Pennsylvanian in exile

The Emperor goes a-fisking

His Royal Rottieness Misha I goes yard on Teddy Kennedy's release on Alito. Excerpt:

Apparently, he couldn’t find a woman or minority…

Like Janice Rogers Brown?

…or a mainstream nominee that meets the litmus tests of the right wing,

Sort of hard to find a “mainstream” (i.e. to the left of Fidel Castro) nominee who’d meet any sort of test by anybody not beholden to the principles of national socialism, wouldn’t you say? And who exactly are you to bleat about “litmus tests”, you bloated landwhale?

…and instead put forth a nominee with a troubling record on the rights and freedoms important to America’s families.

…particularly the “rights” of liberal multi-millionaire families with a track record that would make Che Guevara blush.

The Senate will now fulfill its constitutional role and conduct thorough and fair hearings to determine Judge Alito’s fitness to sit on the highest court in the land. There are few decisions as important as picking a Supreme Court Justice, and the Senate must not be rushed in considering this nomination.

That’s the cutest way of saying “filibuster” we’ve heard in a long time.

How about we put a gun to your dumb, inebriated, grotesquely supersized head and say “vote, dammit?”

It would be a damn sight more fair than the “choice” you gave Mary Jo Kopechne.

Canadian governmental intolerance

Of course, the intolerance it of Christians, so that's OK.

A Conservative MP has discovered through documents obtained under Access to Information that Status of Women Canada has been funding anti-Christian bigotry and pro-abortion activism. However, in a startling exchange of correspondence, the Minister responsible for the funding neither offered to pull the funding nor to apologize to Christian Canadians for funding groups which defame them.

Writing to Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister responsible for Status of Women Liza Frulla last month, Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott pointed out that the documents obtained through access to information requests revealed the government granted $27,400 last year to the BC Pro-Choice Action network (pro-CAN).

In his letter to the Minister, MP Vellacott notes:

Pro-CAN spokesperson Joyce Arthur uses derogatory labels to describe individuals who are pro-life, saying their opposition to abortion, "comes primarily from religious justifications for oppressing women" and a need to "maximize (the Catholic Church's) membership levels to maintain their worldly influence and wealth." Pro-CAN accuses pro-life Christians of being "religious fanatics" who do "little or nothing for children once they are born." She says pro-life Christians are "anti-woman and anti-child," have views which are "uninformed, sexist, cruel," and lack the ability to empathize which "breeds intolerance, hate crimes, and war." Ms. Arthur says that the pro-lifer's attitude towards women is like "the slaveholder's attitude to blacks, and the Nazi's attitude to Jews."

Vellacott suggested that the Minister withdraw funding from the group and apologize to Christian Canadians for funding such bigotry. "The government should be taking no part in spreading this sort of bigotry. Please ensure that any current funding to Pro-CAN ceases immediately and that no future taxpayer money be given to this group. And please have your department issue a public apology to all Christians and pro-life Canadians because of your department's financial support of this hate mongering organization," said Vellacott.

In a curt reply dated October 18, Minister Frulla says, "I appreciate being made aware of your concerns." The Minister acknowledges that pro-CAN and the other pro-abortion activist groups mentioned in the letter by Vellacott, "did indeed receive funding under the women's Program of Status of Women Canada."

Frulla suggested she was well aware of the activities of pro-CAN, but found no objection to funding the anti-Christian group with public monies. "Each application is assessed according to a stringent set of objectives and criteria . . . Please be assured that the initiatives cited in your letter, which did indeed receive funding, met all of the above-mentioned objectives and eligibility criteria."

Frulla concluded her response, "Please accept my best wishes for the challenges ahead."

How's that for some condescension?

Profile of a dynamic priest

Got this from mark Shea, a bio of a very dynamic priest, note that he isn't trying to "be relevant", but is very traditional.

Joan Solms is a parishioner of Holy Angels Catholic Church in Aurora, Ill. The following is an edited letter she sent me regarding the parish and its pastor, the Rev. Martin G. Heinz.

"Father Martin Heinz is one of eight children, born and raised Catholic. As a young man, he left the Church and joined the Mormons. I believe he stayed in the LDS church for only two or three years. He reverted to Catholicism and entered the seminary.

"He has been ordained about 12 years now. Upon ordination, he was put in charge of seminarians, and after that, was made pastor of Holy Angels Church. Holy Angels has gone through different phases of growth since it was first built. The permanent design for the church was changed (modernized) about 20 years ago. It was redesigned to be a church in a semi-circle.

"When Father Heinz came to Holy Angels, he decided to restore it to its original design, minus the altar railing, which is not allowed. Father Heinz has replaced the altar railing with three extra-long kneelers. The priest stands behind the kneelers when distributing Communion. On receiving Communion, you can stand or kneel. All our priests distribute Communion at every Mass. At first people were reluctant to kneel for Communion. I wasn't. Now more and more people take Communion kneeling.

"Father Heinz did not rehire five teachers this year because they were not teaching [authentic] Catholicism. The principal agreed with him.

"Father Heinz is very pro-life. He is the support behind our pro-life group. Aurora has one abortuary; it is the only one in our diocese. Father Heinz pays the rent for the [pro-life] counseling center across the street from the abortuary. And business at the abortuary has declined. The former abortionist use to routinely do 500 abortions a year; this year, it's less than half that number.

"Father Heinz incorporates bits of Latin into the Mass, especially at Easter and Christmas. We say the prayer to St. Michael at the end of every Mass. We have one day of perpetual Eucharistic adoration per week, beginning on Wednesday morning and ending with benediction on Thursday morning. Father would eventually like have perpetual adoration — seven days a week.

"Father Heinz is truly trying to restore the Sacrament of Confession. It is always available. He has special confessions available before special holy days. He will bring in multiple priests to hear confession.

"The school children are taken to Mass once a week. They get solid Catholic instruction. They wear uniforms. The unfortunate news is that many parents are not deeply committed to Catholicism yet. This is apparent when you see them at Mass, especially the CCD students and parents. Not Father's fault, though.

"Father Heinz is committed to the poor. We have a very active St. Vincent de Paul group. Each year in September, the St. Vincent de Paul resale shop parks a truck in our parking lot to collect used items for the store. This year we filled two trucks with material goods. In November, we will have a coat collection for the poor. We have a food pantry. Speakers from missions abroad are brought in to speak and collect funds for their churches. We have a baby shower each year for mothers.

"Father Heinz took the old Stations of the Cross and had them mounted; and he put up outdoor Stations of the Cross, which leads up to our shrine of Fatima. We have a monument to the unborn, donated by our Knights of Columbus chapter. Once a year, Father has a prayer service at the monument.

"On Tuesday evenings, we have a rosary service; all 20 mysteries are said.

"We have a program for senior citizens. We provide rides for those who do not have transportation to Mass. Lay ministers still take Communion to the homebound.

"We have four or five men from our parish who are studying for the priesthood; that's a record these days."

I chuckle at the thought of Wayne and Garth going to Mass there, since Wayne's World is set in Aurora, IL.

The Power of the New Media

Harriet Miers nomination allowed the new media to flex its muscles.

As President Bush prepares to make a new appointment to the Supreme Court, the lessons of the failed Miers nomination are still being absorbed.

One that deserves study is how a lightning-fast news cycle, a flat-footed defense and the growth of new media such as talk radio and blogs sank Ms. Miers's chances even before the megabuck special-interest groups could unload their first TV ad. Ms. Miers herself has told friends that she was astonished at how the Internet became a conveyor belt for skeptical mainstream media reports on her in addition to helping drive the debate.

The rapidity with which Supreme Court nominations can become full-scale political contests would astonish previous generations. While one out of five previous nominees to the highest court failed to be confirmed, the battles used to be far more gentle. Nominees didn't even show up at confirmation hearings until 1925.

But the role of the Supreme Court has changed since then. Many Americans now view it as a kind of superlegislature, micromanaging the abortion laws of 50 states, declaring state ballot measures invalid, and redefining the powers of eminent domain. So long as the court wields that much power, battles for each vacancy--the only opportunity Americans have to influence the direction of the courts--will be intense and divisive.

While only a small minority of Americans read political blogs, they tend to attract high-profile readers in media and politics with nonstop access to a computer. Such people influence the influencers. "The Internet processed all the arguments for Miers in record time and rejected them," says Rich Lowry, editor of National Review. "A few days before the Miers withdrawal her supporters had nothing left to say."

Liberals, who were largely bystanders during the conservative family feud over Ms. Miers, are now stepping forward to tar her critics as Grand Inquisitors. "The radical right wing of the Republican Party drove this woman's nomination right out of town," thundered Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Juan Williams, a National Public Radio and Fox News analyst, compared her critics to "a far-right Donner party. They're eating their own."

In fact, the conservative critique of the Miers nomination contained almost none of the bitter invective that characterized the liberal assault on Robert Bork in 1987. Back then, Sen. Ted Kennedy set the tone of the attacks within two hours of Mr. Bork's nomination, when he charged that "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, and rogue police would break down citizens' doors in midnight raids."

In contrast, Miers critics routinely stipulated she was a good corporate litigator, a path-breaking legal talent and a good person. They emphasized two basic points: She didn't have the background for such an important appointment, and her judicial philosophy, when not unknown, was incoherent. It was the White House that suggested her opponents might be operating from "sexist" or "elitist" motives and that a knowledge of constitutional law wasn't a prerequisite for service on the high court.

The Miers nomination vividly illustrates how the political battlefield has changed, from the artillery barrages of the Bork battle to the blitzkrieg tactics of today. Back in 1987, when President Reagan nominated Judge Bork, Rush Limbaugh's nationally syndicated program, the Drudge Report, instantly updated newspaper Internet sites, competing cable-news channels and e-mail message blasts didn't exist.

Now both political parties can find themselves under siege--and sometimes even held hostage--to outside forces that bear little resemblance to traditional special interest groups. Peter Beinart, editor of the liberal New Republic, lamented last week in a speech at Harvard that MoveOn.org and other manifestations of "the new liberal political culture emerging on the Internet" resemble the forces that backed George McGovern in 1972. They captured the Democratic Party and lost 49 states and four of the next five presidential elections.

Meanwhile, President Bush has a new appreciation for the power of the conservative movement, which rose up en masse to challenge the Miers nomination. "The Bush White House will never again be able to count on conservatives following the dictum, 'Our leader, right or left,' " says Phyllis Schlafly, who heads the influential Eagle Forum.

Al Regnery, the publisher of The American Spectator, says the Miers nomination could become a galvanizing event for the conservative movement similar to the stand that sent Barry Goldwater on his journey to remake the Republican Party. In April 1957, Goldwater gave a Senate floor speech attacking President Eisenhower's conception of "modern Republicanism," as something resembling "a dime-store New Deal." In an echo of today's conservative complaints about the spending excesses of the Bush White House, Goldwater warned that Ike's "big budget concept" would subvert the American economy. "That speech led to Goldwater's 1964 candidacy and thus to Ronald Reagan's famous speech that year," says Mr. Regnery, who is writing a book on conservatism's past 50 years.

Poor little sex offenders being harassed

Sex offenders are being watched closely to keep them away from trick or treaters, and the ACLU (who else!) is upset by this.

In Westchester County, high-risk sex offenders on probation will be required to attend a four-hour educational program on Halloween night. In New Jersey, state officials are instructing paroled sex criminals not to answer their doors if trick-or-treaters come knocking. And in counties throughout Texas, parolees with child contact restrictions are being told to stay away from Halloween activities, even family gatherings.

All across the country this year, local and state authorities are placing registered offenders under one-night curfews or other restrictions out of fear that in only a few days, costumed children asking for candy will be arriving on their doorsteps.

The measures come at a time of growing unease about the nation's most dangerous sexual predators. In the last year, two small children were abducted and killed in Florida and a 56-year-old woman was stabbed to death at a mall in downtown White Plains, all at the hands of registered sex offenders, the authorities say.

Most states classify sex offenders by their likelihood of committing new crimes while on parole or probation, but do not distinguish between pedophiles and those whose crimes are against adults.

In effectively detaining sex offenders on Halloween, most officials say they are not responding to any attacks known to have occurred on past holidays but are concerned that the occasion presents a tantalizing opportunity for offenders to have unsupervised contact with children.

"Here you have a unique situation where children are literally showing up at the doors of sex offenders," said Andrew J. Spano, the Westchester County executive, who announced his initiative yesterday.

Almost all of the new measures are aimed at people already tightly supervised: those on parole or on probation. They are typically in force in the late afternoon and evening, and call for the offenders to either attend treatment programs for several hours or to stay at home and not hand out candy. In those cases, probation and local police officers will go to the homes to ensure compliance, the authorities said.

At least a half-dozen states have enacted such laws, including Texas, New Jersey and Illinois. One state, Virginia, has had a program in place since 2002 called Operation Trick No Treat, in which high-risk offenders must report to their parole offices between 4:30 and 8 p.m. on Halloween, where many undergo treatment.

Jo G. Holland, director for the eastern region of the Virginia Department of Corrections, said it has been successful.

"The interesting thing is that some of those who had not been specifically instructed to come in show up anyway, because they assume maybe we forgot to tell them," she said.

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the new initiatives were a "headline-grabbing response to a serious public health and safety issue" and failed to differentiate between sex offenders whose crimes were against adults and those who focused on children.

"One has to wonder whether this is simply political posturing in time for upcoming elections," she said.

String them up, and then we won't have to have this discussion.

Philly transit workers to Philadelphians: screw you

The governor and the mayor need to recall what Ronald Reagan did to the striking air traffic controllers: fire their asses.

Thousands of city transit workers went on strike just after midnight, leaving nearly half a million commuters in need of alternate transportation Monday.

Buses, trolleys and subways operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority will be idled, although commuter rails are expected to remain in service since those employees have a different union contract.

City preparations for the strike include setting up extra bicycle racks and allowing more parking. City schools, which don’t provide bus service for high school students, plan to remain open but could reconsider if there is a prolonged strike.

The last Philadelphia transit strike, in 1998, lasted 40 days.

Negotiations had been ongoing most of the weekend but broke off around midnight. Wages, work rules and health care were the main issues in dispute.

SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said talks broke off because union leaders rejected the agency’s health care offer, which would have required employees to pay 5 percent of the premium. The union supported a sliding-scale payment system for employees based on their salaries.

No new talks are scheduled between SEPTA and Transport Workers Union Local 234, which represents about 5,000 employees, said union spokesman Bob Bedard. Bedard said transit workers have begun picketing at several of the larger SEPTA depots.

The mass transit system shut down is vital to mobility in a city where one in three households lacks a car. On a typical weekday, 920,000 trips are taken on the SEPTA lines shut down by the strike.

Who's to blame for high gas prices? The government

Not only does the government restrict drilling and the building of new refineries with draconian environmental regulations, the gas taxes keep rising.

High gas prices and strong oil company earnings have generated a rash of new tax proposals in recent months. Some lawmakers have called for new “windfall profits” taxes—similar to the one signed into federal law in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter—that would tax the profits of major oil companies at a rate of 50 percent. Meanwhile, many commentators have voiced support for the idea of increasing gas taxes to keep the price of gasoline at post-Katrina highs, thereby reducing gas consumption.

However, often ignored in this debate is the fact that oil industry profits are highly cyclical, making them just as prone to “busts” as to “booms.” Additionally, tax collections on the production and import of gasoline by state and federal governments are already near historic highs. In fact, in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S. oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits.

According to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, the domestic profits of the 25 largest oil companies in the U.S. have been highly volatile since the late 1970s.

As illustrated in Figure 1, between 1977 and 1985, the oil industry recorded relatively high profits—averaging nearly $33 billion per year, after adjusting for inflation. These good times were followed by ten years of relatively flat profits, averaging just $12.3 billion per year. In 1996, profits began to rise again but have been anything but stable, ranging from $9 billion to nearly $42 billion per year. Between 1977 and 2004, the industry’s domestic profits totaled $643 billion, after adjusting for inflation.

Figure 1. State and Federal Taxes on Gasoline Production and Imports Exceed Oil Industry Profits in Most Years

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Energy Information Administration

In contrast, federal and state taxes on gasoline production and imports have been climbing steadily since the late 1970s and now total roughly $58.4 billion. Due in part to substantial hikes in the federal gasoline excise tax in 1983, 1990, and 1993, annual tax revenues have continued to grow. Since 1977, governments collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues—more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period.

As illustrated in Table 1, since 1977, there have been only three years (1980, 1981, and 1982) in which domestic oil industry profits exceeded government gas tax collections. In the remaining years, gasoline tax collections consistently exceeded oil industry profits, reaching a peak in 1995 when gas tax collections outpaced industry profits by a factor of 7.3.


Unlike the highly volatile path of industry profits, gasoline taxes exhibit steady growth with little regard for changes in the U.S. economy. As lawmakers respond to rising gas prices, they should keep in mind the importance of state and federal gasoline taxes in comparison with oil industry profits.

Time to get the old resume updated

Not a good time to be a stockbroker in Iran, as the president says let's hang a couple of stockbrokers to fix the market.

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the latest cabinet meeting in the Iranian capital that “if we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever”, according to a Tehran-based newspaper.

Ahmadinejad was addressing a cabinet meeting held to discuss the rapidly deteriorating situation at the Tehran Stock Exchange, the daily Ruznet reported on Sunday.

Ministers and experts disagreed with all the different views and proposals raised at the meeting, which came to an end without any concrete results. Tempers flew high and participants shouted at each other during the discussion, according to the daily. Frustrated with the inability of his economic advisers and experts to come up with any solution, Ahmadinejad told them that the only way out of the current stock exchange and financial market problems was to “frighten” speculators by hanging two or three of them.

Iran’s ultra-Islamist President first sent jitters through the country’s markets when he said on the eve of the presidential elections in June that “stock exchange activities are a kind of gambling and we are against them”. Gambling is banned in Islam.

Nervous investors have been transferring their capital to other countries, and Dubai has benefited palpably from the flight of capital from Iran. The Tehran Stock Exchange has lost 20 percent of its value in the past four months.

“At the moment there are no buyers in this market, only sellers”, the newspaper Ruznet wrote. “Economists believe the situation is becoming more difficult to handle day by day”.

Incendiary statements by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other top Iranian officials have contributed to the creation of an atmosphere of uncertainty and instability in the country’s financial markets, according to analysts.
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Time to order more pizzas for the IDF

Time to order more pizzas for the IDF as they do their duty and rid the world of some Paleswinian scum.

Two wanted Islamic Jihad operatives were shot and killed in a long exchange of gunfire Sunday night between the IDF and Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank town of Kabatiya near Jenin.

IDF forces, including Nahal brigade and elite units, surrounded a house in the afternoon where Islamic Jihad fugitives, linked to last week's suicide bomb attack in Hadera in which five Israelis were killed, were hiding. Four Palestinian men, a woman and two children left the house and surrendered to troops outside. They were questioned by security forces in order to gain information about the identities of those holed up inside. One of the men who turned himself in was also suspected of being involved in last week's attack.

Shortly after the house was encircled, fugitives inside the house opened fire on the troops. Palestinian media reports said heavy gun battles erupted between the sides.

After the fire ceased, near midnight Sunday, and a D9 bulldozer was called to ram the house and encourage the fugitives to surrender, the IDF forces entered the building and discovered the bodies of Jihad Awidat Akarne - the dispatcher of last week's suicide bomber - and of Rashad Knell, his associate.

In addition, a third Palestinian was killed in a separate incident in the town of Kabatiya when a paratrooper unit discovered three Palestinians laying an explosive device on the route into the village.

The IDF did not suffer any losses.

If only we would cut the PC bullshit and go after terrorists in a like manner.

What general are you?

Cool quiz to see what historic general you are. I am:

King Edward I You scored 74 Wisdom, 77 Tactics, 53 Guts, and 49 Ruthlessness!

Or rather, King Edward the Longshanks if you've seen Braveheart. You, like Edward, are incredibly smart and shrewd, but you win at any costs.... William Wallace died at his hands after a fierce Scottish rebellion against his reign. Despite his reputation though, Longshanks had the best interests of his people at heart. But God help you if you got on his bad side.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 87% on Unorthodox You scored higher than 70% on Tactics You scored higher than 46% on Guts You scored higher than 55% on Ruthlessness

Link: The Which Historic General Are You Test written by dasnyds on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Big fine for Terrorism's favorite member of Congress

Radical Islam's favorite Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Mecca) gets hit hard for some heavy campaign finance violations.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney must pay a $33,000 fine and reimburse as much as $72,000 to political donors after accepting excessive contributions in the 2002 election, the Federal Election Commission said Friday.

The fine alone exceeds the total amount in the Georgia Democrat's campaign account through Sept. 30. It was part of a conciliation agreement between McKinney and the FEC.

The eight-page agreement, signed by McKinney's campaign treasurer, Joan Christian, says there was $106,425 in excessive contributions in 2002 — $42,950 for the primary and $63,475 for the general. Because McKinney lost the primary election, all money collected for the general election must be reimbursed.

"If you're not in a general election, you can't raise money," said FEC spokeswoman Kelly Huff. "And if you took money, you really can't spend it, because if you lose, you're in a world of hurt."

Religion of Peace update: 3 girls beheaded

Those practitioners of the Religion of Peace have fought the infidels in Indonesia by beheading 3 Christian school girls.

Three girls have been beheaded and another badly injured as they walked to a Christian school in Indonesia.

They were walking through a cocoa plantation near the city of Poso in central Sulawesi province when they were attacked.

This is an area that has a long history of religious violence between Muslims and Christians.

A government-brokered truce has only partially succeeded in reducing the number of incidents in recent years.

Police say the heads were found some distance from the bodies.

It is unclear what was behind the attack, but the girls attended a private Christian school and one of the heads was left outside a church leading to speculation that it might have had a religious motive.

Central Sulawesi and Poso in particular was the scene of bitter fighting between Muslims and Christians in 2001 and 2002.

More than 1,000 people were killed before a government-brokered truce.

Although the violence has been subdued, it has never gone away completely.

A bomb in May in the nearby town of Tentena, which is predominantly Christian, killed 22 people and injured over 30.

The fighting four years ago drew Islamic militants from all over Indonesia and many have never gone home.

Analysts say the militants have targeted central Sulawesi and believe that it could be turned into the foundation stone of an Islamic state.

The analysts have warned that the violence could resurface at any time.

More reasons to flee the Episcopal Church

The Episcopal Diocese of Vermont is making asses of themselves some resolutions to discuss. The lowlights:

A Resolution to Support the Episcopal Coalition to Abolish Biblical Literalism (ECABL)

Resolved, That the 173rd Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont support the creation of the Episcopal Coalition to Abolish Biblical Literalism (ECABL), provide funding for ECABL for a period of three years (2006-2008) at a minimum of $1.00 each year, and receive a report from ECABL regarding its activities while it is supported by the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont; and be it further

Resolved, That we of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont support every effort to free our Episcopal and Anglican Church from the slavery of Biblical Literalism which might be used to separate us from our sisters and brothers made in the image of God and used to marginalize persons who may be different from us: persons of color, women, and gay and lesbian persons; and be it further

Resolved, That we call upon the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church to support all international efforts to free the church from the slavery of Biblical Literalism, especially as it is used to marginalize persons different from us: persons of color, women, and gay and lesbian persons; and be it further

Resolved, That we call upon the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church to support all international efforts to celebrate the United KingdomÕs Abolition of Slave Trade Act Bicentenary (1807-2007); and be it further

Resolved, That the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont support efforts in the State of Vermont to celebrate the 230th anniversary (1777 to 2007) of Vermont being the first state to abolish slavery.

Proposer: The Rev. Cn. Thaddeus Bennett
Co-Sponsors: The Rev. Jean MacDonald
The Rev. Cn. Jeanette Tweedy
The Rev. Reid D. Farrell, Jr.
The Rev. John Morris
The Rev. Thomas Brown
The Rev. Cn. Diane Root
Mr. Dale L. Willard
The Rev. Cn. Tanya Wallace

Explanation
Historic Anglicanism has been based on the authority of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, and the use of these authorities leads to wise, healthy, and holy Biblical Literacy (for example, in William Wilberforce's Evangelical understanding that human slavery is antithetical to God's Word as revealed in Scripture). It is also true that Biblical Literalism has been used to support unjust and immoral positions by the Episcopal Church (including within our diocese when our own first Bishop, John Henry Hopkins, used Holy Scripture to support the practice of slavery even after the Emancipation Proclamation).

We are a diocese that embraces its diversity and has been able to learn from past mistakes. The fact that we live peacefully and respectfully with Civil Unions and Holy Unions while not all agreeing is an "outward and visible sign" of God's work with us and our work on these issues together with God.

This resolution asks that we continue that work by looking through the "lens" of how Biblical Literalism can harm the Christian faith and be used to deny human rights to various classes of people who are different and how Biblical Literacy can help us clarify what God's Word is for today's Christians.

Really sucks when people want to enforce all of those "thou shalt nots". Hey, they don't believe in that bible stuff, but the UN is really cool:

A Resolution to Contribute 0.7% to International Development in Support of the UN Millennium Development Goals

Resolved, That the 173rd Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont endorse and embrace the achievement of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that pledge to:

1. eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;
2. achieve universal primary education;
3. promote gender equality and empower women;
4. reduce child mortality;
5. improve maternal health;
6. combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;
7. ensure environmental stability; and
8. develop a global partnership for development;
and be it further

Resolved, That this Diocese of Vermont, as a part of fulfilling its mission to "pray the prayer of Christ, learn the mind of Christ, and do the deeds of Christ," and in accordance with the challenge set forth by the 73rd and 74th General Conventions (2000 and 2003) and the 1998 Lambeth Conference:

1) will work toward giving 0.7% of the annual diocesan budgeted operating income to fund international development programs by 2008;
2) will challenge individuals and all communities of faith in the Diocese to give 0.7% of their budgeted income to international development programs;
and be it further

Resolved, That the Outreach and Social Justice Committee be charged with:

1) identifying current diocesan expenditures that go toward qualifying international development programs;
2) recommending to the Bishop and Diocesan Council, prior to the beginning of the creation of the 2007 budget, how 0.7% giving will be phased into the annual budget and how such funds will be procured;
3) making informed recommendations to the Bishop and Diocesan Council about the disbursement of the 0.7% funds;
4) serving as a resource for congregations about the types of expenses that would qualify as well as collecting information from congregations about their participation in 0.7% giving;
and be it further

Resolved, That all Episcopalians in the Diocese of Vermont are encouraged to contact their elected representatives, urging them to support the United States government's fulfillment of its commitment, made in 2000, to funding international development aid at 0.7% of the U.S. Gross National Product; and that the Secretary of Convention shall write the President of the United States and the members of the Vermont congressional delegation that the Diocese of Vermont, meeting in Convention, urges them to support the United States governmentÕs fulfillment of its commitment, made in 2000, to funding international development aid at 0.7% of the U.S. GNP.

I'm starting to believe Christopher when he says the UN is the "Episcopalian Vatican."

Victor David Hanson's advice to Bush

Blunt and straightforward, as usual.

