She was known as Hillary Rodham back then, a young lawyer hired at behest of a Kennedy crony to help investigate the Watergate affair and move towards possible impeachment of Richard Nixon.

That is a matter of public record, and a well known part of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s biography.

What is not known is that she was fired from her position on the staff for behavior that constituted a grave breach of legal ethics (not to mention fundamental fairness and decency) and denied a recommendation by the general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee – a lifelong Democrat.

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career. Why? “Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

Unethical. Dishonest. Contemptuous of the rules and the Constitution. Those are the same type of charges that others have made against Hillary for years.

But these go back to the very beginning of her career, when she was a nobody on the committee staff. These are not the charges of political partisans out to destroy her and her husband – and are documented by a diary that dates back to the time of her offenses.

How could a 27-year-old House staff member do all that? She couldn’t do it by herself, but Zeifman said she was one of several individuals – including Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum – who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation. Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach – including Kennedy’s purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro. The actions of Hillary and her cohorts went directly against the judgment of top Democrats, up to and including then-House Majority Leader Tip O’Neill, that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel. Zeifman says that Hillary, along with Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar, was determined to gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon. And in order to pull this off, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception. The brief involved precedent for representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. When Hillary endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding, Zeifman says, he told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970.

* * *

“Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public,” Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding – as if the Douglas case had never occurred.

The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.

Zeifman still has the diary, and is willing to make it available to those who are interested in what it contains. It reveals a lot about the character of the woman who would be president – or maybe that should be her lack of character.

UPDATE -- 4/1/08, 7:30 PM: Ed Morrissey over at HotAir catches up with this story, and offers some intriguing insights. STACLU has picked up on it, too.

Patterico links to this older piece by Zeifman himself. This Freeper archive dates the story back to 1999, and there is apparently a 1996 book that raised the story. I'm curious -- why no significant press coverage in all this time -- especially given Zeifman's claim of a contemporaneous record? Certainly there must be some intrepid journalist who would be willing to shell out the cash to authenticate the diary or debunk the claim.

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There really is no surprise in the ruling that the Brits didn’t murder Princess Diana.

The coroner leading the inquest into the death of Princess Diana said Monday that there is no evidence that Prince Philip, the Secret Intelligence Service or any other government agency had anything to do with her death in a 1997 car crash.

Lord Justice Scott Baker told jurors they can decide whether Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, died as the result of an accident, or because of gross negligence by the paparazzi following their car or driver Henri Paul.

But he told jurors they do not have the option to find that Philip or anyone else staged the Paris car accident that killed Diana, Fayed and Paul.

"There is no evidence that the duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip) ordered Diana's execution, and there is no evidence that the Secret Intelligence Service or any other government agency organized it," he said.

Why is there no evidence? Because it didn’t happen that way.

Of course, there are still those who believe that the moon landing didn’t happen. There are still those who believe in Kin Tut’s curse? There are still those who believe with an ardent faith approaching religious zeal that human beings are responsible for global climate change. I therefore have no doubt that this conclusion will simply lead to strengthen those who believe that Diana’s death was anything other than a senseless tragedy.

That exercising a human right guaranteed by both Dutch and international law hurt their business interests?

Dutch businesses warned on Saturday that they would consider suing far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders if his anti-Islam film led to a commercial boycott of Dutch goods, while police said cars were set ablaze and graffiti called for Wilders to be killed.

“A boycott would hurt Dutch exports. Businesses such as Shell, Philips, and Unilever are easily identifiable as Dutch companies. I don’t know if Wilders is rich, or well-insured, but in case of a boycott, we would look to see if we could make him bear responsibility,” Bernard Wientjes, the chairman of the Dutch employers’ organisation VNO-NCW, told the Het Financieel Dagblad newspaper.

Better idea – sue the boycotters, and those who are stirring up REAL hatred against Holand and Wilders. After all, they are the ones who are doing the damage, not Wilders.

Unless, of course, you believe that profits trump human freedom.

UPDATE: Looks like the Dimmification of Holland continues.

The ambassadors of 26 Islamic countries want the Netherlands to investigate whether the film Fitna made by Dutch right-wing populist MP Geert Wilders can be banned. They asked Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen whether it is possible to start legal proceedings against the anti-Islam film. The meeting at the ministry in The Hague was attended by ambassadors of countries including Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Mr Verhagen told the 26 ambassadors he was pleased that responses from the Muslim world up to now had been moderate. He said the public prosecutor was investigating whether any offence had been committed, and the Dutch government clearly distanced itself from the film.

At the same time he called on the ambassadors to ensure Dutch citizens and organisations abroad were protected. "Let's keep heads cool and relations warm," he added. "We know about the concerns and feelings about this film among the international Muslim community, but hurt feelings must never be an excuse for aggression and threats."

I guess the real answer is that Wilders isn't likely to kill anyone, but the most vocal opponents of the film are. As a result, Wilders' rights are the one to be suppressed. See why the Second Amendment is in the US Constitution?

H/T HotAir

I first wrote about Sgt. Matt Maupin in December of 2005, and concluded with this line.

For we must never forget Matt Maupin, a typical American young man, who fell into the hands of the enemy while fighting for this country and the freedom of the Iraqi people.

And we must make sure that Sgt. Matt Maupin returns home with honor -- an American hero.

Maupin will be returning home soon -- for burial by his family. After nearly four years, his family has been notified that his remains have been identified.

Sgt. Matt Maupin is dead, the parents of the missing Clermont County soldier said today.

Maupin’s remain were found in Iraq, nearly four years after he was captured by insurgents, his parents said. An Army general visited them today and gave them the news, they said.

“Matt is coming home. He’s completed his mission,” his father, Keith Maupin, said.

Maupin was a 20-year-old private first class when he was captured on April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy was ambushed west of Baghdad. He had been driving a supply truck.

Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape a week later showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles. That June, Al-Jazeera aired another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the dark and grainy tape showed only the back of the victim’s head and not the actual shooting.

The Glen Este High School graduate was the only U.S. military member still listed as missing-captured in Iraq. Military officials identified the remains through DNA, Keith Maupin said. He said he wasn’t told where the remains had been found.

“We don’t know where, just somewhere in Iraq.They found a shirt similar to what he (Matt) was wearing,” Keith Maupin said. “They had DNA and confirmed it was Matt.”

Given the video evidence that the jihadi cowards who had captured him committed a war crime by murdering their prisoner, this is not a surprising outcome.

To learn more about Sgt. Maupin, American hero, feel free to read this post from a year ago, which I had already been preparing to update for net week.

Michelle Malkin offers this information as well.

The Maupin family website is here. And please support their Yellow Ribbon Support Center.

I join with her in directing my readers to those two sites.

My deepest condolences to the Maupin family --you are in my prayers at this difficult time, as you have been for some time. I thank you for your family's sacrifice.

MORE AT BizzyBlog, Porkopolis, Blackfive

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Will Mugabe permit it to survive?

Zimbabwe’s main opposition party said Sunday that it had won a landslide victory, insisting that unofficial election results showed that the Movement for Democratic Change had unseated President Robert G. Mugabe, the man who has led this nation for 28 years.

Those results had been compiled by adding the vote counts posted at thousands of individual polling stations, and were not formally released by the government. Indeed, the nation’s chief election officer warned that the opposition’s boasts were premature and asked people to wait for official totals.

People did just that, anxiously watching the government television station on Sunday for announcements about the election the day before. But instead of news they were shown irrelevant fare like a program about biodegradable Chinese plastic and a documentary about the Netherlands’ 1974 soccer team.

Near midnight, the election commissioner, George Chiweshe, finally announced that the official results would begin coming out at 6 a.m. Monday. At the appointed hour no results were forthcoming. “It is of absolute necessity that at each stage the result be meticulously analyzed, witnessed and confirmed,” he said. Soon after the designated time, an election official began laboriously reading results, but only of six parliamentary races.

So once again, we see electoral shennaigans in Zimbabwe.

I'm still waiting to see if these threats are carried out.

Zimbabwe's security forces, which have thrown their weight firmly behind Mr. Mugabe, said before the election they would not allow a victory declaration before counting was complete.

Government spokesman George Charamba warned the opposition against such claims. "It is called a coup d'etat and we all know how coups are handled," he told the state-owned Sunday Mail.

And since in some areas there are riot police n the streets and warnings for the people to remain indoors, the possibility of Mugabe refusing to honor the results of the election appears to be quite high.

In some form or fashion.

Rice Wins Concessions From Israel

Time and again we have seen members of various administrations win concessions form Israel. From the Palestinians? Not so much -- and never concessions that are substantive or honored in practice.

That is why I'm even more disturbed as i read the content of the story.

Israel pledged to remove some West Bank roadblocks as a start to "concrete steps" in an agreement Sunday with the Palestinians that is aimed at paving the way for a final peace deal this year.

Under the plan that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced, Israel will remove about 50 roadblocks and upgrade checkpoints to speed up the movement of Palestinians through the West Bank.

The Israelis also will give Palestinians more security responsibility in the town of Jenin with an eye toward looking at "other areas in turn." They also pledged to increase the number of travel and work permits for Palestinians and to support economic projects in Palestinian towns.

In return, the Palestinians promised to improve policing of Jenin "to provide law and order, and work to prevent terror," according to a State Department statement.

Yeah, but no end to suicide bombings or the random lobbing of rockets from within Palestinian territory.

No end to gunmen shooting up schools and killing children.

No end to terrorists hiding among civilians to use them as human shields.

in other words, Israel agreed to reduce its security in exchange for nothing of particular value.

But then again, that is how it always goes.

I've written relatively little about the congressional race here in CD22 this year -- an oversight due in large part do to a string of family situations that have kept me from being nearly as involved as I would have wished. That said, today's article in the Houston Chronicle about the race deserves to be noted.

And I think the first line of the story is critical.

Since moving to Sugar Land last summer, Pete Olson has restricted his job search to a seat in the U.S. House.

Yeah, that's right. Pete Olson doesn't have a job. He has a wife, kids, and two houses (the family kept the one in the DC suburbs when Pete carpetbagged back to CD22). Heck, I suppose he may even have two mortgages, which I'm sure is tough to manage if you don't have job other than campaigning for Congress in a district where you have not been physically present for nearly two decades.

And this is why so many of us are opposed to Pete Olson. We already have a Democrat carpetbagger congressman who we want to get rid of in 2008 -- we don't want to replace him with a Republican carpetbagger, even if Olson is much closer to our political views.

Olson, a former staffer for two Republican U.S. senators from Texas, has had a two-fold answer. One, he grew up in the Clear Lake part of the district and attended Rice University and the University of Texas law school, so this is his home. Two, no one should begrudge his nine years as a Navy pilot and Pentagon worker and another nine years on the U.S. Senate staffs of Phil Gramm and John Cornyn.

And Pete Olson is quite disingenuous in his argument. No one I know "begrudges" him his military service. Indeed, all of us honor and respect it. But many of us who support Shelley Sekula Gibbs do have a problem with the fact that for the decade after that military service Olson has been a resident of the Virginia suburbs, owned his only home there, been a licensed driver there, and a registered voter there. Yes, he has been a top aide to two fine Texas senators, but we have concerns about the strength of his connection and commitment to our district.

And I always find it interesting that folks trot out this argument -- that Dr. Sekula Gibbs has not always been a conservative.

Sekula Gibbs acknowledges that she has reversed her position on abortion; she now says it should be illegal. She voted on the council to fund pavilions for day laborers, then opposed funding them because, she said, she learned that they made neighborhoods no safer and were used mostly by illegal immigrants.

In 2005, she did not strongly advocate for Houston police officers to question criminal suspects about immigration status. She did in 2006, as she ran for Congress and immediately after a policeman was killed by an illegal immigrant he had detained. Conservative and liberal council members, saying Sekula Gibbs was exploiting an officer's death for political gain, left their public meeting in protest when she spoke about changing the city's law enforcement policies on immigrants.

I'll be the first to recognize that there are elements of her past record that are less than conservative. But I also recognize that her increased conservatism over time, and her decades of service to our community here in CD22 for the last 20 years.

Besides, Ronald Reagan was at one time wrong on abortion. I think he did just fine.

And then there is this question that I like to ask -- after a loss in the runoff, what would these two candidates most likely do.

If she were to lose the election, I know for a fact that Shelley Sekula Gibbs will stay in our community, and continue to serve the people here as a respected medical professional.

Pete Olson? I have every reason to suspect that he will put the house in Sugar Land back on the market and head back inside the Beltway -- most likely as an employee of one of the lobbyists or politicians who contributed the seed money to start Olson's campaign in the first place. In other words, he'll go home again.

That dichotomy makes my choice in the runoff on April 8 really clear.

In the end, though, following the runoff I will support either of these candidates over Nick Lampson, because either of them is more representative of my views on the critical issues facing America than the incumbent is. I encourage my fellow voters to do the same.

UPDATE Welcome to readers of Ben DumbAss from RedState. As you've seen, my post takes exactly the opposite tack of what he claims. Let's hope he is more honest in his other posts -- and less touchy when others call him on a blatant lie.

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Good grief! Will the new governor of New York serve less time in office than William Henry Harrison did as president? Now we have even more ethical questions surrounding him -- and these not involving sex or campaign funds.

