Here’s one of those stories I hadn’t heard before – one which reveals a great deal about John McCain.

[Ret. Col. Bud] Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.
Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

McCain himself had been tortured and suffered grievous injuries after his capture by the North Vietnamese. They wanted to use him for propaganda purposes, but when he refused they made him suffer. Yet when he found one of his fellow prisoners suffering and in danger of being permanently maimed due to the sadism of their captors, McCain acted in the best tradition of our country by placing himself in danger to prevent that outcome.

There is more, much more, to this article – including the beautiful story of how the McCains came to adopt their daughter Bridget. I would only add to it that there was, in fact, a second baby girl who Cindy McCain brought back to the US for medical treatment – and the couple found another family to adopt that child as well. After reading this article, tell me that John and Cindy McCain, two decent people despite their past flaws and past mistakes, would not be the sort of First Couple who would make America proud.

H/T NRO's Campaing Spot, Hot Air

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But apparently not enough to even consider the possibility that it might be a hate crime.

A north London man is to appear in court charged with assault after two Orthodox Jews were stabbed in two random street attacks.

Mohamed Jama Ahmed, 37, of North Circular Road, will appear at Hendon Magistrates` Court charged with two counts of grievous bodily harm.

The two victims, both men, were attacked within minutes of each other on Friday evening, but police say the incidents are not being treated as hate crimes.

I guess that when a member of the Religion of Peace commits a couple of violent assaults upon a couple of Jews on a city street for no apparent reason, there is no basis for treating the matter as a hate crime.

After all, we never hear violent anti-Semitic rhetoric out of Muslim communities here in the western world.

And Muslims rarely if ever engage in random violent attacks against innocent Jews just going about their daily lives anywhere in the world.

So it mustn’t be a hate crime.

And I’m not just asking an idle question.

The bruised economy limped through the first quarter, growing at just a 0.6 percent pace as housing and credit problems forced people and businesses alike to hunker down.

The country's economic growth during January through March was the same as in the final three months of last year, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. The statistic did not meet what economists consider the classic definition of a recession, which is a retraction of the economy. This means that although the economy is stuck in a rut, it is still managing to grow, even if modestly.

Many analysts were predicting that the gross domestic product (GDP) would weaken a bit more—to a pace of just 0.5 percent—in the first quarter. Earlier this year, some economists thought the economy would actually lurch into reverse during the opening quarter. Now, they say they believe that will likely happen during the current April-to-June period.

"The economy is weak but not collapsing," said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America's Investment Strategies Group. "A recession can't be ruled out, although the stars are not lined up at this point to definitively say one way or the other."

Which makes us wonder – liberals have been telling us for months that we are in the throes of a recession. Economists, however, find that not to be the case and question if we are actually entering one. Could the recessionary claims all be partisan smoke designed to obscure the weakness of the Democrats running for the presidency and Congress? Are the Democrats willing to trash America’s economy – like they trash our military and the war effort – in order to improve their chances of electoral victory?

Great additional commentary on the non-recessionary recession at Don Surber, Right on the Left Coast and Blogs for Victory.

If you or I were to scam multiple states out of over $70K in taxes, we would likely go to jail.

Liberal Democrat and (alleged) funnyman Al Franken gets to run for US Senate instead.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, front-runner in the race to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, said on Tuesday that he has paid $70,000 in back taxes and penalties owed in 17 states, going back to 2003.

Franken, who has earned income across the country for celebrity appearances and speeches, blamed his accountant of 18 years for failing to pay the appropriate taxes owed in each state.

The accountant, Allen Chanzis of New York, "just made a basic kind of error that had a lot of ramifications," Franken said.

Franken said that he paid federal and state taxes on all of his income, but that the accountant had failed to properly distribute the tax payments.

Yeah, that-'s it -- blame it on the accountants.

At best, it is an indication that Franken is out of touch with the realities of everyday life for real Americans -- and that he lacks the judgment to hire competent professionals to do his taxes or to make sure they are paid in a proper, timely fashion.

Still, Democrats are going to try t elect him to the US Senate in Minnesota.

If he were a Republican, they'd be demanding a special prosecutor and jail time in each of the 17 defrauded states.

A Torah survived the camp at Auschwitz due to the dedication of the doomed Jews of Oswiecim.

It is the story of a sexton in the synagogue in the Polish city of Oswiecim who buried most of the sacred scroll before the Germans stormed in and later renamed the city Auschwitz. It is the story of Jewish prisoners who sneaked the rest of it — four carefully chosen panels — into the concentration camp.

It is the story of a Polish Catholic priest to whom they entrusted the four panels before their deaths. It is the story of a Maryland rabbi who went looking for it with a metal detector. And it is the story of how a hunch by the rabbi’s 13-year-old son helped lead him to it.

This Torah, more than most, “is such an extraordinary symbol of rebirth,” said Peter J. Rubinstein, the rabbi of Central Synagogue. “As one who has gone to the camps and assimilates into my being the horror of the Holocaust, this gives meaning to Jewish survival.”

If you want a story of faith and devotion in the face of absolute evil, this is it. If you want a story of dedication to the sacred that will put a lump in your throat, here it is. And if you want the story of a mystery solved after decades, this is the story for you.

May it inspire you as the words of the Torah inspired those faithful Jews who were responsible for safeguarding it even when they could not safeguard their own lives.

As a teacher, I already have enough to do just to teach my students history and engage in the day-to-day minutiae of managing a classroom. I don't need to be monitoring these additional factors that the Brits are going to impose upon schools (and ultimately, upon teachers) in the very near future.

Schools will be made to keep records of teenage pregnancy rates, pupils' drug problems, criminal records and obesity levels under government plans to give parents a true picture of children's lives.

The ideas, set out in a discussion document from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, suggest schools would become accountable for 18 new targets, from bullying and neglect, to what happens to pupils after they leave school. Sources said the 10-page document, entitled Indicators of schools' performance in contributing to pupil wellbeing, calls for Ofsted inspectors to judge schools on the wide range of measures in addition to existing criteria such as exam results and exclusion rates. The measures could be implemented by Ofsted from 2009, and suggest that schools would become broadly responsible for children's safety, enjoyment and happiness.

So let's see here -- now teachers are going to be somehow held responsible for student "extra-curricular activities" like their sex lives, drug use, and off-campus diet. Schools will be rated not just upon academic indicators, but also upon these "indicators of pupil well-being" -- in other words, based upon criteria that are realistically beyond the control of school officials.

Take that teen pregnancy one. My experience is that most students do not become pregnant at school. We can teach abstinence (our current method here in texas) or supply socialized birth control on top of extensive sex education (the British method), but we cannot stop teenagers from "putting Tab A into Slot B". We are not in control of the diet of students outside of a school setting, or whether or not they do drugs away from school.

Indeed, many of these indicators are less related to school factors than they are to socio-economic or cultural ones. Why make tracking and remedying them the responsibility of relatively low-paid teachers -- most of whom are not trained to remedy them in the first place?

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Well, consumer confidence is down -- in large part because of a decrease in housing prices.

Much of the damage has stemmed from a slump in the housing market, where prices are nearly 15 percent off their high in July 2006.

In the 12 months ended in February, the Case-Shiller home price index, which measures the value of single-family homes in 10 major metropolitan regions, fell 13.6 percent, the biggest decline since records began in 1987. A broader 20-city index dropped 12.7 percent.

Of course, there is a reason that we have seen housing prices drop so precipitously -- the last several years have been a part of what analysts were calling a housing bubble. You know, as in the prices of residential real estate was significantly inflated beyond its actual value. And I certainly recall experts saying that in some metropolitan areas we were seeing prices exceed the real value of the property, and the ability of many consumers to afford to make real estate purchases. Not only that, but we were assured that we were headed for a fall wehn the bubble burst.

Well, folks, the bubble has burst. We have experienced what on the stock market is euphemistically called "a correction".

In other words, housing prices are adjusting to a more realistic level, below the highly speculative levels that they reached in the recent past.

Am I saying that the current situation in the housing market is a good one? Not necessarily. But it is interesting to note that the drop in home prices will put a house within the reach of folks who one year ago could not afford to buy one a year ago. These individuals, who acted responsibly and lived within their means, will now be able to make the purchase that they deferred as out of their price range. Shouldn't we be celebrating these responsible purchasers rather than rewarding the irresponsible ones who exceeded their means by giving them a government mandated (and maybe financed) bail-out?

Like it or not, Barack Obama is permanently tied to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and nothing he said today did anything to sever that link -- nor, as I pointed out this morning, could it have.

Here's the heart of the statement from the press conference this afternoon.

You know, I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992. I have known Reverend Wright for almost 20 years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.

They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought, either.

Now, I've already denounced the comments that had appeared in these previous sermons. As I said, I had not heard them before. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church. He's built a wonderful congregation. The people of Trinity are wonderful people. And what attracted me has always been their ministry's reach beyond the church walls.

But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century, when he equates the United States wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that's what I'm doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.

Unfortunately for Obama, none of that matters.

After all, Barack Obama is the guy who six weeks ago the speech">told us this about Jeremiah Wright.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Crazy Uncle Jeremiah is a part of Barack Obama -- and if he could not disown Rev. Wright six weeks ago, I don't see how we can accept the denunciation today. After all, nothing has changed from six weeks ago. The pastor has said nothing new. Unless, as Wright pointed out over the weekend, Barack Obama is just another politician doing what politicians have to do to get elected -- and in this case lying to the American public trying to save his opportunity to be president.

But I think that Barack Obama might have revealed his real reason for speaking out today. Referring to Wright's most NPC speech, he said, "It was a show of disprespect to me."

Yes, there we have it. This isn't about principle, this is about his own ego. He's lashing out at Wright out of personal pique, rather than principle.

Anyone else need evidence that Barack Obama is simply unfit to serve as President of the United States?

By the way, I think I've found a new theme song for the Obama campaign.

H/T Malikn, Hot Air

Yesterday I commented on a situation in New York – today I am drawn to London.

“Stop being crusader.”

That was the directive of British police to a Christian convert from Islam in the UK. His unacceptable conduct? Seeking police intervention after his life was threatened and a vacant house next to his was burned. Rather than protect his fundamental human rights, the police lamed the victim and suggested that he move to a new neighborhood.

A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report.

Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set on fire.

Shocking – but not surprising any more.

Sadly, this happened in the kand that gave birth to any of the concepts that undergird out notion of unalienable rights. Today a higher value is placed upon not offending Muslim sensisbilities than upon the human rights of the rest of society.

And I cannot help but be struck by the word choice of the directive by the police.

"Crusader."

That is the word of choice for Islamists in justifying their attacks upon the civilized world. We are “crusaders” when they fly airplanes into buildings, “crusaders” when they set IEDs to maim and kill our soldiers, “crusaders’ when they behead their hostages in the name of Allah. For the police to dare to use that word to describe a victim of Islamist threats is disgusting.

And let us be clear – now they are threatening us with violence and death in our own cities for the crime of worshipping the one who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life instead of following Muhammad’s path of darkness. But somehow we who acknowledge this conflict is based upon the fundamental incompatibility of Islam with Western Civilization are presented as the bad buys by those who claim to be forces of tolerance.

History records that nearly a century and a half ago the sixteenth president of the United States was murdered by a treasonous actor (they had them back then, too) who was killed some days later in a Virginia barn.

But is history wrong? Did Abraham Lincoln’s killer escape justice? Did Union troops kill an innocent man in a tragic case of mistaken identity? Those questions are periodically raised by assassination buffs and conspiracy theorists alike. And now it may be possible to lay the question to rest once and for all.

Sometime after 2 a.m. on a cool, cloudy Wednesday, a group of detectives and blue-clad troopers cornered a murderous fugitive in a tobacco barn on the Garrett family farm near Port Royal, Va.

"Draw up your men before the door and I'll come out and fight the whole command," called a voice from the barn. "Well, my brave boys, prepare a stretcher for me!"

A soldier lit a tuft of hay, threw it inside and spied the silhouette of a man on crutches, a carbine on his hip.

Pop! A shot was fired and, 143 years ago today, John Wilkes Booth - assassin of Abraham Lincoln - collapsed to the ground, mortally wounded in the neck.
That's what history says.

But two local Booth family descendants - Joanne Hulme of Philadelphia's Kensington section, and her sister, Virginia Kline of Warminster - aren't convinced.

They think that another man was killed and that Booth, who they believe was the president's assassin, lived to a ripe old age.

Aided by Booth historians, researchers and scientists, the sisters may now be on the threshold of proving their theory through DNA tests.

Results of the tests will be revealed on television this fall.

Personally, I place myself among the traditionalists. That said, I am open to evidence that I am wrong to accept the official story. And given that there have been multiple individuals who claimed to be John Wilkes Booth years after he was supposedly killed at Port Royal, perhaps the evidence from these tests will substantiate or refute those claim as well.

Barack Obama had his chance to distance himself from Jeremiah Wright back in March. After spinning through three different and contradictory reactions to his pastor's outrageous and anti-American sermons in the space of about five days, he settled on embracing the man even while disagreeing with him. Many of us rightly saw the whole process as indicative of a lack of integrity on his part.

But what it also did was inescapably bind Obama to Wright -- but as long as Wright remained in the background, there was hope that the controversy might go away.

After this past weekend, it won't. Between his Bill Moyers interview, Dalas Sermon, Detroit NAACP address, and National Press Club session, Jeremiah Wright is going to be a serious issue at least through the Democrat Convention -- and up to November, if Obama still wins the nomination.

Some, like Andrew Sullivan, are advising Obama to dump Wright completely.

But Wright's cooptation of Obama for his own agenda - his assertion that Obama's distancing from him is insincere - requires, in fact demands a response from Obama.

Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to
disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to
me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer,
Vietnam era's obsession with its red-blue, white-black, pro and
anti-America fixations. That is not what this election needs to be
about; and Wright's massive, racially divisive and, yes, bitter provocation
requires a proportionate response.

We need a speech or statement from Obama in which he utterly repudiates this
poison, however personally difficult that may be, however damaging the
impact will be. The statement today will not do it. This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one
man's politics with another. It is  now about Wright attempting to
associate himself and some of his noxious, stupid, rancid views with the likely
Democratic nominee. Wright has given Obama no choice - and he has also
given him another opportunity. He needs to
seize it.

I respectfully disagree.

Barack Obama had his chance to denounce, renounce, and repudiate Jeremiah Wright. Unfortunately for him, that opportunity was some six or seven weeks ago, when he made his overly-hyped speech on race. And I stated at the time, his failure to quit Trinity UCC and sever his relationship with Jeremiah Wright was a profound error. To do so now would be to prove Wright's words in the Moyers interview, that Obama is nothing but a politician doing what politicians do to get elected. As such, Barack Obama is permanetly -- and perhaps fatally -- damaged as a presidential candidate.

During most elections in my precinct, I run a polling place that serves about 3000 registered voters. Depending upon the election, I've had a turnout as low 8% on election day (this year's GOP runoff) to as high as 40% (2004 presidential election). And let me be honest about it -- I do not know every single registered voter in my precinct, and neither do my election clerks. Presentation of some sort of identification is a necessity for us to be sure that the person voting is the person registered.