For good or evil, George W. Bush will have to cross the Rubicon on judicial nominations, politicized indictments, Iraq, the greater Middle East, and the constant frenzy of the Howard Dean wing of the Democratic party — and now march on his various adversaries as never before. He can choose either to be nicked and slowly bled to death in his second term, or to bare his fangs and like some cornered carnivore start slashing back.

Before Harriet Miers, conservatives pined for a Chief Justice Antonin Scalia, with a Justice Roberts and someone like a Janice Rogers Brown rounding out a battle-hardened and formidable new conservative triad. They relished the idea of a Scalia frying Joe Biden in a televised cross-examination or another articulate black female nominee once again embarrassing a shrill Barbara Boxer — all as relish to brilliantly crafted opinions scaling back the reach of activist judges. That was not quite to be.

But now, with the Miers' withdrawal, the president might as well go for broke to reclaim his base and redefine his second term as one of principle rather than triangulating politics. So he should call in top Republican senators and the point people of his base — never more needed than now — and get them to agree on the most brilliant, accomplished, and conservative jurist possible. He should then ram the nominee through, in a display to the American people of the principles at stake.

It is also time to step up lecturing both the American people and the Iraqis on exactly what we are doing in the Sunni Triangle. We have been sleepwalking through the greatest revolutionary movement in the history of the Middle East, as the U.S. military is quietly empowering the once-despised Kurds and Shiites — and along with them women and the other formerly dispossessed of Iraq. In short, the U.S. Marine Corps has done more for global freedom and social justice in two years than has every U.N. peacekeeping mission since the inception of that now-corrupt organization.

This is high-stakes — and idealistic — stuff. And the more we talk in such terms, the more the president can put the onus of cynical realism on the peace movement and the corrupt forces in the Middle East, who alike wish us to fail. Forget acrimony over weapons of mass destruction, platitudes about abstract democracy, and arguments over U.S. security strategies. Instead bluntly explain to the world how at this time and at this moment the U. S. is trying to bring equality and freedom to the unfree, in a manner rare in the history of civilization.

Yes, the Kurds and the Shiites need to compromise. The Sunnis must disavow terrorism. But above all, the American people need to be reminded there was no oil, no hegemony, no money, no Israel, and no profit involved in this effort, but something far greater and more lasting. And so it no accident that the Iraqis are the only people in the Arab world voting in free elections and dying as they fight in the war against terror.

Was Iraq naïve? Perhaps. Idealistic? Of course. But cynical or conniving? — not at all. That is the domain of the Arab kleptocracies, the corrupt Europeans, and increasingly the radical American Left — who all have much to lose if the United States can stop the petrol-theft of the Hussein legacy, expose its corrupt ganglia, establish a democracy, and prove that the United States found real security from terrorism only by bringing constitutional government to the Middle East.

The key to Iraq is enfeebling those around it who are weakening the country — namely Syria and Iran. The U.S. should be calling for democratic reform in both countries — constantly, without interruption, and in the same idealistic fashion as we appeal to the Iraqis. The president must focus world attention on just how awful those two regimes are. After all, an Iranian president threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map at precisely the time his government lies and connives to obtain nuclear weapons — which alone could bring that avowed sick Khomeineseque dream to fruition, given Iran’s conventional military impotence. Again, the government of Iran is not just talking about warring with the Sharon government or attacking the Israeli nation, but rather liquidating the Jewish people — as Hitlerian a promise of genocide as we have seen since the Holocaust. And he boasts like a leader who fully expects to have nuclear weapons in the near future.

Syria’s government is little more than Murder, Inc. Its assassination of Mr. Hariri slowed the entire Lebanese reform movement. It’s been a fine and noble thing that George Bush began to confront Syria, but he should go even further to call on the nations of the world to consider the young Assad the new Milosevic who, like the Iranian president, is an international outlaw deserving of sanctions, embargos, and global ostracism.

We should remind the world that our 2,000th fatality did not end our commitment to freedom and justice, but reminded us just how much we owe our dead so that their ultimate sacrifice was not in vain. We must make sure this sacrifice will lead to the defeat of the terrorists and the establishment of freedom in the greater Middle East. Once we went into Iraq, in the long run there was no living with either Assad or a nuclear Iranian theocracy — and both autocracies grasped that fact far better than we did, as evidenced by the constant stream of terrorists flooding in to kill Americans and undermine Iraqi democracy. The more we jawbone them, pressure them, and isolate them now, the less likely it is that we will have to use force later. Again, no “smoke ‘em out” or “bring ‘em on” braggadocio, but just something to the effect that we are taking great risks at great costs to join with the Iraqis to give freedom and equality at last a chance in the Middle East.

George Bush also should begin addressing his most venomous critics at home, by condemning their current extremism. He must explain to the nation how a radical, vicious Left has more or less gotten a free pass in its rhetoric of hate, and has now passed the limits of accepted debate.

In the last six months we have heard from various demagogues — though they are recognized as such due to their prominence in the media — that we were waging nuclear war in Iraq (Cindy Sheehan), that there was cannibalism in New Orleans (Randall Robinson), that George Bush and Dick Cheney should be shot (the novelist Jane Smiley) or executed (Al Franken). Alfred Knopf has published a book about the theoretical assassination of the president, and the Nazi slur is now commonplace in Democratic circles, where a Senator Dick Durbin or Ted Kennedy slanders American soldiers as akin to either Saddam’s torturers or even Nazis and Stalinists. The case needs to be made that we are seeing a new paranoid style — but from the Left, whose opponents are not to be out-argued, but rather deemed worthy of death or demonization as Nazis. The recent eclipse of George Galloway — due in no large part to Christopher Hitchens’ lonely and underappreciated pursuit of his perfidy — reminds us how hard these reprobates finally will fall.

All of these issues are interrelated. If the president can win the hearts and minds of the American people on one theme, the others will fall into play. The more the president talks of principle and values, the more he can do so with zeal, and yes, real passion and occasional anger.

The odd thing is that so far the conventional advice to the president — keep the discussion on Iraq only to U.S. national security, not the upheaval of the existing corrupt order; reach out to the Democratic Senate; curb your idealistic rhetoric with Syria or Iran; ignore shrill enemies; nominate someone that the opposition will not seriously object to — has only emboldened critics here and abroad. It is time to go back on the offensive, both for the idealistic legacy of the Bush presidency and the immediate future of his ideas in the upcoming 2006 elections. The American people, both pro and con, are more than ready for a great debate to settle these issues one way or another.

Iran's bomb: another Shiite vs Sunni war?

Ralph Peters suggests that the biggest danger of a nuclear Iran isn't a bombing of Israel, but intra Muslim conflict.

With our abysmally short historical memories, we forget that the most savage conventional war of the past 60 years was the Iran-Iraq conflict, a decade of bloodletting between Iran's majority Shi'a population and (formerly) Sunni-dominated Iraq. It was a replay of Islam's 7th-century tribal clashes, with modern weapons and mass armies. Millions perished or suffered crippling wounds. And every available weapon, including poison gas, was used enthusiastically.

Humans may hate a distant enemy in theory, but we're likelier to kill our neighbors.

An Iranian nuclear threat to the United States comes in at a distant third place behind the danger to Israel and the possibility of an intra-Muslim conflict of apocalyptic proportions. (Does anybody really think that luxury condos in Dubai are a good investment? Well, here's a toast to their "glowing" future as the mullahs nuke the Middle East's Las Vegas wannabe.)

Of course, we cannot dismiss the nuclear danger to our deployed forces or from a Tehran-backed terrorist strike on our homeland. But we may be exaggerating our importance to our sworn enemies.

If all politics are local, so are most wars. The advent of nuclear weapons in the Middle East just may coincide with the due-date for a devastating Shi'a-Sunni confrontation. In one of reality's bizarre twists that intelligence agencies never forecast, we may see Sunni Arab states begging Israel for a wartime alliance.

With all of these rising dangers between the Red Sea and the Indus, the United States long remained willfully blind to the roots of nuclear development in the region. The Iranians worried us but we essentially gave our "allies" a pass.

The Pakistani bomb was funded by Saudi Arabia as a Sunni bomb. We had no end of evidence, but Clinton-era apparatchiks refused to face the embarrassing facts.

On the eve of Pakistan's first nuclear detonation, Islamabad's leading luxury hotel filled with Saudis. On the day of the blast, the phone lines (in those days before cells) lit up from the test site back to the hotel, then from the hotel to Riyadh. According to one well-placed American witness, the information was suppressed.

Now Sunni Muslims have their bomb, the Shi'a are determined to have theirs, and the truly horrific religious war in the coming years may not be between terrorists or murderous Islamist governments and the West, but between Muslims. The sectarian hatreds within Islam (as well as between the Persian and Arab civilizations) pre-date any resentments toward the United States by many centuries.

It should surprise no one that the great bloodlettings of the 21st century will be over religion. The shock may be over which masses of believers slaughter each other.

Don't screw with the IDF

Those palestinians displaced Arabs just never learn don't screw with the IDF.

Israel killed seven Palestinians in a missile strike Thursday against Islamic Jihad, and Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon said he would not meet with the Palestinian leader until he cracks down on armed groups — a double-edged Israeli response to the latest suicide bombing.

In the Gaza refugee camp of Jebaliya, Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at a car carrying Islamic Jihad militants. Hospital officials said at least seven people were killed and 15 wounded, four of them critically. Among those killed were four Islamic Jihad members, including Shadi Mohanna, the group's field commander for northern Gaza.

The missiles struck the white car as it drove through the camp, which was crowded with people walking in the streets after evening prayers at a mosque. Two charred bodies were pulled from the wrecked vehicle, and shrapnel and blood was scattered over a wide area.

Thought Police on Campus

A Catholic student at a Catholic University expresses negative opinions about gays in an OFF CAMPUS web forum and could be expelled.

A Duquesne University sophomore said he will risk being expelled for expressing his view that homosexuality is "subhuman" rather than write a 10-page essay the university has called for.

Ryan Miner, 19, of Hagerstown, Md., was sanctioned by the university for posting his view on an online forum not related to the university.

He opposed an effort by other students to form a Gay-Straight Alliance group, an issue still being debated by the Catholic university.

"I believe as a student that my First Amendment rights in the Constitution were subverted and attacked," said Miner, who is Catholic.

After his comments appeared online, some students complained to the school. After a hearing, the office of judicial affairs found Miner guilty of violating the University Code which prohibits harassment or discrimination based on, among other groups, sexual orientation. The paper was assigned as punishment, which Miner said he will appeal.

This is disappointing. If he had posted comments about Catholics, that would be OK; hell he'd probably get a medal from the PC crowd.

Media Myths

Arnold Ahlert calls out the media.

DOES the mainstream media have a shred of credibility left? Consider coverage of Katrina and the war in Iraq.

The Katrina coverage was a combination of outright lies and myths. A seven-year old baby with a slashed throat. Sniper fire at rescue helicopters. Mayor Ray Nagin's prediction of "10,000 bodies."

Iraq? The "hopeless quagmire" facade came tumbling down amidst a better than 60 percent turnout by Iraqi voters, including heavy participation by the Sunnis, who we were assured would boycott the charter vote. Apparently some 9 million Iraqis disagree with the media's assessment that they are "incapable of democracy" or "intimidated by terrorist thugs."

In a better world, everyone responsible for this misinformation would be canned. The reality? They think they're doing a great job. In other words, they have no credibility left.

Love this Guardsman

The St Lake Trib has an article about Guardsmen and the sacrifices and hardships they can face, but this quote is priceless.

1st Lt. Bruce Bishop, 31, a Salt Lake County firefighter, said he'll stay "because as I look around at the state of this nation and see all of the weak little pampered candy-asses that are whining about this or protesting that, I'd be afraid to leave the fate of this nation entirely up to them."

Bishop, who served in Afghanistan, is among the 450 Utah Guard members deployed to Louisiana. Most are volunteers.

Bush caves to unions and democrats

Bush - surprise - is wasting more federal money by not waiving the Davis-Bacon Act.

The White House yesterday reversed course and reinstated a key wage protection for workers involved in Hurricane Katrina reconstruction, bowing to pressure from moderate House Republicans who argued that Gulf Coast residents were being left out of the recovery and that the region was becoming a magnet for illegal immigrants.

The Bush administration decided in the days after the hurricane to waive a provision of the Davis-Bacon Act that guarantees construction workers the prevailing local wage when they are paid with federal money. The administration said the waiver on hurricane-related work would save the government money and speed recovery efforts.

The decision immediately was criticized by Democrats and labor unions. It also exposed fault lines in the president's party. Conservatives strongly backed the waiver. But a group of moderate Republican members of Congress -- many from districts in industrial areas populated by blue-collar workers -- lobbied the White House and the congressional leadership for the prevailing-wage provision to be reinstated. In recent weeks, the lawmakers wrote to President Bush, met with Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, and persuaded House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert to arrange a meeting with Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff.

Yesterday morning, leaders of that group were summoned to the White House, where Card told them that the administration had changed its mind. The prevailing-wage rule is to go back into effect Nov. 8, two months after the suspension. It will not apply retroactively.

"When the crisis of the moment is over, we should return to the regular order. Part of that order is Davis-Bacon," said Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Ohio). He said the law is needed to ensure that skilled, local workers find jobs and to keep the area from being inundated with illegal immigrants willing to work for low wages.

The decision was a rare victory for organized labor during George W. Bush's presidency. It was a defeat for traditional Bush allies, including the construction industry and conservatives in Congress. Yesterday, both groups said the president's reversal would inflate the cost of reconstruction.

"It's the kind of thing that shows they're turning their backs on the things that Ronald Reagan and those who built this party care deeply about," said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.).

"Certain special interests and their allies in Congress are more concerned about reinstating this wasteful and outdated act than they are with fairly and expeditiously reconstructing the devastated areas," M. Kirk Pickerel, chief executive of Associated Builders and Contractors, said in a written statement.

Our Republicans need to start acting like Republicans.

One of PA's bravest dies

Not only is firefighting dangerous, but so is the training. An Altoona FIre Captain dies in a training accident.

Altoona fire Capt. Robert Gallardy had just surfaced from the burning basement of the cinder block shell, on the state fire academy grounds in Lewistown.

Capt. Gallardy was cooling off between "live burns," training exercises in which he would observe and evaluate a group of instructor candidates dealing with a structure fire. It was Sunday afternoon, and the 21/2 story building, meant to simulate a residence, had seen five such exercises already that day, said Justin Fleming, a spokesman for the state fire commissioner.

"Between burns, he'd come up to cool off a little bit," said Altoona Fire Chief Renny Santone. "Another instructor asked if he wanted him to take his place. He said, 'No, I'm doing real well.'"

Capt. Gallardy ducked down into the basement once more, said Chief Santone. But this time, something went terribly wrong. Three instructor candidates found him unconscious on the floor and radioed for help, and a safety crew dragged him out, but Capt. Gallardy, 47, died two days later from severe burns he suffered during the exercise.

It was the first fatality at the fire academy. An investigation by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is under way, but the results may not be known for months, said Mr. Fleming.

Capt. Gallardy was taken to Lewistown Hospital, then airlifted to Lehigh Valley Burn Center. According to the state fire commissioner, a large portion of Capt. Gallardy's body was severely burned, including his face and respiratory tract.

The building on the fire academy grounds where Capt. Gallardy was fatally injured is barricaded now, his gear sent to a lab for analysis to see if he might have experienced a catastrophic equipment failure, said Chief Santone. The Lehigh County coroner conducted an autopsy yesterday.

The building is one of several training structures at the academy. It is made of concrete block and is specially lined to protect its structural integrity during live burns, said Mr. Fleming.

When conducting live burn exercises, instructors don't use flammable liquids or fuels, Chief Santone said. They light up straw, adding wooden pallets or skids onto the embers from the previously extinguished fire.

Several instructors were on the grounds at the time of the accident. The instructor candidates were not recruits but were there to be certified, said Chief Santone. Yesterday, Capt. Gallardy's fellow firefighters were in incident debriefing and stress counseling sessions with a team from the Southern Alleghenies EMS Council.

Capt. Gallardy came to the Altoona Fire Department from the Summerhill Volunteer Fire Department in Cambria County. He grew up in Summerhill, in a house across the street from Assistant Fire Chief Larry Penatzer.

"Bob joined here when he was 16, and he ran with us up until nine years ago," said Chief Penatzer. "I had him as an instructor several times; he was very good, very patient, very knowledgeable. He made sure everybody in the building was safe. Whatever needed done."

Like many departments around the state, Summerhill will send a group of firefighters to Altoona on Monday for Capt. Gallardy's funeral, at 10 a.m. at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament.

Capt. Gallardy was one of the better-known instructors in the state, said Chief Santone. His department has gotten calls from firefighters all over Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Maryland. He expects 2,000 to 5,000 people to attend Capt. Gallardy's funeral.

Capt. Gallardy was an adjunct instructor at the state fire academy, assisting in the training of recruits and cadets, both as part of his employment with the Altoona Fire Department and in his off hours, said Chief Santone. He was a member of the county's hazardous material response team and of the Altoona Fire Department's honor guard. In July, he was promoted to captain.

"Bob is probably one of the best employees in the department," Chief Santone said. "He was a good friend, very knowledgeable. He'd come by off duty and ask if there was anything that needed done. If he was still here right now, you could call him in and he'd show up and do anything you want."

He is survived by his wife Vickie and three sons: Kyle, 21, Drew, 18, and Derek, 15.

God Bless you and all who mourn you.

John Kerry: Assclown

John F'n Kerry gave a speech at Georgetown University recently about Iraq, and once again speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

For starters, we didn't have enough troops:

When they could have listened to General Shinseki and put in enough troops to maintain order, they chose not to. They were wrong.

But a little later, he says we have TOO MANY troops over there:

At the first benchmark, the completion of the December elections, we can start the process of reducing our forces by withdrawing 20,000 troops over the course of the holidays.

Of course he voted FOR it, before he voted AGAINST it. He goes on to blame us for the insurgency, conveniently ignoring that the insurgents terrorists are overwhelmingly NOT from Iraq:

To undermine the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat forces linked to specific, responsible benchmarks.

and

We must move aggressively to reduce popular support for the insurgency fed by the perception of American occupation.

And, being a lefty, he supports peace through weakness:

it is essential to acknowledge that the insurgency will not be defeated unless our troop levels are drawn down.

Finally, he seems to conveniently ignore that Al Qaeda is very active in Iraq with Zarqawi:

We will never be as safe as we should be if Iraq continues to distract us from the most important war we must win – the war on Osama Bin Laden, Al Queda, and the terrorists that are resurfacing even in Afghanistan.

How can we trust our safety to someone so inherently stupid?

Australia to terrorists: Stop, or I'll say stop again!

Normally the Aussies strike me as really cool people, but not right now. Prime Minister John Howard caves to lefties and scuttles letting police shoot to kill.

Prime Minister John Howard is prepared to make some concessions on the government's new anti-terror laws following pressure from the states and territories opposed to a contentious shoot to kill clause.

Mr Howard also says he does not mind when the legislation is introduced as long as it is passed by Christmas.

This means that his previous plan to introduce the legislation into parliament on Melbourne Cup Day is becoming increasingly unlikely.

"We're not committed to some immutable timetable," he told reporters late yesterday in Madang, where he is attending the Pacific Islands Forum.

"The only reason that we've talked about getting it in as soon as possible and getting it passed is because of the timetable of some of the state parliaments," he said.

"Unless it is dealt with some dispatch, its implementation, in the case for example of South Australia, because they've got an election in March of next year, (and it) could be delayed for some months."

State and territory leaders last week raised concerns that police would be given the authority to use lethal force against a suspect being taken into preventative detention.

Mr Howard last night said he was happy to change the provisions as long police had the authority to take someone into custody if they resisted arrest as part of a preventative detention order.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie welcomed Mr Howard's move on the shoot-to-kill clause and said he was confident all constitutional issues could be overcome.

Maybe the Aussie police need to come to the US and learn from Philly, Chicago, Jacksonville, or other departments that WILL shoot to kill.

Ain't this the truth

Iraq Deaths in Perspective

Let's look at some US cities to see how they fare since 2003, when we invaded Iraq. Not so good, but the dems who run the cities don't seem to care.

Detroit homicides:

2003: 366

2004: 384

2005: 300+

Washington DC:

2003: 148

2004: 198

2005: 158

New Orleans:

2003: 274

2004: 265

2005: 192

Los Angeles:

2003: 515

2004: 518

2005: 336 so far

Chicago:

2003: 565

2004: 448

2005: 400+

Why aren't the peaceniks worried about THESE americans that are killed right here at home? This a whole lot more than 2000 deaths, right on our shores.

2000th casualty

THe NY Post's lead editorial sums it up very nicely.

Numbers matter.

Yesterday, the Pentagon announced the death from wounds of a young American in a military hospital in Texas — the 2,000th combat fatality since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003.

Much is being made of that number by opponents of the war, both sincere and opportunistic.

Of the latter, we would note that Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean was so anxious to make political capital of the tragedy that he couldn't even wait for the official announcement of the soldier's death before publicly criticizing President Bush and the war.

It is a measure of how modern war is waged that it took 31 months of mostly low-intensity combat to reach the plateau announced yesterday; 7,000 U.S. Marines died on Iwo Jima in two months in 1945 — an appalling butcher's bill by any measure, but not considered extraordinary at the time.

Meanwhile, recall that 2,749 innocent souls perished virtually in an instant on 9/11 — the signal event that set into motion action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the southern Philippines and the hills of Pakistan, and in scores of other nations, large and small, where Americans fight the War on Terror every day of the year.

And where they no doubt will continue to fight it, to good effect, unless Howard Dean and his pinched-vision comrades somehow convince America to abandon the necessary offensive it began on 9/11.

Indeed, convince America to refuse to achieve an honorable conclusion to the struggle thrust upon it by medievalists who will not stop until they prevail — or are killed.

We prefer the latter, and we have no doubt that — Dean & Co. notwithstanding — most Americans do, too.

Yes, it is appropriate that America reflect upon yesterday's milestone.

The young infantryman who died in Texas was, once upon a time, somebody's little boy; there were expectations and aspirations that now never will be realized — and that is a tragedy.

But do not deny that young man his humanity.

He made a choice: to serve his country at a moment of grave peril — to serve with honor and dignity, to accept the risks and rewards of military service in time of war, to continue a tradition that traces to the nativity of this singular nation.

The young men and women who don the uniform on America's behalf are, first and foremost, volunteers. Especially in the combat arms, they don't do it for the money, or for the job training, or to escape unhappy personal circumstances.

They join to serve.

Yes, America's leaders have the duty not to place their lives recklessly at risk; but, by and large, that obligation has been honored.

Again, numbers matter.

Yesterday's benchmark — in many respects a political construct — is just that: a benchmark. It will change.

The war will continue, whether or not America chooses to prosecute it. And the casualties, over time, will rise.

The only real question is whether the bulk of them will be young men and women who freely have embraced the duties of citizenship in a free society and taken up arms in its defense.

Or whether the toll of innocents will swell — two, three, four 9/11s?

Numbers matter.

Socialist Hillary out to punish the oil industry

Not a huge surprise from the woman who tried to nationalize 20% of the economy with her National Health Care plan: sock it to the oil companies.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday called for fees on oil-industry profits to fund clean-energy research and ease the fuel "crisis on our hands."

"The country that put a man on the moon can be the country to find new lower-cost and cleaner forms of energy," Clinton told a group of alternative-energy backers.

Clinton proposed a "Strategic Energy Fund" that she said could bring in as much as $20 billion a year in oil-company fees to fund development and give rebates to folks struggling to pay rising heating bills and transportation costs.

She said oil companies should post signs at gas stations reminding motorists to check their tire pressure.

It's the fault of the damn tree huggers that companies can't build refineries which would dramatically bring down prices. We don't have a shortage of oil, we have a shortage of refined products like gas and heating oil.

British Dhimmi update: banning piggy banks

What's next, banning sausages? Winston Churchill would be appalled.

British banks are banning piggy banks because they may offend some Muslims.

Halifax and NatWest banks have led the move to scrap the time-honoured symbol of saving from being given to children or used in their advertising, the Daily Express/Daily Star group reports here.

Muslims do not eat pork, as Islamic culture deems the pig to be an impure animal.

Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, backed the bank move.

"This is a sensitive issue and I think the banks are simply being courteous to their customers," he said.

However, the move brought accusations of political correctness gone mad from critics.

"The next thing we will be banning Christmas trees and cribs and the logical result of that process is a bland uniformity," the Dean of Blackburn, Reverend Christopher Armstrong, said.

"We should learn to celebrate our difference, not be fearful of them."

Khalid Mahmoud, the Labour MP for a Birmingham seat and one of four Muslim MPs in Britain, also criticised the piggy-bank ban.

"We live in a multicultural society and the traditions and symbols of one community should not be obliterated just to accommodate another," Mr Mahmoud said.

"I doubt many Muslims would be seriously offended by piggy banks."

The Tuskege Airmen live on

Great story of seven of the Tuskegee Airmen going to Iraq to rally the troops.

Lt. Col. Herbert Carter is 86 years old and ready for deployment. More than 60 years after his World War II tour with the pioneering black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, Carter's new mission will be shorter, though no less courageous.

Carter is one of seven aging Tuskegee Airmen traveling this weekend to Balad, Iraq _ a city ravaged by roadside bombs and insurgent activity _ to inspire a younger generation of airmen who carry on the traditions of the storied 332nd Fighter Group.

"I don't think it hurts to have someone who can empathize with them and offer them encouragement," he said.

The three-day visit was put together by officials with the U.S. Central Command Air Forces to link the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen with a new generation.

"This group represents the linkage between the 'greatest generation' of airmen and the 'latest generation' of airmen," said Lt. Gen. Walter Buchanan III, commander of the Air Forces command, in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

The retired Airmen who will make the trip _ five pilots, a mechanic and a supply officer _ shrugged off the dangers of Iraq, saying they have stared down the enemy before. Some fought in Korea and Vietnam as well as World War II.

Current members of the 332nd, redesignated as the 332nd Air Expeditionary Group in 1998, include men and women of different backgrounds and races.

But the black retirees said they are thrilled that a group still fights within their 332nd lineage, regardless of skin color.

"I'm proud they're in a unit carrying our name," said Charles McGee, 82, a retired colonel whose 409 combat missions is an Air Force record. "That's very meaningful from the heritage point of view."

The original Tuskegee Airmen were recruited in an Army Air Corps program created to train blacks to fly and maintain combat aircraft during World War II _ though some of the retired Airmen say it was really designed to try to prove that blacks were incapable of flying and fighting.

Even after the first group completed pilot training in March 1942, they were not allowed to fly for more than a year.

"My status as a Negro bordered on second-class citizenship and the military simply reflected the culture of the time," Carter recalled in a recent interview. "If you were a Negro, you were a Negro in either setting."

Eventually, the black airmen flew escort for bombers. They were credited with shooting down more than 100 enemy aircraft and never losing an American bomber under escort to enemy fighters. In all, 992 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1940 to 1946. About 450 deployed overseas and 150 lost their lives in training or combat.

The trip to Iraq brings new recognition to the trailblazing team celebrated in a 1995 HBO movie, "The Tuskegee Airmen."