When Gov. David A. Paterson was the State Senate minority leader, he got in touch with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a fellow Democrat, with what seemed like a routine request: Would he meet with a representative of a small Harlem hospital that was in need of financial assistance?

As it turned out, the hospital’s representative was Mr. Paterson’s wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, who was responsible for lobbying the State Legislature for aid. Mr. Silver agreed to meet, but warned that it would be improper for the senator to be present. As a result, Mr. Paterson did not attend the session, held on April 7, 2003; he would later say that arranging the meeting was a mistake.

But that meeting was not the only thing Mr. Paterson did for his wife’s employer. He also directed state grants of at least $150,000 — with a pledge for as much as $500,000 more — to the hospital over the next two years, a period that overlapped substantially with his wife’s employment there from 2002 to 2005.

The fuller picture of Mr. Paterson’s efforts on behalf of the hospital, North General, emerged from a review of documents, which revealed a previously unreported $50,000 state grant he made in 2003, and interviews with lawmakers and their aides, who said Mr. Paterson spoke with some of them about the need to avoid ethical conflicts that could arise because of his wife’s job.

Let's see -- his wife was working as a lobbyist, and he was arranging meetings for her? He was directing funding to the hospital that employed her at a rate that exceeded his prior efforts on its behalf -- and also in excess of what he directed there after her employment ended? The appearance of corruption is stunning!

Those of you who are not subscribers to the National Review might not be familiar with the works of Rob Long, which is among the best satirical work you are likely to see in print today.

He takes on the current "pastor problem" involving Barack Obama's minister at Trinity United Church of Christ in a piece entitled Excerpts from: The Collected Sermons of Jeremiah Wrighte, Parson of the Angry Lord Church of Somerstowne, Massachusetts 1775–1798, Informal Spiritual Adviser to Presidents and Governors. (SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED)

My personal favorite? This bit about the American Revolution itself.

We’ll get to Christmasse in a moment. Firste, I’d like to talk a bit about the so-called War of Independence, currently being fought without oure Consent! How longe will this War last? So far, it’s been a Faylure, a Quagmire! And for whom?

For the Power Structure, that’s for whom! It’s about Lyberty? Oh, really? I mean, Come onne! Lyberty? How do you figure that one?

When yr Little Ones are sick, do they get free Healthe Care? Doth the Docktor say, upon delivering the tonick, bleedynge, or cure, “Oh, this one’s on the House?” No he doth not! He demands Monnaies! So how can we be free? What’s wronge with our Countree?

My dear wife, liberal to the core, laughed out loud at Long's work -- and, as a graduate of a UCC affiliated seminary and former pastor of a UCC congregation, thinks that Long really did his homework on the denomination and picked up the flavor of much of the UCC in this section of his work.

May 30, 1784:

My friends, we have muche to be thankful for. And as Sinners all, much to atone for. But first, some Announcements.

The Dyversity Committee shalle assemble in the Parishe Hall directly followynge this service. Such topicks as it shall address during this Assemblee shall include the continuing Care and Outreache to our Gaye, Lesbianne, and Transgendred &c. members, all of whom we cherishe and respeckt. We will also be tayking up the Issue of our Friends in Morrocco, who have been Provocked by our owne Arrogance into boarding and pirating an American quote unquote sailing vessel.

Oh, we’re Americans now? So what does that make our neighbors in Canada? Or to the Southe?

We brought thisse upon our Selves! Friends, pray not for the Americans, but insteade for the brown-skinne of the Marock, who merely wish to challenge the Hegemonie of the American War Contraption!

Please also remember to sign uppe for Choir Practice! Let us praye . . .

Now let me say this rather explicitly -- I don't take issue with Barack Obama, a liberal, being a member of the most liberal mainline Protestant denomination in America. I'm not interested in starting a theological inquisition. Obama's denominational affiliation is no more relevant than Romney's Mormonism. What I have and do question is his willingness to associate himself with the more outrageous POLITICAL statements -- and outright lies, such as the claim that the US government started AIDS to kill blacks and the US government supplied crack to the ghetto so as to lock up blacks -- that are preached from the pulpit there. The folks of Trinity UCC -- and Wright and Obama in particular -- are entitled to their own theology and their own faith, but not their own facts.

And you are entitled to the great satire of Rob Long -- and so you ought to subscribe to National Review!

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Indeed, tase 'em early and often.

Former White House advisor Karl Rove gave a speech at George Washington University on Friday that was disturbed by protestors from the anti-war group Code Pink.

As the "insurgents" were being removed from the Harry Harding Auditorium by security guards, students in attendance could be heard comically shouting "Tase 'em!"

Interesting, isn't it, that these anti-American left-wingers seem to believe that the Constitution does not protect the right of anyone except themselves to speak. Try to say a word they oppose, and they will do everything in their power to prevent you from speaking at all.

And it doesn't matter if it involves interrupting a political figure giving a speech or threatening to mount a campaign to get a teacher (me) fired for running a conservative political blog. Freedom is, for them, only a one-way street.

Too bad.

A federal judge on Friday ordered former Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal to pay $18,900 in sanctions after finding him in contempt of court for deleting more than 2,500 e-mails that had been subpoenaed for a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Additionally, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt determined Scott Durfee, general counsel for the district attorney's office, was jointly responsible for paying $5,000 of that, finding Durfee failed to appropriately advise Rosenthal on how to comply with the subpoena.

Both Rosenthal and Durfee have until April 30 to pay their respective fines, according to the judge's order released late Friday afternoon.

Neither Rosenthal nor Durfee could be reached for comment.

Whether the county pays those sanctions with taxpayers' money is a question to be decided by Commissioners Court. The court must determine whether paying the sanctions would serve a public purpose, said County Attorney Mike Stafford.

I don't know that I agree with the fine against Durfee -- as an attorney, Rosenthal should have been well-aware of the requirements of an order to preserve all emails.

And I'll be honest -- I believe a little jail time should have been meted out here against Rosenthal for his misdeeds.

Let's hope he is quickly and permanently disbarred.

Oh, and by the way -- any member of the Commissioner's Court who votes to use taxpayer funds to pay these fines needs to be voted out of office immediately. And if that puts the government of Harris County in the hands of the Democrats, so be it.

Rather than trying to refute the arguments of Kenzaburo Oe, the 1994 Nobel laureate in literature, a 91-year-old war criminal veteran of the Imperial Japanese Army tried to use the courts to force him to retract and apologize for information about the connection between the Japanese military and suicides by civilians during the fall of Okinawa.

In a closely watched ruling, the Osaka District Court threw out a $200,000 damage suit that was filed by a 91-year-old war veteran and another veteran’s surviving relatives, who said there was no evidence of the military’s involvement in the suicides.

The plaintiffs had also sought to block further printing of Mr. Oe’s 1970 book of essays, “Okinawa Notes,” in which he wrote that Japanese soldiers had told Okinawans they would be raped, tortured and murdered by the advancing American troops and coerced them into killing themselves instead of surrendering.

“The military was deeply involved in the mass suicides,” Judge Toshimasa Fukami said in the ruling. Judge Fukami cited the testimony of survivors that soldiers had handed out grenades to civilians to use for committing suicide, and the fact that mass suicides had occurred only in villages where Japanese troops had been stationed.

One more confirmation that the Japanese militarists who plunged Asia (and America) into war in the 1930s and 1940s were engaged in acts of unspeakable brutality and inhumanity. And also proof that there remains to this day an element of the Japanese population that does not want to deal with those historical truths.

The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Get Your Grim Milestone Today? by Done With Mirrors, and Stake Through Their Hearts by Michael Yon.  Here are the full results of the vote) in a post.  There was actually a tie in the non-council category this week...  I enjoyed both posts, but Michael Yon's latest dispatch ultimately won me over.  Thanks to everyone for all the great entries this week...  I'm eager to see next week's entries!  Here are the full tallies of all votes cast:

I will not submit. I will join the international movement to see that Geert Wilders' documentary, Fitna, is freely available.

Here is the Torrent link to the movie.

I have not watched the movie. I may not watch the movie. But I will do my part to help prevent the suppression of the movie.

Bravo to LiveLeak for upholding the same principle.

Free speech trumps the right not to be offended.

UPDATE: The torrent link still works, but LiveLeak was forced to drop their hosting of Fitna. Their statement is as follows.

Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.

This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realised LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one.

Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one anothers culture.

We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.

Seems to me that a certain segment of the Islamic community just proved Geert Wilders' point -- aided and abetted by certain elements of the liberal media. Good going, Islamo-Fascist scum!

Fortunately, another source exists for the video.

Freedom of speech will not be stopped by seventh-century barbarism.

H/T Michelle Malkin, Hot Air

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Now a Muslim group is seeking to ban ANOTHER film because they are offended by its depiction of Muhammad.

The only problem is that the film depicts a historical fact attested to in Muslim writings about the life of Muhammad that are considered to be authoritative by islamic scholars.

Former Dutch Labor party politician Ehsan Jami, founder of the Committee of ex-Muslims, said he has produced an anti-Muslim cartoon that will show a sexually aroused prophet Mohammed with his nine-year-old wife. The film is to be released next month and will be called "The Life of Mohammed."

A group of Muslims has seen the film and is going to court in an effort to ban it from being shown, citing it as unacceptable and offensive. Jami said the film would be more shocking than the Danish cartoons two years ago that showed Mohammed wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

Now, some might be offended by the notion of Muhammad sexually aroused -- and given the special liberties he was permitted to take with women due to his status as Prophet, I can't understand why a Muslim would be -- but this is documented in islam's own religious texts. And lest any Muslim think that we Christians would never be subjected to such treatment of Jesus, might I offer the example of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ? Despite its heretical and ahistorical approach to Christ's sexuality, Christians were expected to tolerate the showing of the film, including on the campuses of publicly funded colleges and universities using mandatory student fees. Similarly, murder was not the response to the play Corpus Christi -- there were protests, but no significant acts of violence, and threats made over the film were universally denounced by Christian leaders.

In short, when will Muslims grow up and recognize that human rights trump their desire to have non-Muslims accord the same level of respect and reverence to those things that Muslims hold sacred? That is not a requirement in the free world -- even if it might be in the Muslim world.

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This time it is the Kentucky edition.

Thousands of Kentuckians who have switched political affiliations over the past three months in hopes of voting in May's Democratic presidential primary will instead be barred from casting ballots.

Secretary of State Trey Grayson alerted Kentuckians on Wednesday to a little-known state law that forbids people who change their party registration after December 31 to vote in the May 20 primary.

"We're getting a lot of reports of folks who are either independents or Republicans who are trying to become Democrats in order to vote in the primary," Grayson said. "In the presidential primary, they will not be eligible to vote."

Some 9,000 people have switched parties since Jan. 1. Grayson said voter registration drives by supporters of Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton could inadvertently cause the number of ineligible voters to grow.

Grayson said Obama's campaign requested 5,000 Kentucky voter registration cards earlier this week.

"They're obviously going to do a big push over the next three week to register voters," Grayson said. "I'm sure the Clinton campaign will do the same thing."

In other words, Democrat ignorance of Kentucky law has resulted in thousands of Kentuckians losing their right to vote – and these same Democrats are working hard to disenfranchise even more voters.

Funny, isn’t it, that these are the same Democrats who have been complaining about crossover voters in other states now trying to create them in Kentucky – but instead creating disenfranchised Americans.

I’m curious – hasn’t the latest call of the Obama folks been that superdelegates ought to support the will of their given constituencies? If so, does this mean a switch to Hillary at the convention by Senator Bob Casey?

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey plans to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president today in Pittsburgh, sending a message both to the state's primary voters and to undecided superdelegates who might decide the close race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Dan Pfeiffer, deputy communications director for the Obama campaign, confirmed that Casey would announce his support during a rally at the Soldiers and Sailors Military Museum and Memorial and that he would then set out with the Illinois senator on part of a six-day bus trip across the state.

The endorsement comes as something of a surprise. Casey, a deliberative and cautious politician, had been adamant about remaining neutral until after the April 22 primary. He had said he wanted to help unify the party after the intensifying fight between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"There are few stronger advocates for working families in Pennsylvania than Sen. Casey," Pfeiffer said.

By coming out for Obama, Casey puts himself at odds with many top state Democrats - including Gov. Rendell, Rep. John P. Murtha and Mayor Nutter - who are campaigning for Clinton.

Now polling data shows that Obama is going to take a real drubbing in Pennsylvania. Doesn’t that mean that the Obama campaign should have rejected Casey’s help – you know, in the interest of guaranteeing that the Pennsylvania senator doesn’t go against the will of Pennsylvania voters?

Or are their protestations about respecting the vote of the people simply more lip service to principle while hypocritically doing anything to win?

Well, this is one way to get there.

The moon could become a final resting place for some of mankind thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers, the company said on Thursday.

Celestis, Inc., a company that pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets, said it would start a service to the surface of the moon that could begin as early as next year.

The cost starts at $10,000 for a small quantity of ashes from one person.
Celestis president Charles Chafer said his company reached an agreement with Odyssey Moon Ltd. and Astrobotic Technology Inc., to attach capsules containing cremated remains onto robotic lunar landers.

