Not errors, not misstatements, but out-and-out lies and misrepresentations in a story that are grossly contradicted by the official record. Even their own public editor is concerned by the lack of professionalism and devotion to the truth -- not that it will change anything in how the paper deals with the issue.

THE cover story on abortion in El Salvador in The New York Times Magazine on April 9 contained prominent references to an attention-grabbing fact. “A few” women, the first paragraph indicated, were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That reference included a young woman named Carmen Climaco. The article concluded with a dramatic account of how Ms. Climaco received the sentence after her pregnancy had been aborted after 18 weeks.

It turns out, however, that trial testimony convinced a court in 2002 that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy had resulted in a full-term live birth, and that she had strangled the “recently born.” A three-judge panel found her guilty of “aggravated homicide,” a fact the article noted. But without bothering to check the court document containing the panel’s findings and ruling, the article’s author, Jack Hitt, a freelancer, suggested that the “truth” was different.

The issues surrounding the article raise two points worth noting, both beyond another reminder to double-check information that seems especially striking. Articles on topics as sensitive as abortion need an extra level of diligence and scrutiny — “bulletproofing,” in newsroom jargon. And this case illustrates how important it is for top editors to carefully assess the complaints they receive. A response drafted by top editors for the use of the office of the publisher in replying to complaints about the Hitt story asserted that there was “no reason to doubt the accuracy of the facts as reported.”

Indeed -- despite the evidence of the official record of the court proceedings, including the scientific evidence, the official line of the New York Times is that hte article was fair, accurate, and truthful. Even though the information in it was false and the reporter never bothered to look at the official court transcripts in the case.

Yeah, you read that right.

Mr. Hitt said Ms. Climaco had been brought to his attention by the magistrate who decided four years ago that the case warranted a trial, so he had asked the magistrate for the court record. “When she told me that the case had been archived, I accepted that to mean that I would have to rely upon the judge who had been directly involved in the case and who heard the evidence” in the trial stage of the judicial process, Mr. Hitt wrote in an e-mail to me. So he didn’t pursue the document.

But obtaining the public document isn’t difficult. At my request, a stringer for The Times in El Salvador walked into the court building without making any prior arrangements a few days ago, and minutes later had an official copy of the court ruling. It proved to be the same document as the one disseminated by LifeSiteNews.com, which had been translated into English in early December by a translator retained by The Times Magazine’s editors. I’ve since had the stringer review the translation of key paragraphs for me.

The magistrate, Mr. Hitt noted, “had been helpful in other areas of the story and quite open.” So when she recalled one doctor’s estimate that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy had been aborted at 18 weeks, he used that in the article. (The only 18-week estimate mentioned in the court ruling came from a doctor who hadn’t seen any fetus and whose deductions from the size of the uterus 17 hours after the birth were found by the three judges to be flawed.)

Mr. Hitt concluded the article with this summation of the Climaco case: “The truth was certainly — well, not in the ’middle’ so much as somewhere else entirely. Somewhere like this: She’d had a clandestine abortion at 18 weeks, not all that different from D.C.’s [another woman cited earlier in the story], something defined as absolutely legal in the United States. It’s just that she’d had an abortion in El Salvador.”

So the story was run based upon the word of the magistrate, and there was no attempt made to get a copy of the record -- a pretty shoddy piece of work. And what did the record show when the transcript was acquired, months after the piece ran in the NY Times magazine?

When Times Magazine editors provided me with an English-language version of the court findings on Dec. 8, just after the translation had been completed, there was little ambiguity in the court’s findings. “We have an already-formed and independent life here,” the court said. “Therefore we are not dealing with an abortion here, as the defense has attempted to claim in the present case.”

The physician who had performed the autopsy on the “recently born” testified that it represented a “full-term” birth, which he defined as a pregnancy with a duration of “between 38 and 42 weeks,” the ruling noted. In adopting those conclusions, the court said of another autopsy finding: “Given that the lungs floated when submerged in water, also indicating that the recently-born was breathing at birth, this confirms that we are dealing with an independent life.”

Yep -- a full-term pregnancy, a breathing child, and a murder. No abortion.

But how has the official NY Times responded to the situation? By defending the article, and refusing to acknowledge that its contents are false, all without allowing the facts to finally be checked.

The magazine’s failure to check the court ruling was then compounded for me by the handling of reader complaints about the issue. The initial complaints triggered a public defense of the article by two assistant managing editors before the court ruling had even been translated into English or Mr. Hitt had finished checking various sources in El Salvador. After being queried by the office of the publisher about a possible error, Craig Whitney, who is also the paper’s standards editor, drafted a response that was approved by Gerald Marzorati, who is also the editor of the magazine. It was forwarded on Dec. 1 to the office of the publisher, which began sending it to complaining readers.

The response said that while the “fair and dispassionate” story noted Ms. Climaco’s conviction of aggravated homicide, the article “concluded that it was more likely that she had had an illegal abortion.” The response ended by stating, “We have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the facts as reported in our article, which was not part of any campaign to promote abortion.”

And now that the facts are clear in the case, what is the response? To continue to defend the article as true, to reject the findings of the trial court as untrustworthy and possibly politicized, and to refuse to present a retraction or correction -- or even notify those who received the earlier response that new evidence was out there casting doubt on whether or not the article was fair or accurate.

The article was “as accurate as it could have been at the time it was written,” Mr. Marzorati wrote to me. “I also think that if the author and we editors knew of the contents of that third ruling, we would have qualified what we said about Ms. Climaco. Which is NOT to say that I simply accept the third ruling as ‘true’; El Salvador’s judicial system is terribly politicized.”

I asked Mr. Whitney if he intended to suggest that the office of the publisher bring the court’s findings to the attention of those readers who received the “no reason to doubt” response, or that a correction be published. The latest word from the standards editor: “No, I’m not ready to do that, nor to order up a correction or Editors’ Note at this point.”

In other words, what are the standards at the NY Times? No standards -- not when it might present the paper in a bad light, and so the Times stands by the article that is factually untrue. So much for the "paper of record".

UPDATE: 1/2/2007: Well, looks like some others are picking up on the story -- including Michelle Malkin, The Saloon, Elmer's Brother, The Coffeespy, Blake's Blog, Hot Air, Roger L. Simon, Custos Fidei

UPDATE 1/3/2007" Could it be that the only staff member to lose his position over this scandal (at least in part) will be public editor Barney Calame -- because he has once agaain taken a position critical of, rather than endorsing, outrageous actions by the Time editorial staff?

We're getting saturation news coverage of the event (along with Saddam's execution and Jame brown's funeral) an will see government services shut down on Tuesday, but the state funeral of former President Gerald Ford was not a big draw for government officials. Indeed, not even the current occupant of the Oval office could be troubled to attend.

The military band drilled. Wreaths with white roses hung outside the House and Senate chambers. In the Capitol Rotunda rested the black velvet catafalque that once bore the remains of Abraham Lincoln.

Everything was in place for former President Gerald Ford's state funeral Saturday night — everything, that is, but the statesmen.

•President Bush sent his regrets; he was cutting cedar and riding his bike on his ranch in Texas.
•Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his deputy, Richard Durbin, couldn't make it either; they were on a trip to visit Incan ruins.
•Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a pass, too — as did about 500 of the 535 members of Congress.
Only one Cabinet member — Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez — accepted the invitation, organizers said.

A 6-to-3 majority of the Supreme Court, including Ford's appointee, John Paul Stevens, ruled against attending.

Congressional staffers and Ford family representatives scrambled to find sufficient greeters and honorary pallbearers to join Vice President Dick Cheney and a score of former lawmakers and Ford administration officials.

I'm sorry, but I can only call this a shameful response. The President could and should have cut short the Crawford vacation. Reid and Durbin arguably could have rescheduled the trip south of the border -- they do get CNN in Latin America, so they know about Ford's death.More members of Congress could have made it back, Cabinet officials could have made an effort to return to Washington, and the Supreme Court justice (especially Stevens) could have put in an appearance. There should have been more than 77 official mourners at the Capitol on Saturday night.

After all, this is the state funeral for a former head of state -- shouldn't the current leaders of the United States be in attendance?

Or are we seeing that such funeral rituals are an anachronism in this country?

I happened across this new blog -- Breath of the Beast -- while perusing the American Thinker blog this morning. The first post, My First Encounter With The Beast, is a chilling personal narrative about an encounter with the ugly side of Islam over two decade ago.

Back in the early eighties my young family and I lived next door to an Iranian family. They were nice, friendly people. Hamid (not his real name) was a physician who was just starting out in his own practice. His wife, Haideh was also Iranian born. She was a mathematician. She taught at a local college. We moved in to brand new houses just months apart and shared the rigors of nurturing lawns where there had been only bulldozer tracks. We cooperated in the planting of trees and shrubs to define the empty expanses between our new homes. We borrowed tools from each other. Hamid and I played tennis often and even discussed the possibility of building a tennis court in the flat spot where our lots met. Our children played together and his son, Amir and my daughter Amy became very close friends. The two of them were barely more than toddlers when they first met but were soon talking about getting married the way little ones sometimes do when they find a close companion of the opposite sex. The next summer, they went back to Iran to visit with their families. We were afraid for our friends. We knew the country was in turmoil. They were gone for several weeks. For much of the time my Amy’s days were occupied with day camp but she still missed her friend. They finally returned a week before school. The two seemed to pick up right where they had left off.

It was a sunny Sunday morning and Amy went out right after breakfast and met Amir in his backyard. We watched as they began to play and turned away to read the Sunday paper. We were surprised when Amy came back inside a short while later. She walked by us with her head down and started up the stairs to her room. We had expected to have to call her in for lunch so it was odd that she came back so early. I called after her and asked her what was wrong. She told me how little 5-year-old Amir had matter-of-factly informed my innocent 5-year-old daughter that because she is a Jew it is his duty to kill her.

I hope the author, Yaacov Ben Moshe, keeps on writing and has more to say about his topic of choice.

What's more, I've found this week's nominee for the Watcher's Council.

Justice Accomplished!

At long last, Saddam is dead, hanged for his crimes against the Iraqi people.

Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator who spent his last years in captivity after his ruthless Baathist regime was toppled from power by the U.S.-led coalition in 2003, was hanged Saturday for crimes committed in a brutal crackdown during his reign, a witness said.

"Saddam's body is in front me," said an official in the prime minister's office when CNN telephoned. "It's over."

In the background, Shiite chanting could be heard. When asked about the chanting, the official said, "These are employees of the prime minister's office and government chanting in celebration."

A witness to the execution reported that celebrations broke out after Hussein was dead, and that there was "dancing around the body."

Not only was there dancing around the body, but also in Iraqi-American communities.

And celebrations broke out in Iraq as well.

I'll post more pictures/video of the big event when they becomes available.

UPDATE 1 -- 7:30 AM CST: Pictures added.

UPDATE 2 -- 8:00 AM CST: At least one local Dem blogger and party activist (connected enough to be admitted to our incoming Congressman's hospital room) appears troubled that it was Saddam swinging and not members of the Bush administration.

According to Raw Story, Saddam Hussein will die tonight. After 3 years of war, almost 3000 American soldiers killed, 20,000+ wounded, our reputation around the world badly damaged, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, and after spending almost $500 Billion of our tax dollars, we finally got Saddam hanging from a rope.

We should be so proud.

Tonight Saddam will be swinging from a rope and struggling for his last breath of air, while the ghouls across the country are waiting for the video to hit YouTube.

And yet the undeniable fact will remain that the only person who didn't lie about weapons of mass destruction will be hanging from the end of the rope.

And those that did will not.

UPDATE 3 -- 2:00 PM CST: Hot Air has video from FoxNews.

MORE AT Michelle Malkin, Captain's Quarters, Tammy Bruce, Liberty Papers, Sensible Mom, Ed Driscoll, bRight & Early, A Blog For All, PoliBlog, Anchoress, Patterico, Gay Patriot, Hot Air, TelChai Nation, Gateway Pundit, JammieWearingFool, Jawa Report

The Duke Lacrosse Rape Frame-Up Case continues to go very badly for hack prosecutor Mike Nifong. Now even his peers are urging him to step aside so that justice can be done in this case.

In yet another moral blow to Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys called for the prosecutor to step down from the Duke lacrosse case.

The group, which represents district attorneys from across North Carolina, said in a statement that "it is in the interest of justice and the effective administration of criminal justice that Mr. Nifong immediately withdraw and recuse himself from the prosecution."

"It's extraordinarily unusual and it means a great deal," said Joshua Marquis, a district attorney in Clatsop County, Ore.

The district attorney group also called for the case to be reassigned and handed over to "another prosecutorial authority."

The statement was prompted by charges of ethics violations against Nifong filed Thursday by the North Carolina bar. Those allegations accuse Nifong of making inappropriate comments about the case in a series of press interviews early in the proceedings.

The recently filed ethics charge have created a true conflict of interest for Nifong. Dropping all charges and conceding the obvious innocence of the accused would be an implicit concession that he had engaged in the sort of wrong-doing of which he is accused, and so it is virtually impossible for any prosecutorial decision he makes from this point forward to not be seen as tinged with self-interest.

And speaking of those ethics charges brought by the NC Bar against Nifong, there could yet be even more, according to Time magazine.

The Dec. 28 ethics charges are expected to be expanded when the state bar's grievance committee meets again Jan. 18. Like a grand jury, the committee meets periodically; the current ethics charges stem from its most recent meeting in October and cover public statements Nifong made about the case last March and April. At its next meeting, the committee will deal with revelations from a Dec. 15 court hearing in which the state's DNA expert admitted he and Nifong agreed to keep secret from the defense early DNA results showing no Duke lacrosse player could be implicated in an attack upon one of two exotic dancers hired for the March 14 house party.

In other words, some of Nifong's most egregious misconduct in this case had not even been exposed when these charges were drawn up, and so there is a whole lot more to delve into.

And that doesn't even get into the question of possible criminal charges against this hack DA.

The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Follow Your Surges by Done With Mirrors, and From Khomeini to Ahmadinejad by Matthias Küntzel.  Here is a link to the full results of the vote.

Here are the full tallies of all votes cast:

In light of his new book, one would think Carter would have something to say about this wall.

Or is it only the Israeli security fence that offends his sensibilities?

A country has chosen to build a wall to stop the flow of militants from crossing its border and creating terror and havoc in two countries.  Some critics say that the real problem is the tolerance of militants by a government that claims to be fighting them. Sound familiar?

Has Jimmy Carter been heard from to condemn this human rights atrocity? So far, no. After all this would be a wall built by Pakistan on its long border with Afghanistan.

I guess when Muslims build a wall to keep out Muslim terrorists, it is a good thing -- it's only when Jews defend themselves from Muslim terrorists that such barriers become a problem.

An independent voice in Venezuela is about to be silenced by the government for its active opposition to the government of strongman Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he will not renew the licence for the country's second largest TV channel which he says expires in March 2007.

In an address to troops, Mr Chavez said he would not tolerate media outlets working towards a coup against him.

Radio Caracas Television, which is aligned with the opposition, supported a strike against Mr Chavez in 2003.

But the TV's head said there must be some mistake as its licence was not up for renewal in the near future.

Marcel Granier also vowed to fight against the president's plans in Venezuela's courts and on the international stage.

The BBC's Greg Morsbach in Caracas says Mr Chavez has repeatedly threatened to take the TV off the air but has never given a date.

The move could help silence some of his critics in the media who have been a thorn in his side for several years, he says.

Mr Chavez, who was returned to power by a wide margin on 3 December, said Mr Granier was mistaken in believing "that concession is eternal".

"It runs out in March. So it's better that you go and prepare your suitcase and look around for what you're going to do in March," he said during a televised speech to soldiers at a military academy in Caracas.

"There will be no new operating licence for this coupist TV channel called RCTV. The operating licence is over... So go and turn off the equipment," Mr Chavez said.

So opposition to the government is now grounds for lifting broadcast licenses in Venezuela -- and there is no appeal from the heir-apparent to Fidel among Latin American human rights violators.

But Chavez isn't a dictator -- just ask America's leftists!