Maj. Anthony Robinson of Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., who spearheaded the trip for the seven, said the group in Iraq is looking forward to hearing the Tuskegee Airmen's stories.

Only about 100 Tuskegee Airmen are still living. Several surviving members said they would make the trip to Iraq if health issues did not stand in their way.

They said they would continue to speak to current units, schools and public officials to ensure their legacy stays alive years after they are gone.

"I think everything should be done to pass their story to future generation of Americans," said Ted Johnson, 80, who graduated from the Advanced Flight School in 1945 and is considered one of the youngest Tuskegee Airmen.

"It was the Tuskegee Airmen who made America come to its senses," he said, "that individuals should be judged on their accomplishments, rather than their ethnicity and color."

Reigning in the drunken sailors

Pete Dupont says if the drunken sailors on Capitol hill won't control their spending, force them to control it.

How big, how expensive and how fiscally generous to industries and local communities should America's national government be?

The spending policies of the current administration have made this the central domestic public policy question, for government has substantially grown under the leadership of a political party that for many decades has claimed to be the party of smaller government.

The real annual growth rate of federal government outlays is nearly at its highest modern percentage. Under President Clinton it was only 1.5%, under Ronald Reagan 2.6% and under Lyndon Johnson 5.7%. Spending has grown 5.6% a year since George W. Bush took office, and it seems likely to keep rising. Of course the war in Iraq is a part of it, but the current administration's domestic spending increase is 7.1% a year, the highest since the 1960s.

Nor has the Republican Congress been of any help. When Bill Clinton was president and the GOP controlled the House, congressionally approved nondefense spending was $57 billion less than the president requested; under Mr. Bush the Republican Congress has spent a total of $91 billion more than he requested.

The president has signed on to whatever spending increases Congress has chosen to enact. He promised to veto the transportation bill if it contained more than $256 billion in spending. It contained $295 billion, and he signed it anyway.

Mr. Bush has not vetoed a single bill or submitted a single rescission request to the Congress. The last president to serve a full term in office and never veto a bill was John Quincy Adams. LBJ and Jimmy Carter vetoed about 30 each, the first President Bush 44 and Mr. Clinton 37. And the current president is the only one since the rescission process was adopted in 1974 not to use it: Presidents Ford through Clinton requested rescissions ranging from $5 to $43 billion.

So what are the solutions to this growing Republican spending plan? Tax increases are not one of them. President Bush's income tax cuts gave us in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30 the largest revenue increase in the history of the United States--a $262 billion, 14% increase. Because of the tax cuts the economy has grown 4% a year and four million new jobs have been created. Reduce tax rates and the economy grows and revenues increase.

But the better solution to the huge increase in federal spending would be a constitutional amendment to hold the growth of federal spending to specific percentages of revenue unless there is a supermajority override by both houses of Congress. It is not a new idea--Delaware, for example, passed a constitutional amendment in 1980, when I was governor, to limit state government spending to 98% of revenue unless there is a three-fifths vote of each legislative house to spend more. The extra 2% goes into a Rainy Day Fund--the kind of fund that could be used for relief in Katrina-type national catastrophes. The amendment has produced 25 consecutive years of balanced Delaware budgets, a fiscal discipline that the federal government needs even more that state governments do.

Another approach is the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, or Tabor, which Colorado put into place via a constitutional amendment in 1992. It limits annual state government spending to inflation plus population growth, with any extra revenue going back to the taxpayers. From 1995 to 2000 Colorado ranked first in the nation in GDP growth and second in personal income growth. Its success has generated a furious effort to allow more spending that will be on the 2006 ballot.

Amending the Constitution is not easy, but is the best solution to the long term spending challenges that have faced every modern president since the Great Depression of the 1930s. And offering it up in our troubled big spending times would energize a policy debate that America needs to have.

Palestinian Barbarism

A good op ed on the Palestinian descent into barbarism.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas paid George Bush a friendly visit Thursday in the Oval Office. At the Rose Garden press conference that followed, Mr. Bush stressed Mr. Abbas's responsibility to "end terror attacks, dismantle terrorist infrastructure, maintain law and order and one day provide security for their own state." Mr. Abbas himself made no mention of the words "terrorism" or "terrorists." But he did demand the release of those he called "prisoners of freedom," now being held in Israeli jails.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict no longer rivets world attention the way it did a few years ago. Still it rolls along, as it has for decades and as it probably will for decades to come. And the reason for this is well-captured by Mr. Abbas's use of the term "prisoners of freedom."

Who are some of these prisoners? One is Ibrahim Ighnamat, a Hamas leader arrested last week by Israel in connection to his role in organizing a March 1997 suicide bombing at the Apropos cafe in Tel Aviv, which killed three and wounded 48. Another is Jamal Tirawi of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades: Mr. Tirawi had bullied a 14-year-old boy into becoming a suicide bomber by threatening to denounce him as a "collaborator," which in Palestinian society frequently amounts to a death sentence.

And then there is 21-year-old Wafa Samir al-Bis, who was detained in June after the explosives she was carrying failed to detonate at an Israeli checkpoint on the border with Gaza. As Ms. Bis later testified, her target was an Israeli hospital where she had previously been treated--as a humanitarian gesture--for burns suffered in a kitchen accident. "I wanted to kill 20, 50 Jews," she explained at a press conference after her arraignment.

Many explanations have been given to account for the almost matchless barbarism into which Palestinian society has descended in recent years. One is the effect of Israeli occupation and all that has, in recent years, gone with it: the checkpoints, the closures, the petty harassments, the targeted assassinations of terrorist leaders. I witnessed much of this personally when I lived in Israel, and there can be no discounting the embittering effect that a weeks-long, 18-hour daily military curfew has on the ordinary Palestinians living under it.

Yet the checkpoints and curfews are not gratuitous acts of unkindness by Israel, nor are they artifacts of occupation. On the contrary, in the years when Israel was in full control of the territories there were no checkpoints or curfews, and Palestinians could move freely (and find employment) throughout the country. It was only with the start of the peace process in 1993 and the creation of autonomous Palestinian areas under the control of the late Yasser Arafat that terrorism became a commonplace fact of Israeli life. And it was only then that the checkpoints went up and the clampdowns began in earnest.

In other words, while Palestinian actions go far to explain Israeli behavior, the reverse doesn't hold. How, then, are the Ighnamats, Tirawis and Bises of Palestinian society to be explained?

Consider a statistic: In the first nine months of 2005 more Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians than by Israelis--219 to 218, according to the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Interior, although the former figure is probably in truth much higher. In the Gaza Strip, the departure of Israeli troops and settlers has brought anarchy, not freedom. Members of Hamas routinely fight gun battles with members of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas's ruling political party. Just as often, the killing takes place between clans, or hamullas. So-called collaborators are put to the gun by street mobs, their "guilt" sometimes nothing more than being the object of a neighbor's spite. Palestinian social outsiders are also at mortal risk: Honor killings of "loose" women are common, as is the torture and murder of homosexuals.

Brazilians want to protect themselves and keep their guns

A referendum on banning gun sales in Brazil crashed and burned.

Brazilians soundly rejected a proposal to ban the sale of guns in a national referendum Sunday, striking down the bid to stem one of the world's highest firearm murder rates following a campaign that drew parallels to the U.S. gun control debate.

Brazil has 100 million fewer citizens than the United States (search), but a staggering 25 percent more gun deaths at nearly 40,000 a year. While supporters argued that gun control was the best way to staunch the violence, opponents played on Brazilians' fears that the police can't protect them.

"I don't like people walking around armed on the street. But since all the bandits have guns, you need to have a gun at home," said taxi driver Mohammed Osei, who voted against the ban.

With more than 92 percent of the votes counted, 64 percent of Brazilians were opposed to the ban, while 36 percent backed it, said election officials, giving the 'no' position an insurmountable lead.

The proposal would have prohibited the sale of firearms and ammunition except for police, the military, some security guards, gun collectors and sports shooters. It would complement a 2003 disarmament law that sharply restricts who can legally purchase firearms and carry guns in the street.

That law, coupled with a government-sponsored gun buyback program, has reduced deaths from firearms by about 8 percent this year, the Health Ministry said.

But the referendum backfired for proponents. Earlier this year, support for the ban was running as high as 80 percent. But in the weeks before the referendum, both sides were granted free time to present their cases on prime-time TV, and the pro-gun lobby began to grow.

Analysts said the pro-gun lobby benefited from equal time on television in the final weeks of the campaign and that they cannily cashed in on Brazilian skepticism of the police.

"They ask the question: 'Do you feel protected and do you think the government is protecting you?' and the answer is a violent no," said political scientist David Fleischer of the University of Brasilia.

The combination of Brazil's high gun-death rate and the nature of the debate over the right to gun ownership has drawn parallels to the gun debate in the United States.

"The whole campaign (against the ban) was imported from the United States. They just translated a lot of material from the NRA," said Jessica Galeria, a Californian who researches gun violence with the Viva Rio think tank, referring to the National Rifle Association. "Now, a lot of Brazilians are insisting on their right to bear arms, they don't even have a pseudo right to bear arms. It's not in their Constitution."

NRA public affairs director Andrew Arulanandam called the proposal's defeat "a victory for freedom."

"It's a stunning defeat for the global gun control movement. They poured millions of dollars and millions more man hours trying to enact this gun ban and they failed. The aim of this gun ban movement was to use Brazil as the rallying point to enact gun bans in the United States. We're happy they were defeated," he said.

Some Brazilians said they resented the referendum because they feel the government is ducking its responsibility to keep the peace.

"It's immoral for the government to have this vote," said Pedro Ricardo, an army officer in Sao Paulo. "They're putting the responsibility on us, but ... the way to cut down on violence is to combat the drug trade and patrol our borders."

New York City cop screwed by the justice system

A Manhattan judge tells cops that dead cops are preferable to dead criminals.

BRYAN CONROY was so determined to be a cop, he took the police test when he was 16.

"I was going to St. Peter's HS, and my dad [Arthur Conroy] said, 'Give it a shot,' " Bryan, 27, told me yesterday.

"I scored in the 90s on that test, and the department called me up.

"I had to remind them I was 16. I guess they didn't see my age, and they said, 'You better give us a call when you turn 21.'

"I did, and I became a cop."

Sadly, his cherished career is forever over.

After being convicted of negligent homicide but cleared of manslaughter in the death of illegal West African immigrant Ousmane Zongo, 42, in a Chelsea warehouse disc-counterfeiting sting.

"I loved the job, but I've got to move on. I can't wallow in it. I'm still positive despite everything," he said.

His former partner, John Downey, said somberly after the conviction, "I just want everyone to know that he's the best partner a cop could have."

Bryan's future?

"I'll do anything that's positive, honest and constructive. When I took the police test when I was 16, I wanted a humble but serving job, either a cop or a firefighter."

As the verdict loomed, Bryan's wife, Nicole, gave birth to their son, Mason, now 3 months old.

"Right now, Mason is huffing and puffing, almost crying because at this moment, Notre Dame is down in the game," he said with a laugh.

"His future? Well, I'll let him do anything in a career which is legitimate, but I don't think he should be a cop in New York City," he said.

And that, sadly, is the advice many parents are giving their kids today.

You pull a gun in the course of your duty as a cop and you invite a legal plague.

You keep it holstered?

Remember yesterday's story in The Post of Detective Robert Parker's last words to 911: "I'm shot. I'm a police officer . . . Come quick. Two of us have been shot now."

Parker and partner Officer Patrick Rafferty were shot dead by a street rat.

They didn't draw their guns until a criminal's bullets ripped out their lifeblood.

A very good law

I was critical of NY democrats not being tough on sexual predators, so I must praise Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) for proposing this very tough law.

Sex monsters who target kids — like the one busted for allegedly raping a 13-year- old last week in Queens — would face harsher penalties under a bill to be unveiled today by a city assemblyman, The Post has learned.

Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) is proposing that anyone convicted of raping, sodomizing or sexually abusing a child under 12 face a minimum of 25 years to life in prison.

The bill also would require that convicted pedophiles wear electronic monitoring devices for life should they ever be freed.

Under current law, he said, the rape of a child could bring as little as five years in prison.

The bill was sparked by the brutal knife-point rape last week of a 13-year-old in Woodside as she walked home from school and an August assault in which a 9-year-old was nearly raped in Astoria Park in daylight, he said.

"Enough is enough," said Gianaris, who is eyeing a run for state attorney general. "We've got to do something about keeping these people off the streets. The existing penalties are ridiculously low."

His bill would also apply to anyone over 21 who has sex with a child under 14 years old, whether the minor consents or not.

A very nice story

THis is sunday, so I thought I would try to do at least one good news story. This is a great example of human kindness.

Susan and John Macklefresh are still adjusting to their daughter's new world, where 11-year-old Joanna can play outside, go to school, visit a friend or stay overnight at grandma's without her parents or a nurse tagging along.

"We're not checking on her every 15 minutes to make sure everything is all right," said John Macklefresh. "Maybe every 16," his wife said with a laugh.

It's a habit born of years of medical crises that began when Joanna was born prematurely with a large benign tumor that distorted her face and affected her neck, mouth and lymph nodes, making it difficult for her to breathe or swallow.

Five surgeries over the last two years - including the August removal of the tracheal tube Joanna had needed for breathing since she was an infant - have now turned her life around.

Everything changed after a chance encounter two years ago between Joanna and Morris Esformes, a Chicago rabbi who owns the DeLand nursing home where Susan Macklefresh works as a licensed practical nurse.

Esformes spotted Joanna, who was visiting her mother at work.

"I took one look at this kid and my heart broke," he said in a telephone interview from Chicago.

Esformes learned from Joanna's mother that multiple surgeries and chemotherapy had failed to shrink her tumor significantly and central Florida doctors were giving her parents little hope for improvement.

"Everybody wrote her off; there was no chance she would look like a normal kid," Esformes said.

Saying he's "ferocious when it comes to kids," Esformes wasn't ready to settle for that outcome.

He insisted the Macklefreshes gather Joanna's medical records and arranged for Dr. McKay McKinnon, a world-renowned plastic surgeon and personal friend at the University of Chicago Hospital, to review her case.

McKinnon "told me by the time Joanna is 18, she can run for Miss Florida," Esformes recalled.

Telling the Macklefreshes he would pay for anything not covered under their health insurance, Esformes brought the family to Chicago in February 2004 for their first meeting with McKinnon.

"We never asked anybody for anything. It was hard," Susan Macklefresh said of Esformes' offer. "He really didn't give us an option. He said 'I'm not doing this because I have to. It's a gift and I'm doing it for (Joanna).'"

Recognition

Those lovely Paleswinians

Those kooky displaced Arabs, hiding a grenade under a baby.

Five wanted terror suspects have been arrested in overnight searches conducted by the IDF in a village north of Nablus in the early hours of Saturday.

In a house where the suspects were hiding 10 Kg (about 22 pounds) of explosives were found. An extensive search of the house revealed that the wife of one of the suspects had hidden a hand-grenade under the toddler she was holding in her arms.

The army confirmed that the suspects’ apprehension almost certainly deterred a deadly attack against Israeli soldiers and civilians.

The details of the operation were described in a briefing to Ynet by Lieutenant General Arik Khen: “A brigade was sent on an operation to arrest five wanted Palestinians affiliated with Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, following reports that they possess ammunitions. During our searches we found a suite case loaded with 10 Kg of explosives which was hidden in a wardrobe in the house of one of the suspects.”

General Khen described how the suspect’s wife suspiciously carried a baby, which prompted soldiers to search her. “We felt something wasn’t right. We demanded to search the baby and we found she was carrying a grenade that she attempted to hide under the baby,” he said.

“I can firmly confirm that an attack against soldiers and civilians has been thwarted. We are speaking about a large quantity of explosives found in three-storey building which was badly damaged when police sappers detonated the suitcase,” Khen said.

UFCW's war against Walmart...and consumers

The usual socialists are gathering in New York to keep Walmart out of the Big Apple.

The war on Wal-Mart in New York City will heat up next month when a new, union-backed, anti-Wal-Mart documentary, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," gets its world premiere in Union Square.

On hand will be Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo — and all the usual whining about how Wal-Mart's low prices are unfair to its competitors and how the company doesn't pay union-level health-care benefits to its workers.

Same old, same old.

Judging by the trailer, filmmaker Robert Greenwald (who made the documentary "Outfoxed," which took aim at Fox News, a corporate cousin of The Post) seems to have assembled little more than a rehashing of all the typical, tired complaints against Wal-Mart.

What's far more interesting than the movie itself is the cast of characters promoting it.

With "Outfoxed," Greenwald got a good portion of his funding and promotion from MoveOn.org. This time around, he's working hand-in-hand with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW).

A UFCW affiliated group, Wal-Mart Watch, is sponsoring the Nov. 1 screening here, which benefits Wal-Mart Free NYC, another union front group.

Why is a grocery-workers' union so interested in Wal-Mart?

Because it wants to control where New Yorkers are allowed to shop.

All across the country, Wal-Mart has been beating the pants off bloated, unionized grocery stores. It has gobbled up a fifth of the national grocery market by offering . . . you guessed it: lower prices.

To unions, which need to keep prices artificially high to support non-competitive wage and benefit packages, Wal-Mart has become Enemy No. 1.

And, with help from union-puppet city councilmen, the UFCW has been able to keep Wal-Mart out of New York City.

Leaving average New Yorkers to pay through their noses at needlessly pricey stores like Pathmark, D'Agostino and Key Food.

The City Council even passed a bill requiring every grocery store in the city to pay union-level health-care benefits — a measure meant as a "Keep Out" sign to Wal-Mart, but which also threatens to wreck smaller, non-unionized grocers throughout the city.

That bill, the Health Security Act, is likely to be overturned by a challenge from the Bloomberg administration, since it appears on its face to violate federal law.

In the meantime, however, the only New Yorkers who have access to Wal-Mart's low prices are those who can drive out to the suburbs. And people who might want to apply to work at Wal-Mart are out of luck, as well.

The unions have a financial interest in attacking Wal-Mart. And elitists like Franken and Garofalo could care less about average New Yorkers who just want some cheap cereal — not a crusade for "social justice."

Working-class New Yorkers, all the while, will continue to be ignored unless they let their representatives know: Stiffing consumers to give unions high prices is unacceptable. Always.

More reasons to jettison Miers

Harriet Miers, affirmative action supporter.

As president of the State Bar of Texas, Harriet Miers wrote that "our legal community must reflect our population as a whole," and under her leadership the organization embraced racial and gender set-asides and set numerical targets to achieve that goal.

The Supreme Court nominee's words and actions from the early 1990s, when she held key leadership positions as president-elect and president of the state bar, provide the first window into her personal views on affirmative action, an area in which the Supreme Court is closely divided and where Miers could tip the court's balance.

Her tenure at the bar association also could provide new fodder for conservatives opposed to her nomination, as President Bush seeks to quell a rebellion on the right over his selection of Miers.

To some conservatives, the types of policies pursued by the Texas bar association amount to reverse discrimination. One of the chief complaints on the right against Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales was that he clashed with conservatives who wanted to take a harder line against affirmative action.

Miers, the first woman president of the Texas Bar, vowed in her first interview with the Texas Law Journal as president to "be inclusive of women and minorities."

Pushed for numeric diversity targets
During her tenure, she championed the cause of increasing the number of female and minority lawyers in the bar's own leadership ranks and in law firms across the state, writing that "we are strongest capitalizing on the benefits of our diversity."

Miers was a believer in mentoring programs, but during her tenure she and the board went further, passing a resolution urging Texas law firms to set a goal of hiring one qualified minority lawyer for every 10 new associates. The board also reiterated support for a policy of setting aside a specific number of seats on the bar's board of directors for women and minorities.

"Those are quotas," said Roger Clegg, the general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative group opposed to affirmative action. The fact that Miers "did not create the quota systems but only perpetuated and endorsed it doesn't make it less disturbing," he said.

The person who was the primary mover behind the policy that set hiring goals for law firms was Gonzales, who at the time served on the state bar board with Miers. Back then, minorities made up fewer than 5 percent of the associates at the state's 18 largest law firms, according to board records.

The resolution called on firms to increase the number of minority lawyers by setting a goal that 10 percent of all newly hired associates over the next five years be minorities, provided that they met the firm's hiring standards.

dems on the wrong side of a debate...again

In the debate between sex offenders and the innocent, you have to look in the mirror when you are supporting the sex offenders...or be a democrat.

Westchester DA Jeanine Pirro, who has the uphill-all-the-way task of trying to unseat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, finds herself under ferocious attack, not just from the Clinton camp but also from seemingly every Democratic official in New York.

At issue are her remarks this week to the Chemung County Republicans in Elmira, where she ripped into Democratic leaders for their continued opposition to a bill to let the state confine violent sexual predators in mental hospitals after they serve their criminal sentences.

"That's a difference between Democrats and Republicans," said Pirro. "We don't want them next door molesting children and murdering women."

Not surprisingly, Democrats are shrieking hysterically over what Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson — himself a past master at rhetorical overkill — labeled "an affront to common decency and an outrageous insult to . . . law-abiding Democrats."

They're demanding an apology.

Pirro says no.

Good for her — because, however inartfully she phrased it, she's right on the merits.

As The Post first reported, Gov. Pataki has authorized the Office of Mental Health and the Department of Correctional Services to use existing civil-confinement laws to detain violent sex offenders beyond their original sentences.

Unfortunately, those laws weren't written to apply to sexual predators, which means that Pataki's move will face a strong legal challenge — one the state could well lose.

There wouldn't be a problem, however, if the Legislature passed a law — like those enacted by 16 states and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — explicitly covering sexual offenders.

Since 1998, Pataki has pressed the Legislature to do just that. Six times, the GOP-controlled Senate has done so. But each time, the bill has died in the Democratic-controlled Assembly — because Speaker Sheldon Silver has refused to let it come to a vote.

We don't doubt that many Democrats would vote for such a bill — but they haven't taken the trouble to insist that Silver put aside his personal opposition and let them do so.

As for Hillary Clinton, her office says she favors a civil-confinement law.

Good — now let her use her position as the state's most prominent Democrat to send Sheldon Silver the message that the rest of her party won't: Blocking this bill protects sexual predators.

Until that happens, Jeanine Pirro is fully justified in raising the issue of where the two parties and their leaders stand when it comes to protecting the public from violent sexual offenders.

"Excuse me sir, there's a body in your windshield"

Gotta love that the right to drive of a 93 year old man with dementia is more important than the rights of pedestrians to not get mowed down.

A 93-year-old driver apparently suffering from dementia fatally struck a pedestrian, then continued driving through a toll booth with the man's body on his windshield, police said.

Ralph Parker of Pinellas Park (search) drove for 3 miles Wednesday night after striking the 52-year-old pedestrian with his gold 2002 Chevrolet Malibu, severing the man's right leg, police said.

A toll taker on the Sunshine Skyway saw the body stuck through Parker's windshield and notified police, Traffic Homicide Investigator Michael Jockers said.

Authorities did not identify the pedestrian.

Parker was hospitalized overnight with minor scrapes, and was expected to be taken to an elder care facility, Jockers said.

Charges were not likely to be filed, because Parker did not appear to know what had happened, where he was nor the correct date, said Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant in the Pinellas-Pasco County State Attorney's Office.

"He may have somewhere in his mind have realized it was a crash, but immediately forgot about it," Jockers said.

Police took Parker's license, which he renewed in 2003.

"That was the one thing he had, to get in his car and just drive for the sheer enjoyment of driving," Jockers said. Parker lived alone after his wife died in 1998, according to authorities.

A spokesman for the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said the agency would conduct its own inquiry into whether Parker, who otherwise had a clean driving record, should have had a license.

Seniors age 80 or older must pass only a vision test when renewing a Florida driver's license.

The TRUTH about the Taliban body "cremations"

Even that reliably liberal magazine Time portrays the burning of the bodies as far from sinister.

There simply wasn't enough room on the rocky hilltop above Gonbaz village in southern Afghanistan for the U.S. platoon and the corpses of the two Taliban fighters. The Taliban men had been killed in a firefight 24 hours earlier, and in the 90 degree heat, their bodies had become an unbearable presence, soldiers who were present have told TIME. Nor was the U.S. Army unit about to leave — the hilltop commanded a strategic view of the village below where other Taliban were suspected to be hiding.

Earlier, Lt. Eric Nelson, the leader of B Company, I-508 platoon leader had sent word down to Gonbaz asking the villagers to pick up the bodies and bury them according to Muslim ritual. But the villagers refused — probably because the dead fighters weren't locals but Pakistanis, surmised one U.S. army officer.

It was then that Lt. Nelson took the decision that could jeopardize his service career. "We decided to burn the bodies," one soldier recounts, "because they were bloated and they stank." News of this cremation may have remained on these scorching hills of southern Afghanistan, had the gruesome act not been recorded on film by an Australian photojournalist, Stephen Dupont. Instead, when the footage aired on Australian TV on Wednesday, it unleashed world outrage. A Pentagon spokesman described the incident as "repugnant" and said that the army was launching a criminal investigation into the alleged desecration of the corpses, which is in violation of the Geneva Convention on human rights.

Fueling the furor was the fact that the TV report showed that after the bodies were torched, a U.S. Psychological-Operations team descended on Gonbaz in Humvees with their loudspeakers booming: "Taliban, you are cowardly dogs. You are too scared to come down and retrieve the bodies. This just proves you are the lady-boys we always believed you to be."

Muslims traditionally bury their dead, and as one Kabul cleric Mohammed Omar told newsmen, "The burning of these bodies is an offense against Muslims every where. Bodies are burned only in Hell." But as one U.S. officer in Kandahar pointed out, the Taliban and al Qaeda never show any qualms about defiling the bodies of dead Afghan or American soldiers.

Bury them in pigskin, if you ask me.

Animal Rights

Great new shirt, click on the image for ordering info

Pennsylvania Council of Churches targeting sin

Adultery? Stealing? Lying? Oh come one, this is the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Churches That Nobody Goes To Anymore^TM. The big sin they targeting is.....SMOKING!. Guess it's ok to sleep with your neighbor's wife, just don't light a Lucky afterwards.

Doctors have warned Americans for decades that smoking is harmful to your health, but the faith community has entered the war against tobacco for a different reason: Smoking is harmful to others.

A group of church leaders yesterday called on the Legislature to pass a law banning smoking in indoor public places and workplaces to protect the rights of non-smokers.

"Freedom for workers and members of the public to breathe clean and healthy air should take precedence over the so-called freedom of others to smoke when those who choose not to have little or no choice to breathe air poisoned by second-hand smoke," said Sandy Strauss, policy director of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, at a Capitol Rotunda press event.

Two bills have been introduced in the House and Senate that would have Pennsylvania join the ranks of nine other states that ban smoking in most public areas, including restaurants, bingo halls, bowling alleys, social clubs and bars.

The measures have drawn opposition from the state's restaurants and taverns, among others.

James Christman, a Hazleton bar owner and vice president of the Pennsylvania Tavern Association, told a Senate panel last month these bills would have a negative effect on the hospitality industry. "It takes away the consumer's and the tavern owner's freedom of choice," he said.