Odyssey Moon and Astrobotic are among private enterprises seeking to land a robotic craft on the moon and conduct scientific experiments. The cremation capsules would remain on the moon with the lunar landers when the missions were complete.

When I was 6 years old watching the Apollo 11 land on the moon and men walk on that orb high overhead, I believed that we would see frequent and reasonably inexpensive travel to the moon in my lifetime. Such has not been the case. Maybe, however, I’ll still get there – in death, if not in life.

Can we simply abolish the whole organization now, and deport all its staff from the US, and allow the headquarters to become a crack house, brothel, or overgrown vacant lot -- something of greater social utility than the UN itself? The main "human rights" body of the UN has come out against the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion when Muslims take offense.

The top U.N. rights body on Thursday passed a resolution proposed by Islamic countries saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it.

The European Union said the text was one-sided because it primarily focused on Islam.

The U.N. Human Rights Council, which is dominated by Arab and other Muslim countries, adopted the resolution on a 21-10 vote over the opposition of Europe and Canada.

EU countries, including France, Germany and Britain, voted against. Previously EU diplomats had said they wanted to stop the growing worldwide trend of using religious anti-defamation laws to limit free speech.

The document, which was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, "expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."

Although the text refers frequently to protecting all religions, the only religion specified as being attacked is Islam, to which eight paragraphs refer.

Interesting how "respect for religion" is defined as "respect for Islam" in this document. Never mind that particular strains of Islam have been a violent pox upon human civilization for most of my lifetime -- we are not supposed to criticize the very elements of Islam that the terrorists themselves use to justify their acts of murder and mayhem. Odd, isn't it, that the UN Human Rights Suppression committee cannot be bothered to denounce the anti-Semitism rife in the Muslim world -- and within the tenets of the Islamic faith itself as defined by the Qu'ran and hadiths.

Heck, maybe these folks will merit serious consideration when they condemn the Islamic practice of killing or imprisoning those who attempt to leave Islam for another religion that better meets their spiritual needs -- or the practice of Saudi Arabia in banning all non-Muslim worship in the country. But then again, maybe such condemnations would constitute "attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."

And the timing of this action -- coinciding with the release of Geert Wilder' Fitna, is transparently an attempt to suppress his human rights.

I wonder -- does this mean my website is now officially condemned by the UN?

MORE AT Hot Air, who notes the following provisions from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Interestingly enough, the Secretary General of the UN has expressed his belief that these rights, though expressed in absolute terms since the earliest days of the UN, really are not implicated by the ongoing attempt by extremist Muslims (and non-extremist Muslims) and their craven dhimmis to prohibit expression of speech that disturbs Muslim sensibilities.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned as “offensively anti-Islamic” a Dutch lawmaker’s film that accuses the Koran of inciting violence.

Ban acknowledged efforts by the government of the Netherlands to stop the broadcast of the film, which was launched by Islam critic Geert Wilders over the Internet, and appealed for calm to those “understandably offended by it.”

“There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence,” Ban said in a statement. “The right of free expression is not at stake here.”

Interestingly enough, Wilders' film is not an incitement to violence -- but the words of those who have threatened violence as a response to this film (and to previous "offenses" such as the Muhammad cartoons or Benedict XVI's quoting of a Byzantine Emperor) do fall under that rubric. Where is Ban Ki-moon's condemnation of the actual threats of violence and the vitriol that accompanies it, rather than speech that the UN's own documents declares to be a human right.

Now we know why the 9/11 hijackers didn't target the UN Headquarters on 9/11 -- that organization is already in the pocket of al-Qaeda.

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Now here's an accomplishment to be known for.

Herb Peterson, who invented the ubiquitous Egg McMuffin as a way to introduce breakfast to McDonald's restaurants, has died, a Southern California McDonald's official said Wednesday. He was 89.

Peterson died peacefully Tuesday at his Santa Barbara home, said Monte Fraker, vice president of operations for McDonald's restaurants in that city.

He began his career with McDonald's Corp. as vice president of the company's advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, in Chicago. He wrote McDonald's first national advertising slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day."

Peterson eventually became a franchisee and was currently co-owner and operator of six McDonald's restaurants in Santa Barbara and Goleta, Fraker said.

Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald's breakfast item in 1972. He "was very partial to eggs Benedict," Fraker said, and worked on creating something similar.

The egg sandwich consisted of an egg that had been formed in a Teflon circle with the yolk broken, topped with a slice of cheese and grilled Canadian bacon. It was served open-faced on a toasted and buttered English muffin.

Well, everybody wants to be known for something -- and looks like Peterson made himself a part of popular culture. I can remember when the notion of a breakfast menu at a fast food place was unheard of. Now it is big business. Interesting how one idea can spark an industry revolution.

I may be doing more graphics around here, now that a basic version of this software is coming online.

The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop on Thursday launched a basic version available for free online.

San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Systems Inc. says it hopes to boost its name recognition among a new generation of consumers who edit, store and share photos online.

While Photoshop is designed for trained professionals, Adobe says Photoshop Express, which it launched in a "beta" test version, is easier to learn. User comments will be taken into account for future upgrades.

Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. And, once they register, users can get to their accounts from different computers.

This is a great marketing move. It allows consumers to learn about the software and build basic skills -- and many folks will then buy the full software package at the market price, which is of great benefit of the company. At the same time, it allows casual users access to some of the best tools out there. I'm really happy with the outcome.

That's what I see in this statement, which amounts to "I would have left Trinity UCC if Wright were still there when the press got clips of his racist, anti-American comments."

White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama's campaign, not stepped down.

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday.

Now this is the THIRD different story Obama has tried to tell the American public.

I watched the weekend before "the speech", when Obama tried to sell the American people a bill of goods by claiming he had never known about Wright's incredibly offensive and factually incorrect statements.

There was then the celebrated speech, when he argued that he knew about the outrageous material, but would not abandon his close friend and spiritual mentor or the church -- but was willing to insult and denounce the white woman who raised him.

And now he is arguing that he would have separated himself from Wright and Trinity if not for the pastor's recent retirement -- even though the new pastor spent this past Sunday defending Wright and condemning those who take issue with his hate speech from the pulpit for "lynching" the retired pastor.

Barack Obama wants to have his cake and eat it too. I wonder what his position will be next week.

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Those folks who have expressed a belief that Republicans are going to desert John McCain en masse while the Democrats unite behind their candidate may want to consider this poll.

A new analysis of March polling data suggests that John McCain's cross-party support surpasses that of either Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton.

According to data provided by the Gallup Organization at Politico’s request, in a hypothetical contest between McCain and Obama, McCain wins 17 percent of Democrats and those leaning Democratic, while Obama wins 10 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners.

In a potential contest with Clinton, McCain wins 14 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaners while Clinton wins 8 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners.

By way of comparison, exit polls in 2004 reported that George W. Bush won 11 percent of Democrats and John F. Kerry won 6 percent of Republicans.

The new analysis, calculated from a compilation of Gallup’s daily polls between March 7 and 22, seems to indicate that there are more “McCain Democrats” than the much-ballyhooed “Obama Republicans” — or “Obamacans,” as they are sometimes referred to.

Yes, John McCain has his problems among some vocal segments of the GOP -- I'll concede disappointment with the selection of the man as the nominee, but I consider him infinitely better than anyone the Dems will give us. And I know that there is a vocal minority of Republicans who are irreconcilably against McCain, but their numbers seem to be surpassed by those Dems who cannot reconcile themselves to one or the other of their party's potential nominees. So in the end, the percentages break in favor of McCain and the GOP.

And just imagine what it will be like after a couple of more months of Hillary and barack wrestling in the mud!

Why else leave it out of this story?

A law enforcement official says Puerto Rico's governor has been charged in a long-running public corruption probe in the U.S. island territory. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila is among several people named in a sealed indictment. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the indictment is still sealed.

An FBI spokesman in San Juan declined to comment, saying there would be a news conference later to discuss the first arrests in the probe.

A government official in San Juan also said Acevedo would be charged in the indictment and that the governor's attorneys were expected to appear in court later Thursday.

Now I DiDn’t have any iDea what AceveDo’s party affiliation was before I read the story from the AssociateD Press about the inDictment. I DiD a check of WikipeDia and founD that the AceveDo is a Democrat. I wonder why that Detail was excluded from this breaking news story?

It is pathetic that this lying, thieving public official will not do a day in jail.

A scandal that began in 2006 when a TSU regent complimented Priscilla Slade's choice of home furnishings ended Wednesday with a deal that lets the ousted leader of Texas' largest historically black university avoid prison in exchange for paying back $127,672.18.

It is only a fraction of the $500,000 in school money Slade was accused of spending, lavishly and improperly, on herself. Her first trial ended last year in a mistrial, and the former, much-beloved president was scheduled to again face judgment Friday.

Wednesday's settlement, reached after hours of negotiations and ending with Slade apologizing, brings the saga to an end.

"I thank God that it's over," Slade told reporters after the plea bargain. "I can move on with my life to bigger and better things."

Slade, a CPA, said she is now working as a consultant but declined to answer any other questions.

Yeah, you saw that right -- the crook will only be required to repay 25 cents on the dollar. In other words, the makes about $325,000 in ill-gotten gains from her abuse of office. That means that we, the taxpayers of the state of Texas, really did get the shaft.

Especially since the crooked college president was not required to even admit guilt as a part of the plea deal.

Mike DeGeurin, Slade's attorney, said she is not admitting guilt and would not be forced to admit she committed a crime. He said she accepts responsibility for not ensuring that proper guidelines were followed.

Sorry -- this Texan believes there should have been a conviction.

I'm curious -- if this had been the president of UT or Texas A&M, or even University of Houston three or four blocks down the street from TSU, would this sort of plea deal have been offered or accepted? Why is it that the head of the dismally-performing open-admission four-year community college that pretends to be a university permitted to get away with her crimes? Heck, why hasn't the legislature abolished this scandal-plagued money pit?

My initial thought was that this was a figure of speech -- but if you get a whole room full of teachers concerned with the words and tone, I have to accept that it was said in a manner that made it something more.

And besides -- if a student said something like this, he'd be in jail, or at least expelled.

A middle school principal threatened to kill a group of science teachers if their students did not improve their standardized test scores, according to a complaint filed with the New Braunfels Police Department.

Anita White, who taught at New Braunfels Middle School for 18 years before being transferred this month to the district's Learning Center, said Principal John Burks made the threat in a Jan. 21 meeting with eighth-grade science teachers.

She said Burks was angry that scores on benchmark tests were not better, and the scores on the upcoming Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills tests must show improvement.

"He said if the TAKS scores were not as expected he would kill the teachers," White said. "He said 'I will kill you all and kill myself.' He finished the meeting that way and we were in shock. Obviously, we talked about it among ourselves. He just threatened our lives. After he threatened to kill us, he said, 'You don't know how ruthless I can be.'

"We walked out of the meeting just totally dumbfounded because it was not a joke," White said.

New Braunfels Police spokesman Mike Penshorn said the incident was filed as a verbal assault, but is being investigated as a terroristic threat.

Of course, I can understand the principal being a bit stressed over scores. I know districts where new principals are told that if their campus has not achieved recognized status after three years, they will be fired. And I have seen departments in my own district decimated when their scores have not made the progress a principal or superintendent desired.

But threatening to kill your teachers? That goes a bit too far. Seems to me that Burks crossed a pretty bright line.

It is so nice to see the NY Times use these words with regard to a proposed government regulation on business.

The burden on law-abiding companies would be great: thousands of dollars to comply with the rules, and thousands more to fire and replace workers.

Of course, it would happen to be a regulation that involves protecting our borders and putting an end to the scourge of illegal immigration. But still, it is progress. Will the NY Times use this standard in the future -- namely that the burden on law-abiding companies of being required to spend "thousands of dollars" (much less millions of dollars like some regulations cost business) overrides the importance of ensuring that businesses are complying with the law? Or is it only the fact that the editorial staff of the paper, with their illegal gardeners, nannies, and household help, fear having to pay American wages to American workers -- therefore imposing "thousands of dollars" in additional costs on their own personal budgets?

And they wonder why we question their patriotism.

The Justice Department said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein’s principal foreign intelligence agency and an Iraqi-American man had organized and paid for a 2002 visit to Iraq by three House Democrats whose trip was harshly criticized by colleagues at the time.

The arrangements for the trip were described in the indictment of an Iraq-born former employee of a Detroit-area charity group who was charged Wednesday with accepting millions of dollars’ worth of Iraqi oil contracts in exchange for assisting the Iraqi spy agency in projects in the United States.

The indictment did not claim any wrongdoing by the three lawmakers, whose five-day trip to Iraq occurred in October 2002, five months before the American invasion.

Two continue to serve in the House: Jim McDermott of Washington State and Mike Thompson of California. The other, David E. Bonior of Michigan, has since retired from Congress.

“None of the Congressional representatives are accused of any wrongdoing, and we have no information whatsoever that any of them were aware of the involvement of the Iraqi Intelligence Service,” said Dean Boyd, a Justice spokesman.