Now Texas law allows for the presentation of the voter registration card, which lacks a picture. As per that statute, I accept it, but I always have this niggling doubt in the back of my mind -- what if this has been stolen from someone's mailbox? I believe that a sstate-issued photo ID would be preferrable.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that nothing in the US Constitution forbids a state from requiring one for voting purposes.

States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.

Twenty-five states require some form of ID, and the court's 6-3 decision rejecting a challenge to Indiana's strict voter ID law could encourage others to adopt their own measures. Oklahoma legislators said the decision should help them get a version approved.

The ruling means the ID requirement will be in effect for next week's presidential primary in Indiana, where a significant number of new voters are expected to turn out for the Democratic contest between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

The basis for the decision is a very straightforward one, and comes from one of the members of the more liberal bloc on the Supreme Court.

"The application of the statute to the vast majority of Indiana voters is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process," he wrote. His opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who is normally on the right, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is often considered a swing vote.

The opinion left open the possibility that voters who had proof that they were adversely affected by such laws could petition the courts, but made it clear that it would be difficult for them to prevail.

In other words, the state has a legitimate interest in preventing voter fraud -- but the controlling opinion in this case allows for additional consideration of the question depending upon some showing of actual harm or disparate impact. By any stretch of all but the most fevered imagination, that is a reasonable standard to impose when one looks at a law that is neutral on its face and designed to safeguard something so fundamental as the integrity of elections.

Which only serves to prove that there are three members of the High Court whose hyperactive imaginations make it impossible for them to be taken seriously on this (or most other) issues.

Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer dissented. Justice Souter, in an opinion joined by Justice Ginsburg, said the Indiana law, which calls for a government-issued photo identification, like a driver’s license or passport, “threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state’s citizens.”

The so-called "nontrivial burdens" being the acquisition of a free state-issued identification card and presenting it on election day -- or within 10 days afterwards if they do not have it on election day.

Am I insensitive to the concerns of those who brought this challenge? No, I am not -- and agree with the Washington Post that the impact of such laws should be monitored to make sure that there is in practice no undue burden placed upon the exercise of the right to vote.

On the other hand, I am not at all in sympathy with the impotent attempt of the New York Times to overrule the nation's top court in today's editorial, in which it uncritically accepts all the arguments of those who challenged the law. But even those speculative claims fall victim to one of the undeniable realities of this case -- one of the plaintiffs in the case was found to be a fraudulent voter, and this law is likely to stop even more.

Are the authorities in New York City aware that a religious group is unlawfully abducting citizens from public streets and holding them hostage for engaging in legal activity? And would anyone care to guess the “peaceful religion” engaged in this activity?

Don’t snap a photo of the Masjid At-Taqwa in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn unless you want to be hauled away by a group of angry Muslims in Islamic attire to the basement of the facility where a group of twenty “security guards” in karate suits will interrogate you. This might sound preposterous.

But it happened on Saturday, April 24, at 3:00 in the afternoon.

Ali Kareem, the head of security for Siraj Wahaj’s mosque, conducted the grilling. A small, muscular man with a wispy black beard that has been dyed red with henna, Kareem demanded to know the reason why a trio of kafirs had dared to photograph the building on a public street without securing his permission.

He further insisted on securing our identities and obtaining our motives for such a violation of Islamic space.

Being surrounded by a group of militant guards in a mosque basement from which there is no means of escape is not a comforting place to be for a Wall Street financier.

We tried to explain that we found the neighborhood with its halal meat vendors and food stores; Islamic dress shops, featuring the latest styles in burqas and hijabs; Muslim souvenir outlets, replete with bumper stickers stating “Don’t Be Caught Dead Without Islam”; and Middle Eastern restaurants offering a variety of goat dishes to be rather quaint and interesting.

This explanation was not sufficient.

Kareem was impatient and did not want a detailed explanation of the reason for our excursion (simple sight-seeing) or a graphic account of the sights we had seen and photographed.

“I ask the questions here,” he said, “and you provide the answers.”

Realizing that we were in a bit of a pickle, my companion explained that we were interested in various religions and knew Siraj Wahaj, the imam of the mosque, was a prominent Muslim figure whom we would like to interview for a news outlet.

This didn’t work too well since we could not produce a business card from a wacko blog, let alone credentials from a national publication.

At last, we blurted out that we were admirers of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him) and wanted to obtain information about conversion. We were even knowledgeable enough to blurt out “Salaam” and “Allahu akbar.”

The last utterance seemed to be the “Open Sesame” that got us out of the basement and back to Bedford Street, where we managed to take a picture of the mosque before hailing a cab and making a getaway.

The experience was disconcerting. Surely, anyone who takes a picture of St. Patrick’s Cathedral or the Riverside Church is not hauled off to a basement for questioning by a threatening figure in a karate uniform and a band of Ninjas.

What we have here is CRIMINAL ACTIVITY being conducted by representatives/employees of the mosque in question. Being that this is the United States, any person of any religion is permitted to be on a public sidewalk in any neighborhood. They are even permitted to take photographs on a public street under virtually all circumstances.

But apparently the folks of Masjid At-Taqwa don’t think that they are in America – or that the rights of citizens in this country rank somewhere below their Islamic sensibilities. After all, what legal authority did Ali Kareem and his band of 20 kidnappers have to detain Bos Smith and Paul Williams? What legal authority did they have to question them, demanding identification and the justification for their legal actions on a city street? Could you imagine the outrage if a local synagogue or church did this to a group of Muslims or ethnic minorities? The forces of tolerance and multi-culturalism would be waxing hysterical about the hate crime that had been committed!

I appreciate Smith and Williams being willing to document this crime. I’d like to encourage them to report the offenses in question to the New York Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – and to take their story to the local and national media.

After all, a bias crime is a bias crime, isn’t it?

H/T Jawa Report

Talk about a guy with an inflated opinion of himself!

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright says criticism surrounding his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church.

Barack Obama's longtime pastor says he hopes the controversy will have a positive outcome and spark an honest dialogue about race in America. Wright says black church traditions are still "invisible" to many Americans, as they have been throughout the country's history.

Excuse me, but I’d like to take issue with the contention that criticism of Wright constitutes an attack on the African-American religious tradition.

Unless, of course, the African-American religious tradition is built upon lies and hatred.

Like claims that the government invented AIDS to wipe out black people (he implicitly reaffirmed his support for that patently false theory today) and supplied drugs to the ghetto as a means of keeping the black man down.

Like such deep contempt for one’s country that shouts of “God Damn America” are mainstream and claims that America and the Klan are one and the same.

Wright claims to be quoted out of context, and from only one or two sermons. Yet Trinity UCC took down all links to his sermons, and quit selling all of them through their bookstore, as soon as these “out of context” excerpts became controversial. Why? What more is there to hide? Why not make them more widely available. To prove the “attacks” are scurrilous in nature?

And then there is the association with “black liberation theology” (a topic I was introduced to 15-20 years ago during my seminary days), a controversial school of thought that goes beyond merely interpreting the Christian faith from a black perspective and instead teaches something else. Today Wright embraced both the theology and its originator in their entirety.

But what does that theological construct teach? That whites are intrinsically racist and evil and that “whiteness” must be rejected and destroyed. It is, indeed, a separatist creed every bit as much as the racist ideology of Christian Identity – and as such needs to be equally rejected by Christians who accept Paul’s declaration in Galatians 3:28.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (NKJV)

Now Jeremiah Wright is perfectly welcome to claim to be a Christian while rejecting the clear voice of Scripture by embracing Black Liberation Theology – but those of us who cling to the Bible and our faith are also entitled to critique the theological construct that he preaches from his pulpit. After all, Wright does not have a corner on what it means to be a Christian, nor does he have the exclusive franchise on calling for repentance and returning to fidelity to Christ.

To the degree that our doing so means repeating over and over again that there are elements of Black Liberation Theology that are fundamentally at odds with Scripture, then we must say that and that its purveyors are false teachers who tickle the ears of their hearers with false doctrine – and if saying it constitutes, as Wright claims, an attack on the black church, then such an attack is our duty as Christians. But the reality is that Wright, Cone, and other Black Liberation theologians are not the black church -- and that today's claim by Wright is nothing more than the playing of the race card by one more hate-mongering race-baiter of the Jackson-Sharpton-Farrakhan school orf racial division..

I don't blog about school, and generally limit myself to speech on social and political issues that merit the highest level of First Amendment protection? Here's why.

It's almost like Googling someone: Log on to Facebook. Join the Washington, D.C., network. Search the Web site for your favorite school system. And then watch the public profiles of 20-something teachers unfurl like gift wrap on the screen, revealing a sense of humor that can be overtly sarcastic or unintentionally unprofessional -- or both.

One Montgomery County special education teacher displayed a poster that depicts talking sperm and invokes a slang term for oral sex. One woman who identified herself as a Prince William County kindergarten teacher posted a satiric shampoo commercial with a half-naked man having an orgasm in the shower. A D.C. public schools educator offered this tip on her page: "Teaching in DCPS -- Lesson #1: Don't smoke crack while pregnant."

Just to be clear, these are not teenagers, the typical Internet scofflaws and sources of ceaseless discussion about cyber-bullying, sexual predators and so on. These are adults, many in their 20s, who are behaving, for the most part, like young adults.

But the crudeness of some Facebook or MySpace teacher profiles, which are far, far away from sanitized Web sites ending in ".edu," prompts questions emblematic of our times: Do the risque pages matter if teacher performance is not hindered and if students, parents and school officials don't see them? At what point are these young teachers judged by the standards for public officials?

In states including Florida, Colorado, Tennessee and Massachusetts, teachers have been removed or suspended for MySpace postings, and some teachers unions have begun warning members about racy personal Web sites. But as Facebook, with 70 million members, and other social networking sites continue to grow, scrutiny will no doubt spread locally.

The annals of teachers-gone-wild-on-the-Web include once-anonymous people who've done something outlandish with a blog or online video. Many people, especially in the Richmond area, remember high school art teacher Stephen Murmer, fired last year for painting canvasses with his buttocks in images on YouTube.

Of course, many of the tens of thousands of Washington area teachers put social networking sites or personal Web pages to constructive uses. Others push the limits.

I suffer from serious mixed emotions on such web pages. I'm a strong supporter of freedom of speech. However, I also recognize that we teachers are in a public role where our outside conduct can have an impact in our classrooms and schools.

Early on in my career, a colleague gave me some advice. It amounted to the following -- don't do anything where your students of their parents will find out about it if you don't want to explain it to your principal. Now this crusty old fellow was talking about patronizing the numerous bars and strip clubs that were to be found in one of the communities served by my school (something I didn't do -- but which had gotten a young ale teacher fired the previous year). But it was good advice -- and is even better advice in a day when all it takes is a few key-strokes and mouse-clicks to have activities exposed to the world.

The Arizona Senator limits his words to the poor -- but I'd include the middle class among those Obama doesn't understand or care about, too.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Sunday called Democratic rival Barack Obama insensitive to poor people and out of touch on economic issues.

The GOP nominee-in-waiting rapped his Democratic rival for opposing his idea to suspend the tax on fuel during the summer, a proposal that McCain believes will particularly help low-income people who usually have older cars that guzzle more gas.

"I noticed again today that Sen. Obama repeated his opposition to giving low-income Americans a tax break, a little bit of relief so they can travel a little further and a little longer, and maybe have a little bit of money left over to enjoy some other things in their lives," McCain said. "Obviously Sen. Obama does not understand that this would be a nice thing for Americans, and the special interests should not be dictating this policy."

Remember - it isn't just the poor who spend a large amount of money on gas -- the middle class does as well, between work and recreattional activities.

And Obama's plan to support a tax increase on all Americans who pay income taxes -- not to mention the reimposition of income tax on lower middle class Americans whose tax liability was reduced to zero under the Bush tax cuts -- constitutes one more example of his lack of connection with the economic realities of average Americans.

But then again, this is the same Barack Obama who couldn't get by on the $58,000 salary from his part-time job, and whose wife has indicated how hard it is to live on between a quarter-million and half-million dollars a year. If you need a clue as to how far out of contact with the economic realities of most Americans Obama really is, that should do it.

At long last, Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin is home. He was laid to rest with full military honors this weekend, after having been captured by jihadis and then murdered by them in disregard for the protections of the very Geneva Conventions they claim protection from when they fall into the hands of Americans.

Thousands walked past Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin's casket during a daylong visitation at a civic center in Clermont County, east of Cincinnati, where he grew up. Many of them headed to Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds, for an afternoon memorial service.

The crowd occupied the lower portion of the 42,000-seat stadium, behind home plate, stretching from first base to third.

Maupin's flag-draped casket was on a platform in the area of the pitcher's mound. The only people on the field were members of the 338th Army band and about 100 family members, military representatives and dignitaries.

This weekend was a long time coming for Maupin's family. He was captured on April 9, 2004, and executed a short time thereafter. His body was recovered this spring.

May the sacrifice of Matt Maupin, and of all soldiers in the war against jihadi terrorism, not be in vain.

For all that Barack Obama and his wife try to paint themselves as "just ordinary people", I think this little detail tells us a lot about him.

After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.

Hold on here for just a moment. Let's set aside the possible corruption angle here for a moment. Let's temporarily ignore the fact that Barack Obama was on the payroll of a campaign contributor for whom he was soliciting grant money from the state, and who made a campaign contribution once he got the grant. Let's just look at the part of the story I put in bold-faced type.

For his part-time job, Barack Obama was making $58,000 a year in taxpayer money -- and he could not not get by on that paltry amount. Never mind that he was making roughly twice the per capita income in his district (as a former Chicagoan, I'm well-aware of the area he represents and the poverty there). Never mind that the salary from his part time job put him above the average salary for teachers in the state of Illinois at that time by more than $10,000. And never mind that Michelle Obama was bringing home over $100,000 a year at the same time working in the corporate world that she now tells the little people to shun. He still needed to supplement the salary from his part-time job -- by taking cash from a political insider to use his office to get that contributor (eventually) over $320,000.

Barack Obama tries to present himself to us as the common man. He wants us all to believe that that he understands us and our struggles. This story proves that it isn't true. If you and your family can't make it on over $160,000 a year without supplementing your salary through a shady deal with a campaign contributor, you clearly aren't a man of the people -- and are instead a charlatan trying to fool the American people.

But no doubt we will hear from the Obama campaign that there is nothing wrong with Barack Obama's conduct here -- just like they continue to tell us about his financial dealings with Tony Rezko. But I think it is becoming obvious that Obama's character is a real issue from which his campaign desperately wants to distract the American people.

H/T Hot Air, Sister Toldjah

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Their love story is one of the most intriguing of the ancient world, and has been chronicled again and again -- even by the likes of Shakespeare himself.

But the tomb of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and her lover, the Roman Consul Mark Antony, has never been examined by modern archaeologists -- because its location was lost in the mists of time.

Modern research seems to have found it -- and the site has now been made accessible. Archaeological work will start soon.

Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year.

Zahi Hawass, prominent archaeologist and director of Egypt's superior council for antiquities announced a proposal to test the theory that the couple were buried together.

He discussed the project in Cairo at a media conference about the ancient pharaohs.

Hawass said that the remains of the legendary Egyptian queen and her Roman lover, Mark Antony, were inside a temple called Tabusiris Magna, 30 kilometres from the port city of Alexandria in northern Egypt.

Until recently access to the tomb has been hindered because it is under water, but archaeologists plan to drain the site so they can begin excavation in November.