He also cited a study that showed that in New York, the smoking ban resulted in a loss of 2,650 jobs, $50 million in worker earnings and $71.5 million in gross revenue.

Scranton bowling proprietor Jack Minelli testified that forcing bowlers to go outside for a smoke would result in slower play, increased slip-and-fall liability exposure and damage to bowling lanes, since bowling shoes should not be worn outside.

But the church leaders noted only 25 percent of Pennsylvanians choose to smoke. Other countries with higher rates of smoking have taken action to protect non-smokers from exposure to second-hand smoke.

And tobacco-related illnesses are the leading cause of preventable deaths in Pennsylvania, killing over 19,800 annually.

"In light of all these factors, it's clearly time for our General Assembly to act and create a smoke-free environment in all public places," Strauss said.

In her appeal to the Legislature, Kathleen Daugherty of the Lutheran Office on Public Policy shared a lesson she said her father taught her.

"Your freedom ends where somebody else's nose begins," she said. "We are very concerned about the self-interest of people who feel that they have the right to smoke. The common good is negatively affected by that. Those of us in the faith community ... believe the common good needs to reign."

She and representatives of the United Methodist Church, United Church of Christ and other interfaith groups encouraged congregations to add their names to the list of churches that have signed on to the Pennsylvania Faith United Against Tobacco resolution to ban smoking in public places.

It is part of a campaign spearheaded by the Pennsylvania Alliance to Control Tobacco.

I actually support the smoking restrictions; I like being able to go out to restaurants and bowling alleys here in FL and not smell like an ashtray. I just think the churches have something better to do.

The good news, they are equally stupid!

THis absurd article in the Detroit New Fallujah Free Press talks of how Michiganistan black children are falling further behind, but hey, all is well because Whitey ain't doing too good either.

Michigan African-American fourth- and eighth-graders scored much worse in reading and math than African-American students in the United States as a whole, according to national test results released Wednesday.

The 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress results show significant improvement in math. But the test results show little improvement in reading scores overall since 1992.

The gap between Michigan African-American students' progress and progress nationally has grown during the last decade.

"I think it has to do with is the importance of high expectations and standards," said Joan Ferrini-Mundy, associate dean for science and mathematics education at MSU. "Particularly for students who are being underserved, particularly black students and urban students." The good news is that the gap between black and white students' scores in math and reading within Michigan has decreased. And federal law does provide options. Students in low performing schools can qualify for free tutoring or even free transportation to other schools.

So while it's bad that black children in Michiganistan can't read or write, it's ok because white students aren't doing too well either. Ah, liberalism.

Reigning in the drunken sailors in Congress

Fiscal restraint is becoming hip again.

It's only taken a decade or so, but suddenly there's momentum in Congress for spending restraint. We'll be watching the fine print, but you can tell Republicans are worried about complaints from conservative voters because for a change they're trying to act, well, like Republicans.

In a first good sign, House leaders are rewriting their Fiscal 2006 budget resolution to increase the amount of "savings" to as much as $50 billion over five years. This is far from onerous, but it is better than the $35 billion Congress passed the first time around.

In another miracle, they are also moving to "deauthorize" 98 federal programs that long ago outlived their usefulness. These include such pork-barrel classics as the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program. A deauthorization doesn't cut any spending, but it does reduce the likelihood that money will be spent on these fiscal dodos in the future. Political symbolism has its uses.

By far the most promising idea is for a spending cut of as much as 3% on every discretionary federal agency, program and department. The case for across-the-board cuts is especially persuasive given the boom times that federal agencies have enjoyed in recent years. As the nearby chart shows, spending for federal education programs is up 99% since 2001; international affairs and foreign aid is up 94%; community development 71%; housing programs 86%, and so on. The inflation rate over the same period was 12.5%.

This "cut," by the way, would only reduce spending from the "baseline" that already includes annual increases for inflation for 2006. A 3% sequester, as it's known in Beltway lingo, would save $36 billion in 2006. And because baseline spending levels would be reduced going ahead, the savings would magnify over time--to as much as $500 billion over 10 years. This is without even touching the $1.4 trillion to be spent on Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements. (The programs that would be cut are those that Congress agrees to fund every year; entitlements go up automatically unless Congress rewrites the law.)

Democrats are deploring an across-the-board cut as a "mindless buzz saw" that fails to set priorities and hurts the poor. And it would be nice if Congress actually debated priorities. But since the late 1990s, spending has gone up on nearly everything every year. Given Hurricane Katrina and the war on terror, an across-the-board cut is a blunt political instrument whose time has returned.

As for the poor, income security programs have expanded by $59.3 billion in four years, an increase of 39%. The General Accountability Office has also found that the rate of fraud in programs like Medicaid and food stamps is in the billions of dollars. One in 10 food stamps is "improperly issued or illegally trafficked," says the GAO.

Government is fully capable of rooting out waste if it is forced to. In 1987, when the Gramm Rudman deficit-reduction law was enforced, President Reagan ordered a 4.3% sequester of all domestic and defense spending. A funny thing happened: Agencies found ways to save money. Social Security checks got sent out; the air traffic control system still operated; and the Washington Monument wasn't closed down.

There was a time, in 1995 and 1996, when the freshly minted Republican majority really did try to restrain spending and kill unnecessary programs. But over the years, the GOP has lost its way, albeit with the help of a White House willing to let the Members run wild. If they want to regain their fiscal conservative credentials, they'll sign up for the 3% across-the-board sequester.

A liberal seeing the light on abortion

Richard Cohen of the WaPost softens on abortion.

A very long time ago, I had a friend who had a girlfriend who became pregnant and did not want the child. By then my friend had disappeared and the young woman was alone -- she was in fact from Germany -- and asked me to arrange an abortion for her. With little thought, I did so. She went home to Germany and I never saw her again.

I would do things a bit differently now. I would give the matter much more thought. I no longer see abortion as directly related to sexual freedom or feminism, and I no longer see it strictly as a matter of personal privacy, either. It entails questions about life -- maybe more so at the end of the process than at the beginning, but life nonetheless.

This is not a fashionable view in some circles, but it is one that usually gets grudging acceptance when I mention it. I know of no one who has flipped on the abortion issue, but I do know of plenty of people who no longer think of it as a minor procedure that only prudes and right-wingers oppose. The antiabortion movement has made headway.

That shift in sentiment is not apparent in polls because they do not measure doubt, only position: for or against. But between one and the other, black or white, is a vast area of gray where up or down, yes or no, fades to questions about circumstance: Why, what month, etc.? Whatever the case, the very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision -- the one that grounds abortion rights in the Constitution -- strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous. Whatever abortion may be, it cannot simply be a matter of privacy.

That right of privacy, first enunciated in 1965 in Griswold v. Connecticut, once made sense. It overturned a state law forbidding the use of contraceptives by married couples. The average person could easily understand that a right of privacy was at issue here. If the government telling you what you can and cannot do in your own bedroom is not about privacy, then what is? The Connecticut law had to go. If the state legislature wasn't going to take it off the books, then the court had to.

Abortion is a different matter. It entails so much more than mere birth control -- issues that have roiled the country ever since the Roe decision was handed down in 1973 -- and so much more than mere privacy. As a layman, it's hard for me to raise profound constitutional objections to the decision. But it is not hard to say it confounds our common-sense understanding of what privacy is.

If a Supreme Court ruling is going to affect so many people then it ought to rest on perfectly clear logic and up-to-date science. Roe , with its reliance on trimesters and viability, has a musty feel to it, and its argument about privacy raises more questions than it answers. For instance, if the right to an abortion is a matter of privacy then why, asked Princeton professor Robert P. George in the New York Times, is recreational drug use not? You may think you ought to have the right to get high any way you want, but it's hard to find that right in the Constitution. George asks the same question about prostitution. Legalize it, if you want -- two consenting adults, after all -- but keep Jefferson, Madison and the rest of the boys out of it.

Conservatives -- and some liberals -- have long argued that the right to an abortion ought to be regulated by states. They have a point. My guess is that the more populous states would legalize it, the smaller ones would not, and most women would be protected. The prospect of some women traveling long distances to secure an abortion does not cheer me -- I'm pro-choice, I repeat -- but it would relieve us all from having to defend a Supreme Court decision whose reasoning has not held up. It seems more fiat than argument.

For liberals, the trick is to untether abortion rights from Roe . The former can stand even if the latter falls. The difficulty of doing this is obvious. Roe has become so encrusted with precedent that not even the White House will say how Harriet Miers would vote on it, even though she is rigorously antiabortion and politically conservative. Still, a bad decision is a bad decision. If the best we can say for it is that the end justifies the means, then we have not only lost the argument -- but a bit of our soul as well.

idiocy in the publik skoolz

I blogged a few weeks ago about a kid not being allowed to test his blood sugar in school when he needed to test it. As a fellow diabetic, I am sensitive to these things. Now, comes this story about kids with insulin pumps facing trouble from idiotic teachers that think they are pagers or cell phones.

A crackdown on using cellular phones and pagers during the school day has gotten Gainesville High School sophomore Olivia Drago into plenty of trouble since the school year started.

School staff have pointed to the 16-year-old's pager and asked her to hand it over at least once a week, she says. The problem is, it's not a pager. It's an $8,000 insulin pump that stabilizes her blood sugar. Without it, her Type 1 diabetes could dangerously drop or heighten her sugar levels, causing confusion, dehydration, and - in severe cases - it could even put her into a coma.

With a small view screen, a few buttons and a barely visible insulin pack connected to a wire, Olivia's pump is almost identical to a pager.

"People are always coming up, asking me why it's visible, why I have it on. A student even thought I was under house arrest," Olivia says. "I did a project on insulin diabetes for a health science class, and the next day my teacher came up to me and asked why my cell phone was out."

With similar bans on electronic devices in school districts nationwide, the mix-up between pagers and insulin pumps is becoming a problem for students with diabetes in other districts, too.

In Lake County earlier this month, the crackdown became dangerous for an East Ridge High School student whose substitute teacher ripped an insulin pump from his body, thinking it was a beeping cellular phone. The beeping actually was an alert that the student's sugar levels were low, and the teacher was fired within days of the incident.

In another instance in 2002, a student in a Boca Raton suburb had to hand her pump over to Eagles Landing Middle School's assistant principal, who thought it was a pager. The middle-schooler's parents later sued and won $10,000 from the assistant principal. Their settlement also called for better diabetes training for the school district's staff.

Olivia's father, Steve Drago, was already upset about the questioning when he heard about the Lake County incident. Then Olivia came home and told him an administrator had tapped on her pump with a Walkie Talkie, thinking it was a pager, and the father began making phone calls. He complained to school principal Wiley Dixon and e-mailed each member of the School Board.

In response, Dixon sent a message to his staff.

"I told them to be very sensitive to the fact that some students carry insulin pumps that look like cell phones," he said.

In addition, he's bringing a pump to the next faculty meeting so staff members can see the difference. The Alachua County school district's public information officer, Jackie Johnson, said a similar demonstration is planned for the next district-wide principals' meeting.

But Dixon said educating staff still won't prevent some mix-ups, since the devices look so similar to phones and pagers.

"The dilemma teachers are caught in is, of course, we have a ban on cell phones being visible on campus, and we ask teachers to help us enforce that. But the parents don't want their kids (with diabetes) put on the spot. They're self-conscious already, and they don't want it pointed out," he said. "It's put the teachers and us in a tough situation."

Still, Steve Drago said Dixon's efforts are a "wonderful" improvement.

"No matter what they do, there will still be some mistakes, but if they can just train people to show a little sensitivity, that's a 100 percent win," he said.

Religion of Peace Update: Turkish honor killings

40% of Turks think honor killing is just peachy keen.

A survey by a university in Turkey has shown almost 40% support for the practice of "honour killing".

The results come days after a court in Istanbul gave a life sentence for the murder of a girl by her brothers for giving birth to a child out of wedlock.

Turkish law, which used to be lenient on "honour crimes", was heavily revised as part of the country's preparation for EU accession proceedings.

Turkey has started talks with the EU but is not expected to join for years.

The survey was conducted in the conservative south-eastern city of Diyarbakir.

It questioned 430 people, most of them men. When asked the appropriate punishment for a woman who has committed adultery, 37% replied she should be killed.

Twenty-five percent said that she deserved divorce, and 21% that her nose or ears should be cut off.

The survey group was small but the results are a reminder that "honour killing" - a practice where women are murdered for allegedly bringing shame on their family - still has significant support in parts of Turkey.

Not going to tolerate the "bacchanalian aspects of the prom"

A Catholic high school in Long Island cancels the prom, here is a copy of the letter from the principal: enough is enough. The letter is long, here is the final paragraph:

We have come to the conclusion that it (the prom) has a life of its own which is no longer commensurate with the goals of Christian education. And so we dropped sponsoring it. We eliminated it from our roster of activities (as we did with hockey). Senior drinking parties will continue; three day bashes will continue in the Hamptons; parents will continue to organize all these activities; a great deal of money will be spent. The only difference is that Kellenberg Memorial High School will not be part of that scene. That’s all!

Squirrels on Crack!

This is a strange story; the visual is hilarious.

It's every city dweller's worst fear: rodents on crack.

Squirrels in Brixton, South London, have been observed behaving bizarrely — and authorities there believe it may be because they're hooked on crack cocaine hidden by addicts, according to the London Sun.

A recent crackdown by cops on dealers and addicts is thought to have inspired users to start hiding their stashes in the ground — which the squirrels are digging up.

"My neighbor said dealers had used my garden to hide crack," one Brixton resident told the Sun.

"Just an hour earlier I'd seen a squirrel digging in the flower-beds," the resident told the paper. "It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot, but it kept on desperately digging. It seems a strange thing to say, but it seemed to know what it was looking for."

So-called "crack squirrels" are already acknowledged as a problem in American cities such as Washington, D.C., and New York.

Slamming the door in conservatives' faces

Dennis Coyle at NRO on Bush slamming the door in our faces.

"The horror, the horror," seems to sum up the reaction of many conservatives to the nomination of Harriet Miers to serve on the Supreme Court. One can almost hear the ominous organ of Doors's keyboardist Ray Manzarek in the background, as Jim Morrison intones, "This is the end." And it is an end, of sorts — the end of conservative hopes that a Republican president known for bold strokes would put forward a forceful intellect who would help shift the drifting Constitution back toward its moorings. Unlike Colonel Kurtz, conservatives have been traumatized not by an "Apocalypse Now," but by a slow destruction of constitutional law.

The "Constitution in exile" better be on a pleasant island paradise, because it will have a long stay. For many conservatives the Supreme Court was the issue, the reason for supporting Bush over the years despite misgivings on this issue or that. Decades ago Country Joe MacDonald wailed with absurdist resignation, “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?” — a question many conservatives are asking themselves today.

The Miers nomination may prove to be a wake-up call so energizing the Republican base that they rise in revolt, scuttling the nomination and demanding that Bush fulfill his promise to name a Scalia or a Thomas. That seemed unlikely at first, but the uprising seems to be gaining surprising momentum. Despite the grumblings, however, the Republican inclination to support the president is strong, and Democrats would be foolish to look a gift horse in the mouth. President Bush has handed liberal democrats a present, although they don't seem effusive in their appreciation. Miers may deliver the conservative votes that Bush promises, but there is no sign that she has the intellectual depth or sophisticated understanding of the Constitution to seriously challenge the liberal legal mainstream. For that, liberals should be breathing an immense sigh of relief. And while conservatives are appalled, Miers apparently enjoys the support of none other than Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Given Reid's sophisticated evaluations of judicial and presidential competence, what more recommendation could one need?

The nomination of Harriet Miers is another chapter in the lost promise of the Reagan revolution. From the heady days of the 1980s, there have been so many missteps, perhaps including the selection of the current president's father as the custodian of the Reagan revolution. The judicial legacy of the Bushes has been raised hopes and dashed expectations: The father left us Thomas, but also Souter; the son brings Roberts, but now Miers. This may be Bush's last opportunity to make an imprint on the Supreme Court, unless health forces Justice Stevens off the bench. The next resignation may well be that of Justice Scalia, fleeing in frustration.

The Republican hold on the presidency is razor thin, control of the Senate uncertain. There could well come a day, possibly sooner rather than later, when a Democratic president places a nominee before a Democratic Senate, and there will be little talk of keeping a balance on the Court. The Court will resume its leftward march, occasionally staggering back to the right. Conservatives slowed, but did not reverse, this trend.

The moment has passed; unless this nomination is derailed by the oddest of bedfellows, it would seem that this is, as Jim Morrison intoned, the end.

Bush is no conservative

A man with conservative bona fides, Robert Bork, comes out swinging against Bush.

With a single stroke--the nomination of Harriet Miers--the president has damaged the prospects for reform of a left-leaning and imperialistic Supreme Court, taken the heart out of a rising generation of constitutional scholars, and widened the fissures within the conservative movement. That's not a bad day's work--for liberals.

By passing over the many clearly qualified persons, male and female, to pick a stealth candidate, George W. Bush has sent a message to aspiring young originalists that it is better not to say anything remotely controversial, a sort of "Don't ask, don't tell" admonition to would-be judges. It is a blow in particular to the Federalist Society, most of whose members endorse originalism. The society, unlike the ACLU, takes no public positions, engages in no litigation, and includes people of differing views in its programs. It performs the invaluable function of making law students, in the heavily left-leaning schools, aware that there are respectable perspectives on law other than liberal activism. Yet the society has been defamed in McCarthyite fashion by liberals; and it appears to have been important to the White House that neither the new chief justice nor Ms. Miers had much to do with the Federalists.

Finally, this nomination has split the fragile conservative coalition on social issues into those appalled by the administration's cynicism and those still anxious, for a variety of reasons, to support or at least placate the president. Anger is growing between the two groups. The supporters should rethink. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aside, George W. Bush has not governed as a conservative (amnesty for illegal immigrants, reckless spending that will ultimately undo his tax cuts, signing a campaign finance bill even while maintaining its unconstitutionality). This George Bush, like his father, is showing himself to be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to conservative values. He appears embittered by conservative opposition to his nomination, which raises the possibility that if Ms. Miers is not confirmed, the next nominee will be even less acceptable to those asking for a restrained court. That, ironically, is the best argument for her confirmation. But it is not good enough.

It is said that at La Scala an exhausted tenor, after responding to repeated cries of "Encore," said he could not go on. A man rose in the audience to say, "You'll keep singing until you get it right." That man should be our model.

Random drug testing in high school?

I have a big libertarian streak in my conservative body, and find this story appalling.

Random drug testing of Cumberland Valley High School students can start immediately, following last night's school board approval of a lab services contract with Holy Spirit Hospital, Assistant Superintendent Mary Riley said.

The agreement means the high school can carry out a board policy approved in June to randomly test high school students who participate in athletics, extra- and co-curricular activities, and students who drive to school.

The agreement provides for the East Pennsboro Twp. hospital to collect urine samples at the high school each week from 10 students whose names are picked randomly by a hospital computer from a list of names provided by CV.

The day samples are drawn will rotate randomly from week to week.

Testing can detect amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cocaine, marijuana, methadone, methaqualone, opiates, PCP and propoxyphene. Three of the 10 students picked each week also will be tested for anabolic steroids. The agreement also allows for the testing of students who participate in a specific activity.

District officials believe the policy covers nearly 90 percent of the high school's 2,547 students.

Students and their parents were asked at the start of this school year to consent to random drug testing, or students cannot participate in activities.

Riley said "the vast majority" of students and parents have signed the consent form. High School Principal Steven Kirkpatrick agreed, but could not provide any numbers yesterday.

Before the board vote, several parents objected again to the policy. Patsy Horvath asked that the board withdraw the policy and "begin again" with more parental input.

"All of us in this room are protected by the Fourth Amendment. Shouldn't that apply to our children?" she asked.

I guess not.

Mutually beneficial

the ACLU: defending the indefensible

Courtesy of Stop The ACLU comes this story of the ACLU coming to the defense of a drug addict who was arrested for endangering her childfor using drugs while she was pregnant.

Authorities here put another mother in jail this week and charged her with endangering the life of her newborn child by using drugs while pregnant. It is the sixth such case brought by Talbot County prosecutors in the past three years.

Stephanie E. Robbins, 24, was arrested Tuesday at her home in the rural community of Wittman. She is charged with reckless endangerment and possession of drugs. Test results showed drugs in the bloodstream of Robbins' child, who was born at a Baltimore hospital, authorities said.

The baby is being cared for by the county's Department of Social Services, officials said.

Robbins, who is being held on $15,000 bail at the Talbot County Detention Center, declined to speak to a reporter yesterday, according to Capt. Horace Johnson, a spokesman at the jail.

Robbins' arrest comes two months after the American Civil Liberties Union challenged Talbot County State's Attorney Scott G. Patterson for prosecuting women who deliver babies found to have illegal drugs in their systems.

Such cases are not prosecuted anywhere else in Maryland, and only one state, South Carolina, tries similar cases, according to Maryland ACLU attorney David Rocah.

"This kind of case has been tried around the country and found to be illegal, improper and unconstitutional," Rocah said. "Talbot is the only place in Maryland where it is even an issue."

The ACLU says that because Maryland law does not define a fetus as a person, a mother shouldn't be prosecuted for conduct that could endanger her unborn child.

In August, the ACLU appealed to Maryland's second-highest court on behalf of another Talbot County woman, 30-year-old Kelly Lynn Cruz. She was convicted of reckless endangerment of her infant son, who had drugs in his system when he was born in January.

Cruz, who has been incarcerated since March, is serving a 2 1/2 years in state prison while awaiting her hearing before the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, which is scheduled for February, Rocah said.

Once again the ACLU finds itself on the wrong side of decency and morals.

A priest and a rabbi....

This is a very good story about the Piitsburgh diocese and local rabbis working to educate Catholic students about Judaism, and the sometimes ugly history between Catholicism and Judaism.

When the rabbi told the roomful of teenage Catholic boys that he'd never eaten a McDonald's cheeseburger because his religion forbids it, they stared at him in awe.

Two of the boys raised their hands when Rabbi Alvin Berkun asked how many of them thought Jews and Catholics had been friendly toward each other in the past 2,000 years.

"You guys are wrong," he told them.

The whole idea behind Rabbi Berkun's recent lecture at Central Catholic High School was to help ease the lingering effects of historical tensions between Catholics and Jews and to recognize the special duty the Catholic Church has to teach its young about the awful legacy of Jews being persecuted by Catholics.

Central Catholic students are being exposed to the complicated story of Judeo-Christian relations through a program called the Catholic-Jewish Education Enhancement Program, C-JEEP. Now in its fifth year locally, it is part of a nationwide effort by the two faiths to redefine their relationship to each other in positive terms.

The program was founded in 1993 by the American Jewish Committee, a New York-based organization which promotes mutual cooperation and respect among people of all faiths. It is carried out in cooperation with local archdioceses in cities across the nation, including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh school system, which has 12 high schools, is the only one in the country which has adopted the program in all of its high schools.

C-JEEP started here when Rabbi Berkun and Bishop Donald W. Wuerl joined to assign one rabbi to each Catholic high school to lecture several times a year in religion classes. Rabbi Berkun teaches freshmen and sophomores at Central Catholic about once a month.

"This is one of the most exciting things I've been a part of in my almost 40 years as a rabbi," the spiritual leader at Tree of Life Congregation in Squirrel Hill said.

Bishop Wuerl said the program was in Pittsburgh to stay.

"What I hope will happen with our efforts is to provide a perspective in which our young Catholic people will see the relationship they have with the wider community, and especially the Jewish community, because of our ancient historic religious roots," Bishop Wuerl said.

For many Catholic students, the C-JEEP program provides a first opportunity to talk to a Jewish person about his faith or come across someone from a totally different faith system.

"I learned a lot about Judaism," said Jon Coulter, a Central Catholic freshman. "I don't have as broad a view as I thought I did. I really didn't know they had their own religious culture."

Henry Pwono, a freshman, said the rabbi's visit to Central Catholic shattered many of the misinformed ideas he had about rabbis and Jewish people, starting with the way he thought rabbis dressed. Henry didn't expect Rabbi Berkun to wear a coat and tie, as he did, but some type of traditional costume.

"I learned how much the Jewish and Christian faiths have in common and the history they share," Henry said. "I didn't know they both originated from Abraham. I thought the rabbi would accept their own religion more than Christianity. I thought the rabbi would criticize Christianity."

Rabbi Berkun said he made no effort to convert the Catholic students. He wants to enhance their Christian faith by showing them the Jewish roots of Christianity. Jesus was a rabbi. And all the books of the Bible were written by Jewish people.

Rabbi Berkun went on sabbatical two years ago and briefly retired last year. Despite his world travels during his temporary retirement and sabbatical, he arranged his schedule so that he never missed a month of teaching at Central Catholic.

"I have waited my entire rabbinic life to be in a position to teach non-Jewish young people about the Jewish faith," he said.

The dialogue between the Catholic students and Jewish leaders is yielding mutual insights and greater sensitivity to the hurt and tragedy that certain Christian beliefs have caused the Jewish people.

When Rabbi Berkun asked students in the classes he lectured how many of them had ever heard of Jews being referred to as "Christ-killers," a few hands went up in each class.

To Bishop Wuerl, that speaks volumes about how far the two faiths have come in reconciliation.

"I think that is a tribute to and proof of the success of the efforts of the past 40 years because our young people today are simply being taught a positive perspective of their relationship with their Jewish brothers and sisters," Bishop Wuerl said. "The fact that they haven't heard of the animosity that used to exist says to me we have been successful in eradicating that antagonism."

This makes me nervous

China is asking Australia if it can mine its own uranium - in Australia.

CHINA has asked the Federal Government if it can conduct its own uranium exploration and mining operations in Australia.

Confidential diplomatic cables obtained by The Age show the Chinese told Australian officials of their interest in "uranium mining and exploration in Australia" at a February meeting in Beijing.

At the meeting, the deputy director-general of China's National Development and Reform Commission, Wang Jun, asked Australian officials, "Would Australia permit Chinese involvement?'

The director-general of the Australian Nuclear Safeguards Office, John Carlson, told Mr Wang there would be no restrictions at a federal level.

But Mr Carlson warned that Australia's state and territory governments — responsible for licensing mining and exploration — opposed further uranium mining and exploration.

"It was hoped political attitudes would change, but this was likely to take some time," Mr Carlson said.

In August, the Federal Government used its constitutional powers to assume control of mining rights in the Northern Territory, declaring it "open for business" for further uranium mining, subject to environmental and Aboriginal approvals.
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The move undermined NT Chief Minister Clare Martin's recent election promise of no new uranium mines.

More than 12 companies have licences to explore the Territory, which is estimated to have about $12 billion worth of uranium deposits.

Another cable, released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade under freedom-of-information laws, shows that Chinese officials asked to expand the scope of the agreement to include uranium exploration, as well as co-operation between the two countries on nuclear science and technology.

"They want to include not only uranium supply, but co-operation in nuclear science and technology, nuclear safety and uranium exploration. (China) would like to explore for uranium in Australia …" the cable said.

Australia, which has about 40 per cent of the world's uranium reserves, has three uranium mines in operation — two in South Australia and one in the Northern Territory.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced in August that Australia had started negotiating a safeguards agreement with China regarding uranium exports.