Maybe there is no direct evidence, but it is rather interesting that at the exact time that tensions are rising between the US and iraq, three of the most strongly pro-Saddam Democrats just happen to get t trip illegally financed by the dictator. I'm curious -- now that they know the trip was illegally funded, will the threesome be expected to repay all expenses involved in the trip? Will they face ethics charges for not digging deeper.

In other words, will they face the same treatment that Democrats demanded when Tom DeLay took a couple of trips that later turned out to have been illegally funded without his knowledge? Or do such requirements only cut one way?

Oh, and interestingly enough, the indicted Saddamite is another former official with CAIR. How many terrorists and traitors need to spring from the leadership of that organization before the US government takes action against it?

It must suck to have a race for the nomination so polarized that at least 1 out of every 5 voters for one candidate or the other will bolt to the GOP in November if the other candidate gets the nomination – meaning a 10% loss of voters committed enough to vote in the primary.

"A sizable proportion of Democrats would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination," the pollsters at Gallup report this morning. "This is particularly true for Hillary Clinton supporters," they add, "more than a quarter of whom currently say they would vote for McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee."

Gallup surveyed "6,657 national Democratic voters, aged 18 and older," from March 7-22. Of that group:

• 28% of those who support Sen. Clinton said they would vote for Republican Sen. McCain in the general election if Sen. Obama ends up being the Democratic presidential nominee.

• 19% of those who support Obama said they would vote for McCain in the general election if Clinton ends up being the Democratic nominee.

And notice that the hit is bigger if Barack Obama gets the nomination than if Hillary does.

We’ve seen a number of recent polls showing John McCain inching into the lead over both Democrats. That seems indicative of precisely the level of attrition caused by this very divisive primary fight.

And then there is this interesting tidbit from Rasmussen – 22% of Democrats want Hillary to quit the race immediately, while an identical percentage wants Obama to quit now. And 6% want both of the leading Democrats to quit the race. This sure isn’t good for them and bodes problems with “party unity”.

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez believes that Hillary and Obama will be easier to get his way with work with than the Arizona Senator and war hero.

Chavez said he hopes the United States and Venezuela can work better together when his ideological foe, U.S. President George W. Bush, leaves the White House next year, but he said McCain seemed "warlike."

"Sometimes one says, 'worse than Bush is impossible,' but we don't know," Chavez told foreign correspondents. "McCain also seems to be a man of war."

* * *

He said on Tuesday that he had better communication with the administration of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

"Independently of who wins the elections, we are hopeful and it is within our plans to enter an era of better relations with the U.S. government," he said. "At the least one would hope for the level of relations we had with ex-President Clinton."

He did not mention Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Both are cautious about Chavez, although Obama has said he could meet him.

So it is clear who one of America’s enemies does not want in the White House, and his name is John McCain. Given Obama’s willingness to lend Chavez legitimacy by meeting with him and the explicitly praise of the policies of Senator Clinton’s husband, I think we can see who would be better for America – and who would be better for the dictator.

Here’s my favorite.

The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge…

The government runs the Klan? Really? Do you have any EVIDENCE for this contention? After all, you are making what you claim to be a statement of fact. Lay out your case, sir. Ditto your white supremacy claim.

Or is proving your contentions contrary to the tenets of Black Liberation Theology?

Otherwise, Rev. Wright, publicly concede that you are a liar and a racist. And seek out some psychiatric help.

And by the way, Jeremiah, if the government is so bad and so evil, you should want less of it – not a massive increase of the sort that your parishioner Barack Obama wishes to impose on America.

These numbers concern me. And if these are actual cases of voters violating the law, I want to see them prosecuted.

But at the same time, I want to make sure that folks who did this are not prosecuted.

Robert Duran Jr. said he walked into the wrong room to vote in the March 4 primary. But he said he should not be indicted for it.

"It was an innocent mistake," said Duran, who works for an oil services company. "I just failed to read the sign."

Duran's name appeared on a list of "questionable voting cases" released Tuesday by Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman. The 1,148 individuals may have voted illegally, Kaufman said. She turned the list over to the district attorney's office for investigation and possible indictment.

Duran said he rushed to the polls after work, meaning to vote as a Republican. Duran was voting in his first primary, and he unthinkingly went to the same room he always does for general elections. But after Duran signed in the poll book and went to the booth, he saw the ballot had the names of the Democratic candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"I clicked on it and said, 'Whoa, this is not what I meant to do,' " Duran said.

We had about half-a-dozen folks at my precint do this. Despite signs saying REPUBLICAN PRIMARY" and the fact that the Democrats were voting over a mile away (there were signs directing them there) and questions about whether it was their intent to vote int eh Republican or Democrat primary, some folks still signed our poll book and then complained that Hillary and Obama were not on their ballot. We duly canceled out their ballots (it is a simple procedure), if done before the press cast ballot) -- and in such a case you are supposed to cross the voter's name out of the poll book. Did some election judges or poll workers overlook that step?

Sounds to me like some election judges failed to do their job correctly, if Duran's story is correct. That is a matter of concern for me. The same is true if someone managed to early vote and then vote on election day -- we have a list of all early/absentee voters and are supposed to mark them in the poll book before election day. Did some election judges not do that -- or did some poll worker ignore the information marked in the book?

But I also suspect that some voters committed real fraud. In such a case, they need to go directly to jail.

It's a good thing that Andrew Sullivan does not hold himself out to be a real journalist, given this post.

"What does it take to be the most liberal member of the United States Senate – farther left than Ted Kennedy, John Kerry or even Hillary Clinton? For the answer, take a look at a man who could be the next president of the United States: Barack Obama.

Sen. Obama was recently named the most liberal U.S. Senator, based on the annual voting analysis by the non-partisan and highly respected National Journal. If he emerges as the Democratic nominee, one of the critical jobs of Focus Action will be to uncover the real Barack Obama—not the feel-good orator who speaks of “change” and “hope,” but the man who would be the most left-wing president in our nation’s history.

Throughout our history, great Americans have stood up to grave challenges of all sorts. As this latest wave of secular liberalism threatens us, I look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with you in prayer and action – in defense of the family," - James Dobson, in his latest email.

The problem is that Sullivan's source reports the email this way.

Dr. Dobson's Focus on the Family begins an e-mail sent out today with:

What does it take to be the most liberal member of the United States Senate – farther left than Ted Kennedy, John Kerry or even Hillary Clinton? For the answer, take a look at a man who could be the next president of the United States: Barack Obama.

Sen. Obama was recently named the most liberal U.S. Senator, based on the annual voting analysis by the non-partisan and highly respected National Journal. If he emerges as the Democratic nominee, one of the critical jobs of Focus Action will be to uncover the real Barack Obama—not the feel-good orator who speaks of “change” and “hope,” but the man who would be the most left-wing president in our nation’s history.

The e-mail ends with this:

Throughout our history, great Americans have stood up to grave challenges of all sorts. As this latest wave of secular liberalism threatens us, I look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with you in prayer and action – in defense of the family.

Now Sullivan commits a cardinal sin here -- he takes two disconnected quotes and runs them together. Say what you want about the Sullivan's source and the conclusions made at the end of the post, but it is implied that there is a gap between those first two paragraphs and the last -- perhaps filled with some substantive discussion of issues. You know, discussion that might make that the conclusions found in that last paragraph somewhat more understandable (whether or not you accept all of Dobson's premises -- something I don't always do).

Pretty sloppy stuff, based upon the evidence we have here.

Anyone got the full text of the actual email -- since neither blogger provides the full context of the quotes in question?

Not that it is particularly significant, but you do find some interesting family connections.

This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt's girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.

Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.

Now there really are some interesting connections turned up here, but they really are not that significant, especially when you see them in the historical context of those relationships. You find family connections between the candidates going back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which at first blush could lead one to ask questions about the importance of certain families and why those families consistently rise to the top.

But then you find bits of historical trivia like one I encountered last night while reading McCullough's excellent biography of John Adams (I don't get HBO, so I have to read the book instead of watching the miniseries). Some families, especially early American families, have been quite prolific. For example, John Adams' great-grandfather had no fewer than 89 grandchildren (including the second President's father). If one presumes that only 2/3 of those grandchildren had only 5 children each pretty small number for that era), the next generation would have been some 300 great-grandchildren -- and the generation after that would have been 1000 great-great-grandchildren. You can continue the exponential growth for the next couple of generations, at which point you will discover that within a couple more generations we are into the tens of thousands of descendants. And as one works one's way back the family tree from today, remember that by the time you drill back to the Civil War era, most living Americans are looking at 64 (or even 128) ancestors of that generation. Frankly, it would be shocking not to find a connection, however collateral, to the Adams family (or the prolific Lees of Virginia). In other words, the family connections signify nothing.

Let no one say that John McCain doesn't merit the support of Reagan conservatives.

The keeper of the flame has endorsed the Arizona Senator.

Former first lady Nancy Reagan planned to endorse John McCain for president on Tuesday, as the Arizona senator continued to collect the backing of leading Republicans who might help him win over critical conservative voters.

Now certain to win the GOP nomination, McCain is on the West coast this week to raise money. He was to stop by the Southern California home of former President Ronald Reagan's widow to accept her endorsement.

In a statement before the event, Reagan said she typically waits until after the GOP convention to announce her support but she decided to do so now because it is clear the Republican Party has chosen its nominee.

"John McCain has been a good friend for over thirty years," Reagan said. "My husband and I first came to know him as a returning Vietnam War POW, and were impressed by the courage he had shown through his terrible ordeal. I believe John's record and experience have prepared him well to be our next president."

Nobody has more of a right than Nancy Reagan to speak for the fitness of John McCain to stand in the shoes of Ronald Reagan. Were John McCain unfit, she would doubtlessly have remained silent. So the time has come for the Reagan Conservatives to accept the wisdom of the one closest to Ronald Reagan and lend their support for John McCain -- or renounce their claim to the Reagan name and legacy.

H/T Hot Air

Yeah, she is acting as a surrogate for Mom, and yeah, Mom is running for President, but Chelsea just doesn't think that the American people have the right to know about Mom's credibility in light of Dad's escapades.

Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort Tuesday when asked whether her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know maybe, 70 college campuses I've now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business," Clinton said during a campaign visit for her mother, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

If Obama is called on the carpet about his relationship with his pastor, it certainly seems reasonable to ask questions about Hillary's relationship with Bill -- and the damage he did to both her credibility and the nation as a whole.

And if Chelsea can't handle the heat, maybe she needs to retreat back to that cushy bond trading job Mom and Dad got her.

UPDATE: Bill gets irritated about having to answer a substantive question.

More At Michelle Malkin, Hot Air

Now this presents an interesting question. Is an increase in home sales good news if the prices of homes are down?

Sales of existing homes increased unexpectedly in February after six months of decline, but private economists said it was too soon to say the prolonged slide in housing is coming to an end.

The National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes rose by 2.9 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.03 million units. It marked the first sales increase since last July, but even with the gain sales were still 23.8 percent below where they were a year ago.

Prices continued to slide. The median sales price for single-family homes and condominiums dropped to $195,900, a fall of 8.2 percent from a year ago, the biggest slide in the current housing slump. The median price for just single-family homes was down 8.7 percent from a year ago, the biggest decline in four decades.

Those numbers make it hard to say that we are out of the housing slump -- and analysts are predicting another six months of a weak housing market. But I can't help but remember that for the last couple of years we have been hearing that the housing market in many areas of the country was overheated and overpriced. Would this not simply constitute a readjustment of the market to reflect the actual value of the properties in question -- especially after rash speculation on the part of some buyers and sellers?

I don't pretend to have an answer to the question -- but I feel that it is an important question to ask.

Especially since the drop in prices may allow some families to purchase homes that they could not have purchased a year ago because of the inflated prices. And if so, do we really need the sort of increased government intervention in the housing market that some politicians are proposing?

If this keeps up, maybe it will become necessary to cancel the Olympics.

After all, we wouldn't want a repeat of 1936, would we?

One policeman was killed and several others injured in riots Monday in western Sichuan province, China’s state media reported.

The official Xinhua News Agency gave no other details regarding the riot.

Xinhua also said that 381 people involved in protests in another Sichuan county, Aba, had surrendered to police, according to local authorities.

The Communist leadership has faced the biggest challenge to its rule in the Himalayan area in nearly two decades after protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa exploded into violence on March 14, sparking sympathy protests in the neighboring provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai.

China is murdering peaceful protesters in Tibet -- and the unrest is now spreading to other parts of the country. The Red Chinese are demanding that athletes be silenced in their home countries in the weeks and months prior to the Olympic Games, undercutting human rights around the globe. Better that the spectacle be canceled than allowed to lend legitimacy to the world's largest violator of human rights.

Excuse me, "misspoke" means that you substituted the name of one city or country for another, or some other relatively minor gaffe. When you make up a story about dodging and weaving to avoid gunfire during an assault on an airport, it is called "lying".

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said she "misspoke" last week when saying she had landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996.

The Obama campaign suggested it was a deliberate exaggeration by Clinton, who often cites the goodwill trip with her daughter and several celebrities as an example of her foreign policy experience.