Looks like Saddam will be paying for his crimes before Sunday, in order to avoid offending Muslim sensitivities by executing him on a holy day.

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, sentenced to death for his role in 148 killings in 1982, will have his sentence carried out by Sunday, NBC News reported Thursday. According to a U.S. military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, Saddam will be hanged before the start of the Eid religious holiday, which begins at sundown Saturday.

The hanging could take place as early as Friday, NBC’s Richard Engel reported.

The U.S. military received a formal request from the Iraqi government to transfer Saddam to Iraqi authorities, NBC reported on Thursday, which is one of the final steps required before his execution. His sentence, handed down last month, ordered that he be hanged within 30 days.

Some international leaders (and grievance polemicists) are outraged that the dictator might actually pay for his crimes and be executed by the Iraqi people he oppressed. And as I suggested some weeks back, the NY Times seems prepared to deck itself out in black to mourn the untimely execution of this murderous goon.

I am, however, disappointed about one aspect of this execution -- I had been hoping that Saddam would take a long drop on a short rope as the clock rang in 2007 -- sort of an Iraqi equivalent of dropping the ball over Times Square.

By the way -- I'm hoping photos of this administration of justice flood the 'net and that the video quickly shows up on YouTube and elsewhere.

Sic Semper Tyrannis!

The crap is hitting the fan for DA Mike Nifong in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Frame-Up Case.

The North Carolina bar filed ethics charges Thursday against the prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case, accusing him of saying misleading or inflammatory things to the news media about the athletes under suspicion.

The punishment for ethics violations can range from admonishment to disbarment.

Among the four rules of professional conduct that District Attorney Mike Nifong was accused of violating was a prohibition against making comments "that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused."

The charges will be heard by an independent body called the Disciplinary Hearing Commission, made up of both lawyers and non-lawyers.

In a statement, the bar said it opened a case against Nifong in March 30, a little more than two weeks after the party where a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University hired to perform as a stripper said she was raped.

Another rule the rogue prosecutor is alleged to have broken is the one against dishonesty, fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation".

Here's the whole complaint.

Methinks that DA Nifong is going down fast.

Lest we forget this poor man's situation -- one that transcends politics and cuts to the humanity of each and every individual in the public arena.

U.S. Senator Tim Johnson is spending Thursday, his 60th birthday, sedated in a Washington, D.C. hospital. Family members plan to be at his bedside.

Senator Johnson remains sedated after undergoing emergency surgery two weeks ago for bleeding in the brain. A Johnson spokesman says his family remains optimistic but could not say how long he'll remain under sedation.

The senator has been in critical condition since the surgery. He is sedated to help minimize the swelling of his brain.

Happy birthday, Senator Johnson. may the gift of health be conferred upon you by the good Lord this day -- and may you one day come to know that the prayers of the citizens of the United States are with you.

One of the recent questions about Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts has swirled around the issue of gay rights. Romney once said that eh would be better on gay rights than Se. Ted Kennedy, but has stood strongly against gay marriage since the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court imposed it by judicial fiat in 2003.

Romney was recently interviewed by Human Events, and answers two questions on the issue in a way that I believe should clarify his position and reconcile his positions for most conservatives.

And also on the issue of gay marriage, the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts today gave you a symbolic victory in terms of scolding some of the lawmakers for their actions. Do you believe the same [skepticism among conservatives] will hold true on gay marriage or will people still critique that 1994 letter and some of the comments you made in that campaign?

No, actually, my view on marriage has been entirely consistent over my political career. And that is that I oppose same-sex marriage. I also oppose civil unions.

There are some people who feel that is inconsistent with also encouraging the elimination of discrimination against gay people as well as others of differences. I’m very much opposed to discrimination. I also recognize that it’s not wise to create a special class and establish new rights for any particular group. But I’m opposed to discrimination.

At the same time, I’m opposed to same-sex marriage. And ever since that feature has become a prominent one in my state, with the decision of the Supreme Judicial Court, I have taken every action that I could conceive of within the bounds of the law to defend traditional marriage and to stop same-sex marriage.

You mentioned the decision today of the Supreme Judicial Court. It’s more than symbolic. The Supreme Judicial Court—and this is a battle that my administration took to the court—they said, in fact, that the Legislature must take a vote on a citizens’ petition to have this go before the voters. They must take a vote, and failure to do so would represent a violation of a legislator’s oath of office. That is a very powerful statement, and I believe it gives me a pretty significant degree of confidence that we will see on the ballot in Massachusetts the right of citizens to define marriage. And that’s what I’ve been fighting for now for over two years.

On that same subject, would you accept another endorsement from the Log Cabin Republicans if it was offered to you?

Haven’t thought about that. I doubt it’s going to be forthcoming—and in part because for gay Americans of both Republican and Democratic stripe, the issue is now all about marriage. It is not about equality and hiring. Look, I would not discriminate against someone in a hiring position based on their sexual preference. But it’s now about marriage, and I am adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage.

I’ve been to Washington to testify in favor of traditional marriage. I’ve written a letter to every U.S. senator on the topic. I’ve fought same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in every way I could within the bounds of the law. So that’s not going to make me popular with gay Republicans or gay Democrats. But there are some gay individuals who I know, who are friends of mine, who respect that fact that I believe that traditional marriage is right for the nurturing and development of children, but that I do not want to discriminate against gay people in employment or housing or other parts of their life.

In other words, Romney draws a distinction between marriage and issues of non-discrimination in housing, employment, etc.

I’d argue that this is well within the conservative mainstream. Marriage is fundamentally an institution defined by our society as being between one man and one woman, and the American people have voted to retain that definition every time they have been given the opportunity to do so (with the exception of one poorly drafted proposal this year in Arizona). On the other hand, most Americans find discriminatory practices in employment and housing to be unacceptable and are supportive of efforts to eliminate it in cases of sexual orientation (although some, on libertarian principles, question the legitimacy of government-imposed non-discrimination requirements for any group).

Hopefully this interview and a close examination of Romney’s record will help to settle the gay issue (as well as the abortion issue) for conservatives and allow Romney to position himself as the best conservative option in 2008.

I’ve long thought that term limits are a bad idea, and have opposed them even when they were one of the staples of conservative ideology. I therefore find one of incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s pet issues to be heartening.

With Democrats assuming majority power next month, Congress has a fresh opportunity to make things right. The new House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, has proposed a repeal of presidential term limits in every session since 1985. Now he may have the political muscle to get it passed.

In my American government classes, I’ve always described the Twenty-Second Amendment as the GOP-controlled Congress’ method of driving a stake through the heart of FDR and as close to the posthumous treatment of Pope Formosus as we are ever likely to see in American politics. More than Prohibition (a dumb idea that, having made it into the Constitution, was wisely repealed), the two-term limit placed upon presidents is a blot upon the Constitution.

Indeed, I agree with this great American.

"The United States ought to be able to choose for its president anybody it wants, regardless of the number of terms he has served," Dwight Eisenhower said on the eve of his 1956 reelection. "I have got the utmost faith in the long-term common sense of the American people."

Do I fear that the American people might engage in some monumentally stupid act and reelect Bill Clinton (currently one of only two Americans barred from election to the presidency by Amendment XXII)? Not really, for I believe that Senator Hillary Clinton would commit homicide before permitting that. Do I vainly hope for the reelection of George W. Bush for a third term? No, as I have become increasingly disappointed in the policies of the current occupant of the Oval Office since the 2004 election. And while I recognize that because of the Twenty-Second Amendment we were mercifully spared the reelection of Ronald Reagan as he descended into the fog of Alzheimer’s disease, I also acknowledge that his situation is anomalous among recent American presidents, most of whom have remained healthy and active for at least a decade following their time in office.

Ignore the anti-Bush rant that constitutes the first half of Zimmerman’s column – focus on the big issue of restoring the Constitutional order to that established by the Founders.

Many who study terrorism related issues have presumed that Yasser Arafat was directly involved in the planning of the 1973 Black September operation that resulted in the murder of two US diplomats. Now the truth is out -- the US has had incontrovertible evidence of Arafat's involvement in and approval of the murders FOR 33 YEARS, only to cover it up by classifying the information.

The document has, at last, been declassified.

THE SEIZURE OF THE SAUDI ARABIAN EMBASSY IN KHARTOUM

Summary

In the early evening hours of 1 March 1973, eight Black September Organization (BSO) terrorists seized the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum as a diplomatic reception honoring the departing United States Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) was ending. After slightly wounding the United States Ambassador and the Belgian Charge d'Affaires, the terrorists took these officials plus the United States DCM, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador and the Jordanian Charge d'Affaires hostage. In return for the freedom of the hostages, the captors demanded the release of various individuals, mostly Palestinian guerrillas, imprisoned in Jordan, Israel and the United States.

The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the head of Fatah. Fatah representatives based in Khartoum participated in the attack, using a Fatah vehicle to transport the terrorists to the Saudi Arabian Embassy.

Initially, the main objective of the attack appeared to be to secure the release of Fatah/BSO leader Muhammed Awadh (Abu Da'ud) from Jordanian captivity. Information acquired subsequently reveals that the Fatah/BSO leaders did not expect Awadh to be freed, and indicates that one of the primary goals of the operation was to strike at the United States because of its efforts to achieve a Middle East peace settlement which many Arabs believe would be inimical to Palestinian interests.

Negotiations with the BSO terrorist team were conducted primarily by the Sudanese Ministers of Interior and of Health. No effort was spared, within the capabilities of the Sudanese Government, to secure the freedom of the hostages. The terrorists extended their deadlines three times, but when they became convinced that their demands would not be met and after they reportedly had received orders from Fatah headquarters in Beirut, they killed the two United States officials and the Belgian Charge. Thirty-four hours later, upon receipt of orders from Yasir Arafat in Beirut to surrender, the terrorists released their other hostages unharmed and surrendered to Sudanese authorities.

The Khartoum operation again demonstrated the ability of the BSO to strike where least expected. The open participation of Fatah representatives in Khartoum in the attack provides further evidence of the Fatah/BSO relationship. The emergence of the United States as a primary fedayeen target indicates a serious threat of further incidents similar to that which occurred in Khartoum.

The United States government should have adopted a policy similar to Israel's in the wake of this attack -- we should have hunted down and killed those involved in this act of war against the United States. More specifically, this means that rather than encoraaging dialogue with the slimy terrorist Arafat, United States forces should have found him and killed him -- or at least taken him into custody for trial and execution.

Instead, we adopted a policy of treating Arafat like a legitimate player in the Middle East, giving his "Palestinian Authority" funds which he and his cronies could loot for personal gain and encouraging Israel to negotiate with the murderer. In the process, we have given every subsequent terrorist band the message that the United States will not engage in any sustained effort to punish terrorists who strike at American interests, only encouraging such attacks.

What's more, the failure to level with the American people about this incident has allowed at least two generations of moral retards to argue that the United States and Israel are the aggressors and the Palestinians the innocent victims. Congress needs to investigate why this information was hidden, and publicize who the responsible parties were. And perhaps Jimmy Carter can retract his praise for a man he knew (or should have known) ordered the murder of American diplomats.

H/T It Shines For All & Captain's Quarters

As I've browsed the 'net this evening, I've come across two articles proposing something other than the Nixon pardon as Gerald Ford's greatest legacy. One suggests the nomination of John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court had the longest range effect -- an effect that I would argue is mostly negative and has done great harm tot he country.

Next week will mark the 31st anniversary of Stevens’ taking his oath as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Stevens has turned out to be one of the stalwart members of the court's liberal wing.

Thirty years after Ford left office, Americans are living under legal rules created by the Supreme Court, in many cases by 5-to-4 decisions with Stevens in the majority.

Among them:

* Stevens wrote the majority opinion in Kelo v. New London, the 2005 decision that held that local and state governments could condemn and acquire private property even when it was not to be used for a public purpose.

* He helped form the five-justice majority in another 2005 case, Roper v. Simmons, which held that convicted murderers who’d been under age 18 when they committed their crime could not get the death penalty.

* He joined a 2000 decision called Stenberg v. Carhart in which the court struck down a Nebraska law banning so-called “partial-birth” abortions.

None of these decisions meet with my approval, and I believe each of them have been destructive of the proper Constitutional order. Indeed, Stevens' liberalism is proof positive that no president can ever be sure what sort of justice he will get when he makes an appointment.

The other argues that Ford's greatest legacy was that he set the stage for the election of Ronald Reagan four years after his own defeat, for any other outcome in 1976 would have likely ended Reagan's chance to be president and certainly sent the country down a very different path.

The true Ford effect was, once again, an unwitting one. By beating Reagan in the battle for his party’s nomination he saved Reagan from himself. It is very doubtful whether Reagan could have stopped Carter in 1976 — Ford as the incumbent President was the only Republican with any chance of winning — and if Reagan had lost against the Democrat peanut farmer that would have been the end of him.

What if, as he nearly did, Ford had defeated Carter? He would have faced a heavily Democratic Congress, a severe economic recession in 1979-80 and an ageing cabal in Moscow intent on sending troops into Afghanistan. He would have been ineligible for re-election in 1980 but, in these conditions, the Republican candidate would surely have been doomed at the polling stations. The odds are that the White House would have been captured by the most prominent Democrat in the land — Edward Kennedy.

The world we live in today might have been very different if that Kennedy, not Reagan, had occupied the Oval Office in the 1980s. He would not have followed policies that led to almost constant economic growth over the past 25 years nor taken on the Kremlin to the point where the Soviet Union imploded.

“What if” is an ultimately unanswerable question in history. Yet it is the real story of the Ford years.

Indeed -- that "what if" would have resulted in a world unrecognizable today -- and one that I believe would be significantly worse-off had Gerald Ford not fallen short in 1976.

I can forgive Ford his making the same mistake as so many other presidents when selecting a Supreme Court justice -- and thank God for his having run the 1976 presidential race just as he did.

Despite claiming the power to reinterpret the state's constitution in a manner contrary to the intent of the drafters and to legislate from the bench to create homosexual marriage, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has finally found something it lacks the power to do under that constitution -- require the legislature to follow it.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that it had no authority to order the Legislature to vote on a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage, but the justices gave Governor Mitt Romney a symbolic victory by scolding lawmakers for shirking "their lawful obligations."

The SJC, the same court which legalized gay marriage in 2004, issued the unanimous 11-page ruling this morning in response to a lawsuit spearheaded by Romney, who is expected to run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination as a social conservative.

The justices wrote that all the legislators took an oath to uphold the Constitution and will "ultimately will have to answer to the people who elected them."

Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Governor Mitt Romney, hailed the ruling as vindication for the plaintiffs even though the court dismissed the suit.

"We are very pleased that the court has confirmed once and for all that the Legislature has a constitutional duty to vote on the marriage amendment and that any failure to do so would be a violation of their oaths of office," Fehrnstrom said.

Interesting, isn't it, that the judges here find a violation of the constitution with no remedy, while a couple of years back they found a remedy with no actual violation of that constitution. I guess that their activism does have limits -- and those limits are exceeded when it might allow the people of Massachusetts to vote in a non-liberal manner.

UPDATE -- 12/31/06: An interesting piece on the topic from Opinion Journal.com.

The petitioners sued the legislature for abrogating its constitutional duty, and the state Supreme Judicial Court took the case. In its ruling last week, it agreed that the legislature's duty to vote on the measure was "unambiguous." But it claimed to be powerless to compel a vote. So the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, whose own arrogation of power created this mess, has suddenly discovered the limits of its power to clean it up.

All in all, this is quite the political spectacle. First judges usurp the power of the legislature to dictate their own social policy. Then the legislature uses a procedural ruse to deny voters a say on the gay-marriage issue. And these are some of the same people who say Iraqis aren't ready for democracy.

Have we reached the point where the federal government can intervene on the grounds that Massachusetts no longer has a functioning "republican form of government"?

The following statement has been issued by former First Lady Betty Ford and the Ford family regarding the death of former President Gerald Ford.

“My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age,” Mrs. Ford said in a statement issued from her husband’s office in Rancho Mirage, also the location of the Betty Ford Center. “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”

Gerald Ford, the only man to serve as President and Vice President without being elected to either office, has died at age 93. He had been in ill-health for some time.