The prospect of China conducting its own mining and exploration operations has not been raised publicly.

In a statement to The Age, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said: "Owning or part-owning an Australian uranium mining company — or making a new Chinese-controlled investment in uranium in Australia — is not a short cut to buying uranium and does not circumvent in any way our export controls or safeguards."

The department said Australia had sent agreement documentation to China and was awaiting a response.

Nuclear proliferation expert Richard Broinowski, a former Australian ambassador to South Korea, said allowing China to conduct its own uranium operations in Australia was concerning. It would make it more difficult to ensure the material was used only for civil power generation. "I'm very worried about this. I think the Australians are seeing dollar signs all over the place," Professor Broinowski told The Age.

Although China might use Australian uranium for power generation, it could then be free to use its own uranium resources for military purposes, he said.

Religion of Peace^TM Update #1

Terrorists displaced Arabs pull a drive by in Israel, killing 2.

Two Israelis were killed and four were wounded in a shooting attack at the hitchhiking station near the Gush Etzion Juction in Judea.

Zaka reported that all of the victims were evacuated by ambulance to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

One victim was wounded seriously, one moderately, and one lightly wounded victim.

Judea and Samaria Police reported that a passing car opened fire at the busy junction. Two vehicles were reportedly hit by the fire.

The terrorists have yet to be apprehended, and it is suspected that they fled to Palestinian-controlled area in nearby Bethlehem.

MDA and Zaka teams were dispatched to the location.

The tunnel road linking Jerusalem and Gush Etzion was closed to traffic following the attack.

Religion of Peace^TM Update #2

The practitioners of the ROPMA use the holy month of Ramadan to slit the throat of a 76 year old Buddhist Monk.

Suspected Muslim militants killed a Buddhist monk and two teenage boys and set fire to a temple in Thailand's restive south, police said on Sunday, in separatist violence that has claimed more than 900 lives.

The militants who attacked the Buddhist temple in the southern Pattani province late on Saturday had slit the 76-year-old monk's throat, said a police report obtained by Reuters.

The charred bodies of the two teenagers were found in the temple, said the report which did not give details.

A Buddhist farmer was beheaded on Friday, the second decapitation since the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began and 12th in 21 months of unrestislamofascist expansion in the region.

Although the government has sent 30,000 soldiers and police to the region, where 80 percent of people are Muslim, ethnic Malays, the insurgency appears to be growing.

Booby traps, decoy attacks and ambushes of army and police convoys have become daily occurrences in the densely wooded region, suggesting the anti-Bangkok guerrillas are becoming more sophisticated and inventive.

Religion of Peace^TM update #3

Courtesy of the Emperor comes this scumbag defense attorney in Australia saying his rapist client "was a cultural time bomb".

A violent gang rapist should have been given a lesser sentence partly because he was a "cultural time bomb" whose attacks were inevitable, as he had emigrated from a country with traditional views of women, his barrister has argued.

MSK, who, with his three Pakistani brothers, raped several girls at their Ashfield family home over six months in 2002, was affected by "cultural conditioning … in the context of intoxification", Stephen Odgers, SC, told the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.

MSK, 26, MAK, 25 and MMK, 19, are appealing against the severity of their sentences after they were found guilty of nine counts of aggravated sexual assault in company - a crime carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment - against two girls, aged 16 and 17, in July 2002.

MSK and MMK were jailed for 22 years, with a non-parole period of 16½ years, and 13 years, respectively, and MAK for 16 years (12 years non-parole).

Court orders prevent them being named. They are yet to be sentenced for other rapes.
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Mr Odgers said "new evidence" showed MSK had a "mental disorder" at the time of the rapes and had stopped taking his medication - supplied by his father, a general practitioner.

He also said Justice Brian Sully had made a "clear error" in sentencing them to an extra six years on two counts, rather than one - referring to an act in which MMK withdrew his penis and took off the condom and then continued to rape one of the girls.

"It was the same victim, it occurred in the same location, there was no relevant difference in the nature of the act. The time gap between the offences was minimal," he said. Mr Odgers said a forensic psychologist, David Greenberg, had diagnosed MSK with "atypical compulsive obsessive disorder".

MSK said: "When I stopped taking medication, I never had any idea in my mind that I would be committing these problems. If anything happened, it would happen accidentally, but I was commanded to do these things."

After a special hearing, a judge concluded earlier this year that MSK was not mentally ill - the same conclusion reached by pre-sentence psychology reports in 2003.

Mr Odgers said the new evidence showed that he had a disease, which, combined with alcohol and the cultural conditioning of "a society with very traditional views of women", was "clearly a factor in the commissioning of these offences".

"The applicant was a cultural time bomb," Mr Odgers said. "It was almost inevitable that something like this would happen. His culpability is lessened because of that combination."

I get a little nervous when you start using "Muslim" and "time bomb" in the same story. As the Emperor might say: Rapist. Rope. Tree. Some assembly required.

A B+ nominee

Peter Robinson, a fellow at The Hoover Institution and former speechwriter for Reagan, has a well written critique that Miers isn't right for the job.

IN the nearly two weeks since President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, a lot of energy has been devoted to questioning the president's judgment — what could he have been thinking in offering her the job? Yet the real question is what about Miers' judgment — what could she have been thinking in accepting?

Miers' current job, after all, involves vetting the president's judicial nominees.

As she studies up for her hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, here are five questions she will need to address.

1) Consider Judges Priscilla Owen, Edith Clement and Janice Brown. Like you, each attended a law school outside the Ivy League. Where you got your degree from Southern Methodist University, they got theirs from Baylor, Tulane and the University of Virginia. Also like you, two of the three, Owen and Clement, devoted many years to private practice. Unlike you, however, all three have sat on the federal bench and written extensively on constitutional questions, demonstrating rigorous judicial philosophies.

Now consider what the president said in defending your nomination last week: "I picked the best person I could find."

What makes you better than Judges Owen, Clement and Brown? If you're not, why did you accept the nomination?

2) If the president thought so highly of you, why was your first job in the White House that of staff secretary, the paper-pusher-in-chief? Why didn't he name you White House Counsel from the get-go?

3) The administration has had five years in which to vet potential Supreme Court nominees. When was your name added to the list? If less than a month ago, why? Can you assure us that your nomination was given the same thorough deliberation as that of John Roberts?

4) Many professions require those who practice them to master certain bodies of expertise. Plumbers, for example, can't lay pipe, or electricians do wiring, without first serving apprenticeships and passing examinations.

Shouldn't Supreme Court nominees demonstrate at least the same basic proficiency for constitutional law that plumbers and electricians demonstrate for their trades? If not, why? If so, at what point during your career as a corporate lawyer did you find yourself with the professional need or leisure time to master constitutional case law concerning the separation of powers, federalism, the interstate commerce clause, freedom of speech and the separation of church and state?

5) One of your staunchest supporters, radio host Hugh Hewitt, called your nomination "a solid B-plus pick." Why should we consider a B-plus nominee good enough for the highest court in our land?

Recruiting priests

Here is an interesting story about how the Catholic Church is ramping up recruiting efforts for the priesthood. It's based on a simple premise: asking men if they would like to be a priest.

American bishops, aiming to rebuild the dwindling ranks of Roman Catholic (search) priests, started a new campaign Friday encouraging clergy to invite young men into the priesthood.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the "Fishers of Men" program is a response to research that found nearly 80 percent of seminarians ordained in 2003 had been asked by a priest to consider the vocation. In another survey, less than one-third of Catholic clergy said they had specifically suggested that young men enroll in seminary.

As part of the campaign, priests in each diocese will be interviewed about what they find most rewarding in their ministries, then will meet to discuss their responses and develop a strategy to convey those thoughts to promising priest-candidates. The goal is to renew priests' appreciation of their own work and inspire them to reach out to others, the bishops said.

The program launch comes at a difficult time in the church, as the clergy sex abuse crisis has demoralized many priests and Catholics await a Vatican document on whether gays should be ordained. A Vatican-directed inspection of all U.S. seminaries is under way in response to the abuse scandal that began in 2002. Among the questions evaluators will ask is whether there is "evidence of homosexuality" in the schools.

Bishop Blase Cupich, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Vocations, said church leaders are aware of these challenges, but believe the program can still be effective. "Fishers of Men" has already been used successfully in five dioceses, he said.

"It will reinvigorate the priests themselves, so they have a chance to reflect on their own vocation and what it means," said Cupich, of Rapid City, S.D.

Pandora's Box

Scientists recreate the 1918 Spanish Flu and then publish the genome sequence. Not good.

While official Washington has been poring over Harriet Miers' long-ago doings on the Dallas City Council and parsing the Byzantine comings and goings of the Fitzgerald grand jury, relatively unnoticed was perhaps the most momentous event of our lifetime -- what is left of it, as I shall explain. It was announced last week that American scientists have just created a living, killing copy of the 1918 ``Spanish'' flu.

This is big. Very big.

First, it is a scientific achievement of staggering proportions. The Spanish flu has not been seen on this blue planet for 85 years. Its re-creation is a story of enterprise, ingenuity, serendipity, hard work and sheer brilliance. It involves finding deep in the bowels of a military hospital in Washington a couple of tissue samples from the lungs of soldiers who died in 1918 (in an autopsy collection first ordered into existence by Abraham Lincoln), and the disinterment of an Alaskan Eskimo who died of the flu and whose remains had been preserved by the permafrost. Then, using slicing and dicing techniques only Michael Crichton could imagine, they pulled off a microbiological Jurassic Park: the first ever resurrection of an ancient pathogen. And not just any ancient pathogen, explained virologist Eddie Holmes, but ``the agent of the most important disease pandemic in human history.''

Which brings us to the second element of this story: Beyond the brilliance lies the sheer terror. We have quite literally brought back to life an agent of near-biblical destruction. It killed more people in six months than were killed in the four years of the First World War. It killed more humans than any other disease of similar duration in the history of the world, says Alfred W. Crosby, who wrote a history of the 1918 pandemic. And, notes The New Scientist, when the re-created virus was given to mice in heavily quarantined laboratories in Atlanta, it killed the mice more quickly than any other flu virus ever tested.

Now that I have your attention, consider, with appropriate trepidation, the third element of this story: What to do with this knowledge? Not only has the virus been physically re-created. But its entire genome has now been published for the whole world, good people and very bad, to see.

The decision to publish was a very close and terrifying call.

On the one hand, we need the knowledge disseminated. We've learned from this research that the 1918 flu was bird flu, ``the most bird-like of all mammalian flu viruses,'' says Jeffery Taubenberger, lead researcher in unraveling the genome. There is a bird flu epidemic right now in Asia that has infected 117 people and killed 60. It has already developed a few of the genomic changes that permit transmission to humans. Therefore, you want to put out the knowledge of the structure of the 1918 flu, which made the full jump from birds to humans, so that every researcher in the world can immediately start looking for ways to anticipate, monitor, prevent and counteract similar changes in today's bird flu.

We are essentially in a life-and-death race with the bird flu. Can we figure out how to pre-empt it before it figures out how to evolve into a transmittable form with 1918 lethality that will decimate humanity? To run that race we need the genetic sequence universally known -- not just to inform and guide but to galvanize new research.

On the other hand, resurrection of the virus and publication of its structure opens the gates of hell. Anybody, bad guys included, can now create it. Biological knowledge is far easier to acquire for Osama and friends than nuclear knowledge. And if you can't make this stuff yourself, you can simply order up DNA sequences from commercial laboratories around the world that will make it and ship it to you on demand. Taubenberger himself admits that ``the technology is available.''

And if the bad guys can't make the flu themselves, they could try to steal it. That's not easy. But the incentive to do so from a secure facility could not be greater. Nature, which published the full genome sequence, cites Rutgers bacteriologist Richard Ebright as warning that there is a significant risk ``verging on inevitability'' of accidental release into the human population or of theft by a ``disgruntled, disturbed or extremist laboratory employee.''

One batch of 1918 flu has the capacity for mass destruction that no Bond villain could ever dream of. Why try to steal loose nukes in Russia? A nuke can only destroy a city. The flu virus, properly evolved, is potentially a destroyer of civilizations.

We might have just given it to our enemies.

Have a nice day.

Florida Episcopal Priest swims the Tiber

Congratulations and prayers go to +Nick Marziani, who decided it was time to go.

TO ALL MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN THE LORD’S ANGLICAN FOLD IN N.E. FLORIDA:

11 October 2005, Philip - Deacon and Evangelist

Peace and Grace to One and All!

At Harris’ request I am providing to you something of a classic Apologia for an important personal and spiritual move I am about to effect as regards my identity as a Christian and a minister in the Church of Jesus Christ. Much has transpired in the past weeks and months, and I want to be straightforward and clear with all of you regarding my future plans.

On the eve of the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, September 28th, I hand-delivered a letter to the diocesan office in Jacksonville in which I provided a “100-day” advance notice of intent to vacate my interim rectorship at Nativity church in JAX, which period concludes on the Feast of the Epiphany, 2006, and to effect an orderly departure from the Episcopal Church, a departure that would seek to minimize the negative impact of my leaving on the good people at Nativity. To date I have not received a response from diocesan offices, and do not know whether or not I will be permitted to continue in ministry at Nativity through their patronal feastal season, as requested.

The history of this action includes a direct move of the Holy Spirit in which I heard, quite clearly, the Lord telling me on Holy Tuesday past, in good Cracker language, “you don’t have a dog in this hunt anymore!”. The Word to depart the ECUSA was shortly to be confirmed by a couple of other witnesses quite outside of my normal circle of influence, and I have sought Wisdom from the Lord as to how to obey that Word and to also best serve the needs of Nativity church, and the Diocese of Florida. The phased departure arrangement that I have requested from Bishop Howard seeks to accomplish that end.

The Lord was also, in my case, quite specific as to what future course I was to pursue - to seek absorption back into the Roman Catholic Church into which I was baptized in 1950, and not to any longer pursue any sort of Anglican ecclesial identity.

Hilarious Ebay posting

A guy is trying to sell his leather pants that he wished he had never bought. Read all of it, including the comments.

Iran pulling the strings?

Warning signs that Meir is no conservative

Drudge has several items of note from Meirs past, showing she is not a good conservative.

The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained a copy of sworn testimony given by Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers in 1989 in which she said that she “wouldn’t belong to the Federalist Society” – a conservative and libertarian lawyers’ organization – because it was “politically charged.”

But Bush's Supreme Court nominee did not include in that category the NAACP and other liberal groups, the transcript reveals!

Word of the testimony circulated late last week, roiling conservatives and setting off a scramble among lawyers to obtain the actual testimony. Sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT that conservatives demanded that the White House and its allies release copies of the testimony, but their demands were ignored.

A source close to the Bush administration says, "the process requires the White House to prepare documents to turn over to the Senate Judiciary Committee and only after the committee has had the courtesy of receiving them are such docs made public."

MORE

Miers testified in a voting rights lawsuit claiming the Dallas City Council had too few black and Hispanic members.

The DRUDGE REPORT can now reveal that not only did Harriet Miers testify that she would not join the “politically charged” Federalist Society -- she testified that she had joined a liberal organization – the Democratic Progressive Voters League.

[According to the Handbook of Texas Online [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/DD/wed1.html], the Democratic Progressive Voters League is a Dallas political organization closely associated with the Democratic Party.]

Miers was also asked whether she considered “the NAACP [to be] in the category of organizations” that she considered to be “politically charged.”

Her answer: “No, I don’t.”

In 1987, the NAACP launched a campaign to defeat the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court; In 1989, the group organized the Silent March; over 100,000 protested U.S. Supreme Court decisions the group claimed "reversed many of the gains made against discrimination."

[The Internal Revenue Service has threatened to revoke the NAACP's tax-exempt status after the civil rights group's chairman, Julian Bond, condemned Bush administration policies on education, the economy and the war in Iraq, during a speech last summer.]

MORE

Now presented here for the first time, the testimony.

REDIRECT EXAMINATION

BY MS. JULIAN: . . . . .

Q. Ms. Miers, are you a member of any predominantly minority organizations, such as the NAACP, Black Chamber of Commerce, Urban League or any other predominantly minority organizations?

A. Women minorities?

Q. Well, maybe predominantly racial and ethnic minorities?

A. No.

Q. . . . . In your capacity as an at-large member do you think being involved in such organizations might assist you in having a perspective that – bring a perspective to your job that you don’t have?

A. I attend meetings designed to give me that input. However, I have tried to avoid memberships in organization s that were politically charged with one viewpoint or the other. For example, I wouldn’t belong to the Federalist Society any more than – I just feel like it’s better to not be involved in organizations that seem to color your view one way or the other for people who are examining you. I did join the Progressive Voters League here in Dallas during the campaign as part of the campaign.

Q. Are you active in the PVL now, do you intend to be?

A. No, I am not.

Q. Do you think the NAACP and Black Chamber of Commerce are in the category of organizations you were talking about?

A. No, I don’t. . . . .

Transcript of Trial, Roy Williams et al. v. City of Dallas, No. CA-3-88-152-R, pages V-46 to V-47 (U.S. Dist. Ct., N.D. Tex. Sept. 11, 1989).

If she thinks the Federalist Society is | The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained a copy of sworn testimony given by Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers in 1989 in which she said that she “wouldn’t belong to the Federalist Society” – a conservative and libertarian lawyers’ organization – because it was “politically charged.”

But Bush's Supreme Court nominee did not include in that category the NAACP and other liberal groups, the transcript reveals!

Word of the testimony circulated late last week, roiling conservatives and setting off a scramble among lawyers to obtain the actual testimony. Sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT that conservatives demanded that the White House and its allies release copies of the testimony, but their demands were ignored.

A source close to the Bush administration says, "the process requires the White House to prepare documents to turn over to the Senate Judiciary Committee and only after the committee has had the courtesy of receiving them are such docs made public."

MORE

Miers testified in a voting rights lawsuit claiming the Dallas City Council had too few black and Hispanic members.

The DRUDGE REPORT can now reveal that not only did Harriet Miers testify that she would not join the “politically charged” Federalist Society -- she testified that she had joined a liberal organization – the Democratic Progressive Voters League.

[According to the Handbook of Texas Online [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/DD/wed1.html], the Democratic Progressive Voters League is a Dallas political organization closely associated with the Democratic Party.]

Miers was also asked whether she considered “the NAACP [to be] in the category of organizations” that she considered to be “politically charged.”

Her answer: “No, I don’t.”

In 1987, the NAACP launched a campaign to defeat the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court; In 1989, the group organized the Silent March; over 100,000 protested U.S. Supreme Court decisions the group claimed "reversed many of the gains made against discrimination."

[The Internal Revenue Service has threatened to revoke the NAACP's tax-exempt status after the civil rights group's chairman, Julian Bond, condemned Bush administration policies on education, the economy and the war in Iraq, during a speech last summer.]

MORE

Now presented here for the first time, the testimony.

REDIRECT EXAMINATION

BY MS. JULIAN: . . . . .

Q. Ms. Miers, are you a member of any predominantly minority organizations, such as the NAACP, Black Chamber of Commerce, Urban League or any other predominantly minority organizations?

A. Women minorities?

Q. Well, maybe predominantly racial and ethnic minorities?

A. No.

Q. . . . . In your capacity as an at-large member do you think being involved in such organizations might assist you in having a perspective that – bring a perspective to your job that you don’t have?

A. I attend meetings designed to give me that input. However, I have tried to avoid memberships in organization s that were politically charged with one viewpoint or the other. For example, I wouldn’t belong to the Federalist Society any more than – I just feel like it’s better to not be involved in organizations that seem to color your view one way or the other for people who are examining you. I did join the Progressive Voters League here in Dallas during the campaign as part of the campaign.

Q. Are you active in the PVL now, do you intend to be?

A. No, I am not.

Q. Do you think the NAACP and Black Chamber of Commerce are in the category of organizations you were talking about?

A. No, I don’t. . . . .

Transcript of Trial, Roy Williams et al. v. City of Dallas, No. CA-3-88-152-R, pages V-46 to V-47 (U.S. Dist. Ct., N.D. Tex. Sept. 11, 1989).

If she thinks the Federalist Society is "politically charged" and the NAACP - which almost lost its tax free status over its campaigning for dems - is not, how can she be trusted to interpret the Constitution?

Damned if they do, dead if they don't

As the brother of a cop, I hope he never has to use his gun. If he does, I hope he puts the bastard down. What I fear then, though, is what Steve Dunleavy writes of today: unjust prosecution of a cop doing his job.

MY OLDER kid, Pete, who is just back from Baghdad, is a captain in the Army and is authorized to carry a gun.
His younger brother, Sean, hopes to graduate from the Nassau County Police Academy next week and he carries a gun.

Sean's girlfriend, Laura, who looks like a movie star, is in the same graduating class. She carries a gun.

I don't listen to their prayers, but I know what their instructors at the academy and Pete's superiors say about those guns: hope you never have to use them.

Brian Conroy, a handsome young man from Staten Island, prayed to be a cop. But beware of answered prayers.

On May 22, 2003, three years on the job, he shot dead West African Ousmane Zongo during a sting operation on DVD counterfeiters in a Chelsea warehouse.

Zongo was an illegal alien and while there is no proof that he was part of anything illegal, he ran from undercover Officer Brian Conroy, who was guarding a bin of illicit goods.



"Stop, police! Stop, police!" Conroy shouted and nobody contests that.

Officer Conroy tells me: "He ran, I drew my gun at my side and then he came back and lunged at me. He used a technique we were taught in the police academy to disarm a gun-carrying perpetrator. Both hands slapping the gun."

Zongo — whether his English was imperfect, or because he was an illegal, or because Conroy did not look like a cop — certainly made a frantic if suspicious move.

Tragedy was quick to arrive. Four bullets were fired and Zongo was dead five hours later. Damn tragic.

But Conroy, a coldblooded killer? Get out of here. I asked Assistant DA Armand Dissante, who is trying to convict this young man of second-degree manslaughter, the following:

"Every crime has to have a motive, Armando. What was Conroy's motive?"

His answer: "No real motive, just panic."

Conroy's dad, Arthur, a retired mailman: "Panic? You get a guy trying to disarm you — to use your gun on you. What is this DA talking about? Nuts."

I remember two great cops, Pat Rafferty and Robert Parker.

No, they wouldn't draw their guns against the mutt Marlon Legre on Sept. 10, 2004 in Brooklyn.

Legre did draw his gun. He's alive in prison. I went to the cops' funerals.

What was Conroy to do?

What should my kids do? End up like Rafferty and Parker?

But, of course, you could take guns away from cops, and we'll all have a merry time going to funerals.

Zawahiri's letter

Zawahiri is right: Iraq is the central battlefield.

Ayman al Zawahiri and George W. Bush don't agree on much. But al Qaeda's No. 2 leader and the U.S. President are in accord on one thing: Iraq is the central battlefield.

This is just one of the many insights into the mind of the terrorist braintrust gleaned from an extraordinary document obtained this summer by U.S. forces in Iraq and released yesterday by the White House. It is a 6,000-word letter from Zawahiri, presumably in hiding in Pakistan, to al Qaeda's commander in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

We're glad the Administration made the decision to declassify it. It goes a long way toward letting Americans see what we are up against in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. The letter's full text is up on the Web site of the Director of National Intelligence at www.dni.gov.

Those who want a premature U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will now have to explain why that won't play into the hands--and plans--of the enemy. Zawahiri makes it quite clear that al Qaeda's ambitions extend well beyond the borders of any one country. The goal is a fundamentalist Islamic regime that begins in Iraq, extends into the neighboring secular nations of the region, assaults Israel and moves on from there. And yes, he uses the word "caliphate."

But let Zawahiri speak for himself. The jihadists, he writes, "must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal." Plainly said, these boys are in it for the long haul. Just because the U.S. might decide to pull out of Iraq hardly means that al Qaeda will stop trying to kill Americans.

Notwithstanding Zawahiri's chilling language, the good news here is that the tone of the correspondence with his mass murder colleague in Iraq often borders on the desperate. Zawahiri hardly sounds like a commander on the brink of victory. He is clearly worried that the jihadists are losing in Iraq. He devotes a large portion of his letter to a critique of Zarqawi's tactics, counseling him to do more to win "public support" among the Iraqi Shiite majority.

Don't attack mosques, he advises. Don't target ordinary people. "Many of your Muslim admirers amongst common folk are wondering about your attacks on the Shi'a," he writes. Such strikes amount to "action that the masses do not understand or approve."

As for the Sunnis, he urges Zarqawi to cast a wider net--an implicit admission that he's worried about Sunnis who have been showing signs of interest in the democratic political process unfolding there. Afghanistan--and the Islamic democracy emerging in that nation--is his worst nightmare. "We don't want to repeat the mistake of the Taliban, who restricted participation in governance to the students and the people of Kandahar alone," he says. "The result was that the Afghan people disengaged themselves from them. Even devout ones took the stance of the spectator and when the invasion came, the emirate collapsed in days, because the people were either passive or hostile."

Zawahiri's also not feeling too peachy about his personal situation. He recounts the death of his "favorite" wife and a daughter after the collapse of their house during an apparent American bombing. He admits to a "real danger" from the Pakistani army, which is pursuing al Qaeda in tribal areas. He mourns the capture of al Qaeda big shots, and oh by the way, he asks Zarqawi to send him $100,000.

The letter is dated July 9, two days after the London subway bombings, of which there is no mention; this suggests that life in a cave, or whatever redoubt in which he is holed up, doesn't include the basic amenity of daily news access. He asks whether the full text of a speech he had sent to al Jazeera was actually broadcast in June.

Amid these lamentations, however, one area emerges about which the terror commander exudes great confidence: the media. The lesson he learned from Vietnam is that "more than half of the battle is taking place on the battlefield of the media." He clearly wants to use the media, in the U.S. and in the Arab world, to induce the U.S. to pull out of Iraq and default a position of strength to al Qaeda.

He actually worries about the possibility that Zarqawi will blow victory on the media battlefield: Toward this end, he gently urges Zarqawi to discontinue his habit of beheading hostages, suggesting that perhaps instead he could just shoot them. "We are in a media race for . . . hearts and minds," he writes.

The long Zawahiri letter is a rough roadmap of the strategic vision for al Qaeda's intentions in Iraq and the global jihad. If it has a familiar ring, that's because George Bush has been warning the world about it for several years.

the Michigan Supreme Court: a good appeals court

The WSJ points out an example of a good appeals court: The Michigan Supreme Court.

Among the people recently mentioned as potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees, Maura Corrigan and Robert Young were relatively unknown. But both are noteworthy representatives of what may be the finest court in the nation.

For the past six years, the Michigan Supreme Court has been a leader in attempting to restore a proper balance between the judiciary, the legislature and the people. The bloc that constitutes the court's frequent majority--Justices Clifford Taylor, Stephen Markman, Corrigan, Young and, often, Elizabeth Weaver--has consistently refused to substitute its policy preferences for those of the legislature. Importantly, the court's other justices, Michael Cavanagh and Marilyn Kelly, have joined the majority in key cases. But the court's "judicial restraint" has not implied passivity. All of the justices have been willing to rule out-of-bounds legislation that encroaches on individual rights protected by the state constitution.

