -- they already did that, despite having more freedom in our society than they have in their own.

MORE AT: Free Copts

Just when you think the media cannot get any weirder, AP hands us this one. Read that caption.

And you wonder why so many of us consider the MSM to be anti-American.

From Little Green Footballs via Michelle Malkin.

MORE AT Macsmind, Six24, FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog, Below The Beltway, Noisy Room, The Kevin Show.

First, let me say that I would whole-heartedly support such a course of action (and think we should have nuked Tora Bora).

Second, let me say that I’m shocked to hear it coming from France, of all countries.

France said on Thursday it would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against it, reaffirming the need for its nuclear deterrent.

Deflecting criticism of France’s costly nuclear arms programme, President Jacques Chirac said security came at a price and France must be able to hit back hard at a hostile state’s centres of power and its “capacity to act”.

He said there was no change in France’s overall policy, which rules out the use of nuclear weapons in a military conflict. But his speech poin