During a speech last Monday on Iraq, she said of the Bosnia trip: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

According to an Associated Press story at the time, Clinton was placed under no extraordinary risks on that trip. And one of her companions, comedian Sinbad, told The Washington Post he has no recollection either of the threat or reality of gunfire.

When asked Monday about the New York senator's remarks about the trip, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed to Clinton's written account of it in her book, "Living History," in which she described a shortened welcoming ceremony at Tuzla Air Base, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find," Clinton wrote.

"That is what she wrote in her book," Wolfson said. "That is what she has said many, many times and on one occasion she misspoke."

And just like Obama found out last week, Mrs. Clinton is discovering the YouTube can allow inconvenient facts to obscure undermine the immage one seeks to project.

Damn that contemporaneous video coverage of the event! No ducking and weaving and dodging -- and a VIP greeting for the then-First Lady.

Maybe Hillary Clinton needs a new campaign theme song.

More At Michelle Malkin, HotAir, Stop the ACLU

Even though free municipal wi-fi plans appear to be deader than a doornail, the Bill White Administration here in Houston is intent upon creating one.

Except you won't get wi-fi everywhere in the city.

You'll only get it if you live in one of ten "bubble" zones around the city.

Houston is aiming to turn EarthLink's lemons into the city's lemonade.

The company had to pay the city $5 million after defaulting on a contract to build a citywide wireless Internet network last year. On Monday, Mayor Bill White announced the city will use about $3.5 million of that money to build 10 free wireless network "bubbles" in low-income parts of Houston to give residents access they otherwise might do without.

The long-term possibility, White said, is that the bubbles could be connected and the areas between them added to the network, providing WiFi access across the city.

"It's a matter of connecting those bubbles," White said.

Monday's announcement launched the first bubble in the densely populated Gulfton area of Southwest Houston. The city is establishing a committee to determine where future networks will be located. Build-out is expected to happen over the next two years.

Yeah, it is a matter of connecting those bubbles, Mr. Mayor -- and how you are going to pay for it. Is the city headed for a tax increase?

And how can you justify undermining businesses that have already set up for-profit wi-fi networks in Houston -- or other broadband services -- which cost subscribers around $30 a month? Is undercutting business a legitimate city function? And why not free telephone or cable television service, too?

And my question is “Why?”

In a stunning and historic day, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office Monday, the latest blow to the Detroit mayor embroiled in a text message scandal.

Kilpatrick could go to prison if convicted of any of the eight felonies filed against him by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. His former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, faces seven felonies.

"Our investigation has clearly shown that public dollars were used, people's lives were ruined, the justice system was severely mocked and the public trust trampled on," said a visibly angry Worthy. "This is as far from being a private matter as one can get."

Excuse me, but these charges are about nothing but sex. After all, doesn’t everyone lie about sex? Yeah, it was under oath as but it was still about sex. And the misuse of one’s office to conduct a sexual affair with a subordinate, to reward that subordinate and to try to cover up the affair? Still, in the end, nothing but sex.

At least that was the argument that we heard about 10 years ago when another prominent Democrat politician lied under oath, engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, and moved heaven and earth to feather the nest of his sugar baby. Indeed, Republicans were excoriated for attempting to hold Bill Clinton to precisely the standards that these charges are based upon. Why does Kwame Kilpatrick face jail time while Bill Clinton got to serve out his term, play elder statesman, and potentially become the first man to serve as First Lady?

Is it race?

Or is it just that the Clintons are above the rules that apply to mere mortals?

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Set aside the question of whether we should elect a president by popular or electoral votes. The reality is that we do so using the electoral vote system.

That's why the Clinton campaign is now adopting an electoral vote strategy in wooing superdelegates.

Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who backs Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, proposed another gauge Sunday by which superdelegates might judge whether to support Mrs. Clinton or Senator Barack Obama.

He suggested that they consider the electoral votes of the states that each of them has won.

“So who carried the states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because ultimately, that’s how we choose the president of the United States,” Mr. Bayh said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

In a primary, of course, electoral votes are not relevant, but the Clinton campaign is trying to use them as an unofficial measure of strength.

So far, Mrs. Clinton has won states with a total of 219 Electoral College votes, not counting Florida and Michigan, while Mr. Obama has won states with a total of 202 electoral votes.

It is a fascinating issue, don't you think? Should the will of the majority count more in the nominating contest, or the measure of strength in terms of the measure that actually counts in November? Of course, given the denunciation of the Electoral College system by Democrats -- including Mrs. Clinton -- to consider the weight of states based upon electoral votes seems a bit hypocritical.

But then again, when have the Clintons ever averse to a little hypocrisy in the service of political opportunism?

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One of the happier moments of my college years was watching Corazon Aquino become president of the Philippines. To see the will of the people enforced in such a bloodless, non-violent way was a moment of great hope for the world.

Now comes word that Mrs. Aquino is seriously ill.

Former Philippine President Corazon Aquino has colon cancer, her daughter said Monday.

Aquino, 75, was swept into power by the peaceful "people power" revolt that ousted late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, cementing her as an icon of democracy.

Usually dressed in her trademark yellow in public, she has remained active in social and political causes. Most recently, she has been attending rallies calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Kris Aquino, fighting tears, read a statement on live television that said her mother had gone in for tests after suffering from high blood pressure and difficulty breathing during the Christmas and New Year holidays, then a persistent cough and weight loss.

"The result showed our mother is suffering from cancer of the colon," she said.

In recent years, the former president has become active in politics again as she has fought corruption in the Arroyo administration. At a time when her nation truly needs her, she is fighting a much more serious, much more personal battle. In her honor, may the people of her nation heed her words and opt for an end to government corruption and abuse of power.

Engaging in terrorism and support of terrorism by disrupting religious services strikes me as grounds for serious sanctions from religious authorities as well as civil authorities.

Six Iraq war protesters disrupted an Easter Mass on Sunday, shouting and squirting fake blood on themselves and parishioners in a packed auditorium.

Three men and three women startled the crowd during Cardinal Francis George's homily, yelling "Even the Pope calls for peace" as they were removed from the Mass by security guards and ushers.

One Mass attendee, Mike Wainscott of Chicago, yelled at the anti-war protesters.

"Are you happy with yourselves?" he said. "There were kids in there. You scared little kids with your selfish act. Are you happy now?"

The group, which calls itself Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, said in a statement after the arrests that they targeted the Holy Name Cathedral on Easter to reach a large audience, including Chicago's most prominent Catholic citizens and the press, which usually covers the services.

Kevin Clark of International Solidarity Movement told the Chicago Tribune that he attended the Mass to serve as a witness for the protesters.

"If Cardinal George is a man of peace and is walking the walk and talking the talk, he should have confronted George Bush and demanded an immediate end to the war," Clark said.

Speaking after the service, George said, "We should all work for peace, but not by interrupting the worship of God."

First, let me note the lie in the group's name -- Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War. Setting aside the co-ed nature of the group, I cannot help but note that any true Catholic would not disrupt mass to make a political point.

And interestingly enough, these thugs were removed in a peaceful, safe manner with no injuries. I wonder what would have happened if they had descended on a mosque instead and engaged in the same sort of display, demanding that the leadership of the mosque call for an end to Muslim terrorism right at that moment? Would they have left that mosque uninjured? Would they have left with their heads still on their shoulders?

I'm curious -- when will anti-war leaders denounce these tactics of hate? And will the two remaining Democrats in the presidential race -- opponents of the war -- do so, especially since one is from Chicago.

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CHAPTER 28
1 Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it.
3 His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.
4 And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.
5 But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.
6 He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7 And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.”
8 So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.
9 And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him.
10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.”

Even having been away so much this month, traffic on the site has still been up quite high.

This led to a little bandwidth problem for much of the day -- a problem that has since been corrected.

I apologize for the difficulties you might have experienced earlier, and invite you all to come back and visit as often as you want, since the problem is now fixed.

But with one minor proviso.

They must embrace key tenets of Islam and reject key tenets of Christianity.

No churches should be permitted in Saudi Arabia, unless Pope Benedict XVI recognised the prophet Mohammed, according to a Middle East expert.

While Saudi mediators are working with the Vatican on negotiations to allow places of religious worship, some experts believe it will not occur without this recognition.

Anwar Ashiqi, president of the Saudi centre for Middle East strategic studies, endorsed this view in an interview on the site of Arab satellite TV network, al-Arabiya on Thursday.

"I haven taken part in several meetings related to Islamic-Christian dialogue and there have been negotiations on this issue," he said.

"It would be possible to launch official negotiations to construct a church in Saudi Arabia only after the Pope and all the Christian churches recognise the prophet Mohammed."

"If they don't recognise him as a prophet, how can we have a church in the Saudi kingdom?"

Ashiqi's comments came after a declaration launched by the papal nuncio of the Persian Gulf, the archbishop Mounged El-Hachem, at the opening of the first Catholic church in Qatar last week.

The prelate had announced the launch of "treaties to construct a church in Saudi Arabia where it is banned to practise whatever religion they want outside Islam".

El-Hachem estimated three to four million Christians in the Saudi kingdom who want to have a church.

Let's see -- accepting Muhammad as a prophet would also require rejecting the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Oh, and also his divinity. In other words, Christians can have churches in Saudi Arabia just as soon as they apostasize and become Muslims.

Of course, that would means that there would be no need for Christian churches in Saudi Arabia. But then again, that is the Muslim view of religious freedom -- if you aren't Muslim, you have none.

Isn't it a wonderful insult for the Saudis to throw at the Christian world in the midst of the holiest season of the Christian faith?

Many were outraged that this woman was allowed out of prison after so short a time -- especially given her years on the lam. But it turns out that the state of California miscalculated, and now Kathleen Soliah (I refuse to call her by the name she adopted while on the lam -- let her always be called by the name under which she was know while engaged in terrorism) is back behind bars where she belongs.

Former Symbionese Liberation Army radical Sara Jane Olson went back to prison Saturday after just five days as a free woman.

State corrections officials said they released Olson early because of a "clerical error." They said she must now return to a women's prison in Chowchilla to serve as many as two more years for her role in crimes including the 1975 murder of a Carmichael woman during a bank robbery.

"We understand how sensitive the impact of such an error has on all involved in this case and regret the mistake," said Scott Kernan, chief of adult operations for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, at an afternoon news conference in Sacramento.

Authorities arrested Olson - known as Kathleen Soliah during her SLA days - just before midnight Friday at Los Angeles International Airport. Olson, 61, had spent her brief freedom with relatives in Palmdale. She was minutes away from boarding a plane with her husband to return to family in Minnesota when eight corrections officers stopped her.

Olson's attorney, David Nickerson of San Rafael, said corrections officials "blew it" and had no right to arrest his client, whom they had given permission to serve a year of parole in Minnesota. He said he will mount a legal challenge as soon as court offices open Monday.

"They seem to be saying, 'We were massively incompetent: We gave her the wrong release date,' " Nickerson said. "Well, if they are so incompetent, how should we believe the new release date?"

I've got a solution -- let's make Soliah's release date the day she finishes every single second of her twelve-year sentence.

Now one prominent conservative blogger did express this sentiment.

...it’s hard not to sympathize with Soliah’s children, who must be crushed at this unexpected turn of events.

Yes, Ed, you have expressed outrage at her early release, but I'll reserve my sympathy for this child -- the son of one of Soliah's murder victims.

Jon Opsahl of Riverside, Myrna Opsahl's son, said Saturday he's thankful Olson will have to serve at least one more year, but it's still not enough.

"The judge, on her release, said 'For Sara Jane Olson to spend another day in prison would be an injustice: She's no threat to society.' It was my mother who was no threat to society," Opsahl said.

Soliah's children will get their mother back one day -- Jon Opsahl never will.

We need a change of law in this country -- one which forbids the early release of any terrorist, foreign or domestic.

So, folks, did the Easter Bunny visit your house overnight, leaving baskets of goodies for the kids?

Well, he's home now, safe and sound, taking a bit of time to relax.

Ever wonder what the Easter Bunny does after a hard night delivering candy to little kids around the world?

Well, secret cameras have caught him relaxing at home.

Check out below the fold to see how he unwinds.

Hey --wouldn't you need a cold one, too?

H/T Lucianne.com

« All done with "Kicked Back And Relaxing"?

We've seen the following changes in America.

Here are some of the outcomes of them being in control.

Up:

* Gasoline up from $2.19 to $3.35 or 53%
* Unemployment up from 4.5% to 5% or 11.1%
* National dept per ca pita was $27,677 then and now $31,551 or 14% higher.
* Congressional pay increase.

Down:

* Consumer confidence at multiple year lows.
* Equity value of mutual funds down $2.3 trillion.
* Home equity values down $1.2 trillion
* Congress's approval rating at all time low.

Remember, 2006 was all about change, according to the Democrats. And since the 2006 election, we've gotten plenty of change in the economy -- none of it good.

Indeed, it is likely that a Democrat victory in 2008 will result in Americans having nothing but change in their pockets and bank accounts by the time the next presidential election comes around.

Can America really afford any more of the "change" that the Democrats have given us?

After all, they openly and proudly support deeds like this.

When a poll reveals all but a fraction of Palestinians support the murder of eight innocent Jewish seminarians, it shows a people wedded to evil. It's a short trip from this hate to the kind Hitler espoused.