Ford, a senior member of the GOP leadership in the House of Representatives, was selected as Vice president by President Richard Nixon following the resignation of Spiro Agnew in the wake of corruption charges. Less than a year later, Ford succeeded Nixon when the latter resigned from office in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Ford had many accomplishments during his brief time in the White House.

Ford was the only occupant of the White House never elected either to the presidency or the vice presidency. A former Republican congressman from Grand Rapids, Mich., he always claimed that his highest ambition was to be speaker of the House of Representatives. He had declined opportunities to run for the Senate and for governor of Michigan.

He was sworn in as president Aug. 9, 1974, when Richard M. Nixon resigned as a result of the Watergate scandal.

"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over," Ford said in his inaugural address.

"I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our government, but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad."

Ford had become vice president Dec. 6, 1973, two months after Spiro T. Agnew pleaded no contest to a tax evasion charge and resigned from the nation's second-highest office. The former Maryland governor was under investigation for accepting bribes and kickbacks.

In the 2 1/2 years of his presidency, Ford ended the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam, helped mediate a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Egypt, signed the Helsinki human rights convention with the Soviet Union and traveled to Vladivostok in the Soviet Far East to sign an arms limitation agreement with Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet president.

Ford also sent the Marines to free the crew of the Mayaguez, a U.S. merchant vessel that was captured by Cambodian communists.

On the domestic front, he faced some of the most difficult economic conditions since the Great Depression, with the inflation rate approaching 12 percent. Chronic energy shortages and price increases produced long lines and angry citizens at gas pumps. In the field of civil rights, the sense of optimism that had characterized the 1960s had been replaced by an increasing sense of alienation, particularly in inner cities. The new president also faced a political landscape in which Democrats held large majorities in both the House and the Senate.

But Ford is perhaps best remembered for his pardon of Richard Nixon -- an act which I believe will be remembered as one of the most selfless acts in American history, for many historians consider it to be the overriding fact that led to his loss to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election.

As Ford explained in his memoirs, his goal was the healing of the nation. Presuming, of course, that Nixon would have been indicted for crimes related to Watergate, it was likely that the trial would have occurred against the backdrop of the 1976 national elections, poisoning the political process. Appeals would have meant that the case would likely have continued to be in the national eye during the 1978 and 1980 elections as well -- if not beyond, should there be any sort of retrial -- meaning that the wrong-doing of Nixon and his associates would have been a major factor in American politics for nearly a decade. The stresses this would have caused would have inflicted even greater damage upon the nation, and therefore Ford decided to issue the pardon a month after taking office.

Indeed, history is already beginning to see the wisdom of Ford's decision. In 2001, the former president received a "Profile in Courage" award from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in recognition of his decision -- and was praised by none other than Senator Ted Kennedy, who opposed the pardon at the time.

In the days to come, there will be many words said about Gerald Ford, as the media is saturated with coverage of his life and career, as well as the funeral rites associated with a presidential death. But let me sum it all up with a few words that I believe are fitting.

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One of my commenters has recently accused me of being mentally ill or a liar for believing that former president Jimmy Carter's current book reveals a deep seated anti-Semitism. I disagree with that contention (as do the voices in my head).

However, in the interest of fairness, I believe I should at least post something taking the contrary position -- especially since a wonderfully written and reasoned piece by Rabbi Schmuley Boteach appeared in today's Jerusalem Post arguing that Carter is not, in fact, an anti-Semite. Rather, the book reveals a different problem with Carter's world-view..

But with the publication of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, [Carter's] ignorant rant against Israel, many in the American Jewish community believe that Carter is not just a loser but an anti-Semite. I disagree.

Jimmy Carter is not so much anti-Semite as anti-intellectual, not so much a Jew-hater as a boor. The real explanation behind his limitless hostility to Israel is a total lack of any moral understanding.

Carter wants to do what's just. His heart's in the right place. He just can't figure out what the right is. He is, and always has been, a man of good intentions bereft of good judgment. He invariably finds himself defending tyrants and dictators at the expense of their oppressed peoples. Not because he is a bad man, but because he is a confused man.

Aonfused? How so? After all, Carter is often presented as one as the major do-gooders out there, a man with a deep sense of right and wrong. Indeed, many folks have argued that Carter is what our greatest elder statesman. How, then is Carter confused? Quite bluntly, it is a confusion based in a fundamentally flawed view of right and wrong.

CARTER SUBSCRIBES to what I call the Always Root for the Underdog school of morality. Rather than develop any real understanding of a conflict, immediately he sides with the weaker party, however wicked or immoral.

Israel has tanks and F-16's. The Palestinians don't. Therefore the Palestinians are being oppressed. Never mind that the Palestinians have rejected every offer to live side by side with Israel in peace and elected a government pledged to Israel's annihilation. Their poverty dictates the righteousness of their cause even if their actions speak otherwise.

That makes a certain sense. Cuba is weaker than the US -- therefore Castro is a good guy. North Korea is weaker than the US and South Korea -- therefore Kim Jong-Il is not a dictator and is fully justified in seeking nuclear power and weapons while his people starve. Hugo Chavez is supported by the poor of Venezuela, and he is therefore not a bad guy despite his anti-Americanism and evidence of vote fraud int he election Carter certified. Indeed, it even explains why Carter undercut the Shah of Iran and was rendered impotent in the face of the taking of American hostages in Iran -- as a US ally, the Shah was the obvious villain in Iran and Khomeni was a force for good, and any significant action against Iran would have been evil because of the power differential between the US and the Iranians, no matter how grave the provocation. And that confused moral calculus does clearly explain why Israeli self-defense against Palestinian terrorism constitutes a moral evil (greater even than the Rwandan genocide) in Carter's eyes.

Which, of course, absolves Carter of the charge of anti-Semitism in Boteach's book.

No, Carter is not anti-Semitic so much as a man whose lack of judgment and shallowness render him absolutely incapable of telling right from wrong.

Carter's obscene comparison of Israel with apartheid South Africa ignores the fact that Israel is the first country to airlift tens of thousands of black Africans to become free and full citizens in its borders, a phenomenon that has no precedent in the history of the world.

But by saying that the Palestinians are being subjected to apartheid Carter has grossly maligned not Jews, but black South Africans. Whereas black South Africans inspired the world with their humane capacity for forgiveness and peaceful coexistence with their white brethren, even after having been so egregiously wronged, the Palestinians have unfortunately embraced murderous hatred and racism. Arab newspapers routinely publish grotesque caricatures of Jews, and the Palestinians teach kindergarten children to grow up and blow up Israeli buses.

Nelson Mandela rose to become the world's greatest statesman with his articulation of brotherhood and reconciliation. But Yasser Arafat fathered international terrorism and stole hundreds of millions of dollars from his own people.

Which leads to one conclusion: Before one runs around the world as a global do-gooder, one should first develop the ability to identify the good.

In other words, Carter's moral compass is broken, and his words and actions must therefore be understood in light of that character flaw.

So I'll concede that the good rabbi may have a point -- Jimmy Carter does not have Jew-hatred in his heart, but has simply lost his ability to distinguish good from evil (if he ever had it). But given that his current book, recent column, and other statements echo the statements of Jew-haters over the centuries, the argument can still be made that even if he is not motivated by animus towards Jews, his recent activities have been functionally anti-Semitic. So while my criticism of the man may be seen as unfair by some, I stand by my criticism of his position -- and ask if the difference is one that really makes any difference.

Welcome visitors from FARK.com! Take some time to browse around the rest of the site -- and come back any time.

What do you get when you take a senior congressman with the ability to steer money to favored companies, a former aide to that congressman running a non-profit group, multiple lobbyists for the industry over which the congressman has a big say serving on the board, and big donations from that industry going to the group?

Well, it depends.

If the congressman has an (R) after his name, you get a major scandal and claims of a improprieties and a "culture of corruption" trumpeted throughout the mainstream media. If the congressman has a (D) after his name, you get a story that is more-or-less ignored and published on Christmas Day, when almost no one is paying attention to the news.

Which explains why the story that follows was published on December 25, 2006 in the Washington Post, and accounted for only a couple of short paragraphs in the wire-service reports highlighting denials of wrong-doing rather than possible improprieties.

Oh, and the congressman in question? John Murtha, an unindicted co-conspirator from Abscam who has previously been linked to preferential treatment for clients of his brother's lobbying firm and other shady deals.

For a quarter of a century, Carmen Scialabba labored for Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), helping parcel out the billions of dollars that came through the House Appropriations Committee, so when the disabled aide needed a favor, Murtha was there.

In 2001, Murtha announced the creation of Scialabba's nonprofit agency for the disabled in Johnstown, Pa. The next year, with Scialabba still on his staff, Murtha secured a half-million dollars for the group, the Pennsylvania Association for Individuals With Disabilities (PAID), and put another $150,000 in the pipeline for 2003, according to appropriations committee records and former committee aides. Since then, the group has helped hundreds of disabled people find work.

But the group serves another function as well. PAID has become a gathering point for defense contractors and lobbyists with business before Murtha's defense appropriations subcommittee, and for Pennsylvania businesses and universities that have thrived on federal money obtained by Murtha.

Lobbyists and corporate officials serve as directors on the nonprofit group's board, where they help raise money and find jobs for Johnstown's disabled workers. Some of those lobbyists have served as intermediaries between the defense contractors and businessmen on the board, and Murtha and his aides.

That arrangement over the years has yielded millions of dollars in federal support for the contractors, businesses and universities, and hundreds of thousands in consulting and lobbying fees to Murtha's favored lobbying shops, according to Federal Election Commission records and lobbying disclosure forms. In turn, many of PAID's directors have kept Murtha's campaigns flush with cash.

What sort of stuff are we talking about? Well, take a look at some of the specific examples.

After PAID's founding, Scialabba approached Kuchera [Bill Kuchera, chief executive of Kuchera Industries of Windber, PA] to get involved. Kuchera jumped, not only joining the group's board but ramping up hiring of disabled workers, who now compose a third of the 200 employees in his company's defense business. The federal government picked up Kuchera's $7 million training bill. This year, Murtha earmarked $1.3 million for Kuchera's chemical and biological weapons detection research.

Kuchera employees donated more than $31,000 to Murtha in the past three election campaigns, according to federal election records. Between 1990 and 2000, contributions totaled $1,000. And congressional lobbying disclosure forms tally $140,000 in payments since 2001 from Kuchera to Ervin Technical Associates, whose chairman is former representative Joseph M. McDade (R-Pa.), a close Murtha ally.

The Kuchera experience is not unique. Ed Washington, another PAID director, hails from MTS Technologies, an Arlington defense contractor that recently secured $8.9 million in federal funds to expand its Johnstown facility. MTS's lobbyist, the PMA Group, has disclosed some $300,000 in fees from the company since 1998. And PMA has returned the favor: Since 1989, the firm's employees have given Murtha $107,500.

Daniel DeVos, an honorary PAID board member, represents Concurrent Technologies, whose employees have lavished Murtha with more than $53,000 in campaign contributions and PMA with $820,000 in fees. That may sound steep, but the rewards have been substantial: a $150 million contract to operate the Navy Metalworking Center; a $4 million contract from the Army to evaluate fuel-cell systems; and $1.7 million for a weapons of mass destruction response laboratory, among others.

Seems like a tidy little system in which the industries are buying access and favors using a charitable group. Isn't that something that the Democrats accused Tom DeLay of doing, claiming it was unethical, or at least had an "appeaance of impropriety"? What about Murtha?

This ought to be the first test case for the Democrats when it comes to dealing with lobbying and ethics reform as Nancy Pelosi seeks to "drain the ethical swamp" and undo the so-called "culture of corruption" that Democrats claim has existed in Congress. But Pelosi, of course, is one of Murtha's biggest supporters and she tried to put him in a senior leadership role. Will she play favorites,or will she keep her word?

Oh, and by the way -- Murtha isn't the only member of Congress who may have improper relations with a PAID director.

Another PAID director, Jim Estep, is a central figure in an investigation of Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), a Murtha ally and fellow member of the Appropriations Committee. Estep heads the West Virginia High-Technology Consortium Foundation and the Institute for Scientific Research, two nonprofit organizations that Mollohan helped set up and has plied with federal funds.

Yes, that is the same Alan Mollohan who is under FBI investigation for using non-profit groups to benefit himself and who lied on financial disclosure forms -- and who got thrown off the Ethics Committee as a result, but who still remains on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, the better to steer contacts to his supporters and his district.

And let me say one thing clearly -- I think efforts to aid disabled individuals are important. I've witnessed first-hand the difficulties that such folks face in finding employment, even when they have the skills to do the job. I believe that organizations that assist the disabled in finding employment and encouraging employers to see past the disabilities serve a truly noble goal. I'm therefore particularly incensed that Murtha and Scialabba chose such an organization to hide their illicit pork machine.

(By the way -- you should see the squealing posts from liberals in the comments over at end of the article -- this article is seen as a betrayal and an outrage)

MORE AT: Eugene David...The One-Minute Pundit, What Happened To My Country?, Common Sense & Wonder, Blog-o-Fascists, Gun Toting Liberal, Bitsblog, Newsbusters.org

1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
3 And everyone went to his own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,
7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 "Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.
17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,
18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Well, the fine folks over at bRight & Early have created a database of blogiversaries -- the date on which bloggers began their blogs.

Not only that, they are running a contest or three!

Here they are.

HOW TO JOIN THE FUN: There are several ways to get in on the action.

1. The first way is the simplest — Add your blog to the Blogiversary Database. One of the confirmed blogs (those that follow the confirmation email sent after you submit your information) in the database at the deadline will be chosen at random. This will include all current participants and those who sign up before the deadline. How easy is that?
2. A separate random drawing will be done for the blogs who include the Blogiversary Database display code on their site. You can see a list of all the BDb blogs, separated into those who have and those who don't have the display code, here. I check the blogs fairly often, but if you think you are not on the right list please let me know. You can send an email to lakelandjim at gmail dot com.
3. The third way to win is to write a post about the Blogiversary Database. You can write what ever you want, but must include a link to the Add Your Blog page, the Blogiversary Database information page, and to this post. You should also create a trackback to this post. If your blogging software can't generate a trackback you can use Wizbang's Standalone Trackback Pinger. Those posts will also appear below.

THE DEADLINE:
The contest will run until the earlier of either 200 confirmed blogs in the database (of the 164 currently in the database 150 are confirmed), or midnight EST on Christmas New Year's Eve 12/24/2006 12/31/2006. The winners will be chosen at random in the week following the cutoff. If the 200 blog threshold is crossed before the 24th it will be announced here.

THE PRIZES:
You where waiting for this part, weren't you? Three winners will be chosen from the categories listed above. You can only win once, and will be removed from the remaining drawings. The prizes will be awarded in this order:

1. Write a Post — The winner will receive a free one month blogad.
2. Display the Code — The prize for this category is a free two week blogad.
3. Join The Database — Win a free one week blogad.

So you will notice the addition of the Blogiversary Database to my left column, right above the licensing information. Scroll down and take a look -- it is worth it, and you never know what you will find!

The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Directions on Iraq: A Blogging Colloquium (Updated) by The Glittering Eye, and The ROC by The Fourth Rail.  Here is the link to the full results of the vote. 

Here are the full tallies of all votes cast:

Congratulations to all participants in this weeks vote, especially the two winners.

And if you are interested in being nominated for the next competition, please visit The Watcher's excellent site to find out about his offer of link whorage.

Acts like these must be condemned as unequivocally at odds with the teachings of Our Savior Jesus Christ, whose birth we mark this day.

Police in Houston and Fort Bend County are investigating two incidents in which Jewish holiday decorations were vandalized.

Investigators do not know if the cases are related but the regional director of the Houston Anti-Defamation League, Martin Cominsky, said he is concerned about the incidents.

"Our hope is that the spirit of the holiday won't get destroyed and that people will understand that we are trying to create a community of respect and destroying other's religious symbols is not the model for that," Cominsky said today.

Cominsky said it is not unusual to have vandalism against holiday and religious decorations.

"Nativity scenes are sometimes destroyed," he said.