Consider this Tale of Two States. In 1999, the Ohio Supreme Court struck down a comprehensive tort reform bill. In particular, the court leapt on a provision barring medical malpractice plaintiffs from the courtroom unless they obtained an "affidavit of merit" from a medical specialist indicating that the suit was credible. Such a requirement was procedural and therefore within the court's--not the legislature's--jurisdiction.

That argument was shopped in Michigan, too, which also has an affidavit-of-merit requirement. The Michigan Supreme Court wasn't buying. Ruling just a few weeks before the Ohio decision, the Michigan Court noted that, since the legislature had the legal power to prohibit a medical malpractice suit entirely, it surely had the ability to set conditions on the cause of action. The legislature also banned lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies when the Food and Drug Administration had approved the drug in question. The Michigan Supreme Court upheld the ban.

This unusual court came into being through both appointments and elections. Four of the justices who are regularly in the majority were originally appointed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, and all four won re-election before three were appointed to the state's highest judicial body. In the end, all four won subsequent election to the Supreme Court. Three of them survived a bitter 2000 challenge in which millions of dollars were spent, by trial lawyers and others, to kick them out. (Justices Weaver, Kelly and Cavanagh reached the Supreme Court through election only.)

Respect for precedent is basic to the stability and predictability that is a prized achievement of the rule of law; but it can also turn into a rule of unreason, impeding necessary reform. Refreshingly, the Michigan Supreme Court has been willing to simply admit error and move on. A case in point is the 2000 ruling in Robinson v. Detroit.

In 1998, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a police officer is the proximate "cause" of an accident when the driver of a fleeing car hits a third party. In the Robinson case, it overruled its own precedent (5-2). "This Court has no obligation to perpetuate error simply because it may have reached a wrong result in one of its earlier decisions," wrote Justice Taylor (now chief justice).

Elaborating further in Sington v. Chrysler Corp., a 2002 workers' compensation decision, Justice Taylor said: "We believe the constitutional arrangement in our state and nation reposes in the legislative body the role of making public policy. That arrangement is distorted when the judiciary misconstrues statutes. . . . [Upholding precedent here] is flawed because it gives the earlier Court and its judges far too much power--power beyond that which the constitution gave them." In the court's view, deference to precedent should be limited to cases in which reversals would be impracticable and have broad societal impact.

While respecting legislative authority, the Michigan Supreme Court does not allow legislative or executive action to violate constitutional rights. The most striking example of this arose in the context of eminent domain. This year, in the controversial case of Kelo v. New London, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court held that private property taken from one private party and given to another could still be a "public use" if the municipality doing the taking had a "development plan."

Kelo has touched off a political and legal storm. Strikingly, the Michigan Supreme Court unanimously held a year ago, in Wayne County v. Hathcock, that courts were constitutionally required to determine independently whether a taking involved a public use. The court further ruled that equating economic development with a "public use" would "render impotent our constitutional limitations on the government's power of eminent domain." Justice Young explained that, "after all, if one's ownership of private property is forever subject to the government's determination that another private party would put one's land to better use, then the ownership of real property is perpetually threatened by the expansion plans of any large discount retailer, 'megastore,' or the like."

Why judicial appointments matter exhibit 2

Hopefully the Supreme Court will inject some common sense into land grabbing wetland regulations.

Accepting the appeal of a Michigan developer who has become a hero to the property-rights movement, the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday said it will decide whether the federal government has the authority to regulate wetlands miles away from a river or other waterway.

The justices will decide whether John Rapanos, a grandfather in his 70s, was within his rights when he filled in wetlands on his property without a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mr. Rapanos had hoped to build a shopping center on his land.

They must decide whether to sustain $13 million in civil fines and fees imposed against Mr. Rapanos. He was also convicted in a separate criminal case, but was sentenced to probation.

The court also agreed to review a decision against two other Michigan property owners, June and Keith Carabell, who were denied a permit to fill part of their land for the construction of condominiums.

The outcome could have implications for government authority in regulating construction in obviously environmentally sensitive areas. The Army Corps of Engineers regulates work on wetlands.

"They define wetlands so broadly that even dry desert areas of Arizona are being called wetlands," said Paul Kamenar, a lawyer with the Washington Legal Foundation, one of the conservative groups that called on the court to intervene.

In reviewing the two rulings by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, the court is expected to clarify the confusion created by two of its decisions dealing with federal authority under the Clean Water Act. In 1985, in an earlier case from Michigan, the court unanimously held that in passing the Clean Water Act Congress "chose to define the waters covered by the act broadly." But in 2001, in a 5-4 decision, the court curbed the Corps' authority to regulate some wetlands.

Reed Hopper, a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents Mr. Rapanos, called the court's agreement to take the case "fantastic" news.

Noting that property-rights advocates had failed to persuade the court to hear similar cases in the past, Mr. Hopper speculated that the addition of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to the court might have been a factor in the court's decision to take the case.

Douglas T. Kendall, executive director of the Community Rights Counsel, a public-interest law firm specializing in environmental issues, said the court's agreement to take the Michigan cases could mean the justices simply wanted to resolve conflicts between lower courts on the scope of the Clean Water Act.

As a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Chief Justice Roberts dissented from a decision of that court not to rehear a case involving the application of the federal Endangered Species' Act to a "hapless toad" species that lived only in California. His critics said that opinion suggested that he took a narrow view of Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause to protect the environment.

Mr. Rapanos, whose probation sentence is being challenged by the U.S. Justice Department, has become a symbol for conservative and libertarian groups that see him as the victim of overweening bureaucracy.

Some activists have compared him to the property owners in New London, Conn., whose homes and businesses were condemned under eminent domain to make way for a development project anchored by a private business. A Supreme Court ruling in June upholding that use of eminent domain sparked a national protest that reverberated at Chief Justice Roberts' confirmation hearings.

Why Judicial appointments matter exhibit 1

Locking killers up, regardless of their age.

Pennsylvania leads the nation in the number of prisoners serving life terms without parole for crimes committed as juveniles.

There are 2,225 such people in the country, most in a handful of states where judges don't have the discretion to impose lighter penalties, according to a report released today by Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch. They found that a surge in violent crime in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to tougher sentencing laws and a jump in the number of juveniles sent to prison for the rest of their lives.

Pennsylvania has the most such inmates (332), followed by Louisiana (317), Michigan (306) and Florida (273). All four states have laws making life without parole mandatory for certain crimes and don't allow judges to lighten sentences.

"Kids who commit serious crimes shouldn't go scot-free," said Alison Parker, senior researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch. "But if they are too young to vote or buy cigarettes, they are too young to spend the rest of their lives behind bars."

The groups say the sentence amounts to cruel and unusual punishment for criminals who may not be mature enough to grasp the consequences of their actions. They want the United States to abolish the penalty, which is allowed in 43 states but imposed in only a handful of other countries.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that executing juvenile killers was unconstitutional, based in part on international sentiment that youths are less culpable than adults.

Dianne Clements, president of the Houston-based Justice for All, a victims' advocacy group, said taking away life-without-parole sentences would remove a strong deterrent to crime.

"Judges don't legislate, legislative bodies do. They legislate based on the will of the people, and that will says life without parole is an appropriate punishment," she said.

No matter what their age is on their drivers license, some people are truly dangerous and need to be locked up for the good of society. These tough sentencing laws were passed due to judges handing out slaps on the wrists.

"Psychosocial abortions"

Disgusting article from Australia, where a "cooling off period" and mandatory counseling implemented for late term abortions.

WOMEN who want a late-term abortion for reasons other than a foetal abnormality will have to first see a counsellor and go through a mandatory 48-hour cooling-off period.

The new regulations, expected to be introduced by the State Government within months, are in response to concerns about new figures that show the number of late-term abortions in Victoria for psychosocial reasons almost doubled to 197 last year.

Seven of those were carried out after 28 weeks' gestation, when there is greater risk to the mother's health.

A late-term abortion is one carried out after 20 weeks. A psychosocial reason is given for an abortion when there are fears that the mother's mental health could be damaged if she continued with the pregnancy.

The 197 late-term abortions last year due to psychosocial reasons compares with 103 in 2003 and is 14 times higher than the 14 conducted in 2000. Almost half the women who have the procedure in Victoria are from other states.

The State Government figures were released to The Age yesterday, after several requests and a freedom of information application in July.

Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said that under the changes a woman would have a consultation with the doctor who would perform the termination, and would then have a mandatory session with a psychologist or women's health counsellor to determine if she required counselling about the decision or to be referred to another service.

"What I'm trying to avoid is someone goes in in the morning, one hour later sees a psychologist and one hour later has the termination," she said.

"I think it's important that after they have the consultation with the psychologist they have a cooling-off period."

This will sound cold to some, but I'm not too worried whether or not "the mother's mental health could be damaged if she continued with the pregnancy." I saw my son's beating heart on the ultrasound at 8 weeks. A baby at 28 weeks has a chance at survival outside the womb, that is murder.

Ann Coulter blasts Bush's choice of Meirs

Meek, demure, and unopinionated (/sarcasm) Ann Coulter lets Bush have it.

I eagerly await the announcement of President Bush's real nominee to the Supreme Court. If the president meant Harriet Miers seriously, I have to assume Bush wants to go back to Crawford and let Dick Cheney run the country.

Unfortunately for Bush, he could nominate his Scottish terrier Barney, and some conservatives would rush to defend him, claiming to be in possession of secret information convincing them that the pooch is a true conservative and listing Barney's many virtues — loyalty, courage, never jumps on the furniture ...

Harriet Miers went to Southern Methodist University Law School, which is not ranked at all by the serious law school reports and ranked No. 52 by US News and World Report. Her greatest legal accomplishment is being the first woman commissioner of the Texas Lottery.

I know conservatives have been trained to hate people who went to elite universities, and generally that's a good rule of thumb. But not when it comes to the Supreme Court.

First, Bush has no right to say "Trust me." He was elected to represent the American people, not to be dictator for eight years. Among the coalitions that elected Bush are people who have been laboring in the trenches for a quarter-century to change the legal order in America. While Bush was still boozing it up in the early '80s, Ed Meese, Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork and all the founders of the Federalist Society began creating a farm team of massive legal talent on the right.

To casually spurn the people who have been taking slings and arrows all these years and instead reward the former commissioner of the Texas Lottery with a Supreme Court appointment is like pinning a medal of honor on some flunky paper-pusher with a desk job at the Pentagon — or on John Kerry — while ignoring your infantrymen doing the fighting and dying.

Second, even if you take seriously William F. Buckley's line about preferring to be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty, the Supreme Court is not supposed to govern us. Being a Supreme Court justice ought to be a mind-numbingly tedious job suitable only for super-nerds trained in legal reasoning like John Roberts. Being on the Supreme Court isn't like winning a "Best Employee of the Month" award. It's a real job.

One Web site defending Bush's choice of a graduate from an undistinguished law school complains that Miers' critics "are playing the Democrats' game," claiming that the "GOP is not the party which idolizes Ivy League acceptability as the criterion of intellectual and mental fitness." (In the sort of error that results from trying to sound "Ivy League" rather than being clear, that sentence uses the grammatically incorrect "which" instead of "that." Web sites defending the academically mediocre would be a lot more convincing without all the grammatical errors.)

Actually, all the intellectual firepower in the law is coming from conservatives right now — and thanks for noticing! Liberals got stuck trying to explain Roe v. Wade and are still at work 30 years later trying to come up with a good argument.

But the main point is: Au contraire! It is conservatives defending Miers' mediocre resume who are playing the Democrats' game. Contrary to recent practice, the job of being a Supreme Court justice is not to be a philosopher-king. Only someone who buys into the liberals' view of Supreme Court justices as philosopher-kings could hold legal training irrelevant to a job on the Supreme Court.

To be sure, if we were looking for philosopher-kings, an SMU law grad would probably be preferable to a graduate from an elite law school. But if we're looking for lawyers with giant brains to memorize obscure legal cases and to compose clearly reasoned opinions about ERISA pre-emption, the doctrine of equivalents in patent law, limitation of liability in admiralty, and supplemental jurisdiction under Section 1367 — I think we want the nerd from an elite law school. Bush may as well appoint his chauffeur head of NASA as put Miers on the Supreme Court.

Third and finally, some jobs are so dirty, you can only send in someone who has the finely honed hatred of liberals acquired at elite universities to do them. The devil is an abstraction for normal, decent Americans living in the red states. By contrast, at the top universities, you come face to face with the devil every day, and you learn all his little tropes and tricks.

Conservatives from elite schools have already been subjected to liberal blandishments and haven't blinked. These are right-wingers who have fought off the best and the brightest the blue states have to offer. The New York Times isn't going to mau-mau them — as it does intellectual lightweights like Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee — by dangling fawning profiles before them. They aren't waiting for a pat on the head from Nina Totenberg or Linda Greenhouse. To paraphrase Archie Bunker, when you find a conservative from an elite law school, you've really got something.

However nice, helpful, prompt and tidy she is, Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on "The West Wing," let alone to be a real one. Both Republicans and Democrats should be alarmed that Bush seems to believe his power to appoint judges is absolute. This is what "advice and consent" means.

"Different People have different needs"

That's a line from "People are People", my favorite Depeche Mode song, and also a theme of this brilliant essay. It's long, so I'll just print the conclusion:

Let us start talking about group differences openly--all sorts of group differences, from the visuospatial skills of men and women to the vivaciousness of Italians and Scots. Let us talk about the nature of the manly versus the womanly virtues. About differences between Russians and Chinese that might affect their adoption of capitalism. About differences between Arabs and Europeans that might affect the assimilation of Arab immigrants into European democracies. About differences between the poor and nonpoor that could inform policy for reducing poverty.

Even to begin listing the topics that could be enriched by an inquiry into the nature of group differences is to reveal how stifled today's conversation is. Besides liberating that conversation, an open and undefensive discussion would puncture the irrational fear of the male-female and black-white differences I have surveyed here. We would be free to talk about other sexual and racial differences as well, many of which favor women and blacks, and none of which is large enough to frighten anyone who looks at them dispassionately.

Talking about group differences does not require any of us to change our politics. For every implication that the right might seize upon (affirmative-action quotas are ill-conceived), another gives fodder to the left (innate group differences help rationalize compensatory redistribution by the state). But if we do not need to change our politics, talking about group differences obligates all of us to renew our commitment to the ideal of equality that Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he wrote as a self-evident truth that all men are created equal. Steven Pinker put that ideal in today's language in "The Blank Slate," writing that "equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group."

Nothing in this essay implies that this moral principle has already been realized or that we are powerless to make progress. In elementary and secondary education, many outcomes are tractable even if group differences in ability remain unchanged. Dropout rates, literacy and numeracy are all tractable. School discipline, teacher performance and the quality of the curriculum are tractable. Academic performance within a given IQ range is tractable. The existence of group differences need not and should not discourage attempts to improve schooling for millions of American children who are now getting bad educations.

In university education and in the world of work, overall openness of opportunity has been transformed for the better over the past half-century. But the policies we now have in place are impeding, not facilitating, further progress. Creating double standards for physically demanding jobs so that women can qualify ensures that men in those jobs will never see women as their equals. In universities, affirmative action ensures that the black-white difference in IQ in the population at large is brought onto the campus and made visible to every student. The intentions of their designers notwithstanding, today's policies are perfectly fashioned to create separation, condescension and resentment--and so they have done.

The world need not be that way. Any university or employer that genuinely applied a single set of standards for hiring, firing, admitting and promoting would find that performance really is distributed indistinguishably across different groups. But getting to that point nationwide will require us to jettison an apparatus of laws, regulations and bureaucracies that has been 40 years in the making. That will not happen until the conversation has opened up. So let us take one step at a time. Let us stop being afraid of data that tell us a story we do not want to hear, stop the name-calling, stop the denial and start facing reality.

Fixing the New Orleans police department

An officer with the LAPD, writing under a pen name in the National Review, offers his opinions on how to fix the NOPD.

Like the city itself, the New Orleans Police Department is in desperate need of repair. And just as restoring the city will require a good many wrecking balls and bulldozers (and perhaps a flame-thrower here and there), much of its police department is going to have to be razed and rebuilt.

The recent videotaped arrest in the French Quarter may or may not be evidence of this. In the tape, two officers are shown detaining 64-year-old Robert Davis. One of the cops, for reasons yet to be explained, punches Davis several times in the back of the head, causing Davis’s face to strike the wall he is facing. Two more cops arrive, and soon the lot of them end up on the ground. One cop appears to punch Davis in the face at least twice before the scuffle ends. To make matters worse, an officer who wasn’t involved in the arrest proceeds to manhandle an AP producer who attempted to inquire about the way Davis was being treated. Having shoved the producer against a parked car, the cop tells him, “I’ve been out here for six weeks trying to keep alive. Go home.”

There is much in those words. The cops of New Orleans have been through hell and, yes, high water since Hurricane Katrina came through, and those among them who worked through the worst of it are surely showing the strain. About 80 percent of the officers have been left homeless and are now living on a cruise ship in the harbor. Some of their stations are in ruins, hundreds of their squad cars are now nothing more than rusting scrap metal, and much of the civilian support staff has been laid off. And rumors of pay cuts and layoffs for the officers themselves are eating away at what little morale the overworked and underpaid force may have left. Under these conditions, I’m not at all surprised that these cops may have snapped their caps and taken it out on Davis and the AP producer. I don’t condone what I saw on the tape, but whatever punishment these cops receive should be weighed against what they’ve been through.

Consider also that the department is now without a real leader. Police Superintendent Eddie Compass announced his retirement on September 27, reportedly at the insistence of Mayor Ray Nagin, who named Assistant Superintendent Warren Riley as an interim replacement. In a just world, Nagin would be out of a job too, but it appears that he put the bull’s-eye on Compass’s back so as to make him the fall guy for the city’s utter failure to prepare for and react to Hurricane Katrina.

Clearly, Compass was not the innocent victim of a craven politician. Katrina’s flood waters served to reveal what for years has been a dysfunctional police department. This dysfunction is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that some 250 New Orleans police officers are under investigation for failing to report for duty when Hurricane Katrina struck. Though this is less than half the number of AWOL officers first reported, it’s still about 15 percent of the force, more than enough to signify serious problems within the ranks. Many of these officers now find themselves ostracized by those who did not desert their posts, and feelings run so strong that some of the AWOL officers are forced to work out of a local high school rather than at their assigned stations. The high school is known among non-deserters as the “leper colony.”

For what it’s worth, I offer one cop’s suggestions on restoring the New Orleans Police Department to vitality and respectability. I have no illusions whatsoever that any of these suggestions will ever be implemented.

1. Hire a recognized leader to head the department. Just as an ailing LAPD reached out to former New York police commissioner William Bratton in 2002, New Orleans needs to commence a nationwide search for a police professional of sufficient stature and reputation to take on the monumental task at hand. Once installed, the new superintendent should be given a free hand in moving personnel to fit his needs. He should also be free to hire a command staff from outside the city as well. The salaries offered should be commensurate with the challenge; the current salary for an assistant superintendent on the NOPD is only $62,096 a year, less than a sergeant earns on many big-city departments.

2. Reward the officers who endured the hardships of Katrina, and fire those who didn’t. There should be no place in the department for any officer who abandoned his post when the city and his fellow officers needed him most. If the deserters aren’t dealt with harshly, they’ll be a cancer in the department for as long as they are allowed to remain.

3. Eliminate the residency requirement for police officers. Currently all New Orleans municipal employees are required to live within the city limits. This requirement has been rendered impractical if not downright foolish in a city that has been almost completely depopulated. Furthermore, before Katrina struck, New Orleans had the dubious distinction of being the homicide capital of the United States, with a murder rate more than ten times the national average. If the residency requirement was enacted to ensure that the police department was a true reflection of the city’s population, they got what they asked for. Today there are several former New Orleans police officers doing time for murder, including one who in 1995 killed her own former partner during a robbery. Many, many others have been convicted of lesser crimes.

4. Hire officers at all ranks from other agencies. The best police officers revel in confronting challenges, and today there is no greater challenge in law enforcement than the one facing New Orleans. If a capable and charismatic leader is brought in as superintendent, good police officers, detectives, sergeants, and lieutenants will flock to New Orleans from all over the country, especially if the salaries are brought up to competitive levels. (New Orleans police officers are among the lowest paid in the country. The starting salary for a police academy graduate is only $28,825. In Atlanta, by comparison, a rookie officer with a bachelor’s degree earns nearly $10,000 more per year.)

5. Institute a realistic disaster plan for the city. New Orleans had elaborate plans for dealing with the predicted flooding, none of which were followed. For example, those squad cars that are now unusable should have been moved to higher ground as soon as the evacuation order was given. Also, the police department had only a handful of boats at their disposal, this despite the fact that levee failures had been predicted for years. The next flood could come as soon as tomorrow. The time to prepare for it is today.

As New Orleans begins the task of rising from the muck, every scoundrel and scallywag in the world is descending on the city to claim his piece of the action. The Crescent City will someday emerge either as a model of renewal or as an even seedier version of its former self. If the police department is allowed to fester as it has, bet on the latter.

Losing pounds, making money

I thought this was a nice story: Priest losing weight to raise money for the school.

FATHER Pete Colapietro, known as the "whiskey priest" for reasons completely unclear to me, is going through hell for a heavenly mission.

"Knocking off the occasional mild restorative called bourbon is a breeze, but sacrificing pasta, now that is tough," said Father Pete, 57. "But let's all remember that all suffering is temporary."

The good shepherd of Holy Cross Church on West 42nd Street and the guardian of the Holy Cross School at Times Square is going through a painful diet for the cause of his students.

It started in the Hamptons Aug. 6, at an annual fund-raiser for Father Pete's school when someone came up with the idea that was going to put him through great anguish and self-denial.

"Lynn Wiegand, a great lady of Manhattan and Quogue, a charity maven of some status, figured I was too fat," Father Pete recalled with a sigh of resignation.

"Lynn organized 40 pledges from local friends. Collectively, they paid $2,000 to the school for every pound I lost. Most of them were $5 pledges per pound but there were two or three who pledged $100 [per pound]." The money is for the school which has 400 students starting at pre-K to the eighth grade. Some students come from as far away as central New Jersey. More than 90 percent are minorities and 30 percent are non-Catholics.

"It costs parents $2,000 a student per year, but truthfully it costs $2,900 to educate each child, so somehow we have to make up the rest from charity and just people's good hearts," Father Pete said.

When Father Pete started his "diet for God" regimen, he weighed in at 317 pounds.

The diet is being monitored by a doctor, and Father Pete weighed in on Friday at 293 pounds, a loss of 24 pounds, putting the pledgers on the hook for $48,000 in contributions to the school.

"Settling day is on St. Patrick's Day next in the rectory, and I want to get down to 250 pounds even if I have to have my right leg amputated," he laughed.

National Review at 50

William F Buckley's opening statement of the inaugaural issue of National Review could have been written today. Excerpt:

We begin publishing, then, with a considerable stock of experience with the irresponsible Right, and a despair of the intransigence of the Liberals, who run this country; and all this in a world dominated by the jubilant single-mindedness of the practicing Communist, with his inside track to History. All this would not appear to augur well for NATIONAL REVIEW. Yet we start with a considerable — and considered — optimism.

After all, we crashed through. More than one hundred and twenty investors made this magazine possible, and over fifty men and women of small means invested less than one thousand dollars apiece in it. Two men and one woman, all three with overwhelming personal and public commitments, worked round the clock to make publication possible. A score of professional writers pledged their devoted attention to its needs, and hundreds of thoughtful men and women gave evidence that the appearance of such a journal as we have in mind would profoundly affect their lives.

Our own views, as expressed in a memorandum drafted a year ago, and directed to our investors, are set forth in an adjacent column. We have nothing to offer but the best that is in us. That, a thousand Liberals who read this sentiment will say with relief, is clearly not enough! It isn't enough. But it is at this point that we steal the march. For we offer, besides ourselves, a position that has not grown old under the weight of a gigantic, parasitic bureaucracy, a position untempered by the doctoral dissertations of a generation of Ph.D's in social architecture, unattenuated by a thousand vulgar promises to a thousand different pressure groups, uncorroded by a cynical contempt for human freedom. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaves us just about the hottest thing in town.

Perspective

Teaching kids to avoid guns

Like them or not, the NRA has a good program teaching kids that if they find a gun to run away and tell an adult. Of course, some libs don't like teaching people to think.

Five-year-old Jeff Jagels, of Bakersfield, Calif., is just starting school in Kern County, but he already knows what to do when he sees a gun.

And other 5-year-olds in his neighborhood are about to learn what Jagels knows, too.

"Stop, don't touch, leave the area, tell an adult," is what the youngsters are told by cartoon character Eddie Eagle.

The Eddie Eagle Gun Safety Program is a free National Rifle Association project that teaches kids what to do when they see a gun.

And Jeff Jagels' father thinks it’s a great idea.

“I realized that this thing is incredibly effective, and I became determined to get one into every kindergarten class in Kern County along with the accompanying teaching materials,” Edward Jagels said.

Jagels, who is the Bakersfield district attorney, is a member of the NRA, and said he was astonished by his son’s reaction. His little tyke wanted to watch the videotape over and over again, and quickly repeated the instructions sung by Eddie Eagle in the cartoon.

Jagels thought the project was so good, he took it to the superintendent of Kern County Schools, who liked the idea.

“The fact that we're teaching a child not to touch a gun, to walk away from it, to tell an adult about the gun, that's going to make a child safer,” said Superintendent Larry Reider.

But others disagree. Local emergency room doctor Art Kellermann has treated his share of juvenile gunshot victims. He’s skeptical of any plan that puts the burden on a young child to make a critical judgment about firearms.

“Nobody should trust Eddie Eagle to make their child any safer than before they took the program," Kellermann said. “Rather than try over and over again to gun-proof our kids, I think we ought to child-proof our guns."

The Kern County superintendent will be sending Eddie Eagle tapes out to the district next week — but says it will be up to the individual schools whether to use them.

All guns should be locked up or otherwise kept from the reach of small children. My brother, a cop, has a gun safe. However, teaching a child what to do if they ever find a gun is crucial too.

Reasons Miers is a bad choice

The WSJ has to look hard to find information on Ms Miers, but what it finds isn't good.

White House aides who have worked with her for five years report she zealously advocated the president's views, but never gave any hint of her own. Indeed, when the Dallas Morning News once asked Ms. Miers to finish the sentence, "Behind my back, people say . . .," she responded, ". . . they can't figure me out."

Conservatives shouldn't care about her personal views on issues if they can convince themselves that she agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts's view of a judge's role: that cases should be decided the way an umpire calls balls and strikes, without rooting for either team. But the evidence of Ms. Miers's views on jurisprudence resemble a beach on which someone has walked without leaving any footprints: no court opinions, no law review articles, and no internal memos that President Bush is going to share with the Senate.

Harriet Miers is unquestionably a fine lawyer and a woman of great character. But her record on constitutional issues is nil, and it is therefore understandable that conservatives, having been burned at least seven times in the past 50 years, would be hesitant about supporting her nomination.