Among the clues to suggest that the temple may contain Cleopatra's remains is the discovery of numerous coins with the face of the queen.

According to Hawas, Egyptologists have also uncovered a 120-metre-long underground tunnel with many rooms, some of which could contain more details about Cleopatra.

Given that the tomb has spent centuries under water, the question of whether or not the remains of the queen and the general survive is an important one. I am unsure as to whether Cleopatra was mummified, or whether Antony was cremated as was Roman custom at the time. And what treasures are there, given the great quantity of treasure taken back to Rome in triumph by Octavian (soon to be Caesar Augustus)?

Still, there s potential to illuminate the end of Ptolomaic Egypt, and with it one of the most storied women of the ancient world.

After four months in a Saudi prison with no charges against him -- all for daring to blog about the the corrupt government of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger was released Saturday after serving four months in prison without charge.

Fouad al-Farhan, 33, was detained Dec. 10 after authorities warned him about his online support of an activist group. At the time of his arrest, the Interior Ministry said only that his violations were not related to state security.

Farhan had used his blog to criticize corruption and call for political reform in Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy.

In a telephone interview Saturday, Farhan said he was happy to be free and described his time behind bars as "a unique experience." He said he had been "fairly treated" but would not comment on the specifics of his case.

"I will be blogging soon," he said.

This should highlight one point very clearly for most Americans.

Saudi Arabia is not much of an ally to America and shares little in values with our country, given that its sharia-enforcing fundamentalist Islamic government is little better than the fundamentalist Islamists against whom we Americans are fighting.

My earlier report is here.

There is nothing so fundamentally American as citizens exercising their rights under the Constitution to speak, write, assemble and petition their government for the redress of grievances -- or to do the same for purposes of supporting or opposing ballot initiatives or candidates for office.

Yet somehow the practice in this country in recent decades has been to treat the participation of Americans in such activities as a threat to "good government" -- and burdensome campaign finance regulations have been imposed upon Americans which have the effect of criminalizing activities that our Founding Fathers would have recognized as clearly within the scope of the First Amendment.

George Will chronicles one of these cases -- a brutal act under color of law designed to suppress the speech of a band of neighbors concerned about the future of their neighborhood in Colorado.

Parker North is a cluster of about 300 houses close to the town of Parker. When two residents proposed a vote on annexation of their subdivision to Parker, six others began trying to persuade the rest to oppose annexation. They printed lawn signs and fliers, started an online discussion group and canvassed neighbors, little knowing that they were provoking Colorado's speech police.

One proponent of annexation sued them. This tactic -- wielding campaign finance regulations to suppress opponents' speech -- is common in the America of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The complaint did not just threaten the Parker Six for any "illegal activities." It also said that anyone who had contacted them or received a lawn sign might be subjected to "investigation, scrutinization and sanctions for campaign finance violations."

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of association, "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." The exercise of this right often annoys governments, and the Parker Six did not know that Colorado's government, perhaps to discourage annoyances, stipulates that when two or more people associate to advocate a political position, and spend more than $200 in doing so, they become an "issue committee."

Got that? Two people spending just $200 dollars together to participate in the electoral process constitutes a violation of the law unless they spend more to fill out and file paperwork registering them with the state and disclose incredible amounts of private information to the general public. What sort of information?

...they must report to the government the names and addresses of all persons who contribute more than $20; they must also report the employers of plutocrats who contribute more than $100; they must report non-cash contributions such as lemons used for lemonade, and marker pens and wooden dowels for yard signs.

Got that? For giving a mere $20 out of a sense of civic obligation, your name and address and political associations become a matter of public record. And if one gives the princely sum of $100, your employer will be disclosed to the general public. Gone are the days when good citizens at a community meeting can "pass the hat" and collect money to speak out on public issues -- reporting laws make those who conduct the meeting and the guy who owns the hat criminal.

Today's practices and laws are, dare I say it, unAmerican.

Let's look at the practices of our Founding Fathers.

Many of them wrote anonymous pamphlets published by anonymous supporters to advocate independence, the adoption of the Constitution, support for (or opposition to) the Jay Treaty, and the election/defeat of either Thomas Jefferson or John Adams in our first contested election.

I'll take their model of free speech above the regulated, domesticated and eviscerated counterfeit that the advocates of "campaign finance reform" and "public disclosure" advocate. The former is the free exercise of an unalienable right by a people fully possessing their liberty -- the latter the feckless submission of serfs to a to a ruling class that treats freedom as a revocable privilege. Would that this year's presidential race had a serious candidate who embraced the vision of the Founders regarding the First Amendment.

More At From On High.

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Can't win the election? Arrest your opponents and the independent vote monitors!

Truckloads of heavily armed police officers rounded up hundreds of people at the headquarters of Zimbabwe’s opposition party on Friday as plainclothes investigators descended on independent monitors of the nation’s disputed elections last month, according to opposition officials, witnesses and the police.

Friday’s raid on the opposition’s nerve center and the election monitors signaled a sharp and very public escalation of the country’s deepening and increasingly violent political crisis, one that has been concentrated to date in far less visible rural areas.

Both raids began around 11 a.m. in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. Harvest House, the rundown, six-story headquarters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, was still cordoned off by the police at midafternoon. Computers and documents were seized.

The opposition’s offices had become an informal refugee camp for party supporters, some visibly wounded, who had fled what human rights groups describe as political repression in the countryside. Witnesses said they had watched as the police herded more than 200 of these bedraggled people, including pregnant women and children, onto buses.

At the same time, a smaller contingent of police investigators raided the offices of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an alliance of civic groups that enraged the government by analyzing polling data and projecting that the opposition had won the March 29 election, perhaps by enough to avoid a runoff in the race for president. Its findings were cited Thursday by the top American diplomat for Africa as the best evidence that the opposition was the clear victor.

What is really most shocking to me is that there is such silence here in this country about the goings on in Zimbabwe.

Celebrities rightly protest the actions of China in Tibet, but can't spare a word for the people of Zimbabwe. We have a candidate for president who says he is all about change who is unable to find a word to say about the suppression of the desire for change in another country expressed by its people at the ballot box. We have a news media that has done a pretty weak job of reporting on the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe.

Personally, I think what we are seeing here is the same thing that we have seen for years in the treatment of Darfur -- benign neglect. And interestingly enough, I think the cause is the same -- Africa, especially black Africa, is simply not a priority for the elite in America.

Jeremiah Wright may be dead wrong on his claims that the US government supplies drugs to the ghetto, invented AIDS to kill blacks, or in any way deserved to be attacked on 9/11, but he nailed one point in his Bill Moyers interview.

BILL MOYERS: In the 20 years that you've been his pastor, have you ever heard him repeat any of your controversial statements as his opinion?

REVEREND WRIGHT:
No. No. No. Absolutely not.

I don't talk to him about politics. And so he had a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of God about the things of God.

Yep, Jeremiah Wright has Barack Obama so neatly pegged – he’s just another politician who will do or say what he has to do to get elected, not a “new type of politician”. Maybe Wright should have preached more about “Thou shalt not bear false witness” than “God damn America” – it was certainly more needed by at least one of his parishioners.

In an age when anyone can quickly create their own website and report the news, is there really a distinction any longer between citizen and journalist? What’s more, is there really any basis for a distinction – in practice or in law?

The recent “bitter-gate” flap involving on-the-record remarks by Barack Obama at a “no press” event in San Francisco is instructive. A HuffPo blogger – and maxed-out Obama contributor -- recorded Obama’s remarks and then wrote about them on her blog. While some in the Leftosphere objected, even the Obama campaign acknowledges that they fully expected the remarks would become public. We therefore don’t need to consider the question of whether an event news because a candidate or celebrity or public official says it is news, or because it really is information to which the public is entitled.

The reaction to Fowler's blog post then is just another bump in the inexorable sorting out of what the First Amendment means in a society where every person with Internet access has his or her own global broadcasting and publishing facility. The issue is less the distinction between "citizen" and "journalist" and more whether the Founding Fathers ever contemplated such a distinction in the first place.

A close reading of the First Amendment and centuries of legal precedent says "no."

Somewhere along the way, America developed this notion of the “journalist” as some sort of royal priesthood, entitled to special rights and consideration that the ordinary rabble did not enjoy. That was, in large part, because of the practical obstacles to publishing a newspaper – much less in broadcasting over the airwaves.

Technology has now changed the paradigm. Each and every one of us has the ability to become the publisher of our own electronic newspaper or commentary magazine. Indeed, many of us, right, left, and center, have become latter-day versions of Benjamin Franklin Bache of the American Aurora, John Fenno of the Gazette of the United States or Philip Freneau of the National Gazette. Indeed, the pseudonymous semi-anonymity that many of us choose harks back to the practices of many of the Founders who published pseudonymous works within the pages of those newspapers of the 1790s. For that reason alone, Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association is quite right in the above quote with his recognition that there is nothing in the First Amendment – nor in the understanding of the framers – that justifies relegating bloggers (or the bulk of the citizenry) to some status below that of “The Press” in the eyes of the law and society. Or perhaps more accurately, there is nothing in those sources that justifies the elevation of "working journalists" above ordinary citizens in the eyes of the law.

UPDATE: Fellow teacher Darren at Right on the Left Coast brings up a similar point brought up by a different commentary from a different source. Drop by and check it out.

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I’ve never been a fan of the specialty license plates that so many states offer. I didn’t like it when alumni associations began selling them. I was disturbed when sports teams and special events got to market them. And all of the “special funds” that benefit just seem to be a bit silly.

But this one disturbs me in a special way.

Florida drivers can order more than 100 specialty license plates celebrating everything from manatees to the Miami Heat, but one now under consideration would be the first in the nation to explicitly promote a specific religion.

The Florida Legislature is considering a specialty plate with a design that includes a Christian cross, a stained-glass window and the words "I Believe."

Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate's sponsor, said people who "believe in their college or university" or "believe in their football team" already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with "something they believe in," he said.

If the plate is approved, Florida would become the first state to have a license plate featuring a religious symbol that's not part of a college logo. Approval would almost certainly face a court challenge.

The problem with the state manufacturing the plate is that it "sends a message that Florida is essentially a Christian state" and, second, gives the "appearance that the state is endorsing a particular religious preference," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

Now I don’t necessarily agree with the reasoning behind the ACLU’s opposition – but I agree with their opposition. There is just no need to put a crosses and stained glass on a license plate to display your faith.

Get a bumper sticker. Put a couple of the silver “fish” logos on your trunk. Have the vehicle painted up like the Sistine Chapel for all I care. Just not this.

To the tune of $10 million in a single day!

Winning in Pennsylvania has been good for Hillary Rodham Clinton's flagging finances.

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Wednesday that the campaign was on track to raise $10 million through the Internet in the 24 hours since the candidate appealed for money in her victory speech Tuesday night. That would more than double her cash on hand.

Clinton fundraisers said they are seeing a new wave of interest from people wanting to help.

"My phone has been ringing off the hook," said Patricia Edington, an Alabama antiques appraiser and "Hillraiser," as Clinton calls those who pledge to collect $100,000 or more. "It was sort of drying up in south Alabama. I had turned over lots of rocks down here. But people have been calling this morning."

Let’s see – she’s won more popular votes than Obama (if you REALLY believe in counting all the votes), and states with enough electoral votes to win the presidency? Why shouldn’t people be giving her money, given that she is showing greater strength than Barack Obama?

Felix over at Colossus of Rhodey got a rather interesting email from a friend in Denmark. It sort of puts some perspective on the 2008 presidential race. Enjoy!

If it isn't being a slumlord, it is gun violence -- the second indictment on such charges against a local Democrat politician this month.

Local criminal defense attorney and former U.S. Congressman Craig Washington was indicted Thursday on a charge of aggravated assault in connection with a New Year's Day shooting incident outside his law office.

Washington, who was out of town when the indictment was unsealed, is accused of firing at Taylor Brooks, an 18-year-old senior at Cy-Fair High School. Bail was set at $30,000. An initial hearing will be scheduled once Washington surrenders and posts bail.

According to the police report on the incident, Brooks told officers Washington confronted him in the parking lot at the attorney's office in Midtown about 8:30 p.m.

As Brooks tried to drive away, Washington is alleged to have fired at his 2002 Chevrolet Camaro, with three bullets striking the passenger side. Brooks' friend, Evan McAnulty, 18, also was in the car at the time.

Brooks and McAnulty, a senior at Cy-Falls High School, declined to comment on the advice of lawyers.

Washington did not return a message left on his cell phone. An associate at his law office said the well-known local political and legal figure would not comment.

The charge in the indictment, handed up by a Harris County grand jury, is a second-degree felony punishable by a prison term of two to 20 years and a fine of up to $10,000.

Washington, a Democrat, represented the 18th Congressional District for five years before being ousted by Sheila Jackson Lee in 1994. Jackson Lee accused him of losing touch with his district. He also was hurt by adverse publicity concerning his financial affairs and a tax debt.

Personally, I don't know what is scarier -- the fact that this guy has a gun, that it took so long for the indictment to come down, or that the people of the 18th District thought he was even worse than Sheila Jackson Lee.

But this does help explain why Democrats are so in favor of gun control -- it isn't that they are afraid of what ordinary people of ordinary judgment will do. They are instead afraid of what unstable persons like themselves will do, and believe that the only way of keeping themselves from engaging in reckless, dangerous activity that threatens the lives of others is to ban handguns.

I wonder -- will the local Leftosphere again remain silent about misdeeds by one of their own?

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That is the question that readily springs to mind as we learn about record fines for a Houston slumlord.

A landlord whose north Houston apartment complex was closed by city inspectors over unsafe conditions last year has paid a $100,000 fine, officials said Thursday.

The one-time owner of the Carter's Grove Apartments at 3405 North Shepherd, identified as Samuel Pinter of New York, settled more than 240 Municipal Court citations as a deadline approached last week.

Chief Prosecutor Randy Zamora said the fine was the largest against a single defendant in recent memory. The deal came after negotiations with Pinter's attorney.

"When you've got someone who is truly ignoring the laws of the city of Houston, and he is one of the worst of the worst, that's when we do everything we can to make them comply or suffer the penalty," he said.

Pinter and his attorney, Brian Cweren of Houston, could not be reached for comment Thursday. A spokesman for Pinter previously had blamed the city's enforcement on "gentrification" in the neighborhood, where new homes have sprouted up nearby.

Pinter's complex, which recently was sold to a Phoenix company that rehabilitates troubled properties, had so many unresolved electrical, plumbing and nuisance violations that city officials took the unprecedented step last year of closing the property and helping residents move.

Gee -- sounds just like the sort of problems we've seen at the multiple properties owned by Democrat State Representative Hubert Vo. Will the city of Houston be as diligent in prosecuting Vo for the multiple violations on his properties -- especially after he attempted to use his official position to intimidate those charged with enforcing the housing code? Or will Vo's political clout be sufficient to keep him from court?

This will certainly not do any good in healing the divisions within the Episcopal Church -- or the worldwide Anglican community.

Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal prelate whose consecration led conservatives to split from the church, said in an interview on Thursday that he and his partner of 20 years were planning a civil union ceremony to be held in his home church in the diocese of New Hampshire in June.

Bishop Robinson said that by scheduling the ceremony for June, he did not intend to further inflame conservatives just before the Anglican Communion gathers in August in Cambridge, England, for the Lambeth Conference, which happens only once every 10 years.