"I am concerned that any individual would try to destroy the religious symbol of another," Cominsky said.

The latest incident happened about 9 p.m. Sunday in the 5100 block of Loch Lomond in Meyerland at the home of Brian Cweren .

Cweren said he heard a noise coming from the front yard and looked outside and saw his inflatable menorah had been deflated and was on the ground.

A surveillance camera installed by Cweren captured an image of a man getting out of a Chevrolet Tahoe and walking onto the front yard. The man used something to puncture the menorah then jumped into the Tahoe and sped away.

Cweren said he called police and while he was on the phone the man returned and punctured an inflatable bear.

The man escaped before officers arrived.

Meanwhile, the Fort Bend County Sheriff's office is trying to determine who destroyed a plastic menorah at the entrance of the Lakewind subdivision in the New Territory development.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Terriann Carlson said the incident was reported about 10:45 a.m. Sunday at Homeward Way and Kendall Creek.

A menorah made from plastic pipe and adorned with lights had been smashed, Carlson said.

Police do not know if the two incidents are connected but Carlson said Fort Bend investigators will touch base with Houston police.

Cominsky said the incident in New Territory comes one year after some Jewish residents were frustrated because the neighborhood's holiday decorations only include Christmas items.

"And so a resident appealed to the homeowner's association (this year) and got permission to put up this menorah," Cominsky said.

As I Christian, I offer my solidarity in anger and offense at these acts of violation of symbols of the Jewish faith. It is my sincere hope that the perpetrators are caught and brought to justice quickly for these unacceptable acts.

And may my many Jewish friends, acquaintances, and readers be blessed by God during this holy season, and my they recognize that they and their faith are held in great esteem by the overwhelming majority of Christians.

Good grief -- they only needed to ask anyone who has taught English in the last half-dozen years or so. Or any teacher, for that matter, because we all have experienced it. Our kids want to use abbreviations, shorthand, and sentence fragments because that is what they are most comfortable and experienced with writing. That's how they IM and text message!

But now we do have confirmation from "journalists" of what those of us who actually work with students already knew -- which makes it "news" and therefore unquestionably true (because after all, would reporters every lie to you?). How long until we get the over-priced longitudinal study of student writing by researchers with the "proper academic credentials" to "prove" what we already know?

Zoe Bambery, a senior at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, might send more than 100 instant messages -- IMs -- during a typical evening. So during the SAT exam, the 18-year-old found herself inadvertently lapsing into IM-speak, using "b/c" instead of "because" as she scrambled to finish her essay.

She caught herself and now is careful to proofread before hitting print. But she is hardly the only student to find IM phrases creeping into school work.

"They are using it absolutely everywhere," said Sara Goodman, an English teacher at Clarksburg High School in Montgomery County who has worn out many purple and red markers circling the offending phrases in papers and tests.

Wendy Borelli, a seasoned English teacher at Springbrook High in Silver Spring, finds photo captions for the school yearbook sprinkled with shorthand such as "B4" and "nite." A student who left on a brief errand to the office announced he would "BRB."

In 2004, 16 million teenagers used instant messages to communicate, up from 13 million in 2000, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Students say IM language has become so ubiquitous they often do not realize they have lapsed into it.

"It's just natural. I had to learn not to do it" in papers, ChiChi Aniebonam, 17, said about her proficiency in IM. "I'm in AP literature, where you just can't put it into your writing, but when I'm writing something informal, now and again I use it."

And these are the top students -- you can only imagine how much more prevalent these issues are with average students who want to get academic tasks done with as little mental or physical exertion as possible and therefore avoid formal reading and writing whenever possible ("Mr. RWR -- You mean you actually read books for fun? Really?").

Then again, English is a constantly evolving language, as comparisons between books written today and those written before WWII (not to mention in earlier periods) will amply demonstrate. Sentence structure, voice, and vocabulary all have changed again and again -- and so I can only expect it will do so in the future. The question is one of how far we and future generations will allow the informality to progress without calling a halt to what some would call the debasement of the English language.

This Christmas day finds yet another front against the forces of the Anti-Christ jihadi terror -- this one involving Somali Islamists fighting against the legitimate Somali government and neighboring Ethiopia

Ethiopian fighter jets bombed Somalia's main airport Monday, the first direct attack on the city that serves as the headquarters of an Islamic movement attempting to wrest power from the internationally recognized government. Another airport also was hit nearby.

Russian-made jets swept low over the capital at midmorning, dropping two bombs on Somalia's main airport, which recently reopened after the Islamic takeover of Mogadishu. An Associated Press reporter who arrived shortly after the strike saw one wounded woman taken away. The runway and one building used by the Islamic forces were damaged.

Shortly afterward, Baledogle Airport, about 60 miles outside Mogadishu, was hit, an Islamic soldier said. There were no reliable casualty reports available for either attack.

"The Ethiopian government is bombing non-civilian targets in Somalia in order to disable and prevent the delivery of arms and supplies to the Islamic courts," said Bereket Simon, an adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Ethiopia and the Somali government have long accused the Islamic council of recruiting foreign fighters into its ranks.

The Ethiopian attacks have the support of the legitimate Somali government, which has long accused the Islamists of being reinforced by foreign jihadis, and the bombings were intended to keep the Islamist forces from being re-supplied.

For their part, the Islamists have had the following to say about the attack.

The Somalia Islamic Courts Council's (SICC) Web site hailed "mujahideen" troops who, it said, chanted passages from the Koran as they went into battle against militarily superior Ethiopian "crusaders".

So let there be no question about who and what the SICC is, and why they seek to destroy the legitimate Somali government (which is secular) and Christian Ethiopia.

MORE AT Tammy Bruce & Liberty Papers

James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a giant of R&B and an inspiration for rap, funk and disco, died early Christmas morning. He was 73. Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Copsidas said the cause of death was uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said. Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style. "He was an innovator, he was an emancipator, he was an originator. Rap music, all that stuff came from James Brown," entertainer Little Richard, a longtime friend of Brown's, told MSNBC. "A great treasure is gone." If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator.

And To All A Good Night!

Greg and Paula wish each and every one of you all the blessings and joy that come with Christmas and the birth of Our Saviour Jesus.

Houston Texans: 27
Indianapolis Colts: 24

It only took five full seasons, but the Houston Texans have FINALLY beaten the Indianapolis Colts!

It doesn't take a Heisman Trophy winner to run through the Colts' defense. But on Sunday it certainly made it easier.

Ron Dayne, who won the award in 1999, had a career-high 153 yards rushing and two touchdowns, and Kris Brown kicked the winning 48-yard field goal as time expired, giving the Houston Texans their first win over Indianapolis, 27-24.

The loss denied the AFC South champions the chance to clinch a first-round playoff bye.

It was the first time Dayne had gained 100 yards since September 2001 with the Giants.

The Texans (5-10) used Dayne and rookie Chris Taylor to eat up the clock and exploit the Colts' suspect run defense, ranked last in the NFL, while taking pressure off David Carr and the struggling passing game. The win broke a nine-game losing streak to the Colts (11-4).

It was, to say the least, a fantastic game -- and one I am glad not to have missed.

But will there be any significant punishment of those who attacked Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist and prevented his speech? And will the new procedures for permitting outside speakers on campus simply be a fig-leaf to prevent those from a conservative point-of-view from being permitted to speak at all?

Columbia University said yesterday that it had notified students involved in disrupting a program of speakers in early October that they were being charged with violating rules of university conduct governing demonstrations. The university did not disclose the number of students charged with violations.

Columbia’s president, Lee C. Bollinger, announced the disciplinary proceedings in a letter to the university community yesterday that was also released publicly. But he said he would not provide further details because of federal rules governing student privacy.

The charges will be heard next semester by the deans of the individual schools the students are enrolled in. Possible sanctions include disciplinary warning, censure, suspension and dismissal.

Mr. Bollinger noted that as president, he is also the “final avenue of appeal for those found to be in violation of University Rules.”

The disrupted program, sponsored by a campus Republican group on Oct. 4, featured speakers from the Minuteman Project, which opposes illegal immigration and has mounted civilian border patrols.

The ambiguity of the statement concerns me, though -- were those who were charged the individuals who rushed the stage to break-up the speech? Or did the Columbia charge those who defended the speaker and freedom of speech? Is that why Bollinger hides behind privacy law in refusing to disclose the number of students charged, or even what the charges are?

But beyond that, I'm troubled by the ambiguity in this part of the statement.

Mr. Bollinger said the university would tighten rules governing all student events, and require advance agreements about how events will be staged and who from outside Columbia will be allowed to attend.

In light of the failure of Columbia University officials to invite Gilchrist back, and previous actions antithetical to free speech and open inquiry, I fear this means that onerous burdens will be placed on those conservative groups that seek to invite "controversial" (read that "mainstream conservative") speakers because of the actions of PC Brown Shirts, while letting liberal speakers on with few restrictions because conservative believe in freedom of speech.

I was discussing this issue with my favorite congresswoman just the other evening. I can't believe we both seem to generally agree with the New York Times!

In 1996, Congress ordered immigration officials to create a system to track everyone who enters the country and everyone who leaves. That sensible directive lay on a back burner until 9/11. The Department of Homeland Security then hastened to set up the U.S. Visit program, which requires people to be photographed and fingerprinted at ports of entry for checking against databases of terrorists and other undesirables.

That system has been running since 2004, and has plucked hundreds of bad people from the huge visitor stream without horribly disrupting tourism and business travel. But news came last week that the other half of the program — monitoring foreign travelers when they leave — has been abandoned.

The Homeland Security Department had hoped to begin tracking departures at the 50 busiest land border crossings by next December. But it has given up meeting that deadline after deciding that the cost — including time lost in long lines at the borders — would be prohibitive. Part of the problem is technological: tracking methods that would work are too expensive.

The Government Accountability Office, echoing the Bush administration’s conclusions, said that a cost-effective departure system may not emerge for five to 10 years. And so, after spending $1.7 billion since 2003 on the U.S. Visit program, the administration will keep doing what it has been doing at the nation’s land exits, which is basically nothing.

It’s good to know who’s leaving the country — and who isn’t. About a third of illegal immigrants are believed to be those who entered lawfully but stayed after their visas expired. Some of the 9/11 hijackers were in this group. Hunting such people down is not even theoretically possible until you know whom you are looking for.

Of course, the formerly great newspaper then turns the corner into another in a never-ending series of Bush-bashing rants about the Iraq war and cutting taxes, but the overall point is correct -- we cannot control the borders until we know who is entering and leaving, and that won't come cheap. But then again, national security is one of the few legitimate things for the federal government to be spending money on, according to the Constitution.

A school district decides to actually call the breaks at Christmas and Easter Christmas Break and Easter break instead of some sanitized nonsense.

And so a PC weenie decides to protest --"> by lighting himself on fire.

A man used flammable liquid to light himself on fire, apparently to protest a San Joaquin Valley school district's decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacation.

The man, who was not immediately identified, on Friday also set fire to a Christmas tree, an American flag and a revolutionary flag replica, said Fire Captain Garth Milam.

Seeing the flames, Sheriff's Deputy Lance Ferguson grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the man.

Flames were devouring a Christmas tree next to the Liberty Bell, where public events and demonstrations are common.

Beside the tree the man stood with an American flag draped around his shoulders and a red gas can over his head.

Seeing the deputy, the man poured the liquid over his head. He quickly burst into flames when the fumes from the gas met the flames from the tree.

The deputy ordered the man to drop to the ground as he and a parole agent sprayed him with fire extinguishers.

''The man stood there like this,'' the deputy said with his arms across his chest and his head bent down, ''Saying no, no, no.''

The man suffered first degree burns on his shoulders and arms, Milam said.

Kern County Sheriff's Deputy John Leyendecker said the man had a sign that read: ''(expletive) the religious establishment and KHSD.''

On Thursday, the Kern High School Board of Trustees voted to use the names Christmas and Easter instead of winter and spring breaks.

I'm sorry -- the only thing incindiary about the school district's decision was the inane response of this religious bigot. And yet somehow, I doubt we will hear many folks criticize his actions, because he was acting in the service of a politically correct agenda. If, on the other hand, this had been a Christian protesting a decision to close for a Muslim or Jewish or Hindu holiday, we would hear all about bigotry and xenophobia from those who play the identity politics card.

This double standard was noted in a comment on another site I frequent in a different context.

I think it's funny that someone who doesn't like Muslims is called a racist, but someone who can't stand Christians isn't.

Not funny "haha", more like funny "hmmmmm".

Indeed.

Here''s hoping that when he gets out of the hospital, this flamer faces charges for unsafe public burning, arson, and destruction of public property.

He may be of the wrong party and a carpet-bagger to boot, but I must wish my soon-to-be Congressman, Nick Lampson, a full and speedy recovery following his angioplasty at the hospital just down the road.

U.S. Rep.-elect Nick Lampson underwent an angioplasty procedure to open a blocked vessel in his heart this afternoon and is expected to be discharged from the hospital Saturday.

"He's doing great — laughing and joking about getting out of Christmas shopping," said Lampson family friend Dave Matthiesen, a Houston-based attorney who had just visited with Lampson and his wife in the Congressman's private room at St. John's Hospital. "He's looking forward to getting up to Washington Jan. 4 to begin his term in Congress."

Lampson, D-Stafford, first went to the hospital Thursday night after complaining of illness at a friend's party. Doctors at St. John's Hospital in Nassau Bay ran tests on Lampson that night and today. During a routine angiography test around 3 p.m., doctors confirmed earlier tests that had indicated a blockage in a one vessel and decided to go ahead with the angioplasty.

Cardiologist Ghyath Samman performed the procedure by inserting a wire-mesh stent, placed on a balloon, into Lampson's vessel and inflating it to remove the blockage. Lampson was awake and alert throughout the procedure and is expected to make a full recovery, Samman said.

Samman added that Lampson should follow a low-cholesterol diet, but otherwise the congressman's activities will not be restricted.

Lampson had an angiography test several years ago, but this is the first time he has had an angioplasty procedure, Matthiesen said. The congressman has no other history of heart problems, he said.

"I think he's healthy as a horse," Matthiesen said.

I hope that last statement is true, because I draw a sharp line between political opposition and personal animus. I hope and pray that Lampson will serve out the next two years in Congress in good health.

So get well, Nick -- but understand that I and my fellow Republicans are working to ensure that you will be job-hunting two years from now.

(A little geography FYI for those not from the Houston area -- Christus St. John's hospital is directly across the street from Johnson Space Center, and about half a mile from the hotel where Clara Harris parked an SUV on her cheating husband several years back.)

UPDATE: Does this article from the Houston Chronicle confuse you -- given it was posted at 8:37 PM on Saturday night?

U.S. Rep.-elect Nick Lampson was discharged from the hospital Sunday morning, two days after undergoing an angioplasty procedure to open a blocked vessel in his heart.

Is there information we are not being told? Was Lampson readmitted following his release? Did Chronicle reporter Alexis Grant "phone in" the story hours before it happened? Or is this just sloppy reporting/editting by the local paper,confusing Saturday with Sunday?

But corrupt Prosecutor Mike Nifong has still left two heavy-duty felony charges in place, even after dismissing the rape charges because the alleged victim suddenly can't recall if she was ever penetrated by a penis -- regardless of her earlier versions of the story of her alleged assault.

Prosecutors dropped rape charges Friday against three Duke University lacrosse players accused of attacking a woman who had been hired to strip at a team party, but the three still face counts of kidnapping and sexual assault.

District Attorney Mike Nifong faxed a copy of the notice of dismissal to defense attorneys on Friday at 11:45 a.m. EST. The move took defense attorneys by surprise

In a news conference Friday afternoon, lawyers for the three players called on Nifong to drop the other charges as well, saying there is no evidence that their clients kidnapped or assaulted the woman in any way.

Nifong did not immediately return calls seeking comment about the dismissal.

The mere lack of evidence or a credible accuser, however, was not enough to get Nifong to dismiss all charges. Neither was the disclosure of prosecutorial misconduct on his part last week. And his actions still leave these young men facing a potential 20 years in prison. So Nifong tried to hide the story in by announcing it just before lunch on the Friday before Christmas, in the hopes that the disintegration of his case would be missed by the press.