The scantiness of her philosophical record has led reporters to focus on the two years of her career where she had to take stands: her one term as a member of the Dallas City Council during 1990 and 1991. There she established a record as an advocate of good government, increased funding for the arts, and building a light-rail system. Her one moment of high drama came when she quieted an angry crowd alleging police brutality. She apologized to the protesters on behalf of the city and called the behavior of the officers "unprovoked and inexcusable."

Reactions to her from her former colleagues were mixed. Craig McDaniel, a liberal council member, praises her ability to get along with diverse groups of people and tells the Dallas Voice, a gay newspaper, "This is as good as we would ever get out of a Republican administration." Jerry Bartos, a conservative council colleague, rated her effectiveness at "zero" and called her "the consummate loner." But Sharon Boyd, a longtime friend and GOP activist, says many conservatives resented her solely because she had remained a Democrat until 1988. Ms. Boyd calls Ms. Miers's record on the council "very conservative." Yet when pressed for examples, she could only offer Ms. Miers's opposition to civil unions for gays and support for a constitutional amendment against flag burning.

On other issues, Ms. Miers's record is one of initially supporting a conservative position and then abandoning it. She started out backing a plan to redistrict the City Council that had received the endorsement of two-thirds of Dallas voters in a 1989 referendum. When it appeared that plan would lose a court case on account of its alleged effect on minority representation, she backed a plan for single-member districts supported by liberals. "I formally debated her on the issue," recalls Tom Pauken, a former chairman of the Texas Republican Party. "She was a liberal then. I don't know about today, but in the last week all the liberals who've been on the council have been singing her praises."

Similarly, Ms. Miers was originally part of a council majority that urged Congress to repeal the Wright Amendment, a law that restricts flights from Dallas Love Field. Southwest Airlines and free-market advocates had long attacked the restriction as favoritism toward American Airlines, which has a hub at Dallas-Fort Worth International. Ms. Miers reversed her position after 10 months and sponsored a resolution in favor of the Wright Amendment. She called her move "a triumph of reason over rhetoric" and cited two studies that claimed flying more planes out of Love would lead to traffic congestion. Most aviation experts dispute that conclusion.

Finally, a 1990 budget crunch forced the Dallas City Council to consider a property tax increase--its third in four years. Ms. Miers initially resisted the tax increase, then came around to the view that a property tax hike would be the fairest. The key vote came when the council voted 6-5 to add $900,000 to the budget proposed by the city manager as part of a 7% increase in the tax rate. Ms. Miers cast the deciding vote. Mr. Bartos, who had proposed an alternate plan for 5% across-the-board spending cuts on all departments except the police, was bitter that almost all of the proposed $900,000 budget increase was slated for library and arts funding rather than public safety.

After giving her effusive praise, her friends are a little nonplussed when asked if she is a conservative. "She is a person of great integrity," says Ms. Spaeth. "I have never had a political conversation with her." While many of the Bush judicial nominees she has helped shepherd to confirmation are affiliated with the Federalist Society, Ms. Miers herself has been ambivalent about the influential conservative legal group. In 1990, she almost anticipated how much of a lightning rod the group would become to the left. She testified in a court case that she would not join the society because "it's better not to be involved in organizations that seem to color your view one way or the other for people who are examining you."

David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, who describes Ms. Miers's role in the White House as largely that of a "bureaucrat who couldn't see the forest for the trees," nonetheless believes that Team Bush is right--but only for a while. He believes she will be remain a conservative justice at least until Mr. Bush leaves office in early 2009. "But then the Bushies will have gone home, and she will develop new friends, and then the inevitable tug to the left may prove irresistible."


"This is the most closely divided court in history," says Jay Sekulow , a conservative legal activist who backs Ms. Miers. "Everybody knows what is at stake here." With such high stakes, it should disappoint everyone that the Senate will now have to debate the confirmation of a nominee who, when it comes to Constitutional law, resembles a secret agent more than a scholar.

Religion of Peace update

This website keeps a running list of every Islamofascist terrorist attack since 09/11, all 3061 of them. It also tells us this little fun fact about the criminal justice system in Indonesia:

While Indonesian courts busied themselves with trying to decide the length of a prison sentence for three Sunday school teachers last month, Islamists were apparently planning the next Bali bombing. And why shouldn’t they? Indonesian courts seem to have a soft spot for Muslim bombers that doesn’t extend to those outside their “religion of peace.”

Case in point: the three women who were convicted of teaching Sunday school to consensual youth were each given a 3-year prison sentence. By contrast, radical cleric Abu Bakr Ba’asyir, convicted of conspiracy in the 2002 bombing that left more than two-hundred dead, was given six months less time behind bars.

Of course, the three church volunteers shouldn’t complain. They got a slap on the wrist compared to a 27-year-old Australian beauty school student, who received a 20-year sentence in an Indonesian court for supposedly smuggling nine pounds of marijuana into the country.

All of these sentences were handed down in 2005, three years after a horrific and coordinated attack that ended the lives of hundreds of people, mostly tourists at the resort area in Bali.

To summarize: Three years for teaching Sunday school, twenty years for transporting nine pounds of pot… and two and a half years for successfully conspiring to kill hundreds of innocents. Now there’s a religion that’s got its priorities straight!

After the first bombing, Indonesia began a campaign to woo back tourist dollars. About two dozen of those who took the bait are now dead, including at least one Australian. Terrorism is not a singular event, particularly in Islamic countries that don’t take it seriously. Until Indonesia manages to make it into the 21st century, it shouldn't be anyone's tourist destination.

More good news from Iraq the MSM isn't reporting

From the website of The Multinational Force in Iraq is some very good news:

The Stryker brigade has fought from Fallujah , Baghdad , Euphrates River Valley and then up in the Tigris River Valley and all the way up to Mosul in northern Iraq and out to the border out in Syria over the last year. We're very proud of the soldiers' performance. And two different situations that we faced in our time here -- pre-election and post-election. Prior to the elections last January, we faced a very well-trained foreign fighter and some very intense battles. And what we've seen is a population that was on the fence at that time, to post-election, a population that has absolutely understood that their government, their Iraqi security forces support them, and the terrorists offer no hope for the future.

One of the great pieces of information we got recently is 80 percent of the al Qaeda network in the north has been devastated. And those are not our figures, those came from the last six leaders in Mosul , al Qaeda leaders that we captured; they informed us of that. We also had a letter that was captured from Abu Zaid (sp) going to Zarqawi . We recently killed Zaid (sp) and we had that letter, and it also talked about the desperate situation for the al Qaeda and the insurgents in Mosul and in the north. And then also, sources we have inside the al Qaeda network up here have also informed us of that.

So we're very proud. We have a situation where the Iraq army is being rebuilt. The Iraqi police that ran away in November are standing and fighting. In fact, they recently found one of the largest caches certainly in the north, and maybe all of Iraq . And they're doing a very good job.

And then we have the population, I think is the most significant change I've seen over the last 11 months, from a population clearly on the fence, not sure -- they want freedom, but they weren't really sure what freedom was, and they were clearly intimidated, to a population that clearly understands they want freedom; they are absolutely sick and tired of the terrorists, the brutal acts against innocent civilians, and they want a brighter future for their children. And we've got a lot of statistics to back that up. Like when we first got here in October, there was -- no hotline existed. We opened a hotline; we got about 40 calls a month prior to January. The last six months, we're up to 400 calls a month. Every day the citizens are stopping us on the street telling us where a potential suspicious individual is who may be a terrorist, and telling us where they tried to plant IEDs and those type of devices. So the population is clearly very confident.

Oil Sanity

The WSJ points out that bubbles in the energy market are nothing new.

We keep hearing the word "bubble" to describe industries with rapid and unsustainable rising prices. Hence, the Internet bubble, the telecom bubble, stock market bubble, and now, some analysts believe, a housing bubble. Yet for some mysterious reason no one speaks of the oil bubble--though prices have tripled in two years to as high as $70 a barrel.

Reviewing the history of oil-market boom and bust confirms that we are in the midst of a classic oil bubble and that prices will eventually fall, perhaps dramatically. Despite apocalyptic warnings, the world is not running out of oil and the pumps are not going to run dry in our lifetimes--or ever. What's more, the mechanism that will surely prevent any long-term catastrophic shortages in energy is precisely the free-market incentive to make profits that many politicians in Washington seem to regard as an evil pursuit and wish to short circuit.

The best evidence for an oil bubble comes from the lessons of America's last six energy crises, dating back to the late 19th century, when there was a great scare about the industrial age grinding to a halt because of impending shortages of coal. (Today coal is superabundant, with about 500 years of supply.) Each one of these crises has run almost an identical course.

First, the crisis begins with a spike in energy prices as a result of a short-term supply shock. Next, higher prices bring doomsday claims of energy shortages, which in turn prompts government to intervene ineffectually into the marketplace. In the end, the advent of new technologies and new energy discoveries--all inspired by the profit motive--brings the crisis to an abrupt end, enabling oil and electricity markets to resume their virtuous long-term downward price trend.

The limits-to-growth crowd has predicted the end of oil since the days when this black gold was first discovered as an energy source in the mid-19th century. In the 1860s the U.S. Geological Survey forecast that there was "little or no chance" that oil would be found in Texas or California. In 1914 the Interior Department forecast that there was only a 10-year supply of oil left; in 1939 it calculated there was only a 13-year supply left, and in 1951 Interior warned that by the mid-1960s the oil wells would certainly run dry. In the 1970s, Jimmy Carter somberly told the nation that "we could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade."

We can ridicule these doom-and-gloom predictions today, but at the time they were taken seriously by scholars and politicians, just as the energy alarmists are gaining intellectual traction today. But as the late economist Julian Simon taught, by any meaningful measure oil (and all natural resources) has gotten steadily cheaper and far more bountiful in supply over time, despite periodic and even wild fluctuations in the market.

If gasoline cost today what it cost a family in 1900 (relative to income), we would be paying not $3 but $10 a gallon at the pump. Or consider that in 1860 oil sold for $4 a barrel, or the equivalent of about $400 a barrel in today's wage-adjusted prices. The first of a continuous series of innovations, in this case the invention of modern drilling techniques in 1869, cut the price by more than 90%--to 35 cents a barrel.

Fifty years ago people would have laughed out loud at the idea of drilling for oil at the bottom of the ocean or getting fuel from sand, both of which were technologically infeasible. The first deep-sea oil rig went on line in 1965 and drilled 500 feet down. Now these rigs drill two miles into the ground--and miraculously, the price of extracting oil from 10,000 feet deep in the sea bed today is approaching the cost of drilling 100 feet down from the richest fields in Texas or Saudi Arabia 40 years ago.

This spectacular pace of technological progress explains why over time the amount of recoverable reserves of oil has increased, not fallen. Between 1980 and 2002 the amount of known global oil reserves increased by 300 billion barrels, according to a survey by British Petroleum. Rather than the oil fields running dry, just the opposite has been happening. In 1970 Saudi Arabia had 88 billion barrels of known oil. Thirty-five years later, nearly 100 billion barrels have been extracted and yet the latest forecast is that there are still 264 billion barrels left--although the Saudis have never allowed independent auditors to verify these numbers.

In this industry, alas, bad news tends to crowd out the good. When Shell announced earlier this year that its oil and gas reserves were down by 30%, there was a global outcry. But when Canada announced in 2004 that it has more recoverable oil from tar sands than there is oil in Saudi Arabia, the world yawned. There is estimated to be about as much oil recoverable from the shale rocks in Colorado and other western states as in all the oil fields of OPEC nations. Yes, the cost of getting that oil is still prohibitively expensive, but the combination of today's high fuel prices and improved extraction techniques means that the break-even point for exploiting it is getting ever closer.

The energy Malthusians counter that China, India and other nations will satisfy their growing appetite for oil by driving demand and prices ever higher. In the short term, yes. But over the longer term, as the Chinese become more prosperous through free markets, China will become vastly more fuel efficient and also help discover new sources of energy.

America produces twice as much output per unit of energy consumed as it did 50 years ago. Liberals who say we need government to intervene in the energy markets, to patch the alleged failings of the free market, fail to comprehend that the command-and-control economies of the last 50 years have been far and away the biggest wasters of energy (and the biggest polluters). South Korea produces about three times as much output per kilowatt of electricity as North Korea does.

This is no call for complacency or inaction in the face of very high energy prices; it's a call for realism. Higher prices for gas and fuel for home heating have cost the average U.S. family about $1,500 to $2,000 a year. (Thankfully the Bush tax cuts have given back about precisely that amount in lower tax payments to the IRS.) The tax on the American economy from higher oil prices has reached $300 million a day and has chopped nearly a percentage point off GDP growth.

Our point is that the constraints on our ability to find and extract new oil are not geologic or scientific. The real constraints on oil production are barriers created by government. Myron Ebell, an environmental analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, notes that roughly 90% of the oil on the planet rests under government-owned land and these resources are abysmally managed.

In the U.S., environmentalists have erected myriad barriers to drilling for new sources of oil. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that there are at least 100 billion barrels that are fairly easily recoverable in Alaska and offshore that oil companies are not permitted to exploit. Once, we could afford the luxury of not drilling there. Now, thanks to a witch's brew of unforeseen circumstances--political turmoil in the oil producing countries, China's surge in demand, and hurricanes that have knocked out Gulf refineries--it's an economic and national security imperative that we do.

Here's one simple idea to increase the domestic supply of oil: Have Uncle Sam share its oil-drilling royalties with the California government. If Californians realized they could go a long way to solving their deficit and overtaxation problems by raising billions of these petro-dollars, the aversion on the left coast toward offshore drilling might well begin to subside.

We will assess at another time the many dreadful ideas--price controls and "windfall profit" taxes--that Congress is considering to deal with the energy crisis. But for today it is sufficient to note that the free market will deliver oil, electricity and other forms of energy at declining prices in the future, if only the government will let the market's benign and productive forces work their magic.

Krauthammer: Withdraw this nominee

Charles Krauthammer blasts Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers.

When in 1962 Edward Moore Kennedy ran for his brother's seat in the Senate, his opponent famously said that if Kennedy's name had been Edward Moore, his candidacy would have been a joke. If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her.

We've had quite enough dynastic politics over the past decades. (Considering the trouble I have had with Benjamin and William Henry Harrison, I pity the schoolchildren of the future who will have to remember who was who in the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton presidential alternations from 1989 to 2017.) But nominating a constitutional tabula rasa to sit on what is America's constitutional court is an exercise of regal authority with the arbitrariness of a king giving his favorite general a particularly plush dukedom. The only advance we've made since then is that Supreme Court dukedoms are not hereditary.

It is particularly dismaying that this act should have been perpetrated by the conservative party. For half a century, liberals have corrupted the courts by turning them into an instrument of radical social change on questions -- school prayer, abortion, busing, the death penalty -- that properly belong to the elected branches of government. Conservatives have opposed this arrogation of the legislative role and called for restoration of the purely interpretive role of the court. To nominate someone whose adult life reveals no record of even participation in debates about constitutional interpretation is an insult to the institution and to that vision of the institution.

There are 1,084,504 lawyers in the United States. What distinguishes Harriet Miers from any of them, other than her connection with the president? To have selected her, when conservative jurisprudence has J. Harvie Wilkinson, Michael Luttig, Michael McConnell and at least a dozen others on a bench deeper than that of the New York Yankees, is scandalous.

It will be argued that this criticism is elitist. But this is not about the Ivy League. The issue is not the venue of Miers's constitutional scholarship, experience and engagement. The issue is their nonexistence.

Moreover, the Supreme Court is an elite institution. It is not one of the "popular" branches of government. That is the reason Sen. Roman Hruska achieved such unsought immortality when he declared, in support of an undistinguished Nixon nominee to the court, that, yes, G. Harrold Carswell is a mediocrity but mediocre Americans deserve representation on the court as well.

To serve in Congress, or even as president, there is no requirement for scholarship and brilliance. For good reason. It is not needed. It can even be a hindrance, as we learned from our experience with Woodrow Wilson, the most intellectually accomplished president of the 20th century and also the worst.

But constitutional jurisprudence is different. It is, by definition, an exercise of intellect steeped in scholarship. Otherwise it is nothing but raw politics. And is it not the conservative complaint that liberals have abused the courts by having them exercise raw super-legislative power, the most egregious example of which is the court's most intellectually bankrupt ruling, Roe v. Wade ?

By choosing a nominee suggested by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and well known only to himself, the president has ducked a fight on the most important domestic question dividing liberals from conservatives: the principles by which one should read and interpret the Constitution. For a presidency marked by a courageous willingness to think and do big things, this nomination is a sorry retreat into smallness.

Katie Holmes' brainwashing continues

The adventures of the Manchurian Fiancee continue as the Scientologists tighten their grip on Katie Holmes.

Katie Holmes fired her publicist of nearly eight years on Tuesday.

During her conversation with Leslie Sloane-Zelnick, Holmes did not mention that she was pregnant by fiancé Tom Cruise. The next day, the news broke.

In short order, since meeting Cruise in April, Holmes has now fired her manager, changed agents and discharged her publicist. All had been her longtime allies.

And let's not forget the broken engagement to actor Chris Klein back in March. That's a lot of activity for seven months.

Where does that leave our Katie? I'm told that Holmes has claimed Cruise's sister, Lee Ann De Vette, as her new publicist.

Pictures of Holmes from just a few days ago with Cruise on the set of "Mission: Impossible 3" are circulating on the Internet. There's no sign of a pregnancy, but there is a woman in the background of every picture.

She's been identified as Jessica Feshbach Rodriguez, Holmes' best friend since the spring and a high-level minder from the Church of Scientology. Her family has donated millions to Scientology.

As for Holmes' friends here in New York, the word is that not one of them has heard from the actress since she flew to L.A. to meet Cruise for the first time last April.

Since Holmes first became associated with Cruise, her career has come to a standstill. Pretty much the only project she has coming up is the DVD release of "Batman Begins."

That release coincides with the release of the "War of the Worlds" DVD. The timing of the releases and the pregnancy announcement are probably coincidental.

Holmes pulled out of the next movie she was supposed to make, "Factory Girl," after she became involved with Cruise. Certain to be a career-maker, the role of Edie Sedgwick will now be played by Sienna Miller.

A more recently announced Holmes part, a smallish one in a Dennis Quaid-directed feature about the 1961 murder of a woman by her bandleader husband, will probably have to be tabled now.

Holmes also makes an appearance in "Thank You for Smoking," currently playing the festival circuit. Otherwise, her career trajectory — which was on the upswing with "Pieces of April" — is over.

All of this still leaves the issue of Holmes' family members back in Toledo. They're putting on a brave face. But they can't be too thrilled about a pregnancy without a marriage.

So I guess we can expect an adrenaline-filled, paparazzi-crazed wedding sometime in the next month. Gentlemen, start your helicopters.

Back when the Catholic Church in the US had more bravado than it does now, some Bishop would be voicing his outrage over a daughter of Mother Church getting brainwashed by a cult. Ever hear of Leo Durocher getting censured for his behavior? I wish the Bishop of Toledo (Katie's hometown) or someone would voice their outrage. I feel very bad for her parents.

The Emperor for Senate!

His Royal Highness Darth Misha I takes the Senate to task for coddling terrorists. Excerpts:

our Handpicked Halfwits in the Senate have about as much understanding of the necessities of war as your average aardvark has of Pythagoras’ Theorem. But why would they? They’re not the ones about to get killed in the trenches because our intel staff won’t be allowed to collect useful intel anymore. Why would they even care? They don’t, that’s the long and short of it.

We looked up the vote (we need to find out who’s who and where, after all), and found to our relief that we have ONE Senator (Cornyn) left around here whom we won’t have to pelt with rotten tomatoes at our earliest opportunity. The other (Hutchison), on the other hand, voted with Traitor McCain. The fun part is that we just received a begging letter from her the other day. Of course we were going to send it back, but now we’ll wipe our ass with it before we mail it as well.

The Senate passed the measure by a margin well beyond the two-thirds required to override a presidential veto. But the White House, while reiterating the veto threat Thursday, appeared sanguine about the matter.

“The House legislation doesn’t include that language,” noted Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. Suggesting that such a provision seemed unlikely to survive the conferences in which the Senate and House iron out legislative differences, McClellan said, “We will continue working with Congress to address this issue.”

We can only hope that the Representatives aren’t as blockheadedly on the side of our enemies as Hanoi McCain and his fellow Egghead Benedict (Arnold)s in the Senate, but we’re not exactly holding our breath.

The amendment would require troops conducting interrogations to limit themselves to a list of techniques authorized in a new army field manual.

None of which would include anything we ever learned was actually useful, we’re willing to bet. They might still be allowed to threaten with withholding sugar from the terrorists’ tea (as long as they don’t actually follow through with it), but that’s all.

The unexpectedly one-sided vote followed an impassioned plea from a Republican senator, John McCain of Arizona Hanoi, who, as a young navy aviator was shot down over North Vietnam and then tortured by his captors.

Which obviously did something irreparable to his brain. We bet that the Hanoi commies did a damn sight more to our Manchurian candidate than put panties on his head, too.

McCain argued that Americans taken prisoner in war would suffer if American jailors did not maintain internationally accepted standards.

Suffer more than having their heads sawn off or being gang raped up the ass by their captors? Damn, those terrorists must have some amazingly creative minds if they can come up with something worse than what they’ve always been doing anyway. Maybe we should send Traitor McCain on a fact finding mission to Al-Zarqawi to find out. Let Zarqawi know that we don’t necessarily want him back in one piece either.

Lefty hypocrisy with the Palestinians Displaced Arabs

Lefties love the Palestinians displaced Arabs. They also love music, dancing, and gay culture. What to do causes collide?

A VISION of an Islamic society that bans mixed dancing and sternly disapproves of homosexuality has been given by Mahmoud Zahar, the most senior leader of Hamas in Gaza.

After controversies when a Hamas-led council halted a dance festival and Islamist gunmen stopped a rap band performing in Gaza, Dr Zahar defended the enforcement of a strict interpretation of Islam.

“A man holds a woman by the hand and dances with her in front of everyone. Does that serve the national interest?” Dr Zahar said on the Arabic website Elaph. “If so, why have the phenomena of corruption and prostitution become pervasive in recent years?”

Because of successes by Hamas in municipal polls and its likely strong showing in January’s parliamentary elections, secular Palestinians fear that it will try to impose its ultraconservative vision on them. Its Gaza heartland has no cinemas or bars, yet the West Bank has a brewery and Ramallah restaurants serve wine.

Dr Zahar condemned homosexual marriage, saying: “Are these the laws for which the Palestinian street is waiting? For us to give rights to homosexuals and to lesbians, a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick?”

He denied that Hamas wanted a puritancial regime, and said its political and social institutions included women.

Louis Freeh talks about Clinton

Clinton's presidency was more malignant that we knew, and former FBI director Louis Freeh is giving us more details.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh says publicly for the first time that his relationship with President Bill Clinton – the man who appointed him – was a terrible one because Clinton’s scandals made him a constant target of FBI investigations. Freeh discloses this and many other details of his dealings with the Clinton White House in a new bombshell book: 'My FBI : Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror' -- set for release next week.

Freeh has taped an interview with Mike Wallace and CBSNEWS '60 MINUTES' to be broadcast Sunday, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

MORE

In the book, “My FBI,” he writes, “The problem was with Bill Clinton -- the scandals and the rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended. Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction. His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out.”

The director sought to distance himself from Clinton because of Whitewater, refusing a White House pass that would have enabled him to enter the building without signing in. This irked Clinton. “I wanted all my visits to be official,” says Freeh. “When I sent the pass back with a note, I had no idea it would antagonize the president,” he tells Wallace.

Returning the pass was only the start of the rift. Later, relations got so bad that President Clinton reportedly began referring to Freeh as “that F…ing Freeh.” Says Freeh, “I don’t know how they referred to me and I really didn’t care,” he says. “My role and my obligation was to conduct criminal investigations. He, unfortunately for the country and unfortunately for him, happened to be the subject of that investigation,” Freeh says.

In another revelation, Freeh says the former president let down the American people and the families of victims of the Khobar Towers terror attack in Saudi Arabia. After promising to bring to justice those responsible for the bombing that killed 19 and injured hundreds, Freeh says Clinton refused to personally ask Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to allow the FBI to question bombing suspects the kingdom had in custody – the only way the bureau could secure the interviews, according to Freeh. Freeh writes in the book, “Bill Clinton raised the subject only to tell the crown prince that he understood the Saudis’ reluctance to cooperate and then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library.” Says Freeh, “That’s a fact that I am reporting.”

The most unsavory of those investigations was the one concerning Clinton and Lewinsky. The White House intern had kept a semen-stained dress as proof of her relationship and a Clinton blood sample was needed to match the DNA on the dress. “Well, it was like a bad movie and it was ridiculous that…Ken Starr and myself, the director of the FBI, find ourselves in that ridiculous position,” he tells Wallace. “But we did it…very carefully, very confidentially,” recalls Freeh. As he explains the plan in the book, Clinton was at a scheduled dinner and excused himself to go to the bathroom. Instead of the restroom, he entered another room where FBI medical technicians were waiting to take a blood sample.

Freeh says he was determined to stay on as FBI director until President Clinton left office so that Clinton could not appoint his successor. “I was concerned about who he would put in there as FBI director because he had expressed antipathy for the FBI, for the director,” he tells Wallace. “[So] I was going to stay there and make sure he couldn’t replace me,” Freeh tells Wallace.

Clinton scandals just won't go away

Before being too outraged about the special prosecutor investigating Cisneros, look at what is being uncovered.

What don't David Kendall, the law firm of Williams & Connolly, and clients such as Hillary Rodham Clinton want the public to know?

We'd have thought that question would be on more Washington lips as the report of Independent Counsel David Barrett languishes under seal at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Barrett is the fellow who began investigating a tax-fraud case involving former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros but expanded his probe to include alleged abuses by the Clinton Justice Department and IRS.

Yet instead of exhibiting any curiosity, the press corps is again writing its semi-annual stories about the costs of keeping Mr. Barrett's office open. The fact is that Mr. Barrett would love to close up shop if only Democratic lawyers and the judges of the so-called "special division" that oversees his work would let him.

Readers may recall the last iteration of this drama in April, when Senators Byron Dorgan, John Kerry and Richard Durbin attached an amendment to a war appropriations bill that would have stopped funding Mr. Barrett's office. We pointed out that this would have returned control of the Barrett probe to one of the very departments implicated--Justice--and, happily, the amendment was killed.

Now a new report from the Government Accountability Office is being used as an excuse for still more complaints about the Barrett probe. We agree it's high time it finished, but this isn't possible until somebody puts a stop to delaying tactics by lawyers for those named in the report. (Mr. Cisneros himself long ago pleaded guilty, and was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 2001.)

In April we reported that Williams & Connolly--which represents many prominent Democrats, including Mr. Cisneros--had filed more than 190 motions and appeals, one of which alone took 18 months to deal with. Now we are told that yet another secret delay order has been granted by the court. What's more, Williams & Connolly's Mr. Kendall--who as far as anyone knows represents not Mr. Cisneros but Mrs. Clinton--has been among those spotted at the courthouse reviewing the IC's report.