He planned his civil union for June, he said, because he wanted to provide some legal protection to his partner and his children before he left for England for the conference. Bishop Robinson has received death threats, and he wore a bulletproof vest under his vestments at his consecration in 2003.

“We could have, I suppose, just gone to the town clerk and had that signed,” he said, “but, you know, I’m a religious person, and every major event in my life has been marked with some kind of liturgy and giving thanks to God.”

Robinson, whose selection as bishop despite living in flagrant disregard of biblical standards of morality, has been a key flash-point in the conflict between traditionalists and modernists within Anglicanism -- to the point that the Archbishop of Canterbury excluded Robinson from the gathering of Anglican bishops this summer. This deliberately provocative move on Robinson's part -- having what amounts to a gay marriage ceremony in one of his churches -- will only serve to bring that issue to a head. It certainly serves a a sign that the Episcopal Church is out of step with the overwhelming consensus of worldwide Anglicanism. Will it be the cause of the final separation of the two?

I applaud Israel's ambassador to the UN for daring to speak the truth about former President Neville Carter.

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday called former President Jimmy Carter "a bigot" for meeting with the leader of the militant Hamas movement in Syria.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, "went to the region with soiled hands and came back with bloody hands after shaking the hand of Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas," Ambassador Dan Gillerman told a luncheon briefing for reporters.

The diplomat was questioned about problems facing his country during a wide-ranging discussion with reporters lasting more than an hour. The briefing was sponsored by The Israel Project, a Washington-based, media-oriented advocacy group.

The ambassador's harsh words for Carter came days after the ex-president met with Mashaal for seven hours in Damascus to negotiate a cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas rulers. Carter then called Mashaal on Monday to try to get him to agree to a one-month truce without conditions, but the Hamas leader rejected the idea.

The ambassador called last weekend's encounter "a very sad episode in American history."

He said it was "a shame" to see Carter, who had done "good things" as a former president, "turn into what I believe to be a bigot."

I do disagree with the ambassador on one point -- it isn't the meeting which turned Carter into a bigot. He demonstrated his anti-Semitism some time back, in his book about the Israel-Terrorstinian conflict. The meeting with terrorists and the one-sided agreement that was nothing but a plan for the dismantling of Israel one piece at a time in return for nothing of substance is nothing but the fruit of Carter's embrace of the forces of Jew-hatred.

You know, that the Maliki government is a failure which has failed to make any concrete steps towards reconciliation.

After all, the Democrats and the press keep telling us those things -- they must be true, right? Why on earth would the Sunnis throw their lot in with such a failed government?

Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc has agreed to return to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s cabinet after a boycott that lasted nearly a year, several Sunni leaders said on Thursday, citing a recently passed amnesty law and the Maliki government’s crackdown on Shiite militias as reasons for the move.

* * *

“Our conditions were very clear, and the government achieved some of them,” said Adnan al-Duleimi, the head of Tawafiq, the largest Sunni bloc in the government. Mr. Duleimi said the achievements included “the general amnesty, chasing down the militias and disbanding them and curbing the outlaws.”

The recently passed amnesty law has already led to the release of many Sunni prisoners, encouraging Sunni parties that the government is serious about enforcing it. And the attacks on Shiite militias have apparently begun to assuage longstanding complaints that only Sunni groups blamed for the insurgency have been the targets of American and Iraqi security forces.

So let's get this straight -- from the point of view of the Iraqis (who are the folks who really count), the Maliki government is making great strides towards uniting the country and accomplishing important goals necessary to heal the wounds left by the Hussein years. What a different picture from what the forces of defeat in this country tell us. Could it be that, unlike the Left and the Media (two ways of saying the same thing, I know), the Iraqi people want victory over terrorism and a stable, democratic government in Iraq?

Not content to allow the rules of the Democrat Party to determine the timetable and the outcome of the race for the Democrat nomination for President, Harry Reid has indicated that he, Nancy Pelosi, and Howard Dean are going to attempt to circumvent the rules in a clear attempt to steer the nomination to the candidate of their choice -- Barack Obama.

Reid said he would consider writing a joint letter with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) demanding that superdelegates make their endorsements public.

“The three of us, we may write a joint letter [to superdelegates],” said Reid. “We might do individual letters. We are in contact with each other.”

Reid's comments suggest that the party’s top three officials are contemplating a high-level intervention if the primary season concludes in June without a nominee and many superdelegates still undecided.

Now let's get this straight. The DNC has a set of rules which allows superdelegates to decide their choice at any time. (For that matter, the rules allow any regular delegate to change their candidate preference at any time.) The only requirement is that they cast their vote at the convention.

But that isn't good enough for these leading Democrats. They are going to make a demand of these elected Democrats that is not contemplated by the party rules. What happens if, between the date of capitulation to the demand and the date of the convention, if a superdelegate (or a majority of superdelegates) has a change of heart? Will they then attempt to bind them to their June choice? Or will they instead create an even bigger problem when their anointed winner loses the vote for the nomination -- either to the other remaining primary contender or a drafted wild card like Al Gore?

These folks have screwed up the Democrat nomination process at every turn. Do you really think they are competent to run the country?

More At Hot Air

This is simply incredible.

Whether he was up to no good or simply desperate to play BrickBreaker, a Mexican press attache was caught on camera by Secret Service pocketing several White House BlackBerries during a recent meeting in New Orleans, FOX News has learned.

Sources with knowledge of the incident said the official, whose first name is Rafael, took six or seven of the handheld devices from a table outside a special room in the hotel where the Mexican delegation was meeting with President Bush.

Everyone entering the room was required to leave their cell phones, BlackBerries and other such devices on the table, a commonplace practice when high-level meetings are held. American officials discovered their missing belongings when they were leaving the session.

It didn't take long before Secret Service officials reviewed videotape taken by a surveillance camera and found footage showing "Rafael" absconding with the BlackBerries.

Sources said "Rafael" made it all the way to the airport, where the Mexican president was preparing to leave New Orleans, before Secret Service officers caught up with him. He was forced to return the BlackBerries.

Sources said the man claimed to have taken the devices accidentally. The sources said they believe no further actions were taken against him by American authorities, though it is unclear what disciplinary measures, if any, await him in Mexico.

What seems to have been discounted here is the possibility that this was actually a case of espionage. After all, during the Cold War, "press attache" often meant "CIA operative" in countries behind the Iron Curtain. I suppose that they could have been seeking classified information of some sort.

I'm curious -- did "Rafael" have time to do a data dump of the information from the Blackberries? And whose devices did he steal? Many more questions than answers.

UPDATE: More info from Malkin. The thief/spy is Quintero Curiel -- and he claimed diplomatic immunity and was allowed to leave the country despite his crimes. Why hasn't the US media done more with this story? Afraid of the patriotic reaction of real Americans, and afraid to offend the undocumented ones?

Having been the architect of success in iraq following the troop surge, General David Petraeus will be promoted to head the US Central Command -- giving him operational control over the entire Middle East.

Gen. David Petraeus has been tapped to become the next commander of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations from the Middle East to Central Asia and directs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced his decision Wednesday at a press conference in Washington, saying President Bush would send Petraeus' nomination to the Senate soon.

"I recommended him to the president because he is absolutely the best man to do the job. The conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan are very much characterized by asymmetric warfare and I don't know anyone better prepared to deal with that," Gates said of Petraeus, speaking to reporters.

Petraeus issued a statement shortly afterward.

"I am honored to be nominated for this position and to have an opportunity to continue to serve with America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coastguardsmen, and civilians," Petraeus said.

The strategy designed and implemented by Petraeus has led to decreased violence and increased security in Iraq -- things that are positives for anyone who is interested in seeing an American victory over terrorism.

Interestingly enough, Harry Reid has indicated that the Democrats are going to use the summer hearings on this promotion and several related changes to play politics with the military command structure and the Iraq war in the run-up to the election. While such actions are disgusting, they are not unexpected. The only positive I see in this probability is that it will remind the American people of the fundamental unfitness of the Democrats to control our national defense.

H/T Hot Air, Malkin

I'm sorry -- when your a party whose entire history is tied to the exploitation of race and racism as wedge issues, it is no surprise that your voters might hesitate to be color blind when they go to the polls.

It is the question that has hung over Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and it loomed large on Tuesday night after his loss to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Pennsylvania: Why has he been unable to win over enough working-class and white voters to wrap up the Democratic nomination?

Lurking behind that question is another: Is the Democratic Party hesitating about race as it moves to the brink of nominating an African-American to be president?

No one, of course, is willing to note that the Deocrats have made identity politics their stock-in-trade for decades. And after appealing to blacks as blacks, Hispanics as Hispanics, gays as gays, and women as women, is it any surprise that white Democrats might decide that similar ethnic solidarity is a legitimate thing for them to embrace? After all, no one is daring to suggest hat there is anything wrong with a 92% black turnout for Barack Obama, is there?

And let's not forget that the Democrats have never managed to unite their party around a set of fundamentals that are universally embraced After all, it embraces race-baiting charlatans like Al Sharpton and Kluxers like Robert Byrd. It embraces the radical feminists and their pro-abortion agenda, but still has a sizable pro-life vote among Catholics. And as polls have shown time after time, a great many white voters reject affirmative action -- whether in college admissions, employment, or the nomination of under-qualified presidential candidates like Barack Obama.

Now that all the oral arguments are over, we begin the waiting for the opinions in the cases the justices have heard this year.

The most significant decision handed down yesterday dealt with search and seizure issues.

The Supreme Court affirmed Wednesday that police have the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turns out to have violated state law.

The unanimous decision comes in a case from Portsmouth, Va., where city detectives seized crack cocaine from a motorist after arresting him for a traffic ticket offense.

David Lee Moore was pulled over for driving on a suspended license. The violation is a minor crime in Virginia and calls for police to issue a court summons and let the driver go.

Instead, city detectives arrested Moore and prosecutors say that drugs taken from him in a subsequent search can be used against him as evidence.

"We reaffirm against a novel challenge what we have signaled for half a century," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote.

Scalia said that when officers have probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime in their presence, the Fourth Amendment permits them to make an arrest and to search the suspect in order to safeguard evidence and ensure their own safety.

Now this gets into the whole issue of whether actions taken in good faith by police, even when there was an error, violate the Constitution. After all, the search was standard procedure pursuant to an arrest, and it appears from my reading o this somewhat vague wire service report that the officers did not realize that an arrest under the circumstances was a violation of the standards set by the state. A string of cases dating back to the early 1980s made this result no surprise -- after all, police officers cannot be expected to be fortune tellers regarding future appeals court decisions.

And before our friends on the left start intoning the usual rhetoric about fascist police states, please notice that even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the ACLU's mouthpiece on the Supreme Court, ruled that there was no problem with the search.

I understand that you can turn almost anything into a commercial.

But there is something about this that is wrong on so many levels.

Meat loaf?

Doing a cell phone commercial?

Utterly destroying a cultural icon in the process.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave birth to her fifth child on Friday, a boy named Trig. In the announcement, she spoke of challenges that the baby would face, but gave no details. The family has now made public that Trig has Down Syndrome.

Gov. Sarah Palin was back at work Monday in Anchorage, holding a meeting on the proposed natural gas pipeline three days after giving birth to her fifth child.

She and her husband, Todd, showed their new baby, Trig Paxson Van Palin, to a few reporters and photographers and answered questions about his condition and the sooner-than-expected delivery.

Trig has Down syndrome, a genetic abnormality that affects a child's intellectual and physical development, the governor confirmed.

"When we first heard, it was kind of confusing," Palin, 44, said. She called the revelation "very, very challenging" and said she initially felt sad.

But the family has worked through that. Palin said she and Todd feel blessed and chosen by God. With a big family including four older kids, grandparents, aunts and uncles, Palin said, they will have lots of support for what's ahead. In their eyes, she said, "he's absolutely perfect."

The oldest Palin kid, Track, is in the Army and texted his mother after learning the news with something to the effect of "This is just so cool -- I finally got my brother."

In a letter she e-mailed to relatives and close friends Friday after giving birth, Palin wrote, "Many people will express sympathy, but you don't want or need that, because Trig will be a joy. You will have to trust me on this." She wrote it in the voice of and signed it as "Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father."

"Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed-up world you live in down there on Earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome," Palin wrote.

As for people who think a baby like Trig shouldn't even be born, look around, the governor wrote. Who is perfect or even normal?

Indeed, all too many folks are willing to abstractly argue that a child like Trig Palin should have been aborted. One look at the baby picture that appeared in the press last week should be sufficient to dispel the notion that he is somehow less deserving of life than any other human being. And having worked for a time with Down Syndrome adults, I can tell you that their worth is no less than any other student I have taught or person I have known – indeed, I learned every bit as much from those clients as I did from many of my college professors, and cherish their memories in my heart so many years later.

This birth also raises an interesting issue. Sarah Palin has been mentioned by many Republicans as a possible pick for Vice President. Does the birth of a child – especially a special needs child – mitigate against her selection? Or does it increase her chances, given the impact that she would have upon many voters as a relatively young career woman who made a choice for life? An interesting question indeed.

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And here I thought Barack said he was above all of this sort of stuff.

Unable once again to score a knockout, Sen. Barack Obama is likely to make his new negative tone even more negative -- with a sharp eye on trying to end the Democratic presidential nomination fight after the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's victory yesterday in Pennsylvania has only accentuated the quandary that Obama faces: Stay negative and he risks undermining the premise of his candidacy. Stay aloof and he underscores Clinton's argument that he will not be able to beat a "Republican attack machine" sure to greet him this summer.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe indicated last night which of those options they would take. "We've done a lot of counterpunching. We've been swift and effective," he said. "For Democrats judging how we're going to perform as the nominee, we have been relentless."

Obama himself took up the cudgel after Clinton delivered a victory speech in Philadelphia devoid of attack lines. Without naming Clinton, he suggested in Evansville, Ind., that she is a captive to the oil, pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies, that she "says and does whatever it takes to win the next election," and that she exploits division for political gain.

"In the end, this election is still our best chance to solve the problems we've been talking about for decades -- as one nation, as one people," Obama said.

So for all the claims that he is a new type of politician, it looks like he is delivering the same old politics to the American people. But then again, who really believed that there was anything new or different about this inexperienced political hack? When the going gets tough, Obama acts like everybody else.

This has to be a new low in coverage of John McCain.

Sen. John McCain has long said he is in robust health and is strong enough to hike the Grand Canyon, but he also is receiving what his staff Monday termed a "disability pension" from the Navy.

When McCain released his tax return for 2007 on Friday, he separately disclosed that he received a pension of $58,358 that was not listed as income on his return.

On Monday, McCain's staff identified the retirement benefit as a "disability pension" and said that McCain "was retired as disabled because of his limited body movements due to injuries as a POW."

McCain campaign strategist Mark Salter said Monday night that McCain was technically disabled. "Tortured for his country -- that is how he acquired his disability," Salter said.

Certain types of military and veterans pensions are either partially or completely tax-exempt, depending on the seriousness of the disability. In McCain's case, the exemption is 100%.

But the LA Times (sister to the NY Times) is able to turn what is a pretty sick attack about taxes (McCain is following the law as passed by Congress before he was ever elected to office) on a pension received due to the horrific injuries he received while serving his country into something even more disgusting.