The Washington Post's Andrew Cohen believes, as I do, that this ultimately bodes ill for Nifong's case.

There are two ways to digest today's big news about the dismissal of rape charges against the Duke lacrosse students. You can say that a very weak case against the three defendants has just gotten measurably weaker, which makes it almost non-existent. Or you can say that by getting rid of the rape charge, the prosecutor, and presumbly his complaining witness, now can move forwad on more solid legal and factual ground. While I think there is some truth to Option B, I'm going with Option A.

Why? Because whatever shred of credibility the alleged victim had-- whatever residual confidence people may have had in her story until now-- is now lost. If the woman is now unsure she was raped why should anyone believe her beyond a reasonable dobut going forward that she was sexually assaulted-- touched in a way short of rape? I think this likely loss of credibility will more than offset the fact that the prosecution's case, without rape, is much easier to prove against any or all of the three defendants. For them, Christmas came a few days early.

The dismissal documents may be found here.

Indeed, Nifong may be on the hook for criminal and or civil misconduct -- having possibly acted in a fashion that overcomes the presumption that he is immune from damages.

Great covrage at Durham Wonderland and LaShawn Barber.

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UPDATE: The New York Times has this great piece on the ongoing disintegration of the case.

Except for the fact that the Jews were innocent of anything other than being Jews and were murdered for that, and border-jumping immigration criminals are guilty of violating American sovereignty and are simply being sent back to their homelands, immigration raids are exactly like Nazi persecution of the Jews!!!

U.S. Hispanic groups and activists on Thursday called for a moratorium on workplace raids to round up illegal immigrants, saying they were reminiscent of Nazi crackdowns on Jews in the 1930s.

They accused the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement of "racial profiling," or selective enforcement against Hispanics, for arresting 1,300 workers on immigration violations in December 12 raids at meatpacking plants in six states.

"We are demanding an end to these immigration raids, where they are targeting brown faces. That is major, major racial profiling, and that cannot be tolerated," said Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, at a news conference.

"This unfortunately reminds me of when Hitler began rounding up the Jews for no reason and locking them up," Democratic Party activist Carla Vela said. "Now they're coming for the Latinos, who will they come for next?"

Such claims are nothing less than Holocaust denial on the part of advocates for immigration criminals. Every American, regardless of religion, race, or ethnicity, should stand up and denounce LULAC, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials for daring to spew such falsehoods.

And might I add this note.

Round 'em up! Ship 'em back! Rawhide!

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Not, of course, that the 1979 hostage-taking hadn't already created a de facto state of war between our two countries. But now we have, as a matter of fact and law, confirmation of an additional act of war by Iran against the United States.

The Iranian government is partly to blame for a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth allows the families of the victims of the Khobar Towers bombing to seek $254 million in compensation from the conservative Islamic regime in Tehran.

Though intelligence officials have suspected a link between the Tehran government and the Saudi wing of Hezbollah, which the FBI has accused of carrying out the bombing, Friday's ruling is the first time a branch of the U.S. government has officially blamed Iran for the deaths of Americans in the bombings.

''This court takes note of plaintiffs' courage and steadfastness in pursuing this litigation and their efforts to take action to deter more tragic suffering of innocent Americans at the hands of terrorists,'' Lamberth wrote. ''Their efforts are to be commended.''

Lamberth relied heavily on testimony by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who investigated the bombings.

Two Iranian government security agencies and senior members of the Iranian government itself provided funding, training and logistical help to terrorists who carried out the attack on a dormitory that housed U.S. Air Force pilots and staff in Saudi Arabia, Freeh testified.

This unprovoked attack on American military personnel constitutes an act of war by Iran. There is therefore no need to await sanctions or any other action by the international community -- BOMB IRAN NOW!

More at Right on the Right & Stop the ACLU

That is what it sounds like, if you consider this aspect of his new book.

We know what happens when the right of Jews to exist is denied, but Carter has forgotten. The "Historical Chronology" at the beginning of his book starts with Abraham and grows more detailed in modern times. But between 1939 and 1947 there is . . . nothing!

In the text, the history of Jewish suffering is accorded five lines, and the Holocaust is barely mentioned in passing. But as both Hanukkah and Christmas remind us, Jews are history's most persecuted people, and Israel, where we started, is our last, best refuge. Carter's bizarre book is a poisoned holiday gift for Jews and Christians, and a danger to Jews throughout the world.

You read that right -- Carter leaves the Holocaust out of the history of the Jewish People in his book, and only briefly alludes to it. I guess he has joined Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and David Duke (as well as my recently-banned Troll, KKKen Hoop) in viewing the Holocaust as a hoax. After all, how else does one explain the omission of the greatest evil of Carter's lifetime from a book in which he indicts the victims for the offense of genocide?

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Since when is it part of the American political tradition to treat the selection of a new Speaker of the House like it is a presidential inauguration -- or a royal coronation?

On a scale associated with presidential inaugurations, Nancy Pelosi is planning four days of celebration surrounding her Jan. 4 swearing-in as the first female speaker of the House. She will return to the blue-collar Baltimore neighborhood where she grew up, attend Mass at the women's college where she studied political science, and dine at the Italian Embassy as Tony Bennett sings "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."

But the hoopla is more than just a party.

Pelosi is grabbing the moment to present herself as the new face of the Democratic Party and to restore the party's image as one hospitable to ethnic minorities, families, religion, the working class and women.

"This is important strategic repositioning," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who teaches political communication and rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania. "Essentially, she's trying to embody the Democratic Party that she would like to offer the nation in 2008."

In her meticulous selection of events and venues during a week when she expects to attract media attention from as far away as Australia, Pelosi is clearly trying to bury the label "San Francisco liberal" that Republicans tried to affix to her during the midterm elections.

" 'San Francisco liberal' is a construct used very effectively for a long time by Republicans," Jamieson said. "It's a little like 'Taxachusetts.' It's telegraphic and very powerful. They haven't been able to get her identified with it because, to this point, a lot of people didn't know who she was. She's trying to position a counterimage before she gets well known."

Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman, said the four-day celebration befits a historic moment in American politics. "We've never had a woman speaker before," Daly said. "This is a big deal."

Now I'll concede that there were two days of Gingrich-oriented activities in 1995, but they were political events filled with speeches and were related to policy and governance, not celebration and revelry. It was a celebration of ideals and ideas, not of Gingrich. Pelosi, on the other hand, is creating NancyFest. maybe that is because the Democrats are bankrupt when it comes to idea.

In recent years, career politicians like John McCain have decided that the First Amendment is inconvenient, irrelevant, and obsolete, and have been responsible for numerous laws designed to strangle political participation by anyone other than politicians by seeking to muzzle individuals and groups that might be critical of elected officials or encourage public participation in the political process.

Now one federal appellate court has loosened at least one of those restrictions.

A divided three-judge court ruled yesterday that ads advocating for an issue and mentioning candidates can run during an election, creating a loophole in the law that sought to control the power of big money in elections.

In a 2 to 1 ruling, the court found that the government had no compelling justification to regulate television ads such as the ones Wisconsin Right to Life Inc. broadcast in July 2004, which advocated stopping congressional filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees.

The ads ran when Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) was running for reelection and had opposed some of Bush's nominees. The ads made no mention of Feingold's record, instead urging Wisconsin residents to call their senators to express their dissatisfaction.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, joined by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge David B. Sentelle, agreed with Wisconsin Right to Life that ads such as theirs merely advocate a position without trying to criticize the record of a particular candidate.

The ads are not targeted "electioneering communications" and should not be burdened by the reporting requirements of the federal campaign finance law, Leon wrote.

The ruling was a key victory for Wisconsin Right to Life, which had sued the Federal Election Commission on the grounds that it had infringed on the group's constitutional right to free speech.

Needless to say, i believe this decision to be a step in the right direction -- though one which is clearly only a baby-step towards restoring political speech to its proper level of constitutional protection. After all, the court in this case clearly failed to apply a relevant portion of the United States Constitution in making this decision.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Now I realize that some might find the phrase "no law" ambiguous, arguing that "no law" means "any damn law they please" abridging freedom of speech or the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances. However, your average American, both now and at the time the First Amendment was ratified, has always understood that the First Amendment is intended to protect the right of the American people to be involved in the political process and to be free of government limitation and regulation when it comes to such political speech. I'm therefore pleased by this incremental restoration of a fundamental American liberty.

After all, how else can you explain a major American paper giving front page coverage to a report about what portions of the infrastructure of a major American city are most vulnerable to a terrorist attack?

An analysis done for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says that the PATH train tunnels under the Hudson River are more vulnerable to a bomb attack than previously thought, and that a relatively small amount of high explosives could cause significant flooding of the rail system within hours.

The analysis, based on work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, revises some critical aspects of an assessment of the system’s vulnerability that was presented to the agency last spring. It makes clear that the tunnels — four tubes of varying design and sturdiness that stretch across the Hudson riverbed — are structurally more fragile than first thought.

A draft summary of the most recent analysis was given to The New York Times by a government official who was troubled by what the official felt was a lack of action in response to the analysis, which the official said the Port Authority got about three weeks ago. The official said the latest analysis indicates that it would take only six minutes for one of the PATH tubes to flood if a significant but not necessarily very large bomb were detonated.

Oh, yes -- once again we get the "anonymous public official with an axe to grind" giving the New York Times sensitive documents that the enemy can use to thwart our efforts to prevent terrorist attacks. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm coming to believe that the Grey Lady has put on a burqa and begun actively aiding the jihadi terrorists in their efforts to harm America.

And even if one wishes to be charitable and presume that this formerly great newspaper is not intent upon assisting our nation's enemies and abetting another terrorist attack on New York City, one still has to question the editorial decisions that go into the publication of such information. In particular, we need to start questioning the use of anonymous sources. I understand that there might be legitimate reasons for withholding the names of sources from time to time, but the current practice of obscuring identities and thereby rendering the public less-able to determine the credibility and motivation of such sources is troubling, to say the least.

Of course, the NY Times benefits from publishing material that helps America's enemies in at least two ways. First, it makes people think it is still a great newspaper standing up to the government. Second, it makes it quite certain that the NY Times offices will not be a target of any future terrorist attack -- because why would al-Qaeda attack its own military intelligence network?

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I once believed that Jimmy Carter was the most decent -- and least competent -- president of my lifetime. Sadly, only the latter judgment now stands in light of the despicable book he has recently published, a work that can only be labeled as anti-Semitic.

Now we find out a possible motivation -- Jimmy Carter has been beholden to Arab and Muslim money for his personal financial prosperity, as well as the ongoing support of his Carter Center. And these connections date back to the earliest days of his failed presidency.

Between 1976-1977, the Carter family peanut business received a bailout in the form of a $4.6 million, "poorly managed" and highly irregular loan from the National Bank of Georgia (NBG). According to a July 29, 1980 Jack Anderson expose in The Washington Post, the bank's biggest borrower was Mr. Carter, and its chairman at that time was Mr. Carter's confidant, and later his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Bert Lance.

At that time, Mr. Lance's mismanagement of the NBG got him and the bank into trouble. Agha Hasan Abedi, the Pakistani founder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), known as the bank "which would bribe God," came to Mr. Lance's rescue making him a $100,000-a-year consultant. Abedi then declared: "we would never talk about exploiting his relationship with the president." Next, he introduced Mr. Lance to Saudi billionaire Gaith Pharaon, who fronted for BCCI and the Saudi royal family. In January 1978, Abedi paid off Mr. Lance's $3.5 million debt to the NBG, and Pharaon secretly gained control over the bank.

Mr. Anderson wrote: "Of course, the Saudis remained discretely silent... kept quiet about Carter's irregularities... [and] renegotiated the loan to Carter's advantage."

There is no evidence that the former president received direct payment from the Saudis. But "according to... the bank files, [it] renegotiated the repayment terms... savings... $60,000 for the Carter family... The President owned 62% of the business and therefore was the largest beneficiary." Pharaon later contributed generously to the former president's library and center.

When Mr. Lance introduced Mr. Carter to Abedi, the latter gave $500,000 to help the former president establish his center at Emory University. Later, Abedi contributed more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects. Even after BCCI was indicted — and convicted -— for drug money laundering, Mr. Carter accepted $1.5 million from Abedi, his "good friend."

Such a connection is clearly scandalous, carrying with it an appearance of impropriety if not an actual impropriety in the dealing of preferential treatment to Carter and his family.

And the financial connections continue with the founding and support of the Carter Center.

Carter is a major recipient of aid from the Saudis, for instance. Before his death in 2005, King Fahd was a longtime contributor to the Carter Center and gave Carter several million-dollar donations. In 1993 alone, King Fahd presented Carter with a gift of $7.6 million. And the king was definitely not alone in his largesse. As of 2005, the king’s high-living nephew, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has donated at least $5 million to the Carter Center...that we know about.

The Saudi Fund for Development, the kingdom’s leading loan organization and one of the sources of money for all those hardline mosques and madrassahs shows up repeatedly on the Carter center’s list of supporters. Carter has also taken money from the Bin Laden family - in 2000 he secured a pledge from the bin-Laden family for a $1 million contribution to his center.

Another big source of funds for Carter has been the United Arab Emirates. In 2001, Carter went to Dubai - a country where Jews are not permitted by law, incidentally - to accept the Zayed International Prize for the Environment, named for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the late UAE sheik and founder of the government funded Zayed Center, the source of some of the most virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda in the world. Among other things, the Zayed Center took a book written by a French author claiming that 9/11 was an inside job by the CIA and the Mossad, translated into Arabic and distributed it throughout the entire Middle East. And the Zayed Center is a prime benefactor and host to Holocaust deniers of all persuasions.

Carter got a $500,000 prize from these people, and when he spoke at the awards ceremony,he gushed that the "award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahyan."

Carter still receives an annual personal stipend from the Zayed Center.

Carter's book has been panned by most reviewers -- indeed, the only positive reviews I have read have come to me from my former troll, KKKen Hoop (whose rampant anti-Semitism and general hate-mongering finally got him banned). Carter, of course, complains that this is due to the influence of Israel and Jews in American politics and publishing. Indeed, Carter claims that he is just seeking to promote debate on the issue of Israel and the Palestinians, and that no college or university with a large Jewish enrollment will invite him to speak.

The former complaint, of course, is an anti-Semitic canard of long-standing -- and the latter is a lie.

Which brings us to Alan Dershowitz's piece in today's Boston Globe, challenging Carter on his refusal to debate the issues he raises after being invited to do so by Brandeis University, a school founded by Jews with a high concentration of Jewish students.

When Larry King referred to my review several times to challenge Carter, Carter first said I hadn't read the book and then blustered, "You know, I think it's a waste of my time and yours to quote professor Dershowitz. He's so obviously biased, Larry, and it's not worth my time to waste it on commenting on him." (He never did answer King's questions.)

The next week Carter wrote a series of op-eds bemoaning the reception his book had received. He wrote that his "most troubling experience" had been "the rejection of [his] offers to speak" at "university campuses with high Jewish enrollment." The fact is that Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz had invited Carter to come to Brandeis to debate me, and Carter refused. The reason Carter gave was this: "There is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."

As Carter knows, I've been to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, many times -- certainly more times than Carter has been there -- and I've written three books dealing with the subject of Middle Eastern history, politics, and the peace process. The real reason Carter won't debate me is that I would correct his factual errors. It's not that I know too little; it's that I know too much.

In other words, Carter finds it necessary to resort to lies and slander to discredit his opponents. What he really wants is a free platform to lecture Jews about the evils of the Jews, free from rebuttal by a Jew. I agree with the assessment Dershowitz makes of Carter's refusal of an offer that meets his earlier criteria -- he is a bully who is afraid of anyone who might stand up to him and his lies and distortions.

And I'll take it a step further -- he is afraid that his disgraceful sell-out of an American ally will be exposed, and that the world will see that there is really little difference between his views of Israel and Jews and those of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and David Duke.

This split within the Orthodox Churches is quite sad.

Rival groups of monks wielding crowbars and sledgehammers clashed Wednesday over control of a 1,000-year-old monastery in a community regarded as the cradle of Orthodox Christianity, police said.