The West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a professional and independent polling agency that surveys Palestinians four times a year, has found that no less than 84% of 1,270 Palestinians questioned by the center in personal interviews said they supported the March 6 shooting inside Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav yeshiva.

The slaughter was carried out by East Jerusalem resident Alaa Abu Dheim, who was himself eventually killed during his attack. All but one of the eight he killed were teens, two of them only 15 years old. Another 11 were wounded.

Pollster Khalil Shikaki was understandably shocked at the results, which also found 75% support for scrapping Israeli-Palestinian talks and 64% support for the Hamas terrorist group's thousands of recent rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip on Israeli towns.

In other words, these backwards barbarians support terrorists entering a school and shooting the teenage students inside. They support lobbing rockets randomly at civilians without regard to cease-fire agreements. And they have no interest in actually seeking peace with Israel.

And yet the US government is releasing more funding to the "government" of the Terrorstinian Anarchy. Seems to me that we are just funding more terrorism, not creating a "partner for peace".

UPDATE: A pointed reminder of those murdered in the Mercaz Harav yeshiva terrorist attack leads me to bump this post up -- please take the time to read the material below the fold, and to remember each of these young men,

Let no one say that the Clintons and their surrogates are keeping things polite.

“An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

Now once can (and should) question whether endorsing Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton really qualifies as the moral equivalent of betraying the Son of God to the Temple authorities. But one would have hoped that the Obama campaign would have considered the timing of the endorsement before choosing Good Friday as the day to make it public.

But then again, given the rhetoric of Obama's pastor comparing him to Jesus Christ in his 2007 Christmas sermon, perhaps the timing wasn't a coincidence.

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Here's hoping that folks in Wilmer, Texas, have the common sense and common decency to vote against this guy.

A registered sex offender is running for mayor of a Dallas-area town.

James Brian Sliter wants to be mayor of Wilmer. The election is May 10.

Records show that Sliter was arrested four years ago for arranging sex with someone he thought was a 15-year-old girl on the Internet. When Sliter got to the meeting place, he was greeted by police instead of a teenager.

Sliter, who is now 42, said he needs to prove that he can be an asset to his community. He says that he's truly sorry and hopes voters realize that people make mistakes.

Sliter was charged with attempting to sexually assault a child and placed on 10 years probation, according to state records. He's eligible to run because he received deferred adjudication and not a conviction.

First, attempting to arrange to have sex with a child is not "a mistake".

Second, I hope the Texas Legislature takes the time to fix state law so as to make any registered sex offender ineligible to run for office.

Many of us wondered about the feasibility (not to mention the propriety) of these municipal internet schemes when they were first announced. Now it would appear that we were right -- and there is a question as to how much these failed efforts will cost taxpayers.

It was hailed as Internet for the masses when Philadelphia officials announced plans in 2005 to erect the largest municipal Wi-Fi grid in the country, stretching wireless access over 135 square miles with the hope of bringing free or low-cost service to all residents, especially the poor.

Municipal officials in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and 10 other major cities, as well as dozens of smaller towns, quickly said they would match Philadelphia’s plans.

But the excited momentum has sputtered to a standstill, tripped up by unrealistic ambitions and technological glitches. The conclusion that such ventures would not be profitable led to sudden withdrawals by service providers like EarthLink, the Internet company that had effectively cornered the market on the efforts by the larger cities.

Now, community organizations worry about their prospects for helping poor neighborhoods get online.

Of course, this begs the question of whether or not it is the responsibility of government (whether municipal, county, state, or federal) to provide internet access -- especially high-speed internet access -- to residents of any economic class. We wondered how the private companies involved would make a profit on the programs, and whether it would eventually be taxpayer dollars that would sustain what is, in the end, a luxury rather than a necessity. We also questioned how poor people who could not afford the cost of internet service could afford the cost of a computer to access that service if it were free.

While the last question has not been answered, advocates for free municipal wi-fi networks are already attacking what they see as the root problem that led to the failure of the programs in the American cities mentioned above -- free market capitalism and the concept of a profit-driven market.

“The entire for-profit model is the reason for the collapse in all these projects,” said Sascha Meinrath, technology analyst at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.

Mr. Meinrath said that advocates wanted to see American cities catch up with places like Athens, Leipzig and Vienna, where free or inexpensive Wi-Fi already exists in many areas.

He said that true municipal networks, the ones that are owned and operated by municipalities, were far more sustainable because they could take into account benefits that help cities beyond private profit, including property-value increases, education benefits and quality-of-life improvements that come with offering residents free wireless access.

So the solution, in the eyes of the folks from the New America Foundation, is increasing the level of socialism in America and undermining the free market. After all, if cities offer for free (or at cut rates) what private businesses have spend billions developing and building, we will quickly see the vast improvements in internet connectivity come to a screeching halt. After all, why invest in improving the ability to access the internet when the government is going to strip you of your market?

Adam Smith is no doubt whirling dervishly in his mausoleum.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?

Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?

"You mean witches? We have 'em too. We just pronounce it differently." -- Brigadoon

I think we'll all concede that there are no witches, at least not in the traditional sense of the malignant figures used to scare children.

And I think we'll all concede that there were massive wrongs done in witch hunts centuries ago, with men and women unjustly condemned for witchcraft.

But do we really need a legislative acknowledgment of centuries-old wrongs against accused and convicted witches?

Three years ago, Debra Avery and her family were shocked to learn they were direct descendants of Mary Sanford, a wife and mother of five who was hanged in Connecticut in 1692 after being convicted of witchcraft.

On Thursday, they trekked to the state Capitol, in the same city where Sanford and several other convicted witches were executed, to ask state lawmakers to restore their relative's good name. Legislators are considering a resolution that states that those convicted and their descendants should be freed from the stigma of the witchcraft accusations.

Avery, a New Preston resident and an eighth-generation great-granddaughter of Mary Sanford, said it has become a personal mission.

"We talk an awful lot about Mary being with us. We talk about whether we are Mary exonerating ourselves," she said. "But Mary has become a big part of our life. We talk about her a lot. I think it's in the DNA."

According to legislative research, it is believed that nine women and two men were convicted and hanged in the mid-1600s in Connecticut for witchcraft. Others were banished, indicted or fled the colony.

Two women were dropped into water to see if they possessed evil spirits. If they sank, they were innocent. But if they floated, they were guilty because the pure water cast out their evil spirit. One was acquitted while the other was given a reprieve by the General Assembly.

Others were also acquitted of the alleged crimes.

"Freed of the stigma"? Come on -- how much of a stigma is there, really, in 2008 over witchcraft charges in the seventeenth century? Do we really need legislation to acknowledge what everyone today admits -- that those accused were innocent of any wrongdoing? What next? Reparations for the descendants of those accused?

Sometimes we just have to recognize that great wrongs were done in the past, and that nothing we do or say today can undo them. All we can do is learn from them and move forward -- and that is not accomplished by breast-beating over the ancient wrongs.

OK -- I'll admit it.

I'm a dog person.

And I've fallen in love with a certain website over the last few months.

One with pictures like the one below the fold.

This poor little girl is named Chelsie, and she is a pug/chihuahua mix. You can see more of her and her friends at The Daily Puppy!

« All done with "Noting A Favorite Site"?

I wrote this the other day regarding New York's new governor, David Paterson.

Oh, one last comment -- good luck to the people of New York and their new governor. Here's hoping that this story dies the death that it deserves -- because as I said above, an extramarital affair alone should not be fodder for the press or grounds for disqualification from office.

Man, I really hoped that my observation would be the last about his extramarital affairs, and those of his wife. After all, it appeared that they truly belonged in that personal zone of privacy that we ought to, but rarely do, afford politicians.

Unfortunately, there appears to be a little something more to this story that may mean it won't go away.

Concern is growing in Albany over the prospect that, even as Governor Paterson races to get on top of the budget crisis, the disclosures of his private sexual affairs have damaged — perhaps irreparably — his capacity to execute the state's highest office.

Dogged by suspicions that his campaign expenditures and his extramarital relationships were improperly entangled, Mr. Paterson heads into his second week on the job no longer the fresh face who symbolized a return to civility, but a weakened politician.

"Paterson's persona has been really damaged," a politics professor at Baruch College, Doug Muzzio, said. "On Monday, he was sitting on top of the world. It was, 'I am David Paterson and I am governor of New York.' It now becomes, 'I am David Paterson and I am this philandering, pay-for-it-with-other-people's-money type of guy,'"

For the third consecutive day, Mr. Paterson struggled to account for a 2002 payment, billed to the credit card of his campaign committee, for an Upper West Side hotel room where Mr. Paterson had a sexual liaison.

The governor, who served as lieutenant governor under Eliot Spitzer, has also been unable to explain the circumstances behind a $500 campaign payment to a woman with whom he was romantically involved.

Meanwhile, Paterson officials sought to provide details about more than $11,000 in payments that his campaign committee made between 2002 and 2007 to a 45-year-old woman, April Robbins-Bobyn, whose connection to Mr. Paterson is not clear.

Please tell me that he didn't expense the hotel room and sugar-daddy payments to his hot little honey. Please tell me that he didn't use funds that are regulated by ethics laws to pay for his affair.

But if he did, it looks like he has a major problem on his hands.

Tell me -- who is next in line of succession for the office of Governor of New York?

UPDATE: I just found the answer to the question.

One consequence of Mr. Paterson's elevation is that the next in line to be governor is the temporary president of the state Senate, Joseph Bruno, who has held that position since 1995, when newly-elected Governor Pataki and Senator D'Amato secured it for him.

Senator Bruno has repeatedly been described in the press as facing indictment for a variety of allegedly corrupt transactions, but so far he has escaped prosecution, and it is possible that he will never be charged.

If, however, Mr. Bruno became governor, and were subsequently forced to leave the office, whether for legal entanglements or for reasons of health — he was born in April 1929 — the next in line to be New York State's chief executive is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has held that position since 1994 with increasing authority. In 2000, Mr. Silver crushed a revolt, punished the plotters, and solidified his power.

The denouement of this series of untimely events could be the accession of Shelly Silver as the 57th governor of New York State. A strong governor might control a dysfunctional legislature.

A Silver regime may cure the paralysis which has affected state government through decades of split responsibility and partisan conflict. However, it raises the issue of whether the taxpayers and voters of the state of New York would be better off with a divided, enfeebled legislature and governor than with officials who could really injure the people by their devotion to the special interests, labor, and business, and their persistent lobbyists, who in fact constitute the permanent government of the Empire State.

The leading Dems say that it isn't. The head of al-Qaeda begs to differ.

Al-Jazeera broadcast on Thursday an audiotape on which a voice identified as Osama bin Laden declares "Iraq is the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine."

The voice calls on "Muslims in neighboring countries" to "do their best in supporting their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq."

"My speech to you is about the siege of Gaza and the way to liberate it," he said.

"The Gaza siege is a direct result of Annapolis," he adds, apparently referring to the site of November's summit in Annapolis, Maryland, where Israeli and Palestinian leadership agreed to work toward a two-state plan.

He accused Arabs who supported the plan of having become "partners in this horrendous crime."

And he predicted, "Palestine will be restored to us, with God's permission, when we wake up from our slumber and adhere to our faith and sacrifice our souls and belongings for it."

So let's make it quite clear -- Osama bin Laden has declared Iraq to be a crucial front in his Jihad Against The Civilized World. He intends to turn the country into a staging area against the single free nation in the Middle East, Israel, and the interests of the US in the region.

Now please understand -- I'm not saying that those who support a US withdrawal from Iraq without victory are supporting the goals of al-Qaeda.

On the other hand, Osama bin Laden is.

That should be something to think about when casting a vote for President of the United States -- whose plan for Iraq does the most to advance the goals of al-Qaeda?

Setting up a situation that I have long expected -- a high probability of a Barack Obama-Bill Richardson ticket this fall.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, calling him a "once-in-a- lifetime leader" who can unite the nation and restore America's international leadership.

Richardson, who dropped out of the Democratic race in January, is to appear with Obama on Friday at a campaign event in Portland, Ore., The Associated Press has learned.

On one level, this endorsement and the increased likelihood of an Obama-Richardson ticket is somewhat comforting -- it means that one member of an Obama Administration would actually have some foreign policy experience. But on the other hand, I don't know if the ticket would really do Obama much good among Hispanic voters -- as I've noted in the past, the general response I've heard from Hispanic students (both on the high school and college levels) regarding Bill Richardson is that they consider him to be a privileged white guy with a white name. Can that perception be overcome? And what about the betrayal of the Clinton's by this long-time Clintonoid?

After all, besides maintaining a close personal relationship with his racism-spewing, terrorism-supporting anti-American pastor, Barack Obama maintains a tight relationship with Weather Underground terrorists William Ayers and Bernardine Dorhn.

Surely murdering terrorist Kathleen Soliah would fit right in around the Obama dining room table.

Kathleen Soliah, a former member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, was released on parole this week from a California women's prison after serving about six years behind bars for her role in a plot to kill Los Angeles police officers by blowing up their patrol cars.

