To stop terrorist incitements? No.

To end anti-Semitic utterances by imams and other Muslim leaders? No.

What the Tampa Chapter wants is a legal distinction between “free speech” and “hate speech”, says Ahmed Bedier, the chapter’s director.

Comments from national pundits and bloggers can incite violence and hate crimes, said Bedier, who came to the forum with a handout that featured a list of quotes that CAIR considers “anti-Muslim hate speech.”

The list included the words of commentators such as Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter, and religious figures such as Pat Robertson and the Rev. Billy Graham.
But it also included quotes from the Hogans and ultra-right-wing blogger Vilmar Tavares, who also lives in Hernando County and whose blog often includes anti-Muslim sentiments, Bedier said.

There should be a distinction between free speech and hate speech, Bedier said. The latter could incite a potentially violent person to commit a hate crime, he said.

“It may be what pushes that person over the edge,” he said.

In other words, anything that is anti-terrorist, opposes Islam, or even simply offends Muslims ought to be banned because it might “incite a potentially violent person over the edge.”

I guess the move towards the dhimmification of we infidel-Americans will begin with the elimination of our right to even speak out.

Selwyn Duke examines how this sort of distinction might well be used to eviscerate the First Amendment if we are not vigilant.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Conservative Cat, Third World County, Madman Returns, Wake Up America, Adam's Blog, Samantha Burns, Stuck On Stupid, The HILL Chronicles, Bullwinkle Blog, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, Dumb Ox, Uncooperative Blogger

How much avocado does your dip have to have before it is guacamole. That is the basis of this lawsuit in California.

Wholly guacamole?

That's the issue in a fraud lawsuit filed Wednesday against Kraft Foods, Inc., by a Los Angeles woman who claims the company's avocado dip doesn't qualify as guacamole.

"It just didn't taste avocadoey," said Brenda Lifsey, who used Kraft Dips Guacamole in a three-layer dip last year. "I looked at the ingredients and found there was almost no avocado in it."

She is seeking unspecified damages and a Superior Court order barring Kraft from calling its dip guacamole. Her suit seeks class-action status.

The Kraft product contains modified food starch, coconut and soybean oils, corn syrup and food coloring. It is less than 2 percent avocado, which in traditional recipes is the main ingredient of the Mexican dish.

The government doesn't have any requirements on how much avocado a product must contain to be labeled guacamole, said Michael Herndon, a spokesman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft said it had not seen the lawsuit but believed it was not deceiving anyone.

"We think customers understand that it isn't made from avocado," Claire Regan, Kraft Foods' vice president of corporate affairs, told the Los Angeles Times. "All of the ingredients are listed on the label for consumers to reference."

However, the company will relabel the product to make it clearer that the dip is guacamole-flavored, Regan said.

In other words, the information was already there for the lazy litigant to see – but she didn’t bother looking.

Dismiss the case. Disbar the lawyer. And don’t buy the cheapest product on the shelf and expect it to be 100% avocado.

And in doing so he shows himself to be the anti-Semite -- not that his previous efforts have hidden that from world view.

We, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people. Persistent aggressions by the Zionists are making life more and more difficult for the rightful owners of the land of Palestine. In broad day-light, in front of cameras and before the eyes of the world, they are bombarding innocent defenseless civilians, bulldozing houses, firing machine guns at students in the streets and alleys, and subjecting their families to endless grief. ...

For 60 years, the Zionist regime has driven millions of the inhabitants of Palestine out of their homes. ...

You know well that the US administration has persistently provided blind and blanket support to the Zionist regime, has emboldened it to continue its crimes, and has prevented the UN Security Council from condemning it. ...

What has blind support for the Zionists by the US administration brought for the American people? ... What have the Zionists done for the American people that the US administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors?

This "Noble American" stands with Israel and its self-defense actions in the face of Syrian and Iranian-sponsored terrorists who daily seek to murder its men women and children -- and then hide among the civilian population to create civilian casualties on their own side in an effort to stir up international sympathy.

Ahmadinejad can go to Hell.

Well, fresh from Nancy Pelosi's breaking her pledge to promote high ethical standards in Congress, we have a new Democrat broken promise -- the rejection of one of the 9/11 Commission recommendations that the Democrats repeatedly promised to implement if they got the majority.

Which one? The one that directly effects Congress and how it operates.

It was a solemn pledge, repeated by Democratic leaders and candidates over and over: If elected to the majority in Congress, Democrats would implement all of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that examined the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But with control of Congress now secured, Democratic leaders have decided for now against implementing the one measure that would affect them most directly: a wholesale reorganization of Congress to improve oversight and funding of the nation's intelligence agencies. Instead, Democratic leaders may create a panel to look at the issue and produce recommendations, according to congressional aides and lawmakers.

Because plans for implementing the commission's recommendations are still fluid, Democratic officials would not speak for the record. But aides on the House and Senate appropriations, armed services and intelligence committees confirmed this week that a reorganization of Congress would not be part of the package of homeland-security changes up for passage in the "first 100 hours" of the Democratic Congress.

And it looks like one of those actively involved in thwarting the implementation of the proposal is corrupt cut-n-runner John Murtha, whose Appropriations Sub-Committee would lose some of its authority under the proposal. The Abscam unindicted co-conspirator wants to keep the authority to dispense pork fromt he defense budget all to himself -- where it can go to his brother's lobbying clients.

"I don't think that suggestion is going anywhere," said Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), the chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee and a close ally of the incoming subcommittee chairman, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). "That is not going to be their party position."

It may seem like a minor matter, but members of the commission say Congress's failure to change itself is anything but inconsequential. In 2004, the commission urged Congress to grant the House and Senate intelligence committees the power not only to oversee the nation's intelligence agencies but also to fund them and shape intelligence policy. The intelligence committees' gains would come at the expense of the armed services committees and the appropriations panels' defense subcommittees. Powerful lawmakers on those panels would have to give up prized legislative turf.

But the commission was unequivocal about the need.

"Of all our recommendations, strengthening congressional oversight may be among the most difficult and important," the panel wrote. "So long as oversight is governed by current congressional rules and resolutions, we believe the American people will not get the security they want and need."

Now frankly, reasonable people can argue whether that proposal is correct or not -- but when the Democrats ran on a platform of implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations, the failure to implement one supported so strongly by the bi-partisan commission and declared to be so vital is clearly a breach of faith with the American people.

And a sign of Democrat lies and corruption as usual.

We are expecting a 40 degree temperature swing in a matter of hours as a front moves through town.

Finally, it's time to bring out the blankets.

And with temperatures today and this weekend expected to dip into near freezing numbers, talk turns to protecting the plants, pipes and, of course, people.

At the city of Houston Parks and Recreation Department, horticulturist Dee Howell and her staff spent much of Wednesday covering delicate potted plants outside the department's greenhouse.

"I would be worried if I had a lot of tropical plants," she said.

The cold front likely will reach Houston by noon, said Paul Lewis, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in League City.

Expect temperatures to drop from a high of 71 to a low of 33 tonight, along with a 70 percent chance of rain. Lewis said the storm will move very quickly, with 15 mph to 20 mph northwest winds. Winds may reach 30 mph in nearby coastal areas. Temperatures could dip to freezing about dawn Friday.

But balmier temperatures should be back in a few days.