Seven monks were injured and taken by boat to receive medical treatment. They were released after several hours. No one was arrested, but three monks were banned from re-entering the Orthodox sanctuary of Mount Athos, on a self-governing peninsula in northern Greece.

Esphigmenou monastery is the scene of a long-running dispute between Orthodox Church authorities and rebel monks who occupy the site. Both Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, leader of the Orthodox Christian church, and Greece's highest administrative court have ordered their eviction, but the monks refuse to budge.

The rebel monks vehemently oppose efforts to improve relations between the Orthodox Church and the Vatican.

The fighting broke out between the rebel monks and a group of legally recognized monks.

The outsiders attempted to force their way into the monastery's offices in Karyes, the administrative center, to begin construction of a new building. The occupying monks attacked them with crowbars and fire extinguishers.

Esphigmenou's rebel abbot, Methodius, said his monks were provoked.

"We were attacked and had to respond," he said. "They should be ashamed to call themselves men of the cloth."

In October, a court in the nearby city of Thessaloniki handed down two-year suspended sentences against nine monks and former monastery members for illegally occupying Esphigmenou's offices.

A pity that the rebel monks show neither submission to the leaders of their church nor charity towards their fellow Christians.

And in light of the conference held by the Madman of Teheran, I think it is important to take note.

Local Muslim leaders lit candles yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate Jewish suffering under the Nazis, in a ceremony held just days after Iran had a conference denying the genocide.

American Muslims "believe we have to learn the lessons of history and commit ourselves: Never again," said Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, standing before the eternal flame flickering from a black marble base that holds dirt from Nazi concentration camps.

Around the hexagonal room, candles glimmered under the engraved names of the death camps: Chelmno. Auschwitz-Birkenau. Majdanek.

"We stand here with three survivors of the Holocaust and my great Muslim friends to condemn this outrage in Iran," said Sara J. Bloomfield, the museum's director, addressing a bank of TV cameras in the room, known as the Hall of Remembrance.

The museum, she noted, holds "millions of pieces of evidence of this crime."

This is a moving and inspiring article. I encourage you to take a look.

Once again putting the lie to the idea that border-jumping immigration criminals are not taking jobs away from American workers.

The line of applicants hoping to fill jobs vacated by undocumented workers taken away by immigration agents at the Swift & Co. meat-processing plant earlier this week was out the door Thursday.

Among them was Derrick Stegall, who carefully filled out paperwork he hoped would get him an interview and eventually land him a job as a slaughterer. Two of his friends had been taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and he felt compelled to fill their rubber boots.

"Luckily, they had no wives or family they left behind. But it was still sad. They left their apartments filled with all their stuff. I took two dogs one of them had. The other guy had a cat I gave to my sister," he said.

Greg Bonifacio heard about the job openings on television and brought his passport, his Colorado driver's license, his Social Security card and even a color photograph of himself as a young Naval officer to prove his military service.

"I don't want to hassle with any identification problems because of my last name," said Bonifacio, a 59- year-old Thornton resident of Filipino heritage.

I'd lay odds that you would find a similar reality in each and every community where these raids took place -- American citizens lining up out the door for good jobs that they need and want to do.

American jobs.

American workers.

They go good together -- when those workers are not aced out by those who violate our nation's laws -- and sovereignty.

As a rule, I don't remove posts. Instead I update them and annotate them and admit to errors and changed opinions.

However, I've never gone quite so far beyond the pale in attacking another blogger -- especially given my later change of heart about the blogger in question as a writer and as a human being. My negative views of a year ago modified over the course of several months to an attitude of respect, and I had reached out to her -- but had never given a thought to taking down this post due to my longstanding policy of not deleting posts. That was a misjudgment on my part.

Debbie recently contacted me expressing her dismay at what I had written and a comment I had not realized had been left here and which should have been deleted due to its content. I deleted the comment, and further discussion has led me to recognize that the post in question should not remain on the blog. Not because it reflects poorly on me, but rather because it reflects poorly on her. Leaving a post of the former sort is appropriate and an exercise in humbling the soul; leaving one of the latter sort is to perpetuate an injustice.

Debbie, you have my apology -- and my respect for the way in which you approached me privately after I had wronged you publicly. I know that my words here are not much, but I offer them to you in a spirit of regret and contrition for the offense I have given.

The Madman of Teheran now prophesies for his false god.

"The oppressive powers will disappear while the Iranian people will stay. Any power that is close to God will survive while the powers who are far from God will disappear like the pharaohs," he said Wednesday, according to Iranian news agencies.

"Today, it is the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime which are doomed to disappear as they have moved far away from the teachings of God," he said in a speech in the western town of Javanroud.

"It is a divine promise."

The time is now at hand to act against this maniac, before he has a chance to bring his nuclear plans to fruition -- if he hasn't already.

If the Supreme Court does not use this case to sharply limit -- if not completely overturn -- the Kelo decision, then private property means nothing and eminent domain will have become nothing more than a shake-down tool.

Claiming he is the victim of legalized extortion carried out under eminent domain powers, a landowner in New York is asking the Supreme Court to hear his case.

Landowner Bart Didden claims in a petition that a developer convinced the village of Port Chester, N.Y., to seize his land through eminent domain after Didden had refused to pay the developer $800,000.

As part of a 1999 redevelopment plan, the council had designated Didden's land as a "redevelopment area." This gives the council the power to condemn the property and hand it over to a developer of its choice.

Didden planned to build a CVS Pharmacy on the site, but the developer, Gregory Wasser of G&S Investors, wanted to build a Walgreens there. According to the petition, Wasser threatened to convince officials to condemn Didden's land under eminent domain if Didden did not pay him $800,000 or make him a 50 percent partner in the CVS project.

Didden says he refused the offer on Nov. 5, 2003. On Nov. 6, 2003, the village of Port Chester filed a condemnation petition to acquire the land and transfer the lease to G&S to construct a Walgreens.

Didden calls the case "extortion through the abuse of eminent domain" justified by the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. City of New London, in which the court ruled that the Fifth Amendment "takings clause" allows the government to condemn private property for redevelopment purposes.

"Essentially, the courts have ruled Kelo turns any redevelopment zone into a Constitution-free zone for property owners confronted by politically connected developers," Dana Berliner, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, said in a statement.

Frankly, we simply need to go a step further, and ban the use of eminent domain in any case where the land will leave government hands in less than 50 years -- or at least permitting land-owners and their heirs the right to repurchase their property for $1 if the land is to be turned over for private development in any time period less than half a century.

And if not, we simply need the Supreme Court to declare that private property, as understood by Americans since the founding of the Republic, no longer exists in this country.

Newsweek offers this interesting insight on the Massachusetts governor.

As a founder of the venture firm Bain Capital, he grew extremely wealthy buying troubled companies and fixing them up for profit. By 1998, he'd concluded he "had enough money" and began looking for another challenge. He found it in Salt Lake City, where the planned 2002 Olympic Games were embroiled in allegations of financial mismanagement and malfeasance. Taking charge, Romney got the Games back on track and sold himself as a Mr. Fix-it when he ran for Massachusetts governor in 2002.

Romney's aides are hoping Republican primary voters will see a pattern: here's a turnaround specialist ready to fix the party, the country and the world. "The idea is to be the fresh perspective," says one adviser, who asked to remain anonymous describing strategy for a still-unannounced campaign. "McCain is yesterday, Giuliani is today, Romney is tomorrow."

But there is also this -- McCain is unpredictable, Giuliani is liberal, and Romney is a conservative. Everyone else is simply irrelevant -- including Newt Gingrich, who simply has too much baggage to possibly win an presidential election.

Cobb County schools will no longer have the following disclaimer on their science textbooks.

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

Will someone please explain to me how that constitutes an endorsement of religion. After all, the THEORY of evolution is exactly that -- a THEORY. How does saying that it is a THEORY constitute a statement at all about religion?

After all, the study of science is supposed to be careful, open-minded, and critical regarding the evidence presented to support a theory. How does urging exactly such an approach to the THEORY of evolution constitute an endorsement of religion, not of science and the scientific method?

I guess this means that the study of science in this country must be close-minded, slip-shod, and uncritically accepting of claims based upon the authority of the majority.

James Baker was part of one sell-out of the Kurds after the Gulf War. Now his Iraq Surrender Group has proposed another sell-out by seeking to appease those who fight America at the expense of those who cooperate with America. Kurdish leader Masrour Barzani urges the United States to reject such a solution.

The Iraq Study Group's recommendations will accomplish nothing in Iraq. Its expressions of "gratitude" to those of us Iraqis who fought on the battlefield for freedom and liberty ring hollow. The report ignores our accomplishments, dreams and sacrifices in favor of a concern for those whose ultimate goal is the destruction of democracy.

Our federal constitution, which the majority of the Iraqi people voted for, is treated flippantly, as though it were a negotiable document rather than the hard-fought result of lengthy negotiation among those willing to participate in the new Iraq. Further, the study group's approach is driven by the concerns of the countries in this region rather than by the concerns of the Iraqi people.

Many Iraqis, especially the Kurds, are justifiably concerned about this. No one from the study group visited Iraqi Kurdistan, which the group admits is safe and pro-American, and where there has not been a single U.S. casualty since the war. Kurds not only fought alongside Americans but lost some of our best men to American friendly-fire incidents. Yet we staunchly support the work of the coalition and are eternally grateful for the sacrifices the American people have made for our future.

The report is right to acknowledge that part of the problem in Iraq is America's inability to distinguish friend from foe. Unfortunately, Baker-Hamilton fares even worse in this regard. This comes as little surprise, since it was partly written by those who orchestrated the saving of Saddam Hussein in 1991.

Remember -- the Kurds have steadfastly supported US efforts to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. They have paid a terrible price for those efforts, as the United States has abandoned them in the past.

Once again Kurds are about to be sold out. Should the U.S. administration adopt the recommendations of Baker-Hamilton, the Kurds will be sacrificed to protect the interests of Iraq's neighbors. We were massacred in 1975 and 1991 by Saddam Hussein because we thought that our commitment to democracy and tolerance made us natural U.S. allies. We responded then, as we did four years ago, to American calls for the introduction of a new era in the region. Like Americans, we dream of a better future for our children, one in which they can grow up without deformities caused by chemical attacks on our villages.

Baker, Hamilton, and the Iraq Surrender Group have a different vision -- negotiate with America's enemies even if that means that America's friends once again pay the price of our failure to stay the course, honor our commitments, and support our allies.

Iraq's constitution should be treasured. Iraq's neighbors should not be allowed to violate our sovereignty. Democracy and federalism are the popularly chosen basis of the new Iraq. Never again should Kurdish wealth be stolen to finance genocide against the Kurdish people.

While Kurds welcome American troops into their homes, Baker-Hamilton proposes that the United States revise its policies to meet the demands of those firing at its soldiers. According to the study group, we are all part of "a problem" that needs fixing, and we are equally unworthy of America's protection.

Don't sell us out to our authoritarian neighbors and those who are terrorizing our communities. We agreed democratically to participate in this project because we were guaranteed the rights needed to protect our people. We Kurds are asking President Bush and America to remember the sacrifices we have made to keep your loved ones safe in Iraq. We are asking you to keep a promise where those before you have failed.

We must stand by the Kurdish people, and all the peace and freedom loving Iraqis. We must finish what we started, resolute in the assurance that our course is correct and our goals are proper. If we do not, we show the world one clear truth -- the United States is not to be trusted, and American promises and commitments will not be honored when the going gets tough. In short, the decision that faces America is stark -- will we continue to be a great nation which stands with our allies, or will we simply be an impotent joke with which others ally themselves at their own peril?

Interestingly enough, the top leader of Iraqi Shiites has come out in support of US efforts to work with a coalition of Iraqi forces to isolate extremists, rather than negotiate with those who bankroll those who seek to bring down the US-backed government.

It may be that the Palestinian people are so sick of the feuding terrorist groups that dominate the Palestinian Authority that they are voting not to give their own life-blood to save them.

As gunmen spilt it and warring politicians hailed its sanctity, ordinary Palestinians showed their disgust for feuding Hamas and Fatah gunmen by refusing to donate blood.

Doctors at Gaza City’s main hospital are used to a plentiful supply of volunteers queuing up to donate blood for victims of Israeli attacks. But faced with the selfinflicted wounds of the nascent Palestinian civil war, that supply has all but dried up. “We are all frustrated and depressed,” said Dr Jumaa al-Saqqa, director of publicity at the Shifa hospital.

He said that his staff were used to treating countless victims from battles with Israeli forces. But on a day in which his hospital became a battlefield, staff were dispirited at having to treat the victims of violence between Palestinians.

“We have a shortage of blood in the bank now. During Israeli incursions hundreds of people come to donate blood but now nobody. Why give your blood? For whom? For one to kill the other? I want to just take my white coat off and go home.”

Outside, Ismail Haniya, the Islamist Prime Minister, protested that the “smallest drop of Palestinian blood is dear to us”. Yet even as he spoke, his Hamas fighters were kidnapping, killing and wounding security personnel loyal to President Abbas.

And a day after Tony Blair backed the “moderate” Mr Abbas, fighters loyal to his Fatah faction sparked the day’s violence by using an ambulance to attack a Hamas unit at Shifa Hospital, killing one Islamist policeman with a rocketpropelled grenade and injuring ten in the gunfight that ensued.This set off a wave of revenge shootings and kidnappings across northern and central Gaza. Hamas reportedly captured the Fatah gunman suspected of firing the grenade, and shot him dead, dumping his body on the street. Six gunmen were killed and dozens wounded.

Will the Palestinian people recognize that their society is dominated by thugs, criminals, and pirates and continue to reject them all? Are they prepared to let them die rather than allow the lives of more innocent Palestinians to be spilled as collateral damage in a hopeless war against Israel? Or will they start giving blood again once the victims of these terrorist factions are Jews, not each other?

In other words, is this boycott a hopeful sign for peace, or merely a temporary aberration?

And no, I don't mean Betsy Ross -- I mean the current 50-star banner that waves over our country and around the world.

I sure didn't -- until I came across this article today. The designer's name is Robert G. Heft, and the story of how he came to design the flag is sort of amusing to this teacher.

As a junior at Ohio's Lancaster High School in 1958, Heft needed a project for his American history class.

He found his calling when he came across the story of Betsy Ross, creator of the country's original flag. Armed with an idea, Heft took his family's 48-star flag and removed the blue portion of the banner.

It took him nine hours to cut out the 100 fabric stars needed to cover each side of the flag's top corner, he said. Heft went the 50-star route because of speculation that Alaska and Hawaii would become states.

Heft asked his grandmother to sew the blue section onto the flag, but she refused after realizing he'd dismantled the family's banner.

"She didn't want anything to do with it," Heft recalled.

Out of options, Heft took matters into his own hands, sewing his version of "Old Glory."

After working on the flag for 12 1/2 hours, Heft said he expected his grade to match his effort, but his teacher gave him a B-minus. Normally a quiet student, Heft said he had to confront the teacher.

"I approached him (thinking), 'Are you kidding me?' " Heft said.

After the discussion, the teacher told Heft that if he got the flag accepted nationally, he would give him an A.

Heft then sent the flag to a state representative and in 1960, his design became the country's official symbol. His teacher promptly bumped up his grade.

That sort of goes to show that a teacher never know what influence his or her words will have on a student -- and that it is important to be prepared to follow through on promises you make to students.

Heft still owns that original flag -- and speaks about his experience and patriotism to over 200 groups a year. He is working on a book about the flag and his experiences over the year.

Oh, and this July his design becomes the longest-serving flag in American history.

Not bad for a high school history project.

That is what Swift & Co,, recently hit by immigration raids in six states, appears to have done.

Former employees are suing Swift & Co. for $23 million, alleging the meatpacking company conspired to keep wages down by hiring illegal immigrants.

The 18 former employees are U.S. citizens who worked at a plant in Cactus, north of Amarillo, one of six facilities raided in a federal sweep that led to the arrests of nearly 1,300 employees and temporarily halted Swift's operations.