The fact that he is legally designated with a disability pension may raise further questions.

"It is a legitimate question to ask about the commander in chief: Is he fit to serve," said Robert Schriebman, a senior Pentagon tax advisor and tax attorney who recently retired as a judge advocate for a unit of the California National Guard.

So now we are getting an attack on the disabled -- especially disabled veterans. So much for supporting the troops.

And so much for the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led this country through the Depression and WWII in steel leg braces and a wheel chair. After all, neither he nor McCain has a disability that impacts the most essential part of the anatomy necessary to serve as president -- the brain.

Democrats have already begun a series of low-blow attacks upon John McCain and his military service. Now the press has done so as well. It strikes me as incumbent upon Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- not to mention every patriotic American -- to denounce these shameful efforts and instead honor John McCain for his service and dedication to this country.

A PERSONAL ASIDE: Growing up as a Navy brat, I had the good fortune to know one of the heroes who shared a cell with John McCain in Vietnam. I've heard some of the stories, and read others in the book written about his experiences. I've seen the scars that got shown in public, and heard about the ones that didn't from his sons. This hero of my youth is backing John McCain for President, as are an overwhelming number of their fellow POWs. It's testimonial enough for me.

H/T Hot Air

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Remember -- religious tolerance only runs one way when it comes to Islam.

Muslims converting to Christianity is a thorny issue almost anywhere in the world, but recently U.K. media attention has focused in on the persecution of former Muslims not in foreign land but in its own backyard.

Former Muslims who convert to Christianity are threatened with disownment and violence at the hands of their own family members – much like in parts of the Middle East. But the difference is these families don’t reside in a theocratic society, but in a western country that upholds religious freedom – including the right to convert to another faith.

BBC, U.K.’s leading news network, featured several stories and programs in recent months devoted to the issue of persecution of Christian converts from Islam. In its latest feature on Monday, it highlighted real cases of England-based Muslims who convert to Christianity and the consequences that follow.

Sophia (not her real name) is from a Pakistani background but lives in east London. Her family has put extreme pressure on her to return to Islam since she converted to Christianity.

“They kept saying, ‘The punishment is death, do you know the punishment is death?” she recalled to BBC.

She ended up running away from home, but her mother found her and showed up at her baptism.

“I got up to get baptized, that’s when my mother got up, ran to the front and tried to pull me out of the water,” Sophia said.

“My brother was really angry. He reacted and phoned me on my mobile and just said, ‘I’m coming down to burn that church,’” she remembered.

Physical assault -- threats of arson and murder. Not in one of the third world backwaters that constitutes the bulk of the Islamic world, but in a civilized country like Great Britain.

I'd love to know -- were Sophia's family members charged or convicted over any of these offenses? After all, terroristic threats and the assault during her baptism are crimes. Or do Muslims get a pass when these are directed against someone who leaves the falsehood of Islam for the truth of Christianity?

But in the end, the answer to that question is not nearly so relevant as the truth revealed by Sophia's story. Religious persecution of Christians continues today -- outside the Christian world and within it -- and it is incumbent upon us to pray for those who take fearlessly take that step into the light of Christ.

So much for the argument that the people want a sharp break with the past.

A closely fought Congressional contest over a Republican stronghold here was apparently left hanging on Tuesday, with the two top candidates likely to face a runoff next month.

A conservative Democrat, Travis W. Childers, was seeking to wrest the open seat in the First Congressional District in northern Mississippi from Republicans who have held it since 1994. But Mr. Childers appeared to fall short, getting only 49 percent of the vote, according to The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson. The special election was to fill the unexpired term of Roger Wicker, who moved on to the Senate.

Mr. Childers’s leading opponent, Greg Davis, the Republican mayor of Southaven, a Memphis suburb, got 46 percent. Four other people were on the ballot.

A runoff will be held May 13 if official tallies show no candidate won more than half the vote. After that, Mr. Childers and Mr. Davis are running against each other again in the November general election.

Mr. Childers, who differed little on social issues from his Republican opponent, exemplified the Democrats’ strategy of running conservatives in red districts, a tactic that proved successful in the 2006 midterm elections. Its potential was underscored here on Tuesday with a strong showing by Mr. Childers, a veteran courthouse official, in a conservative area that gave 62 percent of its vote to President Bush in 2004.

What does this tell us? Mainly, it says that the Democrats really don't have a message or a platform that can appeal to Americans nationally. Rather than run a Democrat who espouses the values of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (and there really isn's a dime's worth of difference between them), they continue to run candidates who espouse the GOP platform in conservative districts, making the issue one strictly of personalities.

The problem with this strategy is that if voters select such chameleons they empower not those who hold to their own core values, but those who oppose them. It would behoove voters in Mississippi (and elsewhere, like my own CD22 here in Texas) to pay attention to the party labels and vote accordingly.

But only just barely.

Hillary Clinton did manage to win by 10% in Pennsylvania -- but only after being up by 20 points in the polls as recently as two weeks ago.

Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary Tuesday, buoyed by support from women and blue-collar voters and pushing her duel with Barack Obama on to Indiana and North Carolina on May 6.

Amid brisk turnout, Clinton won a victory that many polls had predicted and which the New York senator had to have. The ultimate margin hovered around double digits — Clinton led 55 percent to 45 percent with nearly 80 percent of the vote counted — but no matter the numbers, her campaign insisted that a victory was a victory, particularly amid a spending onslaught by a more financially more robust Obama campaign.

"Some counted me out and said to drop out," Clinton told cheering supporters. "But the American people don't quit. And they deserve a president who doesn't quit, either."

"Because of you, the tide is turning."

As a practical matter, this means that the Democrats will be battling for at least two more weeks, into Indiana and North Carolina on May 6. It means more time beating and battering each other rather John McCain -- doing for us Republicans some of the work that we will need to do in the fall. And most importantly, it takes the edge off of the Obama inevitability arguments that have been laid out.

And hillary has made it clear that she is fighting to the bitter end -- saying that the race isn't over until the status of the Michigan and Florida delegates is decided, something that won't happen until the convention under most scenarios.

Not that all the Democrat-leaning media likes yesterday's outcome.

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

Oddly enough, I have to both agree and disagree with the NY Times. I agree this campaign style is hurting the Dems -- but I'm not tired of it at all, and am rather enjoying it.

And the hypocrisy of the NY Times over the issue of negativity is rather striking, because the paper has engaged in just such substanceless attacks on John McCain several times in recent weeks. You would think the so-called "paper of record" would take its responsibility to real with issues rather than mean, vacuous stories that contribute nothing to the campaign.

Andrew McCarthy offers this fantasy discussion as a frame of reverence by which to judge Barack Obama’s lack of candor regarding his relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and his terrorist wife, Bernadine Dohrn.

Who is El Sayyid Nosair?

Well, I know him. I spent an awful lot of time around him. I know all about his background. So what if, upon being asked that question, I told you, “Oh, Sayyid — yeah, he’s an engineering student from Egypt who became a mechanic for the New York State courts.”

You might respond, “Wait a second. Wasn’t he the guy who murdered Meir Kahane (founder of the Jewish Defense League) in front of a room full of people at some hotel in Manhattan?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, well — but that was nearly 20 years ago.”

“And didn’t he, like, shoot a 70-year-old man who tried to block him from getting away?”

“I suppose.”

“… And then shoot it out on the street with a cop while about a thousand people buzzed around?”

“Technically speaking, it was a postal police officer, but I take your point.”

“Wasn’t Nosair pals with that big red-headed Egyptian guy whose picture they used to show on TV all the time?”

“Sure, Mahmud Abouhalima. He was a cabdriver from Brooklyn.”

“A cabdriver from Brooklyn? Wait a second. I remember this now. This Mahmud guy was here on some immigration scam, right?”

“Well, ‘scam’ is such a divisive term. He was legally in our country: he had a work permit under the Agricultural Workers Program.”

“Agricultural worker? In Brooklyn?”

“Er, yes, okay, but that just underscores that we have to do something to bring these people out of the shadows — ”

“Hold on. Didn’t Mahmud end up bombing the World Trade Center? Didn’t he work for that blind sheikh who kept telling everyone to kill all the Americans?”

“You mean Omar Abdel Rahman. Well, actually, he was a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence graduated from one of the world’s great universities — became a professor and a renowned expert in Muslim law. I don’t know why you keep dwelling on ancient history that distracts us from the real issues …”

Such inanity is not far from last week’s Philadelphia debate, when ABC’s George Stephanopoulos displayed the audacity of hope that Barack Obama might try to explain his friendly relationship with Bill Ayers, a terrorist.

Now let’s be really honest here. No one would accept such a line of argument regarding Muslim terrorists like this motley cast of murderers discussed above. No politician would dare to attempt such an argument. And yet Barack Obama has the audacity to make such an attempt to do so in order to defend a long chain of personal, professional, and political associations with the “respected English professor who lives in my neighborhood.” It ought to be sufficient for any decent person to declare Obama unfit – after all, it isn’t like Ayers’ was living underground under an assumed name – he openly bragged about his terrorist acts, and the only contrition he showed was his regret that he failed to set off more bombs and do more damage. Obama is therefore incapable of arguing that Ayers was a changed man, the way that one can look at Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson and see a change of heart and break with past misdeeds.

And then there is these little details – ones which have nagged me from the back of my mind for some time now, and which I have resisted writing out of a desire not to engage in what some would call harsh, extremist rhetoric.

Ayers bombed the Capitol, Pentagon, and NYC Police headquarters. He was involved in a plan to bomb Fort Dix, seeking to blow up the officer’s club during a dance for officers and their wives – one that was averted when some of his co-conspirators accidentally detonated the nail-packed bomb (designed to inflict maximum human casualties) before it could be planted.

What was his motivation? Primarily, it was opposition to the Vietnam War and a desire to bring about its end by undermining the US war effort.

When one considers these facts, they add up to something much bigger than terrorism. Indeed, they add up to a singular offense, the only crime defined as such by the US Constitution itself.

Article III Section 3 Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and the rest of their Weather Underground colleagues were engaged in nothing less than treason against the United States of America. Their acts cannot be defined as anything other than levying war against the United States in an attempt to give aid and comfort to America’s enemies in Vietnam. That isn’t me making some sort of half-assed leap to tar a political opponent – that is the only legitimate interpretation of the words and deeds of Ayers, Dohrn, and the rest of the Weather Underground.

Which again takes us back to the question of judgment on the part of the junior Senator from Illinois -- having maintained a long cordial relationship with an unrepentant avowed terrorist who he knew (or should have known) committed treason against the United States, is Barack Obama fit to be President of the United States and Commander-in Chief of the Armed Forces?

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For abuse of her position to politically indoctrinate her students and push her agenda of getting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas disinvited as a graduation speaker at University of Georgia.

Associate professor Janet Frick said she was using her two psychology lectures Monday to educate students about the history of Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court.

"They were barely born when this was going on," Frick said. "They don't know some of this history. We would do our students a favor to educate them on what took place and on each side. It would be doing our job as an institution to examine these issues more fully."

Excuse me, but what on earth is a professor of psychology doing lecturing on US history and political science? Doesn’t she, as a part of her professional obligation to her students, need to be teaching her students about (dare I suggest it) psychology and not her own political agenda? Frick is, of course, more than welcome to speak all she wants about Clarence Thomas and the false charges made by Anita Hill – but not during class time when she is being paid to speak about psychology. But to do so in the classroom is nothing short of propagandizing a captive audience in a Maoist fashion.

H/T NRO’s Phi Beta Cons

This is what showed up in the headline.

Fish Tales: Former President George H.W. Bush Catches a Mammoth in the Keys

Given that mammoth have been extinct for a few millennia, I was curious, so I dropped by for a quick look -- especially since the Florida Keys doesn't have a climate conducive to mammoth, either.

Here’s the ACTUAL story – with a picture.

Former President George H. W. Bush caught a mammoth tarpon Saturday while fishing off the Florida Keys near Islamorada, Fla., according to the Florida Keys News Agency.

Bush chose to release the giant with an estimated weight of around 135 pounds -- the largest tarpon the 84-year-old ex-president has ever caught, the agency reported.

I don’t know about you, but somehow the story doesn’t seem so interesting when you drop the word “tarpon” from the headline.

Starting with how we all tell time and measure our position on the planet.

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.

The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.

And we then get some of the most absurd claims -- Mecca is the only place on earth perfectly aligned with true north, and that all scientific truths are contained in the Qu'ran. Oh, yeah -- there was the obligatory swipe at Western imperialism because the British (who perfected the method of measuring longitude) for setting the prime meridian through their country and imposing it on the rest of the world.

So instead Islam once again seeks to impose itself on the rest of the world instead.

Setting aside the arrogance of the claims and demands put forward at the conference, there is no need to make the change. The prime meridian is an arbitrary concept, and making the change demanded would be every bit as expensive as it is silly.

But that such a demand would be made is one more sign of Islam's ultimate goal of imposing itself on the rest of the world -- whether we want it or not.

H/T Malkin, Snapped Shot

Victims of terrorism and their families must not be sacrificed in the interest of securing contracts with current and former state sponsors of terrorism.

One by one, top executives of American oil companies met privately over the last year with Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, often in his signature Bedouin tent, as they lined up contracts allowing them to tap into the country’s oil reserves.

But now, the new allies are working Capitol Hill, trying to weaken a law that threatens those deals. The Libyan government, once a pariah, and the American oil industry have hired high-profile lobbyists, buttonholed lawmakers and enlisted help from the Bush administration, all in an effort to win an exemption from a law that Congress passed in January that is intended to ensure that victims of terrorist attacks are compensated.

The law allows victims of state-sponsored terrorism to collect court judgments by seizing foreign assets in the United States or money from those governments held by American companies doing business with them. If Libya loses a half-dozen court cases still pending, $3 billion to $6 billion could be at stake, according to lawyers’ estimates.

The US has shamefully sacrificed the rights of such victims of state terrorism before. Whether it was Carter's renunciation of the right of hostages to sue Iran or the Bush administrations opposition to awards of damages to families of victims, blocking such awards blocks justice. Given Libya's history of state-sponsored terrorism, allowing Qaddafi to walk away from his misdeeds witha pocket full of cash while his victims get noting is a moral obscenity -- and another bad precedent.

Frankly, I don't see where McCain has any choice.

First, he is the champion of such schemes, having long been involved in imposing such political speech limitation schemes upon candidates for office and their supporters.

Second, he is behind in the race for money and this option will give him a big financial boost in the final two months of the campaign.

John McCain is abandoning any hope of catching the Democrats in fundraising.

Based on new financial disclosure reports released Sunday, and interviews with his finance team, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee will instead accept taxpayer money to finance his general election and share other costs with the Republican National Committee.

The strategy will allow McCain to stretch his campaign dollars by splitting the cost of television advertising and other campaign activity with the RNC.

But the decision also puts the Arizona senator at risk of being badly outspent – even with RNC help – by a Democratic nominee who will be allowed to spend as much as he or she can raise on the November race.

But there is also another advantage to doing this. Barack Obama stated early in the campaign that he would take public financing and accept the related spending limits in the event his Republican opponent did so. The Illinois Senator must now decide whether or not he will abide by that vow, or whether he will break his word tot he American people -- opening himself up to all sorts of questions regarding his integrity and trustworthiness.