* * *

Soliah pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing a destructive device with the intent to murder and also struck a deal in a separate case, in which she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for participating in a Sacramento bank robbery where another SLA member killed a customer. For the murder conviction, she received a one-year sentence. For the botched bombings, Soliah initially was sentenced to five years and four months, but that term was extended to 12 years by a state prison board after the board designated her a serious offender.

And now she is out of prison after serving only half her sentence.

Frankly, this scumbag (like every terrorist) merited nothing more than a single bullet to the back of the head and disposal of her remains in the local dump. Instead she became an icon to liberals. I hope the press does its job and asks both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton what they think about Soliah's release from prison -- and grill Obama about his relationship with the terrorists mentioned above.

H/T Michelle Malkin, Hot Air

Sammy bin Laden, of course.

And the good folks over at Salon.com have some interesting details in their round-up.

Small Dead Animals shows that al-Qaida evidently stole one screen capture in a recent propaganda video from the film 300: "The Al-Qaeda media braintrust's latest production incorporates images of Spartan spears drenched in the blood of Persians."

At Commentary's contentions, Emanuele Ottolenghi writes: "Bin Laden has just officially applied the doctrine of taqfir against Europe because of the Danish cartoons. Taqfir, it should be recounted, means the permission to punishment unbelievers by death: unbelief, more than any other sin, dooms souls to hell in Islamic thinking. What Bin Laden said is short for 'Europeans, as a body politic, are apostates. And they deserve to die.' " "People like OBL are incapable of seeing and understanding irony, aren't they?" says Michael van der Galien at PoliGazette. "Sure, it's perfectly fine to blow yourself up in the middle of a market, in an attempt to kill as many innocent 'non-believers' (and believers) as you can, but publishing a cartoon about the Prophet Muhammed is considered to be 'uncivil' and in breach with 'the etiquettes of dispute and fighting.' "

Steve Skojec says bring it on: "If you want a new crusade, Bin Laden, go ahead and go after the pope. Ever hear of the Battle of Lepanto? How about Granada? Vienna? The Catholic armies of the past broke the back of the Ottoman Empire and scattered the warriors of jihad so badly they had to nurse their wounds for centuries."

The Jawa Report thinks Bin Laden's dead: "The Muhammad cartoons were first published in September of 2005! There is literally no doubt in my mind now. This is an old audio, probably from 2006, of bin Laden. As Sahab must have been embarrassed that they had nothing to offer the world on this the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, so they hurriedly released an old audio they had lying around. The fact that there was no accompanying banner is evidence that they threw this together last minute." Pretty much, adds Report on Arrakis: "Why is Bin Laden harping on news from 2 years ago? No mention of Geert Wilders' upcoming movie? No one's even seen the movie and already you have some muslims foaming at the mouth. But Bin Laden only talks about the motoons, because he doesn't know about Fitna, because in most likelyhood he is dead."

The consensus? This is old material cobbled together to release a message now, rather than an actual message from bin Laden. Seems plausible -- but I don't know that I agree. After all, the Mohammad Cartoons are recent news again, and attacks on "Crusaders" are always timely.

Personally, I can only reiterate my earlier message -- "Kiss my bacon-grease smeared butt, you follower of Satan!"

And I offer this challenge to any offended liberal or Muslim -- would you care to explain why you find my insult to the belief system of the top terrorist to be offensive, or why you reject my contention that his beliefs and actions are Satanic in nature?

One would have thought that the Fourteenth Amendment would have made this outcome a foregone conclusion, but it has taken a federal judge to rule that an amendment to Michigan's constitution that nearly verbatim copies provisions of the US civil rights law (in particular the 1964 Civil Rights Act) does not violate the US Constitution.

A federal judge Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of a Michigan law that prohibits racial and gender preferences in government hiring and public university admissions.

"To impugn the motives of 58 (percent) of Michigan's electorate, in the absence of extraordinary circumstances which do not exist here, simply is not warranted on this record," U.S. District Judge David Lawson wrote.

Michigan voters approved the constitutional amendment known as Proposal 2 in November 2006.

Several groups -- including the NAACP and By Any Means Necessary -- as well as minority high school and college students challenged the measure, saying it would reduce minority enrollment in public universities.

Among the arguments in the lawsuits was that Proposal 2 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution as well as federal statutes.

Lawson rejected the claim. "The Court believes that Michigan may limit the ability of discrete groups to secure an advantage based upon a racial classification without offending the Fourteenth Amendment," he wrote.

George Washington, an attorney for BAMN, said the group planned to immediately file an appeal. "We will take this to the U.S. Supreme Court if we have to. This is racially targeted legislation of the worst kind. To say it's protecting equal rights is outrageous."

Now what is it that these pro-discrimination morons claim is so offensive tot he US Constitution? Well, this.

(1) The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and any other public college or university, community college, or school district shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

(2) The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

(3) For the purposes of this section "state" includes, but is not necessarily limited to, the state itself, any city, county, any public college, university, or community college, school district, or other political subdivision or governmental instrumentality of or within the State of Michigan not included in sub-section 1.

(4) This section does not prohibit action that must be taken to establish or maintain eligibility for any federal program, if ineligibility would result in a loss of federal funds to the state.

(5) Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as prohibiting bona fide qualifications based on sex that are reasonably necessary to the normal operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

(6) The remedies available for violations of this section shall be the same, regardless of the injured party's race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin, as are otherwise available for violations of Michigan anti-discrimination law.

(7) This section shall be self-executing. If any part or parts of this section are found to be in conflict with the United States Constitution or federal law, the section shall be implemented to the maximum extent that the United States Constitution and federal law permit. Any provision held invalid shall be severable from the remaining portions of this section.

(8) This section applies only to action taken after the effective date of this section.

(9) This section does not invalidate any court order or consent decree that is in force as of the effective date of this section.

On what legitimate basis can a voter initiative forbidding the use of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin to either advantage or disadvantage individuals in the provision of government services be seen as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If anything, it constitutes a demand by the people of the state of Michigan that its government operate consistent with the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Another author has had to go into hiding in the face of death threats from the followers of the Religion of Peace.

BANGLADESHI writer Taslima Nasreen has left India after being hounded into hiding by death threats from Islamic extremists, her publisher and friends say.

"Taslima Nasreen flew out of New Delhi this afternoon to Europe for medical treatment,'' her publisher Sibani Mukherjee said.

She said Nasreen had asked her not to reveal the author's exact destination.

Close friends also told said she had left India, and some Indian television stations reported that Nasreen was headed for Canada.

Nasreen was forced to flee Bangladesh in 1994 after radical Muslims accused her of blasphemy over her novel Lajja (Shame') - which depicts the life of a Hindu family persecuted by Muslims in Bangladesh.

The 45-year-old gynaecologist-turned-author - whose predicament is similar to that of Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie - had been seeking permanent residence in India, where she moved after spending time in Europe and the United States.

But New Delhi had stalled the request, fearful of a backlash from the country's 140 million-plus Muslims, and has given the openly atheistic author only six-month visas.

Why the outrage over Nasreen's writings? is it because it depicts untruths about Islam? No -- it is because it depicts the truth about the status of religious minorities in Islamic societies. And an unflattering truth about Islam cannot be allowed to go unchallenged-- and those who speak such truths cannot be allowed to go unmurdered.

Personally, I would welcome Nasreen in this country -- not because I agree with her atheistic beliefs (non-beliefs?), but because I believe in her undeniable right to hold and express them freely. Indeed, there was a time that the "offenses" committed by Nasreen were considered to be human rights, and Western nations (even non-Western nations) sought to protect those who exercised those rights. Today, fear of Islamic terrorism leads many nations to back down or remain silent in the face of Islamic demands for the murder of those whose only crime is exercising their human rights.

But the threats of those who would kill Taslima Nasreen for the crime of speaking and writing freely once again leads to a choice between two strikingly sad realities -- either Islam is incompatible with human freedom, or it teaches that Muslims are not human beings.

Kiss my bacon-grease smeared butt, you follower of Satan!

Wednesday's audiotape from bin Laden was posted on a militant Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group's media wing Al-Sahab.

"The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God," said a voice believed to be bin Laden's, without specifying what action would be taken.

He said the cartoons "came in the framework of a new Crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role," according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, a U.S. group that monitors terror messages.

"You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings," he said. "This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe."

Why don't you act like a man and come crawling out of your cave? You know, instead of releasing video and audio statements, actually appear somewhere in person and say these things. I'm sure that any of the American media would be more than willing to give you the protection that you need.

And since most of them won't print the cartoons out of fear of giving you offense, here they are on my site. What are you going to do about it?

In the West, we are free. In the Islamic Caliphate you envision, we would be slaves. I therefore reject you and your threats against those of us who exercise the freedom to reject your religion of hatred and violence.

H/T Michelle Malkin

Well, now we understand why Barack Obama has stayed with Trinity UCC and racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- he holds to the views expressed by Wright from the pulpit that white people are inherently racist.

610 WIP (Philadelphia) host Angelo Cataldi asked Obama about his Tuesday morning speech on race at the National Constitution Center in which he referenced his own white grandmother and her prejudice. Obama told Cataldi that "The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know (pause) there's a reaction in her that doesn't go away and it comes out in the wrong way."

Excuse me -- "a typical white person"????????

Sounds like more of the same racial and ethnic insults that come from Rev. Wright -- the guy who rants about "white greed" and "the US of KKK-A". Could you imagine if Hillary or McCain commented on "typical black people"? There would be a shit-storm so big that it would make Hurricane Katrina look like a gentle spring rain shower.

And this from a guy who demanded that Imus be fired for his "nappy-headed ho" comment. This comment therefore seems like an offense sufficient enough to require that he withdraw from the presidential race -- except, of course, that as a black man no liberal Democrat would have the guts to call him on his racism and hold him to the same standards a white candidate would be held to. Proof again that Geraldine Ferraro got it exactly right, and that Barack Obama is nothing but an affirmative action candidate who is held to a lower standard than a similarly situated white candidate would be.

H/T Campaign Spot, Holy Coast, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin

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The Washington Post unintentionally gives one more reason to vote Republican -- the cut-and-run plans of the Democrats will not only result in the abandonment of all the progress that has been made in Iraq, but will also directly lead to the civil war that they claim to want to avoid.

BOTH Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton propose withdrawing U.S. troops at the most rapid pace the Pentagon says is possible -- one brigade a month. In the 16 months or so it would take to remove those forces, they envision the near-miraculous accomplishment of every political goal the Bush administration has aimed at for five years, from the establishment of a stable government to agreement by Iraq's neighbors to support it. They suppose that the knowledge that American forces were leaving would inspire these accords. In fact, it more likely would cause all sides to discount U.S. influence and prepare to violently seize the space left by the departing Americans.

With equal implausibility, the Democratic candidates say they would leave limited U.S. forces behind to prevent al-Qaeda from establishing bases. They assume that an Iraqi government that had just been abandoned by the United States would consent to the continued presence of American forces on its territory. In all, Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama speak as if they have no understanding of Iraqi leaders, whom they propose to treat as willing puppets.

If there was a glimmer of sense in Mr. Obama's speech, it lay in his acknowledgment that "we will have to make tactical adjustments, listening to our commanders on the ground, to ensure that our interests in a stable Iraq are met and to make sure our troops are secure." Ms. Clinton conceded that "the critical question is how we can end this war responsibly" and added "it won't be easy." In fact it will be terribly hard -- and it can't be done responsibly in the way or on the timeline the two Democrats are proposing. We can only hope that, behind their wildly unrealistic campaign rhetoric, the candidates understand that reality.

So let's see -- a liberal bastion like the Washington Post has labeled the plans of the two remaining Democrat contenders as "unrealistic", "irresponsible", "implausible", and "dangerous". Indeed, the title of the editorial makes it clear that the proposals are so far from reality as to enter the realm of fantasy. What the editorial does not say -- perhaps because those responsible for this piece are wedded to the notion that the Democrats must win in November -- is that the proper solution to Iraq lies in voting for the one candidate who actually has a realistic plan for dealing with Iraq. That would be the Republican, John McCain.

No doubt sipping on tea on some porch somewhere at the behest of his wife Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson has spoken from on high about who has the necessary foreign policy credentials to serve as President. And the icon of the anti-Iraq War crowd says it ain't Obama.

Claims of superior intuitive judgment by his campaign and by him are self-evidently disingenuous, especially in light of disclosures about his long associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko. But his assertions of advanced judgment are also ludicrous when the question of what Obama has accomplished in his four years in the Senate is considered.

As the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee subcommittee on Europe, he has not chaired a single substantive oversight hearing, even though the breakdown in our relations with Europe and NATO is harming our operations in Afghanistan. Nor did he take a single official trip to Europe as chairman. This is the sum total of his actions in the most important responsibility he has had in the Senate. What are his actual experiences that reassure us that when the phone rings at 3 a.m. he will know what to do, which levers of power to pull, or which world leaders he can count on?

Obama has stated that he will rely upon his advisers. But how will he know which ones to depend upon and how will he be able to evaluate what they say? Already, one of his chief foreign policy advisers, Samantha Power, has been compelled to resign for, among other indiscretions, honestly revealing on a British television program that Obama's public position on withdrawal from Iraq is not really his true position, nor does it reflect what he would do. Her gaffe exposed a vein of cynicism on national security. How confident can we be in his judgment? In fact, the hard truth is that he has no such experience.