"These plaintiffs are ... victims in a longstanding scheme by Swift to depress and artificially lower the wages of its workers by knowingly hiring illegal workers," said their attorney, Angel Reyes.

And there seems to be a good prima facie case. After all, how do you explain the rate of pay dropping from $20 an hour to $12 an hour over the last several years, even as wage rates in this country have been rising? Simple -- get rid of those expensive Americans and replace them with cheap foreign laborers in this country illegally.

These border-jumping immigration criminals were not "doing jobs Americans won't do". No, they were (and others are) doing jobs that Americans are ready, willing, and able to do -- taking money out of the pockets and bread out of the mouths of American citizens by depressing wages in the industries in which they work.

And unethical businesses like Swift & Co. are willing participants in their crime against the American people.

I was surprised to receive my first piece of 2008 campaign literature this week.

I guess this makes him The Early Frontrunner.

Don Richardson, for those of you who don't remember, got a whopping 6% of the vote in the special election to fill the remainder of Tom DeLay's unexpired congressional term (Congresswoman Shelley Sekula Gibbs got 62%, Libertarian Bob Smither got 19% and Democrat Nick Lampson was too scared to run against a Republican who was on the ballot) and as a write-in in the general election received .28% (yeah -- that is twenty-eight one-hundredths of a percent, or 428 votes). But he's running again!

I hear that he is showing up at all the county GOP Executive Committee meetings in the district, and that he put in an appearance at Congresswoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs' recent open house in Fort Bend County.

Richardson, of course, has some problems -- including the fact that before this year it had been over a decade since he had voted Republican or participated in a GOP primary. He has yet to file his final FEC report and filed all of his earlier expenditure reports late. There is also the little issue of his having lied to the assembled precinct chairs of CD22 and his seeking a bribe from the RNC.

Needless to say, I won't be supporting Dishonorable Don Richardson.

The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are The Peace Myth by Andrew Olmsted, and The Clash of Convictions and the Remaking of the World of Wars by Winds of Change.NET.  Here are the full results of the vote.

ere are the full tallies of all votes cast:

Nancy Pelosi is out to upend the Constitution again.

Freedom of speech and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances? Only if you register with the government first, and fill out all the burdensome forms!

House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) has pledged to take up a lobbying reform proposal that would impose new regulations on speech by grassroots organizations, while providing a loophole in the rules for large corporations and labor unions.

The legislation would make changes to the legal definition of “grassroots lobbying” and require any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact their elected representatives to file a report with detailed information about their organization to the government on a quarterly basis.

The report would include identifying the organization’s expenditures, the issues focused on and the members of Congress and other federal officials who are the subject of the advocacy efforts. A separate report would be required for each policy issue the group is active on.

“Right now, grassroots groups don’t have to report at all if they are communicating with the public,” said Dick Dingman of the Free Speech Coalition, Inc. “This is an effort that would become a major attack on the 1st Amendment.”

Under the bill, communications aimed at an organization’s members, employees, officers or shareholders would be exempt from the reporting requirement. That would effectively exempt most corporations, trade associations and unions from the reporting requirements—but not most conservative grassroots groups, which frequently are less formally organized.

This bill is aimed directly at you and me, ladies and gentlemen. It is designed to quiet grassroots activists. No doubt the next move will be to apply these same measures to individual activists, including bloggers.

If one of my colleagues were doing this in class, I'd be among the first to report him.

Before David Paszkiewicz got to teach his accelerated 11th-grade history class about the United States Constitution this fall, he was accused of violating it.

Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.

“If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong,” Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.”

The student, Matthew LaClair, said that he felt uncomfortable with Mr. Paszkiewicz’s statements in the first week, and taped eight classes starting Sept. 13 out of fear that officials would not believe the teacher had made the comments.

Since Matthew’s complaint, administrators have said they have taken “corrective action” against Mr. Paszkiewicz, 38, who has taught in the district for 14 years and is also a youth pastor at Kearny Baptist Church. However, they declined to say what the action was, saying it was a personnel matter.

I'm sorry -- Paszkiewicz’s statements are out of bounds. They go well beyond an expression of opinion and into preaching.

Which is not to say there is not a proper place for the discussion of religion in a high school classroom. I teach world History, and am obliged to talk about a number of world religions. I strive to be neutral on them all, including Christianity. I do, however, find myself struggling to explain some of the finer points of Christian theology when we discuss the Reformation, because you cannot understand what it was all about without actually talking about the theological controversies that were at its heart. But I do not -- and steadfastly avoid -- preach my view of religion.

And even my fellow "extremists" on religion in the public arena agree with my view.

Even some legal organizations that often champion the expression of religious beliefs are hesitant to support Mr. Paszkiewicz.

“It’s proselytizing, and the courts have been pretty clear you can’t do that,” said John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a group that provides legal services in religious freedom cases. “You can’t step across the line and proselytize, and that’s what he’s done here.”

On the other hand, that is not to say that I wholeheartedly agree with Matthew's position on the issue.

In a Sept. 25 letter to the principal, Matthew wrote: “I care about the future generation and I do not want Mr. Paszkiewicz to continue preaching to and poisoning students.” He met with school officials and handed over the recordings.

I don't think that discussion of Christianity -- even discussion that crosses appropriate boundaries -- constitutes "poisoning students."

Still, Matthew's actions in this case are every bit as appropriate as those of students who object to the political proselytizing that goes on in the classrooms of many liberal teachers and professors. I'm pleased he stood up for what is right.

From the lips of Michelle Obama, wife of Senator Barack Obama.

"My income is pretty low compared to my peers"

How little is this impoverished waif making?

According to a tax return released by the senator this week, the promotion nearly tripled her income from the hospitals to $316,962 in 2005 from $121,910 in 2004.

By my calculation, she has seen a 260% increase in her earnings in one year -- a year in which the major change in her life was the election of her husband to the Senate. I'll let you make the decision over whether or not that is suspicious.

Oh, by the way -- her earnings in 2004 would have paid the salaries of three teachers in my school district that year, and the 2005 earnings would have paid for nearly eight. So when I hear that she is underpaid, I have very little sympathy for her. -- especially when you consider that the family income in 2005 was $1.7 million, which would pay the salaries of 42 teachers in my district.

And these are the supposed champions of the little people.

H/T American Thinker

I'm saddened by this decision by the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, but pleased by the decision of many city merchants to show greater sensitivity.

A few Fort Collins merchants are adding a Jewish menorah to their holiday displays following a decision by the city last week not to include one in the city's display.

Despite a renewed request by Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik, of the Chabad Center of Northern Colorado, the Downtown Urban Renewal Authority stuck with limiting the city's display in Old Town to nutcrackers, Christmas trees and elves.

"I showed them a video of every president lighting a menorah at the White House," said Gorelik. "It's so unfair to promote only one religion, but I don't think they reconsidered it for a moment."

This is the second year Gorelik tried and failed to sway the city.

So, on Dec. 21, as in past years, Gorelik will light a menorah in celebration of Hanukkah at the Old Town display, but after the ceremony it will be moved to a nearby pub's lighting display.

U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., will attend this year's menorah lighting.

Gorelik said more than a dozen other Fort Collins businesses and a school have called him about putting a menorah in their holiday lighting displays.

The eight days of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, mark the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C. after a long war. There was only enough oil for single night's light, but the oil lasted for eight nights.

Phil Pringle, who owns Pringle's Wine and Liquors in Fort Collins, said he's going to add a menorah to the holiday decorations at his shop.

"I'm Catholic, but I'm a great proponent of free speech," said Pringle. "Instead of being so antiseptic, I'd like to see the city be more tolerant."

Pringle said he understands the city's legal concerns, but believes symbols that reflect other religious beliefs could be included in the city's display.

"I have no problem with Kwanzaa or pagans. I wouldn't object to a winter solstice display," said Pringle, who has owned the liquor store for 24 years.

Gorelik said he has supplied several businesses with menorahs and said it's the city's Christmas trees that caused the dispute.

"This is not initiated by the menorah, it's initiated by the Christmas trees," he said.

The city should have included a menorah in its holiday decore -- and it should have also included a Nativity scene, out of recognition of the reason for the season. But I will remind Rabbi Gorelik that the menorah is, strictly speaking, a religious symbol whereas the Christmas tree is not -- a principle long upheld by American courts.

But most important, we see the inclusion -- indeed, the welcoming -- of Jews and their holiday traditions by average people, a reality not found many other places on this globe.

UPDATE: The New York Times has great coverage of this story today.

So -- do we have the will to stop their nuke program NOW?

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday his country was ready to transfer nuclear technology to neighboring countries, nearly a week after Arab states on the Persian Gulf announced plans to consider a joint nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad told a top Kuwaiti envoy he welcomed the decision by the Islamic republic's Arab Gulf neighbors to pursue peaceful nuclear technology, state-run television said.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer to regional states its valuable experience and achievements in the field of peaceful nuclear technology as a clean energy source and as a replacement for oil," state media quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Mohammed Zefollah Shirar, a top adviser to the Kuwaiti emir.

Unfortunately, we know that the Iranian program is not peaceful -- and that the Iranian leader has implicitly threatened to use nukes to wipe Israel off the map. Do we act -- or do we allow the situation to continue on, permitting Ahmadinejad to complete the work that he denies Hitler began?

I love this quote from President George H. W. Bush AKA Bush 41.

Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush said in Japan he would try "to beat the hell out of" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton if she were to run for president.

Bush may be friends with former President Bill Clinton, but if New York's junior senator campaigns for the White House in 2008, as many expect, "I'll be back on the other side (of politics), and I will be trying to beat the hell out of her, if I possibly can," a grinning Bush said in Tokyo, where he spoke at Waseda University's school of sports and science.

Here here!

Want to bet these folks claim they love the United States -- just loathe the military?

Police charged five protesters on Friday during the second demonstration in a month outside the new Army recruiting station.

"We thought it was important to not have this recruiting station open quietly," said Emily McFarlane, a UNC-Chapel Hill junior who helped organize the protest at the Army Career Center, 1502 E. Franklin St.

About 30 protesters -- members of Students for a Democratic Society, The Raging Grannies and others -- held signs, walked in a circle and shouted, "Out of Iraq, out of our schools! Out of town, shut the war down!"

Property manager Analisa Bellamy, flanked by about five police officers, told the protesters to move to the public sidewalk several yards away on East Franklin Street.

After her second request, all but three protesters moved to the sidewalk.

Two of them, Barry Freeman, 80, and Janie Freeman, 71, were charged with second-degree trespass after refusing Bellamy's request that they put their signs down. The couple's 8-by-11-inch signs read "Hands Off My Grandchildren."

Stephen J. Woolford, 39, a peace advocate from rural Chatham County, was charged with second-degree trespass.

Attila Nemecz, 26, of Raleigh, and Eric Gardner, 22, of Apex, were charged with picketing.

I'm sure every one of those protesters considers themselves "pro-choice" -- but they want to make sure that their choice is the only one that potential recruits can learn about and access. They are not patriots -- they are anti-American fascists who actively support our nation's enemies.

Or at least as valid as any aspect of the sharia barbarism that accompanies jihadi Islamist extremism.

Mohabbat Khan Mosque Khateeb Maulana Muhammad Yousuf Qureshi said on Wednesday that a fatwa (decree) issued for the killing of a Danish cartoonist who had drawn caricatures of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), would not be withdrawn.

“We have put a price on the blasphemer’s head, and will pay one million dollars to the person who kills him,” Qureshi told Daily Times. Qureshi said that the US government had banned his entry into America and refused him a visa after he issued the fatwa against the cartoonist working for Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Qureshi, who has been criticising the US and leading anti-US rallies, said he was not against Americans. He said he had visited the US every year between 1984 and 2000, but stopped going there after the 9/11 attacks. “I am only against US government policies which are anti-Muslim,” he said. staff report

Well, time for a little solidarity.

How was a priceless Afghan treasure preserved through two decades of Russian occupation and Taliban oppression? That is the story in the current issue of Der Spiegel.

The treasure, from a Bactrian tomb that dates from roughly the time of Christ, was secreted away by Afghans and hidden until the American liberation of their country following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

It was a mystery of legendary proportions. When a 2,000-year-old treasure trove went missing from Afghanistan's National Museum in the 1980s, the rumors abounded: Did the Soviets take it? Was it looted and sold on the black market? Were 22,000 pieces of gold, jewel-encrusted crowns and magnificent daggers melted down and traded for weapons?

As it turns out, none of these plausible scenarios ever happened. Instead, a mysterious group of Afghans had stowed the so-called Bactrian gold underground and guarded its secret for over two decades of war and chaos. This month, some of the artifacts are on display at the Guimet Museum in Paris.

The group, the so-called "key holders," held the keys to the underground vault where the treasure was kept underneath the presidential palace grounds. They are believed to have hidden the treasure sometime after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They diligently kept their secret throughout the civil war of the 1990s and the period of Taliban rule all the way up through the 2001 American-led invasion.

"Over the last 20 to 25 years, during food shortages and money crises, this handful of people ... could have sold these collections instead of going hungry, but they never once sacrificed their own cultural heritage," Fredrik Hiebert, an archaeologist with the National Geographic Society, told the Associated Press.

There has to be a book in this story somewhere -- one that is filled with love of country, love of history, and a great deal of intrigue and courage.

I once believed that Jimmy Carter was a good and decent man. He may have been at one time. But his recent book reveals the festering anti-Semitism in his soul -- and he refuses to defend that book if it requires actually meeting a critic on an equal footing.

Former President Carter has decided not to visit Brandeis University to talk about his new book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid" because he does not want to debate Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz as the university had requested.

"I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz," Carter told The Boston Globe. "There is no need ... for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."

The debate request is proof that many in the United States are unwilling to hear an alternative view on the nation's most taboo foreign policy issue, Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, Carter said.

No, Mr. Carter -- the debate request is proof that Americans want honest discussion. You claim that you want to promote dialogue -- but when offered a chance for discussion and debate, you refuse to participate. I guess it is question of what the meaning of "dialogue" is -- and in your vocabulary, it means "shut up and listen to what I have to say."

I guess it is simply the case that Jimmy Carter doesn't want to share the stage with a Jew as an equal -- instead he would rather visit a Jewish university and tell the Jewish students what is wrong with the Jews.

For shame, Mr. Carter -- you truly are the Worst President Ever -- and now have become the Worst Ex-President Ever.

A good decision -- how do you penalize a company and stockholders today for (lamentably) legal actions taken (often by a predecessor entity) over a century and a half ago?

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected most claims by slave descendants that they deserve reparations from some of the nation's biggest insurers, banks and transportation companies.

The three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that slave descendants have no standing to sue for reparations based on injustices suffered by ancestors and that the statute of limitations ran out more than a century ago.

But the panel did keep alive a smaller portion of the suit, claiming that major U.S. corporations may be guilty of consumer fraud if they hid past ties to slavery from their customers.

The opinion, written by Judge Richard A. Posner, said that "statutes of limitations would be toothless" if descendants could collect damages for wrongs against their ancestors.

"A person whose ancestor had been wronged a thousand years ago could sue on the ground that it was a continuing wrong and he is one of the victims," the court said. It said statutes of limitations could be extended in some cases but not for acts committed 100 years ago.

The panel also said the descendants lacked standing to sue because their links to the slaves were distant.

Now the court did keep alive a consumer fraud claim, but I doubt it will prevail. After all, does a company have an affirmative obligation to disclose any connection to slavery in its distant past?

That is the issue that this country struggles with in the wake of the decision by Gov. Jeb Bush to suspend executions in his state and a federal judge's order that California revamp its execution protocol.

Executions by lethal injection were suspended in Florida and ordered revamped in California on Friday, as the chemical method once billed as a more humane way of killing the condemned came under mounting scrutiny over the pain it may cause.

Gov. Jeb Bush (R) ordered the suspension in Florida after a botched execution in which it took 34 minutes and a second injection to kill convicted murderer Angel Nieves Diaz. A state medical examiner said that needles used to carry the poison had passed through the prisoner's veins and delivered the three-chemical mix into the tissues of his arm.

In California, a federal judge ruled that the state must overhaul its lethal-injection procedures, calling its current protocol unconstitutional because it may inflict unacceptable levels of pain.