Former President Neville Carter has announced that he has brokered an agreement for peace in our times with the terrorists of Hamas prepared to promise to stop attacking Israel (but only for 10 years) but refusing to recognize the right of Israel to exist.

Oh, by the way -- all Israel has to do is give Hamas EVERYTHING the Palestinians have been demanding.

The leader of Hamas said Monday that his Palestinian militant group would offer Israel a 10-year "hudna," or truce, as implicit proof of recognition of Israel if it withdrew from all lands it seized in the 1967 Middle East War.

Khaled Mashaal told The Associated Press that he made the offer to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in talks on Saturday. "We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as a proof of recognition," Mashaal said.

In his comments Monday, Mashaal used the Arabic word "hudna," meaning truce, which is more concrete than "tahdiya" — a period of calm — which Hamas often uses to describe a simple cease-fire.

Two points.

1) If Israel is only going to get temporary peace in return for the permanent renunciation of all territory won in wars against Arab aggression, what will it have left to negotiate with in a decade?

2) Given that Hamas has never bothered to abide by a cease fire agreement in the past, why should anyone expect them to d so now?

Well, Neville Carter may be willing to be the butt-boy for Palestinian terrorists, given his past anti-Semitic rantings against Israel, but let us hope that Israel is willing to put its trust in its own strong defenses and the promises of God to the Land of Israel.

I was completely unaware of this event over the weekend.

Having read about it, I have three observations to make.

1) Nazis and white supremacists are scum, and merit nothing but contempt from decent Americans of every political stripe.

2) Even when they are more or less on the right side of an issue, it is incumbent upon decent Americans to denounce and repudiate them.

3) The greater danger to American freedom comes not from such scum, but instead from ignorant Americans willing to limit their rights under the Constitution.

A march by a busload of neo-Nazi activists on Constitution Avenue yesterday wreaked havoc on a balmy afternoon in the capital, bringing traffic to a halt, filling the streets with hundreds of police and provoking an ugly confrontation on the sidelines that resulted in at least three arrests.

About 30 marchers from the Michigan-based National Socialist Movement, waving red swastika flags and shouting "Sieg Heil," emerged about 2:30 p.m. from a bus one block from the White House and strode toward the Capitol, flanked by thick cordons of police who walked the route in riot gear and hundreds of officers on horseback, bicycles and motorcycles.

The marchers said their purpose was to denounce illegal immigration and to offer white Americans an alternative to the two-party political system. Many wore black storm trooper uniforms, boots and armbands.

The march itself was peaceful, and U.S. Park Police said the organizers had a permit. But the atmosphere was tense, and before the event started, a clash broke out between march supporters and local demonstrators who came to condemn the message.

I hate to say it, but according to this report the scumbags behaved better than their opponents. After all, it wasn’t the racist scum who engaged in violence – they engaged in political speech (though political speech of the most repulsive kind). And while I understand the impulse to kick the living dog crap out of anyone sporting a swastika (or a hammer and sickle, for that matter), everything they did was within the law and protected by the First Amendment.

Unfortunately, this march has harmed a good cause. Illegal immigration is a problem in this country, and we need to deal with it by acting to limit illegal access to this country, sanction employers, and deport aliens who are here illegally. But let me speak clearly – if the only way to accomplish those ends were to accept the assistance of scum like the National Socialist (bowel) Movement, I’d prefer that our country were overrun with undocumented border jumpers. Secure borders are important – but stopping the ideological heirs of Hitler from gaining any legitimacy is more important.

But most disturbing are some quotes from the opponents of the wannabe stormtroopers.

"People marching in brown shirts and swastikas is a tool of intimidation and terrorism. We came out here to oppose them so they won't feel they can do it safely," said Dan Peterson, 23, a D.C. resident who was arrested.

No, it is not a tool of intimidation or terrorism. It is free speech, pure and simple, guaranteed by the Constitution. Indeed, Mr. Peterson, your actions are much more reminiscent of the terrorist intimidation tactics of the Nazis than anything these mental defectives said or did.

Or this observer.

"I support the right to free speech, but when it disrupts the city this much and costs this much, there have to be limits," said John Thiry, 38, from Lancaster, Pa.

I’m curious – would Thiry have applied this same reasoning to many of the great marches of the past? You know, Dr. King’s March on Washington, for example? Does Thiry believe that threats of violent opposition to First Amendment protected activity should be used to limit unpopular speech through a heckler’s veto?

Scum like the National Socialist (bowel) Movement are not a threat to liberty in our society. They are rightly held in contempt by the overwhelming majority of Americans. It is instead those who consider it their patriotic duty to silence such folks who are the greater threat to liberty – for with every restriction on political speech, no matter how disgusting the speech limited, the rights of every other American are equally limited.

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I often fuss back and forth with one of our local Democrat bloggers. I think he’s wrong much of the time, but my personal dealings with him have led me to recognize that he is, at his core, not a bad guy. And since he’s a federal employee, I was thinking of sending him a link to this article from the Washington Post regarding the Hatch Act.

It's so easy. A friend sends an e-mail about the presidential campaign and you forward it to an office buddy.

With that click of the mouse, you are at risk of being fired. For a Hatch Act violation.

E-mails, blogs and campaign Web sites can be cyber-traps for federal employees, especially those accustomed to using their government computer for personal matters, such as trading messages with children or sharing jokes with friends.

The Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that investigates and prosecutes allegations of improper political activities by government employees, is getting calls these days from federal workers who are confused about the rules or worried they may have committed an "e-Hatch" violation, said Ana Galindo-Marrone, chief of the Hatch Act Unit at the OSC.

After all, I razzed him last year about some concerns I had related to precisely such issues, wanting to see him avoid running afoul with the law – one I’ve though overly broad since the days when I worked at the base PX and had to limit my activities with the College Republicans accordingly.

And then I saw this bit at the end of the story.

In recent months, Galindo-Marrone has been touring federal agencies, explaining that technology is increasing the ways that employees can get into trouble at their office desks.

That is what happened to a NASA employee in Houston.

An OSC investigation found that in 2006 and 2007, the employee used his government e-mail account to coordinate and plan activities for a political group and to assist a candidate running for state representative while at his NASA office. He also made blog postings from work to promote campaigns of several candidates, and, at least twice in 2006, urged blog readers to make political contributions.

As a result, the OSC found him in violation of the Hatch Act. The employee was suspended for 180 days without pay.

The shock of recognition hit.

These were, in fact, the very issues I raised with my esteemed nemesis (and I do hold him in high personal regard).

To the degree that these efforts happened in the office, some action should have been taken. But the mere solicitation of political contributions on his blog on his own time should not be a violation of any law – it should be regarded as First Amendment protected political activity, as should every act of soliciting and donating of campaign contributions by individuals, subject to no limitation whatsoever by the government. I respectfully urge Congress to restore the right to freely participate in the political process to all federal employees.

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John McCain forthrightly refers to Islamic terrorism. Some Muslim groups are offended and want him to stop.

A coalition of American Muslim groups is demanding that Sen. John McCain stop using the adjective "Islamic" to describe terrorists and extremist enemies of the United States.

Muneer Fareed, who heads the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), told The Washington Times that his group is beginning a campaign to persuade Mr. McCain to rephrase his descriptions of the enemy.

"We've tried to contact his office, contact his spokesperson to have them rethink word usage that is more acceptable to the Muslim community," Mr. Fareed said. "If it's not our intent to paint everyone with the same brush, then certainly we should think seriously about just characterizing them as criminals, because that is what they are."

McCain spokespeople have made it clear that he is not going to drop the word -- mainly because it is an accurate description of the enemy we fight.

Steve Schmidt, a former Bush White House aide who is now a McCain media strategist, told The Times that the use of the word is appropriate and that the candidate will continue to define the enemy that way.

"Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda represent a perverted strain of Islam at odds with the great many peaceful Muslims who practice their great faith peacefully," Mr. Schmidt said. "But the reality is, the hateful ideology which underpins bin Ladenism is properly described as radical Islamic extremism. Senator McCain refers to it that way because that is what it is."

McCain understands who our enemy is, and is willing to give credence to their own description of themselves and their motives. And given that their actions are in keeping with the long history of violence by Islam, dating back to the days of Muhammad himself, there is no reason to drop the word Islamic from the description of terrorism -- especially given the high level of support for such terrorism within Muslim communities around the world, including in civilized nations like the UK and US.

Gee -- they made arrangements for people to be able to eat in before the papal mass at Yankee Stadium.

Can I get fries with that Mass?

One of the oddest sites inside the grungy concourses at Yankee Stadium was the long concession stand lines of priests and nuns, teenagers and adults waiting to buy chicken fingers, French fries, soda, hot chocolate, popcorn and hotdogs before Mass.

Just imagine how she would have responded to the site at World Youth Day in Denver back in 1993 -- McDonald's was the official food supplier for the event, and had booths set up all around the site of the final mass by Pope John Paul II. Those of us there were making purchases of food and water while we were there -- for some 18 hours before the mass began.

Of course, we did camp out overnight at the mass site, too.

But then again, maybe Jessica Fargen was expecting Benedict CVI to perform a repeat of the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

If you can't steal an election fair and square, start murdering the opposition voters and forcing others to flee for their lives.

When a shallow, glassy river and a few coils of razor wire are the only things separating one of Africa’s most developed countries from one of its most miserable, the inevitable result is millions of illegal border jumpers. But South African and Zimbabwean human rights groups say that the flow of people into South Africa has been surging in the three weeks since Zimbabwe’s disputed election and during the violent crackdown that followed. One Zimbabwean named Washington, who goes back and forth across the border ferrying Super Sure cake flour and Blazing Beef potato snacks, said the government was now using food as a weapon and channeling much of the United Nations-donated grain to supporters of the ruling party.“As we speak,” he said, “people are starving.”

He seemed more defeated than anything else. “People hate the government,” he said. “But they are too scared to fight it.”

Commercials are now running on Zimbabwean TV showing grainy images of captives from the liberation war in the 1970s and reminding citizens not to disobey their leaders, recent arrivals said.

Mugabe, of course, has always been a murderous thug. He has held onto power via thuggish tactics. And now, while the whole world watches, he is using tohse same tactics to hold on to power.

Where are his neighbors? Where is the OAU? Where is the UN? Will no one stop him?

These stories always concern me. After all, this kid seemd pretty normal and well-adjusted, and was doing well in school.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- A high school senior collected enough supplies to carry out a bomb attack on his school and detailed the plot in a hate-filled diary that included maps of the building and admiring notations about the Columbine killers, authorities said Sunday.

Ryan Schallenberger, 18, was arrested Saturday after his parents called police when 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate was delivered to their home in Chesterfield and they discovered the journal, said the town's police chief, Randall Lear.

The teen planned to make several bombs and had all the supplies needed to kill dozens at Chesterfield High School, depending on where the devices were placed and whether they included shrapnel, Lear said. Ammonium nitrate was used in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 168 people.

"The only thing left was delivering the bombs," the police chief said.

Schallenberger kept a journal for more than a year that detailed his plans for a suicide attack and included maps of the school, police said. The writings did not include a specific time for the attack or the intended targets.

He also left an audio tape to be played after he died explaining why he wanted to bomb his school. Lear wouldn't detail what was on the tape except to say Schallenberger was an angry young man.

"He seemed to hate the world. He hated people different from him -- the rich boys with good-looking girlfriends," Lear said.

Clearly there was something up with this kid. How was it missed? Thank God his parents kept close enough tabs on him to discover the plan in time and report them to the police.

On a related note, I wonder if Obama and his supporters rush to the defense of this young man for engaging in activities that will simply be an embarrassment at middle age? Or does THIS bomber merit their condemnation?

Strangely enough, it isn't delegate totals or popular vote counts -- it is who they believe can win in November.

Many of the Democratic superdelegates who are still undecided say the most important factor in their decision is simple — they just want a winner in November.

Problem is, after nearly four months of primaries and caucuses in 46 states, territories and the District of Columbia, they still aren't sure who that is, don't seem be in any hurry to make up their minds and aren't interested in any artificial process that might force them to choose between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Most of the more than 100 undecided superdelegates who discussed their decision-making with The Associated Press in the past two weeks agreed that the primaries and caucuses do matter — whether it's who has the most national delegates or the candidate who won their state or congressional district. But few said the primaries will be the biggest factor in their decision.

"I think it's really important that we keep our eye on the prize, and the prize is the win in November," said Gail Rasmussen, an undecided superdelegate from Oregon.

Indeed, Rasmussen is articulating precisely the rationale that led the Democrats to create the superdelegates -- the notion that party officials and elected officials should serve as a brake upon primary voters whose enthusiasm for a candidate saying the right left thing in a way that attracts the party faithful but not the general public. One can argue whether such a brake upon popular will is appropriate (after all, listen to Dems rail against the electoral college), but it is how the system is designed to work. These undecided superdelegates should therefore be praised for taking their role so seriously.

From Chicago!

After all, it looks like it is more dangerous to be an American in Barack Obama's hometown than it is to be an American in Iraq. (H/T Urban Grounds)

A violent and deadly weekend continues in Chicago. At least 12 people have been shot, two of them killed, since Saturday morning. Two others were stabbed in a home invasion. This comes after at least 20 people were shot, four of them killed, from Friday night through early Saturday.

If this sort of carnage is still going on, it is clear that the American policy for pacifying Chicago has failed. I want to know the exit strategies proposed by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- and I want to know them now!

On this day in history, the GOP-controlled Congress and a Republican President of the United States acted to end the threat to civil rights posed by the paramilitary terrorist wing of the Democrat Party.

On this day in 1871, the Republican-controlled 42nd Congress passed and the Republican President, Ulysses Grant, signed into law the Ku Klux Klan Act. The law banned the KKK and other Democrat terrorist organizations. President Grant then deployed federal troops to crush a Klan uprising in South Carolina.

Let me remind my readers that every major piece of federal legislation protecting the civil rights of Americans has been passed with the overwhelming support of Republicans. Every effort to ban lynching introduced by Republicans was thwarted by Democrats. The only member of the KKK to serve on the Supreme Court was appointed by and confirmed by Democrats, despite their full knowledge of his involvement in that organization.

And today, the only living member of the US Senate to have been a member of Klan is labeled as the "conscience of the Senate" by his fellow Democrats -- and sits three heartbeats from the Oval Office because his fellow Democrats made him president pro tempore of the Senate.

H/T Grand Old Partisan

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Given the discussion about pirates below, I feel like this piece deserves to see the light of day again.

Here’s a neat idea for dealing with Osama and every other terrorist on the planet. They are hostis humani generis -- the enemies of all mankind.

TO UNDERSTAND THE POTENTIAL OF DEFINING TERRORISM as a species of piracy, consider the words of the 16th-century jurist Alberico Gentili's De jure belli: "Pirates are common enemies, and they are attacked with impunity by all, because they are without the pale of the law. They are scorners of the law of nations; hence they find no protection in that law." Gentili, and many people who came after him, recognized piracy as a threat, not merely to the state but to the idea of statehood itself. All states were equally obligated to stamp out this menace, whether or not they had been a victim of piracy. This was codified explicitly in the 1856 Declaration of Paris, and it has been reiterated as a guiding principle of piracy law ever since. Ironically, it is the very effectiveness of this criminalization that has marginalized piracy and made it seem an arcane and almost romantic offense. Pirates no longer terrorize the seas because a concerted effort among the European states in the 19th century almost eradicated them. It is just such a concerted effort that all states must now undertake against terrorists, until the crime of terrorism becomes as remote and obsolete as piracy.