Obama has tried to have it both ways on the issue of national security. On the one hand, he claims his intuition somehow would make him best equipped to handle the difficult challenges that face the next president. On the other hand, he tries to ridicule and dismiss as relatively insignificant the idea that actual experience with and intimate knowledge of foreign affairs and leaders, the U.S. military, the intelligence community, and the intricacies of diplomacy matter. He has even suggested that talking about the problems of national security amounts to exploitation of "fear." One of Obama's fervent supporters, a Harvard professor named Orlando Patterson, who has no expertise in foreign policy, wrote absurdly in a New York Times op-ed that the 3 a.m. ad wasn't about national security at all, but really a subliminal racist attack. Delusions aside, sometimes a discussion about national security is about national security.

Well, all you Bush-hating leftoids -- this is the man you label to be a hero and a supremely trustworthy voice on foreign policy (despite a bipartisan Senate finding that he lied about his mission to Niger). He says Obama is unqualified and that electing the man would constitute a danger to the United States. If you trusted his judgment then, why won't you trust it now?

As I’ve mentioned more than once around here, I’m a high school teacher. One of the things about teaching high school is that you end up hearing a lot about colleges and universities, and the various strengths and weaknesses of different programs. In recent years there has been a focus on co-op and internship programs, and how to get students “real world” experience to go along with their classroom learning.

That is one of the reasons I find the industrial engineering program at Kettering University to be intriguing. Kettering University offers engineering co-op programs that don't only provide a classroom education, but the sort of hands-on experience that is so important for young people entering today’s highly competitive job market. Having a degree isn’t enough today -- you've got to have some sort of work experience to go along with it.

How respected is this program? US News and World Report recently ranked Kettering University as "the #1 University in the nation for Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering". One of the reasons for this ranking was the unique engineering co-op programs, in which Kettering places students in companies beginning in their freshman year, rotating them between school and their co-op job every 3 months so that they gain practical experience. Not only do the students get experience outside the classroom, but they also earn a professional salary.

There are eleven science, business, and engineering programs and seven different majors to choose from at Kettering. Their program is one of the best in the nation. I’ll be encouraging students interested in engineering to at least take a look at Kettering and the opportunities they offer outside of the classroom. It is certainly a program worth examining.

Set aside the fact that we are (inconveniently, from a liberal Democrat perspective) winning in Iraq. We've been hearing from the Left that the US military is broken and defeated, and that's why we need to cut-and-run from Iraq.

One year ago, as President Bush decided to send more troops to Iraq, the conventional wisdom in Washington among opponents of the war was that the U.S. Army was on the verge of breaking.

In December 2006 former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell warned, "The active Army is about broken."

Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, in a much-cited memo to West Point colleagues, wrote: "My bottom line is that the Army is unraveling, and if we don’t expend significant national energy to reverse that trend, sometime in the next two years we will break the Army just like we did during Vietnam."

Army Maj. Gen. Bob Scales, the former head of the Army War College, agreed. He wrote in an editorial in the Washington Times on March 30:

"If you haven't heard the news, I'm afraid your Army is broken, a victim of too many missions for too few soldiers for too long. ... Today, anecdotal evidence of collapse is all around."

But interestingly enough, Scales now admits that his assessment was dead wrong.

But now, one year later, Scales has done an about-face. He says that he was wrong. Despite all the predictions of imminent collapse, the U.S. Army and the combat brigades have proven to be surprisingly resilient.

According to Army statistics obtained exclusively by FOX News, 70 percent of soldiers eligible to re-enlist in 2006 did so — a re-enlistment rate higher than before Sept. 11, 2001. For the past 10 years, the enlisted retention rates of the Army have exceeded 100 percent. As of last Nov. 13, Army re-enlistment was 137 percent of its stated goal.

Scales, a FOX News contributor, said he based his assessment last year "on the statistics that showed a high attrition among enlisted soldiers, officers who were leaving the service early, and a decline in the quality of enlistments," a reference to the rising number of waivers given for "moral defects" such as drug use and lowered educational requirements.

"In fact, what we've seen over the last year is that the Army retention rates are pretty high, that re-enlistments, for instance, particularly re-enlistments in Iraq and Afghanistan, remain very high," Scales said. He noted that re-enlistments were high even among troops who have served multiple tours.

Not only that, but the predicted loss of those often considered to be the backbone of the military just hasn't happened.

But Scales says the desertion by mid-grade officers — captains and majors — just hasn’t occurred as predicted.

"The Army's collapse after Vietnam was presaged by a desertion of mid-grade officers (captains) and non-commissioned officers," Scales wrote a year ago. "Many were killed or wounded. Most left because they and their families were tired and didn't want to serve in units unprepared for war....

"If we lose our sergeants and captains, the Army breaks again. It's just that simple. That's why these soldiers are still the canaries in the readiness coal-mine. And, again, if you look closely, you will see that these canaries are fleeing their cages in frightening numbers."

But an internal Army document prepared at the request of Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey and obtained by FOX News suggests that the comparison to the "hollow Army" of 1972 near the end of the Vietnam War is inappropriate.

The main reason: Today's Army is an all-volunteer force, and the Army in Vietnam largely was composed of draftees.

Captain losses have remained steady at about 11 percent since 1990, and the loss of majors has been unchanged at about 6 percent.

"To date, the data do not show heightened levels of junior officer departures that can be tied directly to multiple rotations in Afghanistan or Iraq," the internal Army memo concludes.

In other words, the phenomena that were supposed to be indicative of the weakening of the US military just are not happening. And while that may be disturbing to those whose political goals require the defeat of the American armed forces, it is ample reason for Americans to reject the defeatism which would have been appropriately labeled as defeatism and sedition in an earlier generation, back when patriotism and support of the military were still strongly held values among Democrats, not just Republicans.

Watch and listen to the Christmas sermon of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Jeremiah Wright is clearly engaging in political speech on behalf of Barack Obama and against Hillary Clinton BY NAME from the pulpit in his sermon. Doesn't this violate IRS regulations? Or is there a special exemption for black churches? If so, doesn't that violate the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the First Amendment?

Oddly enough, the liberal anti-Christian group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has not made any public statement about the status of Trinity UCC in light of the comments of its pastor. Why not? Could it be that Barry Lynn, the head of that organization, is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ? Or is it that Barry Lynn is too busy going after conservative pastors who act within IRS regulations.

By the way -- does anyone catch the false historical assertion that Jesus was black. I guess that Rev. Wright has never seen a Jew.

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Now here's an interesting bit of news for all of us dinosaur buffs -- a mummified dinosaur!

Using tiny brushes and chisels, workers picking at a big greenish-black rock in the basement of North Dakota's state museum are meticulously uncovering something amazing: a nearly complete dinosaur, skin and all.

Think about the possibilities here -- we can learn much more about the anatomy and physiology of these long-extinct beasts.

Unlike almost every other dinosaur fossil ever found, the Edmontosaurus named Dakota—a duckbilled dinosaur found in southwestern North Dakota in 1999 and announced to the public last December — is covered by fossilized skin that is hard as iron.

It's among just a few mummified dinosaurs in the world, say the researchers who are slowly freeing it from a 65-million-year-old rock tomb.

"This is the closest many people will ever get to seeing what large parts of a dinosaur actually looked like, in the flesh," said Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at Manchester University in England, a member of the international team researching Dakota and a National Geographic Expeditions Council grantee.

"This is not the usual disjointed sentence or fragment of a word that the fossil records offer up as evidence of past life," Manning said. "This is a full chapter."

Frankly, the possibilities are intriguing. This is probably the best preserved fossil of its type, and so we are getting the opportunity to learn about the soft-tissue structures that most fossils do not preserve. We've got lots of fossilized bones, but few fossilized hearts, as an example.

And what's more, there is talk of a world tour for this fossil. That means that Dakota could be coming to a town near you one day, and you might actually get to see what a real dinosaur looked like.

Eat your heart out, Steven Spielberg!

Sir Arthur C. Clarke wrote what may be the greatest science fiction book of all time, 2001: A Space Odyssey. But the prolific author and scientist published much more than that one work, and worked to promote scientific understanding and advancement during his many decades of work.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction writer, has died aged 90 in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, it was confirmed tonight.

Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30am after suffering breathing problems, his personal secretary Rohan De Silva said.

“Sir Arthur passed away a short while ago at the Apollo Hospital [in Colombo]. He had a cardio-respiratory attack,” he said.

* * *

The visionary author of more than 70 books, who was nominated for a Nobel Prize after predicting the existence of satellites, was most famous for his short story "The Sentinel", which was expanded into the novel that was later adapted for Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey".

He was also credited with inventing the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality.

Clarke was the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the "Big Three" of science fiction, alongside Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.

The astronomer Sir Patrick Moore said that his friend was a “great visionary, brilliant science-fiction writer and great forecaster”.

“He said there would be a man on the Moon by 1970, while I said 1980 — and he was right,” he said.

“He was ahead of his time in so many ways. I’m very, very sad that he’s gone."

What is amazing to consider is that Clarke was working int he field of space science long before there was an actual space program, and that he was considered enough of a scientific expert to be brought on as a commentator by CBS News during its coverage of the Apollo program so many years ago.

And with the passing of Arthur C. Clarke comes the closing of an era in science fiction. He was the last of the giants of that era, the last of the authors who made the genre respectable and lifted it above the realm of pulp fiction. To class him with Asimov and Heinlein is quite appropriate, for the trio have the distinction of having written so many great works that still hold up to scrutiny decades after their publication.

Farewell, Sir Arthur C. Clarke -- and thanks for the many hours of pleasure your works brought to my life and the lives of so many others.

OK -- it is supposed to be the speech to overcome the Jeremiah Wright situation. Let's take a look at the thing and see if it worked.

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

Great words -- seriously great words. Indeed, words that I agree with completely, and will likely include in my course materials the next time I teach American government. Why? Because Obama has it exactly right here -- the Constitution is not and never has been a perfect document and can probably never be perfected due to the flaws of humanity -- what those of us from certain faith traditions call "Original Sin". But to the degree to which we work to perfect the Constitution, we fulfill the Founders' vision. I am struck, though, by the fact that Barack Obama left out the most important means by which we perfect that document -- though the process of amendment, which is the means by which the document was intended to grow and change, rather than through the activism of judges of either the Left or Right.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

Beautiful rhetoric, but does it really mean anything? After all, every candidate argues that they are working to bring the hopes and dreams of Americans to fruition in the better futures of succeeding generations, and that they are best suited to make that happen. In other words, he's just said nothing of significance.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the worlds poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

True -- but do ancestry and biography really add up to competency?

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either too black or not black enough. We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

Indeed, it has been the folks on the Left who have engaged in that discussion, not those of us on the Right. We on the Right have long-since embraced the color-blind vision of Martin Luther King and other great Americans -- and when we echo his call we are accused of being unrealistic and insincere. I really don't care that Barack Hussein Obama is a man of mixed racial heritage whose father was raised in a faith other than Christianity -- I care solely about his competence and his character. Sadly, I find it necessary to question both because of the Wright affair.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

Because you say that your candidacy is not about race while playing upon your racial heritage -- and condemning any opponent who raises the same issues.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that its based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

And it has only taken you two decades to recognize that those statements are offensive and say so in a public fashion. That, sir, is a sign that you are either oblivious to the extremist, racist rhetoric of your pastor or dishonest in the claims you have made over the last several days. Personally, I believe the latter to be the case, given your sudden exclusion of Rev. Wright from the festivities surrounding the announcement of your candidacy over a year ago AND the inclusion of some of his race-based rhetoric in your other writings, quoting Wright as describing the world as a place where "white folks’ greed runs a world in need." You didn't denounce that rhetoric, sir -- you joined his church because you were inspired by it. That isn't my claim -- it is yours! You clearly cannot have it both ways.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy.

Except for the ones you have praised.

For some, nagging questions remain.

Such as, "Why is this man lying to the American people, and does he really believe that we are dumb enough to fall for it?"

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course.

And that is not, in and of itself, a problem. After all, many of us disagree with this or that element of American policy in very strong terms. But that isn't the issue, and you know it.

Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.

Again, not a problem. I've been on both sides of that pulpit, sir, and I have both said and heard controversial things. That is not, in and of itself, a problem.

Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

Sure I have -- at times I have felt that they have strayed from the Gospel, at other times I have thought that they were simply incorrect in their interpretation of Scripture or politically naive. And I include in that a particular former pastor of a United Church of Christ congregation with whom I chose to maintain a particularly close personal relationship -- my wife, who I love with all my heart even when I believe her to be dead wrong.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wrights comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Well, at least you are honest enough to get to the heart of the problem. You are honest enough to condemn the indefensible -- statements that are incompatible with the Gospel and with patriotism. But you have been aware of these sorts of statements for a long time -- if not with the particular ones currently cited, then with similar ones made in your presence. You did and said nothing, and remained a member of this man's congregation, dedicated a book to him and proudly declared him to be your spiritual mentor? Where was your concern about bringing people together then, Senator? Or did that only become a priority when Wright's anti-American, anti-white, anti-Semitic rantings became public?

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ confor