Judge Jeremy D. Fogel of the U.S. District Court for Northern California ordered the state to revise its procedures and consider eliminating the use of two drugs: pancuronium bromide, which causes paralysis, and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest.

The judge did not order executions halted, though they have been effectively on hold since February while he conducted a review.

The "pervasive lack of professionalism" in the executions, Fogel wrote, "at the least is very disturbing."

Forgive me, but since when did it become a moral, much less constitutional, requirement that executions be painless, bloodless procedures that spare teh convicted killer pain? Yes, I know we do not permit "cruel and unusual" punishment, but is it really cruel that a condemned man might be conscious of his punishment being carried out? Does it really shock the conscience that the guilty might feel some level of fear and pain, just like his victims did as he snuffed out their innocent lives? No, it does not.

But this illustrates the fundamental problem with the jurisprudence in this area. We have allowed judges to set themselves up as philosopher kings, deciding on the basis of some undefined standard what constitutes "cruel and unusual". We have judges who are intent upon ensuring that the condemned not experience on bit of suffering as their lives ebb away in payment for their crimes. The ultimate end is likely to be a ban on lethal injection -- currently considered to be a "humane" method of execution, on the grounds that any suffering on the part of the condemned constitutes cruelty which shocks the conscience.

However, I would argue that your average American holds a very different position on the issue. We recognize that capital punishment is, in the end, punishment. And while we do not want ancient spectacles like those in the Colosseum, burning at the stake, or crucifixion, we are not troubled that a killer might feel some discomfort as he experiences his much-deserved demise. I'd bet that your average American would have no problem with seeing the return of firing squads or the hangman's noose as the standard form of execution. Indeed, only the horrors of the Holocaust render the gas chamber unacceptable to me, the method of execution indelibly linked to the Hitlerian genocide and therefore morally unacceptable.

So I'll say it plainly -- rather than a lethal injection of three drugs, let's go back to the lethal injection of lead by a team of marksmen.

This should be of interest to all my fellow diabetics out there.

n a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body's nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.

Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.

"I couldn't believe it," said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. "Mice with diabetes suddenly didn't have diabetes any more."

The researchers caution they have yet to confirm their findings in people, but say they expect results from human studies within a year or so. Any treatment that may emerge to help at least some patients would likely be years away from hitting the market.

This is great news -- but the "years away" part of the last sentence is frustrating. What we seem to have here is a cure for a life-threatening disease, one that may be confirmed very quickly -- but it will be much longer before regulators approve making those of us with diabetes healthy and able to live normal lives again without glucose meters, pills, insulin shots and highly regulated diets. Such delays seem cruel.

I want to lift this woman up as an example to America's Muslims -- and to all Americans. For while I am often very hard on the religion of Islam and the evils perpetrated in its name, I recognize that there are many Muslims (an overwhelming majority, in fact) who are good and decent people.

Fadwa Hamdan is one of them.

Stomping her boots and swinging her bony arms, Fadwa Hamdan led a column of troops through this bleak Texas base.

Only six months earlier, she wore the head scarf of a pious Muslim woman and dropped her eyes in the presence of men. Now she was marching them to dinner.

“I’m gonna be a shooting man, a shooting man!” she cried, her Jordanian accent lost in the chanting voices. “The best I can for Uncle Sam, for Uncle Sam!”

The United States military has long prided itself on molding raw recruits into hardened soldiers. Perhaps none have undergone a transformation quite like that of Ms. Hamdan.

Forbidden by her husband to work, she raised five children behind the drawn curtains of their home in Saudi Arabia. She was not allowed to drive. On the rare occasions when she set foot outside, she wore a full-face veil.

Then her world unraveled. Separated from her husband, who had taken a second wife, and torn from her children, she moved to Queens to start over. Struggling to survive on her own, she answered a recruiting advertisement for the Army and enlisted in May.

Ms. Hamdan’s passage through the military is a remarkable act of reinvention. It required courage and sacrifice. She had to remove her hijab, a sacred symbol of the faith she holds deeply. She had to embrace, at the age of 39, an arduous and unfamiliar life.

In return, she sought what the military has always promised new soldiers: a stable home, an adoptive family, a remade identity. She left one male-dominated culture for another, she said, in the hope of finding new strength along the way.

“Always, I dream I have power on the inside, and one day it’s going to come out,” said Ms. Hamdan, a small woman with delicate hands and sad, almond eyes.

She belongs to the rare class of Muslim women who have signed up to become soldiers trained in Arabic translation. Such female linguists play a crucial role for the American armed forces in Iraq, where civilian women often feel uncomfortable interacting with male troops.

Finding Arabic-speaking women willing to serve in the military has proved daunting. Of the 317 soldiers who have completed training in the Army linguist program since 2003, just 23 are women, 13 of them Muslim.

The story is inspirational -- and demonstrates how Muslims can and should be a part of every aspect of American society.

One could completely derail the prosecution case -- and the other may or may not have anything to do with the case.

The first is a motion to throw out the photo lineup.

The woman who said she was raped at a party thrown by Duke's lacrosse team misidentified her alleged attackers in a photo lineup that was "an incoherent mass of contradiction and error," defense lawyers argued in court papers filed Thursday.

Attorneys for the three indicted players filed a motion asking a judge to bar prosecutors from using the photo lineup at their clients' trial and prevent the accuser from identifying the players from the witness stand.

Duke University law professor James E. Coleman Jr. said the case would be "effectively dismissed" if the court finds the lineup inadmissible "and rules that it is so suggestive that there can't be an in-court identification."

What evidence would be left without the identification? None, based upon yesterday's information about the DNA testing.

And then there is this -- which may be irrelevant, but could be a bombshell.

The woman at the center of the Duke lacrosse rape case is pregnant and due to give birth any day, roughly nine months after the team party where she says she was raped by three men.

The pregnancy was confirmed late Thursday by a person familiar with the case, speaking to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Fox News and WRAL-TV in Raleigh reported that she gave birth Thursday night.

There had been no prior indication that the woman, a 28-year-old college student who already has children, was pregnant. She has not spoken in public since granting an interview to the News & Observer of Raleigh shortly after the party.

The person who confirmed the pregnancy to the AP had no information about the father. Defense attorneys have stressed for months that no sex occurred at the party. They have cited DNA testing that found genetic material from several men in the accuser's body and in her underwear -- but none from any member of the lacrosse team.

If the baby's father is not one of the accused, it probably won't impact the case at all. On the other hand, if one of the accused is the father, that takes the case in an entirely new direction. (UPDATE: She is not due until February. A judge has ordered a paternity test anyway.)

UPDATE: The fraud appears to be confirmed. Where is the US Department of Justice to deal with this obvious conspiracy to violate the civil rights of these young men?

The head of a private DNA laboratory said under oath today that he and District Attorney Mike Nifong agreed not to report DNA results favorable to Duke lacrosse players charged with rape.

Brian Meehan, director of DNA Security of Burlington, said his lab found DNA from unidentified men in the underwear, pubic hair and rectum of the woman who said she was gang-raped at a lacrosse party in March. Nurses at Duke Hospital collected the samples a few hours after the alleged assault. Meehan said the DNA did not come from Reade Seligmann, David Evans, or Collin Finnerty, who have been charged with rape and sexual assault in the case.

Meehan struggled to say why he didn’t include the favorable evidence in a report dated May 12, almost a month after Seligmann and Finnerty had been indicted. He cited concerns about the privacy of the lacrosse players, his discussions at several meetings with Nifong, and the fact that he didn’t know whose DNA it was.

Under questioning by Jim Cooney, a defense attorney for Seligmann, Meehan admitted that his report violated his laboratory’s standards by not reporting results of all tests.

Did Nifong and his investigators know the results of all the DNA tests? Cooney asked.

“I believe so,” Meehan said.

“Did they know the test results excluded Reade Seligmann?” Cooney asked.

“I believe so,” Meehan said.

Was the failure to report these results the intentional decision of you and the district attorney? Cooney asked.

“Yes,” Meehan replied.

This farce needs to be ended immediately -- and Nifong needs to go to jail.

While the American Left wails over the fact that captured terrorists don't get a mint on their pillow at Gitmo, the top court in Israel has recognized that targetting terrorists for death is a proper policy.

Israel's high court upheld Thursday the military's right to assassinate members of groups the state defines as terrorist organizations, but cautioned that such operations should always be weighed first against the potential harm to civilian bystanders and the human rights of the target.

The unanimous decision departs little from guidelines the military says it already follows in carrying out "targeted killings," the terminology used by the government and by the court in its ruling. But it does say commanders should allow an independent investigation to follow each assassination and recommends that the military compensate "innocent civilians" harmed in the operation.

Under current practice, Israel's military works with Shin Bet, the domestic security service, to compile lists of Palestinians who are influential or active figures in armed groups. Using eavesdropping equipment, aerial surveillance and informants, air force pilots or drone operators receive detailed information about a target's movements, most commonly in the Gaza Strip, where the army no longer operates regularly on the ground.

Military officers say the decision to strike is made -- sometimes in a matter of minutes -- by balancing the threat posed by the target against the potential for injuring bystanders. Many of the strikes have killed civilians in addition to targeted individuals.

Israeli military officials said they would review the court's findings in coming days. But one senior officer who specializes in matters of international law said the ruling, although vague in places, appeared to be a "validation" of existing policies regarding assassinations, and he expected few new restrictions to be implemented.

Why is it that I expect that American courts will not use this decision by a foreign court when interpreting our Constitution in cases related to the Crusade Against Jihadi Terrorism? Could it be because the decision makes sense on a fundamental level, and recognizes that terrorists, like the pirates of old, are the enemies of all mankind?

Will the Tyrant of Havana soon be residing in Hell? According to US intelligence sources, Satan's minions are probably preparing a particularly warm spot for Fidel as you read these words.

Cuban President Fidel Castro is very ill and close to death, Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte said yesterday.

"Everything we see indicates it will not be much longer . . . months, not years," Negroponte told a meeting of Washington Post editors and reporters.

Castro relinquished power for the first time in 47 years after surgery July 31 for an undisclosed intestinal disorder.

So start chilling that champagne -- and get the necessary supplies ready to celebrate Cuba libre with Cuba Libre.

Which means, of course, that there will be no way of checking if folks have over-stayed their visas. Is there anything that the Department of Homeland Security is doing right?

In a major blow to the Bush administration’s efforts to secure borders, domestic security officials have for now given up on plans to develop a facial or fingerprint recognition system to determine whether a vast majority of foreign visitors leave the country, officials say.

Domestic security officials had described the system, known as U.S. Visit, as critical to security and important in efforts to curb illegal immigration. Similarly, one-third of the overall total of illegal immigrants are believed to have overstayed their visas, a Congressional report says.

Tracking visitors took on particular urgency after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when it became clear that some of the hijackers had remained in the country after their visas had expired.

But in recent days, officials at the Homeland Security Department have conceded that they lack the financing and technology to meet their deadline to have exit-monitoring systems at the 50 busiest land border crossings by next December. A vast majority of foreign visitors enter and exit by land from Mexico and Canada, and the policy shift means that officials will remain unable to track the departures.

Is it time to dismantle DHS yet, and replace it with an effective agency for dealing with homeland security?

Is it time to dismiss the charges and disbar the prosecutor yet?

A laboratory hired by the prosecution in the Duke lacrosse case found DNA from unidentified men in the accuser's body and underwear but none from the defendants, according to a defense motion filed Wednesday.

DNA Security of Burlington in May produced a report to Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong that made no mention of finding the genetic material.

Wednesday's motion raised questions about whether Nifong and DNA Security withheld evidence favorable to the defense. It also cast further doubt on accounts given by the accuser, who told nurses and police that her attackers ejaculated and did not use condoms. The tests revealed no DNA evidence from any of 46 lacrosse players then suspected in the case.

"This is strong evidence of innocence," said the motion, which was signed by attorneys for all three defendants. "There is not a single mention of this obviously exculpatory evidence in the final DNA Security report."

Defense lawyers for months pressed Nifong in court to release all test documents from DNA Security. The evidence in Wednesday's motion was contained in thousands of DNA Security papers that a judge in October ordered Nifong to give to the defense.

Defense lawyers, citing the state's open file discovery law and the U.S. Supreme Court requirement that prosecutors surrender all helpful evidence, asked for more lab records, including analyses, notes, e-mail and logs of phone calls. They also asked that Brian Meehan, director of DNA Security, be questioned under oath. A hearing is scheduled for Friday in the case.

And it would appear we need to shut down the lab, too, for ginning up a report tailored to the prosecution’s wants and needs instead of bringing the facts to light.

After all, if they are ordering a retrial, it doesn’t seem like such a victory for the right to speak freely.

Two Christian pastors found to have vilified Muslims under Victoria's religious hatred law won their appeal and hailed the decision as a victory for free speech.

The Court of Appeal ordered the case to be reheard at the original tribunal, before a different judge and with no further evidence. It set aside the orders for public apologies in newspaper advertisements and for the pastors not to repeat their remarks.

Last year Judge Michael Higgins found that Pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot and Catch the Fire Ministries vilified Muslims at a seminar on jihad in Melbourne in March 2002, in a newsletter and a website article.

He said these suggested that the Koran promoted killing and looting, that Muslims wanted to take over Australia and terrorists were true Muslims.

Justices Geoffrey Nettle, David Ashley and Marcia Neave overturned that finding but rejected the appeal that the Racial and Religious Vilification Act was unconstitutional.

They ordered the Islamic Council of Victoria, which brought the original complaint, to pay half the appellants' appeal costs but left the costs of the original hearing to be decided by the judge who rehears the case.

On what basis was the original decision overturned? This one – a distinction that I think is very important.

Justice Geoffrey Nettle said Judge Higgins equated hating Muslims' religious beliefs with hating Muslims because of their beliefs. This was not so — many people might despise Pastor Scot's perception of Christianity, yet not dream of hating him.

"No doubt the purpose of the act is to promote religious tolerance. But the act cannot and does not purport to mandate religious tolerance," he said in his judgement.

Indeed, Judge Higgins had held that quoting the Koran to prove a negative point about Islam constituted religious vilification of Muslims – effectively arguing that the truth was not only not a defense in such cases, but was evidence of the offense having been committed.

Does this new regulation strike you as somehow wrong – and a case of overreaching by government?

People who melt pennies or nickels to profit from the jump in metals prices could face jail time and pay thousands of dollars in fines, according to new rules out Thursday.

Soaring metals prices mean that the value of the metal in pennies and nickels exceeds the face value of the coins. Based on current metals prices, the value of the metal in a nickel is now 6.99 cents, while the penny's metal is worth 1.12 cents, according to the U.S. Mint.

That has piqued concern among government officials that people will melt the coins to sell the metal, leading to potential shortages of pennies and nickels.

"The nation needs its coinage for commerce," U.S. Mint director Ed Moy said in a statement. "We don't want to see our pennies and nickels melted down so a few individuals can take advantage of the American taxpayer. Replacing these coins would be an enormous cost to taxpayers."

There have been no specific reports of people melting coins for the metal, Mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey says. But the agency has received a number of questions in recent months from the public about the legality of melting the coins, and officials have heard some anecdotal reports of companies considering selling the metal from pennies and nickels, she says.

Under the new rules, it is illegal to melt pennies and nickels. It is also illegal to export the coins for melting. Travelers may legally carry up to $5 in 1- and 5-cent coins out of the USA or ship $100 of the coins abroad "for legitimate coinage and numismatic purposes."

Violators could spend up to five years in prison and pay as much as $10,000 in fines. Plus, the government will confiscate any coins or metal used in melting schemes.

The rules are similar to those enacted in the 1960s and 1970s, when metals prices also rose, the Mint said. Ongoing regulations make it illegal to alter coins with an intent to commit fraud. Before today's new regulations, it was not illegal to melt coins.

Now hold on – is the money MY money, or the government’s money? Do the coins belong to me, or to the government? What about the metal the coins are composed of – my property or the government’s? And if the answer to these question is that it is my property, where does the government get off penalizing my decision on how to dispose of the coins and their metal content