What would be the impact of classifying terrorism along with piracy?

If the war on terror becomes akin to war against the pirates, however, the situation would change. First, the crime of terrorism would be defined and proscribed internationally, and terrorists would be properly understood as enemies of all states. This legal status carries significant advantages, chief among them the possibility of universal jurisdiction. Terrorists, as hostis humani generis, could be captured wherever they were found, by anyone who found them. Pirates are currently the only form of criminals subject to this special jurisdiction.

Second, this definition would deter states from harboring terrorists on the grounds that they are "freedom fighters" by providing an objective distinction in law between legitimate insurgency and outright terrorism. This same objective definition could, conversely, also deter states from cracking down on political dissidents as "terrorists," as both Russia and China have done against their dissidents.

Recall the U.N. definition of piracy as acts of "depredation [committed] for private ends." Just as international piracy is viewed as transcending domestic criminal law, so too must the crime of international terrorism be defined as distinct from domestic homicide or, alternately, revolutionary activities. If a group directs its attacks on military or civilian targets within its own state, it may still fall within domestic criminal law. Yet once it directs those attacks on property or civilians belonging to another state, it exceeds both domestic law and the traditional right of self-determination, and becomes akin to a pirate band.

Third, and perhaps most important, nations that now balk at assisting the United States in the war on terror might have fewer reservations if terrorism were defined as an international crime that could be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court.

I encourage you to read the article by Douglas R. Burgess Jr., “The Dread Pirate Bin Laden”. It may come out of the Legal Affairs, but it is incredibly approachable.

At least with regards to those who international law has long defined as "enemies of all humanity".

ON April 11, French commandos went in with guns blazing and captured a gang of pirates who days earlier had hijacked a luxury cruise ship, the Ponant, and held the crew for ransom. This was the French solution to a crime wave that has threatened international shipping off Somalia; those of us who have been on the business end of a pirate’s gun can only applaud their action.

The British government on the other hand, to the incredulity of many in the maritime industry, has taken a curiously pathetic approach to piracy. While the French were flying six of the captured pirates to Paris to face trial, the British Foreign Office issued a directive to the once vaunted Royal Navy not to detain any pirates, because doing so could violate their human rights. British warships patrolling the pirate-infested waters off Somalia were advised that captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain and that those who were returned to Somalia faced beheading for murder or a hand chopped off for theft under Islamic law.

Excuse me! Piracy has been recognized as beyond the bounds of civilized behavior for millennia. No less than Julius Caesar led an expedition against pirates in his youth, punishing those captured as the criminals that they were -- and which their professional descendants remain. Indeed, traditional international law allows for nations to track down pirates anywhere and to dispense justice in a summary fashion -- tough more contemporary views require trial in regular courts rather than drumhead courts marital.

That the British have now adopted a policy of letting pirates go rather than risk nonsensical claims for asylum being granted under the nations absurdly liberal asylum laws is a sign of how far down the pike the Brits have gone in terms of coddling foreign criminals. Indeed, the concern that Muslim pirates might face penalties under Muslim laws in their Muslim country of origin seems equally absurd -- especially as powerful figures in Britain suggest that incorporation of sharia law into the UK legal system would be a positive step.

Who would have ever believed it -- the French are standing tough and the UK is waving the white flag in the war on piracy!

AND SPEAKING OF PIRATES AND THE LAW...

Liberty Pundit points to this outrageous quote regarding Obama buddies William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

During the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago, Ayers and his wife, Weather Underground alumna Bernardine Dohrn, hosted a fundraiser at their Chicago home for Democrats Online.

Lytel said Friday that no one from the Clinton White House showed up for the 1996 event.

He added, “I’m a Clinton supporter, but I think it’s the absolute height of stupidity” and “preposterous” for her to try to use the Ayers connection as a weapon against Obama. “This is an insane way for her to try to define her opponent.”

“I have no reason to think that Ayers is anything other than smart, skeptical American,” Lytel said. “He’s like anyone else who has activities in his past that might be embarrassing to them as a middle-aged person.”

Now hold on here one moment -- "activities in his past that might be embarrassing to them as a middle-aged person"?

We are talking about setting off bombs in the United States Capitol, the Pentagon, and New York City Police Headquarters. In other words, acts of terrorism, not youthful hijinks that cause one to blush and shake one's head in dismay over having been so foolish.

Am I willing to excuse Ayers and Dohrn for their advocacy of the oppressive Marxist-Leninist ideology that has killed more people than Nazism? Sure -- just as I hope folks are willing to forgive me for my youthful flirtation with the notion that we should adopt a socialized medical system like the ones that deliver substandard medical care in Canada and the UK. Young people sometimes adopt crazy ideas which they later recognize to be flawed.

But let's draw a distinction about activities. I had a string of relationships -- some meaningful, some not -- in which I rather callously broke hearts. I'm embarrassed by those. I have several nights when I had way too much to drink -- and which would be fodder for YouTube if they were to have happened today. There are things I said then which I would take back in a heartbeat if I could, because time has taught me lessons that I needed in my youth.

But for all my youthful follies, I didn't commit acts of violence in the furtherance of political goals. I may have picketed outside of abortion clinics, but I didn't blow them up. I may have objected to the methods of the police chief in our college town and appealed to the city council to fire him, but I didn't plant a bomb in the offices of the police department. I may have objected to Jimmy Carter's restoration of draft registration, but I did not attempt to destroy the building where the registration forms were processed -- even though it was around the corner from my place of employment.

Why didn't I do any of those things? Was it fear of embarrassment? No -- it was recognition that such actions would not have merely been criminal, they also would have been fundamentally immoral.

And to this day, Ayers and Dohrn remain unrepentant.

And are embraced by the political and social elite of Chicago, and by presidential candidate.

And let's be clear -- William Ayers is not embarrassed by his terrorist activities. If anything, he only repents his failure to commit more and bigger acts of terrorism.

“I don’t regret setting bombs,” Ayers told the Times. “I feel we didn’t do enough.”

'Nuff said.

UPDATE: Bravo, Senator McCain!

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If we were to ever allow someone not born an American to become President of the United States, I'd argue that Mark Steyn would be the perfect candidate.

His current column int he Orange County Register includes the above assertion in a fuller form -- and bears frequent repetition.

As for "gun-totin'," large numbers of Americans tote guns because they're assertive, self-reliant citizens, not docile subjects of a permanent governing class. The Second Amendment is philosophically consistent with the First Amendment, for which I've become more grateful since the Canadian Islamic Congress decided to sue me for "hate speech" up north. Both amendments embody the American view that liberty is not the gift of the state, and its defense cannot be outsourced exclusively to the government.

Indeed, Steyn pegs it. A government that is viewed as the source of liberty is one which can claim the authority to revoke those liberties as unnecessary. A government that is the sole defender of liberty is one which also assumes the right to squash those same liberties in the name of a greater interest. On this day, the 233rd anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, we find ourselves reminded that it was the attempt by the British government to seize the colonists' means of self-defense -- their guns, shot, and powder -- that brought about a Revolution.

Steyn's timely reminder fits well with the words chosen by a group of patriots the following summer -- words which have inspired those seeking freedom for over two centuries and in every corner of our world.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Endowed by our Creator.

Certain unalienable rights.

Let us not forget.

H/T Malkin

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Shhhhhh!

Don't tell the Democrats. It might upset their entire worldview.

CD shops sell love songs again. Some women emerge from their homes without veils, and alcohol sellers are coming out of hiding in the southern city of Basra — where religious vigilantes have long enforced strict Islamic codes.

The changes in recent weeks mark a surprising show of government sway — at least for now — after an Iraqi-led military crackdown that was plagued by desertions, ragged planning and ended in a virtual stalemate with Shiite militias in Iraq's second-largest city.

But it's unclear whether the new tone in parts of Basra represents a permanent tilt toward the Iraqi government or just a temporary retreat of Shiite hard-liners challenging the current Baghdad leadership.

During five days of heavy fighting last month, Iraqi troops struggled against militiamen, particularly the Mahdi Army loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The military was plagued by desertions and poor organization — and, in the end, the offensive was inconclusive with Iran helping mediate a truce.

Still, the crackdown appears to have succeeded in giving some sense of government control in Basra.

In other words, as expected, the surge and subsequent efforts of the Iraqi government and military have been a success. Now I'll admit that the Democrats have to continue to hope and pray for more setbacks and the ultimate defeat of American and its Iraqi allies if they are to win in November -- but this is good news for the rest of America, and for Iraq.

They are precisely the sort of questions that need to be asked to get past the "Obamessiah" image that Barack Obama and his campaign have created. Americans need to see beneath the facade.

And it would appear that asking questions that do that raises the hackles of Obama supporters.

The political fallout from the Philadelphia faceoff between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was all but eclipsed yesterday by a fierce debate about Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.

The ABC moderators found themselves under fire for focusing on campaign gaffes and training most of their ammunition on Obama. Huffington Post blogger Jason Linkins called the debate "utterly asinine." Washington Post television critic Tom Shales called the duo's performance "despicable." Philadelphia Daily News columnist Will Bunch said the moderators "disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself."

Tough crowd out there.

"I think the questions were certainly pointed -- tough at times, as they should be in a presidential debate -- but not inappropriate or irrelevant at all," Stephanopoulos said yesterday. "The questions have been part of this campaign and in the news. We did our job. You're not going to satisfy everyone."

In the first 40 minutes of Wednesday's two-hour Democratic debate, the moderators asked Obama about his remarks that small-town residents bitterly cling to guns and religion; the inflammatory sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Stephanopoulos followup: "Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?"); why Obama doesn't wear an American flag pin; and his relationship with William Ayers, a former Weather Underground radical who has acknowledged involvement in several bombings in the 1970s.

In the only comparably aggressive question directed at Clinton, Stephanopoulos cited an ABC/Washington Post poll challenging her honesty and tied it to her false tale of having once come under sniper fire in Bosnia.

The reality is that Americans know all about Hillary, and don't like her. They know all about John McCain, and do like him. But Obama? He remains an unknown, and as such those debate questions were appropriate in terms of helping America take the measure of the man.

My guess? They won't like what they see.

And I pose this question to you -- if Obama were a white man, would he be given a pass after attending Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church for two decades? Would he not be questioned if he were friends with Olympic/abortion clinic/gay bar bomber Eric Rudolph? Wouldn't either of those associations be a deal breaker for most of the American public -- and for the American media?

The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are The Next Moves In An Existential Chess Match by Wolf Howling, and It's the "White" Church that Obama's Talking About (UPDATED) by Baldilocks.  Here are the full results of the vote:

Congressman Tom Tancredo gave a rather interesting speech on the Pope and immigration. It has caused a stir, mainly due to certain ill-considered suggestions in the latter half of the speech which should not have been made -- but the first half appears to me to be dead on. Watching the video, you'll see where he strays outside the realm of polite criticism into the sort of speculation that is not helpful to the discussion and which clearly obscures his larger, much more important point.

Like I said, part of the speech obscures the much more revealing information that precedes and follows it.

And so the Democrats are trying to make political hay out of Tancredo's less than diplomatic insinuations.

As John McCain attends the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington today, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called on the Republican nominee to denounce insulting comments made by one of his campaign surrogates, Rep. Tom Tancredo. Tancredo issued a press release yesterday attacking the "Pope's comments regarding U.S. immigration policy" and accusing his position of stemming from an interest in "recruiting new members." Dean issued the following statement:

"If John McCain is serious in his pledge to run a respectful campaign, he should immediately denounce Tom Tancredo's insulting remarks about Pope Benedict XVI.

It is, all-in-all, a dishonest statement on the part of the Democrats, beginning with the headline calling Tancredo a McCain surrogate -- despite the fact that the comments in question were made as a member of the House of Representatives on the floor of the House. I guess that for Democrats, the speech and debate clause protects hiding evidence of bribes in one's office, but not actual speech and debate. But I digress.

Since Tancredo was not speaking as a surrogate for John McCain, I see no obligation to denounce or repudiate anything. And given the regular strident attacks on the Catholic Church and various popes on the issue of abortion by more Democrats than I can count, I don't see where Howard Dean can insist upon respect for this pronouncement without engaging in hypocrisy of the rankest sort.

But I decided I would go to an authoritative source on what the Catholic Church teaches about immigration. Indeed, I found it in the most authoritative of teaching documents -- The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

2241 The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

Well, let's consider this bit by bit.

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin.

As Tancredo clearly points out, we already do this. We take more immigrants than any country on the planet -- legally. One can argue about how many are enough, but no one can legitimately dispute that the US complies with Catholic teaching here. And given the current economic climate, it is legitimate to question if we are ABLE to legalize those currently here without further damaging our economy, much less admit even more hoping legally while absorbing the next wave awaiting the next amnesty.

Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Again, we do that . We educate the children. We give whole families medical care at government expense while our own citizens are forced to provide such care for themselves. We legally protect the rights of workers to be paid even if they have no legal rights to work, and we prosecute crimes against illegal immigrants. But I would remind the Holly Father that guests enter through the front door at the invitation of the host -- those who do otherwise are trespassers and, dare I say it, invaders whose uninvited presence does not merit a generous welcome.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption.

Oh, it seems that the Holy Father and so many others have ignored this little element of Catholic teaching on immigration. Doesn't the duty of immigrants towards the United States include FOLLOWING THE LAW by entering in an orderly fashion, with all required paperwork completed? Doesn't that include the right of the host country to set reasonable limits upon who can enter and when -- and how long they are permitted to stay? After all, the official compendium of Catholic teachings does not call for open borders here.

Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

Yeah, there is is -- immigrants are required to obey the laws. You know, like not entering the country illegally or working illegally. If they cannot do that much, everything else the Pope calls for is irrelevant. Under the teachings of the Church itself, the US has no obligation to accept or keep illegal aliens.

Indeed, I'd like to go back to that quote from Cardinal Giacomo Biffi that Tancredo quotes -- "There is no such thing to a right of invasion." Orderly, controlled immigration is a right -- pell-mell rushes for the border in order to unlawfully enter a country to illegally seek employment or government benefits in another country is not.

But I do have a suggestion for Benedict XVI, if he really wishes to help out some of those illegal immigrants.

Why not load up a few thousand on specially chartered Alitalia flights and take them home to the Vatican with you. Between the Holy See itself and your summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, you can find a place for them all. Give them Vatican passports and offer them Vatican citizenship -- pay their medical bills, feed them, clothe them, and educate their children.

In other words, put your money where your mouth is -- and if you won't, I respectfully suggest that you shut it on this issue, because the US government and US taxpayer are already doing more on behalf of illegal immigrants in a manner consistent with Catholic teaching than you are.

And as for Howard Dean, until the Democrats add a plank to their platform calling for a ban on abortion, he should shut his mouth as well.

H/T Hot Air, Michelle Malkin

UPDATE: Now criticizing the Pope's comments on immigration is being declared "anti-Catholic".

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The assessment by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Jack Murtha was really grim at yesterday's press conference.

They argued that the President's delay in troop withdrawals was "covering a policy of failure. Indeed, Hillary had this to say.

"If the American forces leave, they will lose everything. And if they stay, they will bleed to death."

Obama gave this assessment.

"Iraq nowadays is the most important battlefield on which our mujahedeen are waging a war against the forces of the Zionist-Christian Crusade," al-Zawahri said. "Therefore, supporting the mujahideen in Iraq and especially the Islamic State of Iraq is a most important duty."

Yeah, yeah, yeah -- I know, Barack Obama isn't a Muslim or a terrorist. He's just supported by them.

And no, this isn't Democrat leaders speaking -- it is Ayman al-Zawahri, number two to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

But it is telling, isn't it, that the position he takes on Iraq is the same as is taken by the "loyal opposition" here in the United States.

The al-Zawahri tape does make it clear, though, that Americans have a stark choice this fall.

Republican or Democrat.

Victory or defeat.

You decide.

Finding that in my email inbox would freak me out.

But it really happened on Capitol Hill recently.

At 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, Lee Pitts, the spokesman for Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), saw an unusual e-mail message pop up on the corner of his computer screen: “Please call 911 for me,” the subject line said.

Less than an hour earlier, Herman Wang had been transcribing interviews in the Washington bureau of the Chattanooga Times Free Press — which happens to be on the second floor of his house, since Wang is the Washington bureau of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Wearing headphones and re-listening to Tennessee pols speculate on whom they would prefer as vice presidential candidates, Wang didn’t hear his basement door kicked in. He did hear, however, a man’s footsteps on the stairs.

Wang met the intruder in the hallway. “I’m just looking for — ” said the man, who didn’t finish the sentence but instead rushed at Wang and beat him in the face as the reporter tried to defend himself.

* * *

Wang crawled to the master bedroom, hid behind the bed and tried to think of who might have a BlackBerry on hand. The obvious answer: a Hill staffer like Pitts.

“I was just robbed at home by two burglars,” reads the e-mail Wang got off. “Laptop, phones and wallet all taken. They missed my wife's laptop. I dont' [sic] know if they're still around the house. Please call 911 and ask them to send police.”

“Calling now,” wrote Pitts at 4:16 p.m., a minute after Wang’s e-mail came in.

“Thanks, I am in upstairs bedroom,” Wang wrote at 4:18.

If you read one story today that isn't "hard news", this is the one you should look at. it is a great story of kindness and decency -- and reminds us that some things transcend rivalries and adversarial relationships.

A hearty "attaboy" to Lee Pitts -- and best wishes to Herman Wang.

It took a little bit of time, but John McCain is getting the base -- and more -- to rally behind him. Anyone want to talk about this being the Democrat's year?

Republicans are no longer underdogs in the race for the White House. To pull that off, John McCain has attracted disgruntled GOP voters, independents and even some moderate Democrats who shunned his party last fall.

Partly thanks to an increasingly likable image, the Republican presidential candidate has pulled even with the two Democrats still brawling for their party's nomination, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll released Thursday. Just five months ago — before either party had winnowed its field — the survey showed people preferred sending an unnamed Democrat over a Republican to the White House by 13 percentage points.

Also helping the Arizona senator close the gap: Peoples' opinions of Hillary Rodham Clinton have soured slightly, while their views of Barack Obama have improved though less impressively than McCain's.

The survey suggests that those switching to McCain are largely attuned to his personal qualities and McCain may be benefiting as the two Democrats snipe at each other during their prolonged nomination fight.

I think this voter sums up the reality of the situation quite well -- and demonstrates exactly what is happening among Democrats and those who earlier leaned that way.

"You can't trust Hillary and Obama's too young," said Pauline Holsinger, 60, a janitorial worker in Pensacola, Fla., now backing McCain who preferred an unnamed Democrat last fall. "I like him better, he's more knowledgeable about the war" in Iraq.

And let's face it -- Hillary remains a Clinton, and Obama remains an untested political neophyte who lacks the experience and seasoning necessary to be an effective president. What was the word a cycle or two back? Gravitas. Obama lacks it, while McCain has it in spades. When will that be a topic of discussion in the MSM -- or will it, since it hurts their anointed candidate?

After getting his butt handed to him on national television, Barack Obama has decided to go sulk in the corner -- and he isn't going to debate any more.

Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday suggested he doesn’t see any point in having another debate with Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has agreed to a debate next week, but Obama has not yet accepted the invitation.

At an appearance in Raleigh, North Carolina, Obama said he has a lot of campaigning to do in a limited amount of time.

Obama said he had agreed to an earlier debate, but Clinton declined that one.

“I’ll be honest with you, we’ve now had 21,” he said. “It’s not as if we don’t know how to do these things. I could deliver Sen. Clinton’s lines; she could, I’m sure, deliver mine.”

Gee, Senator, it is tough being the leading candidate for the nomination -- it means the candidate behind you has you in her sites.

Plus it must be a real shock to have journalists start asking you tough questions, not the sort of softballs you've fielded up until now.

Just wait until John McCain starts to hammer you on substance later on this year. You'll wilt like a week-old lettuce leaf in Death Valley, dude.

Maybe you can get William Ayers to blow something up for you -- just to distract from how weak and unqualified a candidate you really are.

H/T Hot Air, STACLU

I will not support this candidacy. Indeed, I will aceively work against it.

Gov. Rick Perry said today he will seek re-election in 2010, but an aide said nothing will be final about that decision until after next year's legislative session.

Perry has been hinting that he will seek another term of office since even before he won re-election in 2006 with 39 percent of the vote. But his statements to reporters in Dallas today were the strongest to date, saying flatly that he will be a candidate.

As Perry exited a news conference at the Republican Governor's Association meeting in Grapevine, a reporter asked him if the 2010 Republican gubernatorial field would include him as well as U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

''I don't know about them, but it will be Perry in 2010,'' Perry responded, according to The Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

"I don't know about the other two. You need to ask them."

Asked whether he will run, Perry said, "Yes."

My personal inclination at this point is to support Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, but I would like to see how the field shapes up before making a commitment -- talk to me next spring for a firmer commitment. After all, I'm hearing at least one other candidate besides Perry, Dewhurst, and Hutchison will be seeking the office -- a Houston area state senator -- and I suspect that we could have more.

Why am I opposed to Perry? Weak efforts at tax reform that have saved no one money. His quick post-election flip-flop on border issues. His attempt to assume dictatorial powers to make law and appropriate money so that he could play doctor with every eleven-year-old girl in the state by mandating Gardasil on his say-so alone.

I think Rick Perry really doesn't understand the depth of the opposition to him and his pathetic efforts since the 2006 election.

The New York Times gets one right in this editorial regarding yesterday's death penalty decision.

Justice Stevens, in a welcome surprise, said that he had come to the conclusion that the death penalty carries such high risks of error and discrimination, while doing so little good, that it is unconstitutional. He voted to uphold Kentucky’s procedures because he believed precedent required it, but he said it is time for the court and legislatures to take a hard look at whether the death penalty’s substantial costs outweigh its benefits.

Wednesday’s ruling clears the way for states that had put their executions on hold to resume them. Lawyers for death-row inmates insist, however, that the legal test the Roberts decision used gives them a basis for more challenges to lethal injection. That means more fights over how much needless pain is too much.

The better course would be for the nation to undertake Justice Stevens’s hard look at capital punishment — and leave it behind.

Now I disagree with the "leave it behind" conclusion, but at least the editors are constitutionally honest here. They know that the death penalty is unambiguously constitutional, and that any decision that declared otherwise would be an abrogation of the language of the Constitution itself.

On the other hand, I've no problem with a discussion of the death penalty -- indeed, I have already made clear the preferred, relatively painless method of execution that I believe would meet the Robert's test. The Texas Moratorium Network has continued to allow its heart to bleed over the poor murderers rather than their innocent victims.

Let the discussion over capital punishment (not capital rehabilitation or capital deterrence -- capital PUNISHMENT) continue. If the democratic process leads to its repeal, then so be it. but i believe most folks recognize that there are crimes for which the ultimate penalty is the only appropriate one.

Seems that some Muslims are still stewing over the pontiff's decision to use an apropos quote about Islam in a speech in 2006 -- and don't seem very willing to consider that the problem is their's not Pope Benedict's.

At the time, the pope’s remarks prompted violence and expressions of outrage from Muslims abroad. Reactions in the United States were muted, but many Muslims today — even those closely connected to a Roman Catholic institution — remain troubled by the remarks. Their feelings are often complicated, a mixture of respect for the church and wariness about this pope, who will meet with Muslim and other religious leaders in Washington on Thursday.

While many say they continue to feel welcome at Catholic schools and hospitals, the pope’s speech has left an indelible, often negative impression.

“It reflects on him as an intolerant person at that moment,” said Dr. Yusuf Mamdani of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., who is affiliated with St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan. “The pope should be beyond these things. I believe a person should respect me.”

Sorry, Dr. Mamdani, but you've got it dead wrong.

The role of the pope is to speak the truth of the Christian faith. He did that, even if that truth makes you uncomfortable.

And if you want to talk about indelible negative impressions, there is a hole in the ground in New York City that I'd like to call your attention to -- as well as a host of other terrorist-related artifacts -- that have left an indelible negative impression of Islam in a way much more striking than the Holy Father's use of an old quote.

And let's remind everybody exactly what was said.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Seems to me that this is a legitimate point of view for those of us who reject Islam as a religious innovation not inspired by God.

To the degree that the false scriptures of the false prophet Muhammad lifted long-venerated teachings of Judaism and Christianity and incorporated them into his new faith, there is good contained in Islam. To the degree that Muhammad taught conquest by the sword and violence against non-Muslims, his teachings were undeniably evil and inhuman -- and are indeed properly labeled as Satanic.

Unless, of course, you want to praise 9/11, car bombs, and suicide vests.

In which case we really have nothing further to talk about.

Here's an interesting church-state issue.

An Ohio middle school teacher says he won't obey an order to remove a Bible from view of students.

John Freshwater said Wednesday he agreed to remove a collage from his classroom that included the Ten Commandments, but that asking him to remove the Bible on his desk goes too far.

Officials with the Mount Vernon School District say they don't oppose religion but are required by the U.S. Constitution not to promote or favor any set of religious beliefs.

Freshwater says being forced to keep the Bible out of sight would infringe on his rights.

Since I started teaching, there has always been a Bible in my classroom Indeed, it has been a necessary part of my teaching material. Back when I taught English, it was a useful tool for bringing in literary references and linguistic choices made by authors who were raising biblical imagery. Teaching history, I ind it useful to refer to certain elements of the Old and New Testaments when relating back to issues in Middle Eastern history (especially the ancient period) and the Christianization of the Roman Empire.

And yes, I do read it at times during my personal time during the day.

But I don't know how I feel about placing it front and center on a teacher's desk by itself, rather than on a book shelf or amongst other books. And this story doesn't give a whole lot of details about the situation and why its presence has become a problem.

Any reaction from readers?

Yeah, these are the people that Jimmy Carter is visiting and the Bush Administration is funding with our tax dollars as a part of the "peace process". Now they are giving awards to those who actively participated in what is unambiguously terrorist activity.

If reports that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to present two female terrorists with a medal of honor are found to be true, it will be a grave development, the consequences of which Israel will need to consider, senior government officials told Israel Radio on Wednesday.

However, the unnamed officials said the accuracy of the reports had not yet been confirmed.

The radio station reported earlier in the day that the Al Kuds Mark of Honor, the PLO's highest medal, would be given to two female terrorists who helped kill Israelis.

The two were Ahlam Tamimi, a Hamas affiliate serving a life sentence for driving the suicide bomber who exploded himself in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem, killing at least half a dozen people, and Amra Muna, who seduced Ophir Rahum over the Internet and then lured him to Ramallah where he was murdered.

So let's make it clear who the Terrorstinian Anarchy authorities are giving their highest honor -- a pair of accomplices to murder. After all, people peacefully eating pizza in a restaurant and guys surfing the web for love and romance are such threats to the so-called "legitimate aspirations" of the Terrorstinians for a state.

If these awards are given, that should definitively end any and all US aid to the Terrorstinian Anarchy -- and Israel should end any and all cooperation with those who insist upon any form of "peace process" that contemplates the establishment of a state of Palestine.

My buddy Freedom Fighter at Joshuapundit puts it quite well.

You can tell a lot about a given group of people by looking at what they honor. It takes a very special category of human being - and I use the term loosely - to honor people like this. And this is by no means a unique instance of this sort of thing.

Just say NO to coddling the terrorist scum who infest Gaza and the West Bank.

UPDATE: Honors revoked -- but only because the terrorist Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) who leads the Terrorstinian Anarchy got caught.

Once again, the opponents of the death penalty get stung by the fact that the Constitution explicitly permits capital punishment and there is not constitutional mandate that executions be pain free. It is punishment, after all.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the most common method of lethal injection executions, likely clearing the way to resume executions that have been on hold for nearly 7 months.

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, turned back a constitutional challenge to the procedures in place in Kentucky, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by roughly three dozen states.

''We ... agree that petitioners have not carried their burden of showing that the risk of pain from maladministration of a concededly humane lethal injection protocol, and the failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and unusual punishment,'' Chief Justice John Roberts said in an opinion that garnered only three votes. Four other justices, however, agreed with the outcome.

Roberts' opinion did leave open subsequent challenges to lethal injection practices if a state refused to adopt an alternative method that significantly reduced the risk of severe pain.

The reality, though, is that the opponents are likely to never meet that burden of proof. How does on determine that there is severe pain? What constitutes a significant reduction of risk? The terms are so vague as to be meaningless.

I still want states to adopt my alternative form of lethal injection – 9mm of lead to the base of the skull delivered at high velocity. Quick, efficient, and relatively painless.

And if we want to be sporting about it, give the condemned a choice of 10 pistols – one of which will be unloaded. An empty chamber results in an automatic commutation to life without parole – but only after the condemned has felt the muzzle to the head and heard the click of the trigger, giving them instant empathy with their innocent victim who was not even offered that much mercy.

The local Democrat bloggers still remain silent on this situation.

But the realities of Mr. Vo's Neighborhood are pretty wretched indeed, as documented by this commercial offering.

Interestingly enough, it isn't just the local bloggers who are silent. I've yet to read or hear a single word from a single Democrat in office here in Houston -- not even Mayor Bill White, whose police force Vo attempted to bully with a letter on official House stationery. Nice support for the boys in blue, Mr. Mayor!

But then again, you know the Democrat's position on such things.

H/T LST

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Damn!

Damn damn damn!

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's cancer has returned. The five-term Republican said in a statement released by his office Tuesday that he was diagnosed with an early recurrence of Hodgkin's disease, which is a cancer of the lymph system.

Specter, 78, underwent treatment for the same type of cancer in 2005 and was later given a clean bill of health. The statement said that the cancer was revealed in a medical scan but that he has no symptoms.

"I was surprised by the PET scan findings because I have been feeling so good," Specter said in the statement. "I consider this just another bump on the road to a successful recovery from Hodgkin's, from which I've been symptom free for three years."

In his recent book, "Never Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate," Specter credited hard work with getting him through the cancer treatments.

"An illness like Hodgkin's serves as a reminder that we have a limited time _ and how our time can end when we least expect it," Specter wrote. "Moreover, the event of death could never eclipse what is most important, which is how we spend the time we have."

The statement released by his office said tests showed cancer in lymph nodes in his chest. A follow-up biopsy of one of the chest lymph nodes was positive for recurrence.