One possible motivation isn't hard to imagine: Senator Clinton is running for re-election next year (never mind any possible Presidential ambitions), and she can't be excited about the possible release of a report that might reflect poorly on the Clinton Administration's IRS and Justice Department, especially with the IRS having been run by her friend, Peggy Richardson. Our calls this week to Mr. Kendall and Williams & Connolly for comment on the delays were not returned.

What we do know for sure is that the 400-plus-page Barrett Report is essentially done, and has been for about a year; that the rules that allow a review and comment period for individuals named in IC reports are fair and proper; but that the review period (which was scheduled to finish in May) must end sometime if the public interest in seeing the results of the $22 million investigation is to be served.

We're told the Barrett report will be an eye-opener, as it is the first time the IRS has ever been investigated using grand jury subpoena powers. If the Senators and Congressmen like Henry Waxman are as concerned about the use of taxpayer money as they've professed to be, they'd urge Williams & Connolly to resolve its outstanding issues with Mr. Barrett and allow his report to finally see the light of day.

Gays against Pastors

Two gay activists are trying to fight against Black pastors that believe in the Bible's teaching that homosexual behavior is wrong: gay radicals spread gay rumors about pastors.

Two black gay activists and bloggers have launched an online campaign targeting prominent African-American ministers known for their opposition to homosexual practice. Keith Boykin and Jasmyne Cannick seek to plant the suspicion that these "homophobic black ministers" are themselves secretly homosexual. This campaign of religious "outing" seems to have a strong whiff of blackmail about it.

Boykin and Cannick claim that their innuendo springs from an "obvious question." The two activists reason thus: "[O]ur experience has shown that the people who are the most homophobic also tend to be dealing with their own issues about their sexuality. People who are comfortable with their sexuality usually don't care as much about other people's sexuality." The two do not consider the possibility that the ministers might sincerely believe that the Bible calls Christians to abstain from all sex outside of marriage, including homosexual relations.

According to the Washington Blade, a major gay newspaper, Boykin lamented that "we have been too nice for far too long." Cannick explained, "It's time we really did something to push the envelope and get a conversation started." Both activists sometimes write for that publication directed to the DC homosexual community. The Blade article also quoted a further allegation from Boykin about the motivations of black ministers opposed to homosexual practice: "A lot of them spew hate for the money."

Boykin and Cannick's online series consists of profiles of various ministers. Each profile prominently asks whether the minister in question might be homosexual, even though it has provides no substantial evidence to justify this speculation. The two bloggers then turn to their audience for the evidence, asking readers to submit embarrassing information that could be used against the ministers.

In the initial post of this effort, Boykin and Cannick asserted: "From New York to Los Angeles, black LGBT people have been the backbone of the black church. Through this network, we've discovered that many homophobic black pastors lead secret lives outside the church. We're not naming any names, yet, but if you know something to help us confirm the information from our sources, we'd like to know."

***cough***Bullshit****cough****

Palestinian death cult

Stories like this show just how sick Palestinian "culture" is.

HAIFA Hindiya, a 36-year-old mother of five, was shot to death after stabbing a female Israeli soldier in the face at a West Bank checkpoint on Monday.

"She was on her way to committing a martyrdom attack. We are not committed to the truce, and we will not respect it," said the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade statement's to the press.

She wasn't just a mother; relatives claimed Hindiya was "mentally ill."

Where is the outrage over the recruitment of a mentally unstable mother of five for "martyrdom?" What will become of her children? Will they be told their mother was a "heroine" because she was trying to kill Jews? Will they be "educated" to follow in her footsteps, to continue in the "proud tradition" of killing innocents?

The whole world knows the answers to those questions — even as Palestinians continue putting mock explosive vests on babies, teaching that the "only good Jew is a dead Jew" and insisting the greatest "aspiration" for their peoples' future is "martyrdom."

The whole world will also continue to tolerate an entire society steeped in psychotic, self-destructive behavior, which makes one wonder: Who is sicker, those who commit atrocities — or those who let them pass in silence?

Sexual predators are a procted class: only in California

Only in Cali would people care more about sex offenders than the innocent.

Did you know that in California, child molesters and rapists are a protected class? It's true. Not only are California landlords banned from using the state's Megan's Law database to decline renting their properties to sex offenders, they're not even allowed to warn other tenants that these paroled criminals are now their neighbors. If they do the first, they can be fined $25,000 for housing discrimination. But if they don't do the second, they can be sued for failing to protect tenants against a known danger.

Landlords are caught between a rock, a hard place and the California State Assembly's Public Safety Committee, which last April stalled a bill designed to fix the Catch-22. The California Apartment Association is planning a grassroots effort to revive the bill, written by Assembly member Nicole Parra (D., Bakersfield), when the legislature reconvenes in January. Ms. Parra got the California Megan's Law registry online a year ago; before that, it was only available at police stations.

The Megan's Law movement began in New Jersey in 1994, after a seven-year-old girl there was murdered by a paroled child molester who'd moved in across the street. Megan's Laws differ from state to state, but in general they require law enforcement to maintain a registry of convicted sex offenders living in the area and make this registry available to the public.

The ACLU has fought Megan's Laws in every state but never succeeded in getting one declared unconstitutional; but as a sop to those worried about vigilantism, California's version included the provision against housing discrimination. The reform measure, AB 438, would specify that sex offenders are not a protected class. It would also order that the addresses of registered sex offenders--which are often outdated--be kept current online. As it stands, renters in an apartment formerly occupied by a sex offender run the risk of becoming false suspects.

Nevertheless, the ACLU opposes AB 438, and Assembly members Mervyn Dymally (D., Compton), Jackie Goldberg (D., L.A.) and committee chair Mark Leno (D., San Francisco) all voted no. For representatives serving on a public safety committee, these three seem oddly unconcerned with public safety. Mr. Dymally lately has been arguing that it's wrong to deny illegal immigrants driver's licenses, but this is probably just the latest blip in a long career of entitlement politics. Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Leno, however, seem to have a particular habit of positioning themselves against anyone trying to promote an orderly civic environment in California.

When she was on the Los Angeles City Council in the '90s, Ms. Goldberg alienated even fellow liberals by regularly siding with vagrants and bar patrons against residents. "We can thank Jackie for that," a neighbor remarked to me irritably one morning, as I walked the dog around used condoms littering the side street near a gay bar.

Others complained about a major street nearby that had been taken over by people who lived in their cars and used the curbside area as an outdoor latrine. "Jackie's solution was to put in Porta-potties," recalls syndicated political columnist Jill Stewart, who's long been a thorn in Ms. Goldberg's side. "She was always big on bringing in homeless people where no one wanted them."

Mark Leno, best known as the author of California's recently vetoed gay-marriage bill, this summer criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to toughen California laws against sex offenders. Proposed new restrictions, which may be on the ballot next year, include keeping rapists and child molesters farther away from schools and parks, and requiring some to wear electronic monitoring bracelets.

"It doesn't tell you what they're doing," Mr. Leno complained to the San Jose Mercury News about the tracking devices. Like many who consider worries about pedophiles overblown, Mr. Leno pointed out that most such offenses are from people the victim knows. True. Such concern would seem more sincere, however, if Mr. Leno hadn't been the only Public Safety Committee member to vote against a bill closing loopholes in the treatment of incestuous child molesters.

When Gov. Schwarzenegger suggested, in a shrugging sort of way, that the Democrats opposing the toughened sex-crime laws he backs are less concerned with public safety than Republicans, Mr. Leno told the Sacramento Bee that the governor's attitude was "egregious."

Property manager Scott Monroe, on the other hand, finds the special privileges accorded to sex offenders in California's Megan's Law just as egregious. "Right now sex offenders have to keep a certain distance from schools and day-care centers, but they can share a common wall with children in an apartment building."

Mr. Monroe, who owns a San Bernardino County mobile-home park where many elderly single women live, told the committee about his unnerving experience sitting across the table from a paroled rapist tenant covered with tattoos, whom other tenants had discovered through the Megan's Law Web site and wanted gone.

"I couldn't do anything, but I couldn't not do anything," said Mr. Monroe. Fortunately, he didn't have to risk a lawsuit for evicting (or not evicting) the tenant--the guy accepted $250 to move out.

Mr. Monroe was one of those who testified in favor of AB 438 to the Public Safety Committee. "It was shocking," he recalls. Mr. Leno "basically said the gay community has had to fight for its rights for so long, he didn't want to put sex offenders through the same thing." Mr. Leno doesn't remember it that way. "I would not have proactively brought up the gay community and sex offenders. I'll be gracious and say there's been a misunderstanding." In any case, the gay community has long battled to persuade mainstream America to think of them as solid citizens rather than as deviants. That battle has been mostly won, and rightly so. How odd for a gay leader to sabotage that by making common cause with child molesters and rapists.

Megan's Law isn't perfect. But lawmakers who reflexively fight against it (or against worthwhile fixes) aren't exactly part of the solution.

English bending over and grabbing their ankles for the Muslims

This multi-cultural "mustn't offend anyone" bs is getting ridiculous.

LEICESTER -- Police here in central England seized a collection of porcelain pigs from a house's window sill after Muslims complained that they were offensive.

"I just couldn't believe it, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," Mrs Nancy Bennett, the owner of the 17 miniature pigs, told the Sun tabloid newspaper.

The porcelain figures were held at the local police station, while Mrs Bennett was threatened with prosecution if she replaces the collection. Her house is located in the same street as the city's main mosque, meaning that Muslim worshippers often passed by her front window where the pig figurines were on display.

"Muslims find pigs highly offensive," explained police officer David Griffiths. "That is why the complaints were made".

Makes me want to have a big pig roast on that street, turning on the spit, with a good spice rub....YUMMMY!

Mark Steyn blasts the MSM's hurricane coverage

If it's Steyn, it has to be good.

Dan Rather was on ''Larry King Live'' the other night and was asked about the Katrina coverage. Now, say what you like about Dan, but he knows his meteorological phenomena. I've always thought there was something quintessentially American about Dan's hurricane editions of the CBS news -- not the part of the show where he's reporting on the actual hurricane, but the bit where he says "And today's other headlines,'' as if it's the most normal thing in the world to be reading "The Dow closed 19 points down today" while wrapped around a lamppost in your sou'wester with a rusting doublewide flying over your shoulder.

Yet Hurricane Dan professed himself delighted with his successors. "They took us there to the hurricane," he told Larry. "They put the facts in front of us and, very important, they sucked up their guts and talked truth to power."

Er, no. The facts they put in front of us were wrong, and they didn't talk truth to power. They talked to goofs in power, like New Orleans' Mayor Nagin and Police Chief Compass, and uncritically fell for every nutso yarn they were peddled. The media swallowed more bilge than if they'd been lying down with their mouths open as the levee collapsed. Ten thousand dead! Widespread rape and murder! A 7-year-old gang-raped and then throat-slashed! It was great stuff -- and none of it happened. No gang-raped 7-year-olds. None.

Most of the media are still in Dan mode, sucking up their guts and congratulating themselves about what a swell job they did during Katrina. CNN producers were advising their guests to "be angry," and there was so much to get angry about, not least the fact that no matter how angry you got on air Anderson Cooper was always much better at it. And Mayor Nagin as well. To show he was angry, he said "frickin'" all the frickin' time so that by the end of a typical Nagin soundbite you felt as if you'd been gang-fricked. "That frickin' Superdome," he raged. "Five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."

But nobody got killed by a hooligan in the Superdome. The problem wasn't rape and murder, but the rather more prosaic lack of bathroom facilities. As Ben Stein put it, it was the media that rioted. They grabbed every lurid rumor and took it for a wild joyride across prime time. There was a real story in there -- big hurricane, people dead -- but it wasn't enough, and certainly not for damaging President Bush.

Think about that: Hurricane week was in large part a week of drivel, mostly the bizarre fantasies of New Orleans' incompetent police chief but amplified hugely by a gullible media. Given everything we now know they got wrong in Louisiana, where they speak the language, how likely is it that the great blundering herd are getting it any more accurate in Iraq?

Four years ago, you'll recall, we were bogged down in "the brutal Afghan winter." By "we," I don't mean the military but the media. The line on Afghanistan was that it was the white man's grave. Actually, it was the grave that was white; the man was more of a blueish color thanks to temperatures "so cold that eyelids crust and saliva turns to sludge in the mouth," according to Knight-Ridder's Tom Ifield. "Realistically," reported New York's Daily News, "U.S. forces have a window of two or three weeks before the brutal Afghan winter begins to foreclose options."

Er, no. "Realistically," U.S. forces turned out to have a window of four years, which is how long they've been waiting for the "fast, fast approaching" (ABC's ''Nightline'') brutal Afghan winter to show up. It's Knight-Ridder's news reports that turn to sludge on your lips. The "brutal Afghan winter" is a media fiction.

How many times does this have to happen before the press seriously examines why so many of them get the big stories wrong in exactly the same way? After decades of boasting about "hiring diversity," everybody in America's newsrooms is now so remarkably diverse they all make exactly the same mistakes. Oughtn't that to be just a teensy bit disquieting even to the most blinkered journalism professor?

How appropriate that it should be Dan Rather, always late to yesterday's conventional wisdom, to bless the media's fraudulent coverage of Katrina. Dan was back, along with his dismissed producer Mary Mapes, to defend his fake-memo story from last year. Another interviewer, his former CBS colleague Marvin Kalb, sympathized at the way Rather's terrific story had somehow gotten lost in a lot of tedious quibbling about the fact that the 1970s typewritten memos amazingly used the default font of Microsoft Word: "The focus was not on the substance of your story," complained Marvin to Dan. "The National Guard aspect of the whole thing sort of dropped to the side, and this media focus was on you."

The critics had, as Mary Mapes puts it in her new book, "nothing beyond a cursory and politically motivated examination of the typeface." To this day, as Dan likes to moan, the White House is still refusing to address the substance of the story.

There's a reason for that. If I say "King Zog of Albania today launched a blistering critique of the CBS News Division," and you point out that King Zog of Albania died in 1961, that's it -- it's over. Doesn't matter how blistering the critique is. And that goes for the hurricane, too. You can't indict Bush for failing to respond when you've spent the previous week demanding he respond to fake crises -- mass murder, mass child rape, five-figure body counts.

Oh, well. Even at CNN, hurricane fever can't last forever. According to the headline writers at the network's Web site on Thursday:

"Bush Narrows Supreme Court List: Judges, Lawyers Being Considered, Analysts Say."

Well, those "analysts" lent a devastating blow to those of us who thought the president would push the envelope, think outside the box and appoint a busboy or exotic dancer. But no. After two centuries of the same-old same-old, it's still "judges, lawyers being considered." But it's good to know the media are reverting to ponderous statements of the obvious after a wild and wacky couple of weeks' worth of statements of the obviously wrong.

Dhimmi update: trying to change the English flag?

Now that they've banned Piglet, the Muslims are after the English Flag. Not the Union Jack, but the English flag with the cross of St George, apparently ticks off some Muslims.

British prison officers who wore a St. George's Cross tie-pin have been ticked off by the jails watchdog over concerns about the symbol's racist connotations.

The pins showing the English flag -- which has often raised hackles due to its connection with the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries -- could be "misconstrued," Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said in a section on race in a report on a jail in the northern English city of Wakefield.

The banner of St. George, the red cross of a martyr on a white background, was adopted for the uniform of English soldiers during the military expeditions by European powers to recapture the Holy Land from Muslims, and later became the national flag of England.

A section on race relations in Owers' report said: "We were concerned to see a number of staff wearing a flag of St. George tie-pin.

"While we were told that these had been bought in support of a cancer charity there was clear scope for misinterpretation, and Prison Service Orders made clear that unauthorized badges and pins should not be worn."

As one of her formal recommendations Owers said: "Staff should not wear unauthorized badges or pins."

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, said Tuesday the red cross was an insensitive reminder of the Crusades.

"A lot of Muslims and Arabs view the Crusades as a bloody episode in our history," he told CNN. "They see those campaigns as Christendom launching a brutal holy war against Islam.

"Muslim or Arab prisoners could take umbrage if staff wore a red cross badge. It's also got associations with the far-right. Prison officers should be seen to be neutral."

Doyle added that it was now time for England to find a new flag and a patron saint who is "not associated with our bloody past and one we can all identify with."

How about St Michael, conquering the evil of the jihadists? No, screw it, leave St George in place. The jihadists can go to Germany if they don't like it.

Poor Piglet

NYC's new teachers' contract

Some good news for the kids! Here are the reforms:

- Seniority transfers and a process called "bumping" will end: This means that senior teachers will no longer be able take their pick of plum jobs simply by virtue of having worked in the system longer.

- Teachers will no longer have the right to file a grievance over every single letter a principal puts in their file. The existing process made it immeasurably difficult for principals to discipline incompetent teachers.

- Teachers accused of the most grievous crimes, such as sexual conduct with students, will finally be taken out of the regular (and molasses-slow) disciplinary process and immediately suspended without pay.

- Principals gain the right to assign teachers to lunchrooms, hall patrol and other duties — and also essentially get an extra period of work a day out of 35,000 middle- and high-school teachers, who can now be assigned to activities such as tutoring or running math and chess and science clubs for kids.

- Lead-teacher positions will be created, receiving a $10,000 bonus, which can be used to reward merit, attract teachers in hard-to-staff subjects like science and math or attract teachers to low-performing schools.

Again, this contract isn't everything that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and other critics wanted. It's far from the stripped-down, eight-page contract Klein once proposed.

It's still far too difficult to fire incompetent teachers, even if one step in the process has been removed. And seniority still plays a pervasive role in assigning jobs, even if some of its most egregious abuses have been curbed.

Still, Bloomberg & Co. deserve tremendous credit for holding out for such significant reforms. And Weingarten deserves credit for finally acknowledging that major parts of the contract are in need of an overhaul.

It also gives some raises, which is good. I support teachers, just not the NEA or UFT.

Bush screws up his chance with the Supreme Court

I'm not pleased with Bush's choice, and neither is the Wall Street Journal.

Even a star quarterback with years of high school and college football under his belt takes years of experience and hard knocks to develop the knowledge and instincts needed to survive in the NFL. The Supreme Court is the big league of the legal profession, and Ms. Miers has never even played the judicial equivalent of high school ball, much less won a Heisman Trophy.

Ms. Miers would be well qualified for a seat on a court of appeals, where she could develop a grasp of all these important issues. She would then have to decide what role text and original meaning should play in constitutional interpretation in the context of close cases and very difficult decisions. The Supreme Court is no place to confront these issues for the very first time.

Given her lack of experience, does anyone doubt that Ms. Miers's only qualification to be a Supreme Court justice is her close connection to the president? Would the president have ever picked her if she had not been his lawyer, his close confidante, and his adviser? Of course, Hamilton also thought that the existence of Senate confirmation would deter the nomination of cronies:

"The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other."

While the Senate once successfully resisted President Lyndon Johnson's attempt to nominate his own highly able crony, Abe Fortas, to be chief justice, perhaps the performance of senators during the Roberts nomination reduced the deterrent effect of "advise and consent." Judiciary Committee Democrats spent half their time making speeches rather than questioning. What questions they did ask were not carefully designed to ferret out the nominee's judicial philosophy, favoring instead to inquire about his feelings, or whether he would stand up for the "little guy," or bemoaning his refusal to telegraph how he would rule on particular cases likely to come before the court.

For their part, Senate Republicans were content to parrot the empty line that a judge "should follow the law and not legislate from the bench." Sit tight and vote seemed to be their approach. By refusing to demand a nominee with a judicial philosophy of adherence to the text of the Constitution--the whole text, including the parts that limit federal and state powers--Republicans did nothing to induce the White House to send up a nominee who was at least as committed to limits on federal power as Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had been.

Times like these demand a justice with a firm grasp on constitutional text, history and principles. Someone who can resist the severe pressure brought by Congress, by the executive branch, by state and local governments, and also by fellow justices to exceed the Constitution's limits on government power. Does anything in her record suggest that Harriet Miers will be that sort of justice? We do not need to wait for Senate hearings to answer this question. What hearings will tell us, however, is whether the Senate, too, will succumb, in Hamilton's words, to "a spirit of favoritism."

Treasonous lefties

A literary giant dies

Pittsburgh's August Wilson, undeniably one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, dies in Seattle at age 60.

Last December, Pittsburgh-born playwright August Wilson's thoughts turned to mortality. With his 60th birthday approaching, he said, "There's more [life] behind me than ahead. I think of dying every day. ... At a certain age, you should be prepared to go at any time."

In May, he was diagnosed with liver cancer and the next month his doctors determined it was inoperable. But he showed that he was indeed prepared, telling the Post-Gazette in August, "I've lived a blessed life. I'm ready."

The end came yesterday morning when Mr. Wilson, 60, died in Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, "surrounded by his loved ones," said Dena Levitin, his assistant.

Mr. Wilson took a characteristically wry look at his fate, saying, "It's not like poker; you can't throw your hand in." He also noted that when his long-time friend and producer, Benjamin Mordecai, the only person to work with him on all 10 of his major plays, died this spring, the obituary in The New York Times included a picture of him and Mordecai together. "That's what gave God this idea," he said.

The fierce poignancy of his eulogy for Mr. Mordecai in a recent American Theatre magazine sounds self-reflexive: "How do we transform loss? ... Time's healing balm is essentially a hoax. ... Haunted by the specter of my own death, I find solace in Ben's life."

Mr. Wilson also told the Post-Gazette in August, "I'm glad I finished the cycle," referring to the unprecedented series of 10 plays with which he conquered the American theater. In the process, he opened new avenues for black artists, changed the way theater approaches race and changed the business of theater, too.

Often called the Pittsburgh Cycle because all but one play is set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh where Mr. Wilson spent his youth and early adulthood, this unequaled epic chronicles the tragedies and aspirations of African Americans in a play set in each decade of the 20th century.

In dramatizing the glory, anger, promise and frustration of being black in America, he created a world of the imagination -- August Wilson's Hill District -- to rank with such other transformational fictional worlds as Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha, Hardy's Wessex or Friel's Donegal. Critics from Manhattan to Los Angeles now speak knowingly of "Pittsburgh's Hill District," not just the Hill as it is now or was when Mr. Wilson grew up in the '50s, but August Wilson Country -- the archetypal northern urban black neighborhood, a construct of frustration, nostalgia, anger and dream.

Mr. Wilson's plays present this world as a crucible in which the identity of black America has been shaped.

The final play in the cycle -- the last written, set in the final decade -- is "Radio Golf." It premiered in March at New Haven's Yale Repertory Theatre, where the earlier plays in the cycle were first produced in the 1980s. Even while suffering from cancer and recovering from a small stroke, Mr. Wilson kept re-writing for the play's second production at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum, July 31-Sept. 18.

There is talk of staging "Radio Golf" later this season on Broadway, where it would be a living memorial along with the August Wilson Theatre, formerly the Virginia, which will be formally re-named on Oct. 17.

That is just one of many honors extended to Mr. Wilson since it was learned he was dying. Many have been testimonies to the personal impact the dramatic resonance he has found in the African-American life has had on black and white alike.

"While his death was not unexpected, it's a serious blow to the entire theatrical community in the United States and Pittsburgh in particular," said Ted Pappas, artistic and executive director of the Pittsburgh Public Theater, which has staged most of Wilson's work. "August Wilson is one of the seminal figures of 20th century dramatic art. When we speak of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, we will now add the name of August Wilson to that pantheon."

August Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel on April 27, 1945; his family long called him Freddy. His mother, Daisy Wilson, whose own mother had walked north from North Carolina, raised her six children in a cold-water flat behind Bella's grocery on Bedford Avenue in the Hill. She died of lung cancer in March 1983, just before her son's first great success on Broadway.

His father, also Frederick Kittel, was a German baker who died in 1965. "My father very rarely came around," Mr. Wilson said. "I grew up in my mother's household in a cultural environment which was black." He also had a stepfather, David Bedford, who died in 1969.

There were six children: his older sisters, Freda, Linda Jean, and Donna, and his younger brothers, Edwin and Richard, all of whom survive him. His brothers kept their father's name, but at 20, he signaled his cultural loyalty by taking his mother's, becoming August Wilson.

His sister Freda Ellis was attending St. Benedict the Moor Roman Catholic Church in the Hill District early yesterday afternoon when she learned of her brother's death.

"I knew he died in peace and that's some relief for me," Mrs. Ellis said. "They told me he just couldn't hold on any longer.

Horrible

These pot smoking hippes were lucky I wasn't there when they assaulted the altar during Mass. I would have gotten all Old Testament on their asses, and beat them until the cops came. Yeah that's contrary to the Gospel, but read this and Not get mad:

What would seem to be among the safest places in America came under attack Sunday morning at Annunciation of the Lord Catholic Church on Spring Avenue Southwest.

Hartselle residents face first-degree criminal mischief charges
After communion at the 11 a.m. Mass, a man and woman came forward, screaming.

Then, to the shock and horror of the Rev. Joe Culotta and his congregation, the man turned over the cherished century-old marble altar. It tumbled down the steps and smashed onto the floor, ripping up carpet in front of the first-row pews.

Men from the congregation subdued five people and held them for Decatur police. Detective Todd Walker said no one was injured.

Officers arrested Val Eugene Loughman, 20; his wife, Emily Beth Loughman, 21; Adam Joseph Turgeon, 27; and Lisa Marie Wagner, 26, all of Hartselle. Walker said that "another girl with them was not charged."

He said the four lived together at 1004 Mitweed St. Police charged them with first-degree criminal mischief, a Class C felony, and they were in the Morgan County Jail on Sunday night, each held in lieu of $750 bond.

Walker said Wagner moved to Hartselle from Connecticut and Turgeon from New Hampshire.

John and Jeanne Morris and her mother, 88-year-old Maxine Steele, saw the events unfold up close.

"We were in the front-row pew, on the left side facing the altar. The two people who caused the commotion sat on the right side," Jeanne Morris said. "A mother and her two small children, probably 3 and 5 years old, sat between us."

Arrived late

Morris said the two strangers came in late, about 11:40 a.m. Morris said as she looked at them, she wondered about their dress.

"It was shocking to me. He had on dark pants and a dark blue shirt with scribbling on the front," Morris said. "He had long dark hair that fell past his shoulders, so dark it appeared as if it might have been dyed.

"He reminded me of someone from the 1960s, a pot-smoking hippie. He was about 6 feet tall and very thin."

Morris said the woman wore bluejean shorts and "crazy tights with big black diamonds all over them, like the Joker in a deck of cards, and a T-shirt."

But Morris recalled at one point thinking how wonderful it was that they were there.

"I thought they probably were on vacation or maybe from out of town and didn't know what time Mass started," she said. "They came in right before communion."

Morris said the man and woman leaped from their seats and went to the front and stood near Father Culotta.

"They were screaming something about Catholics worshipping idols and other things. I was so stunned, I didn't hear it all," she said. "The man then went behind the altar and pushed it over. If it had not been so heavy and had not gone straight down the steps, someone would have been hurt, probably those little children sitting near us."

Morris said a stoutly built parishioner who appeared to have had military or police training charged up from behind the man and put his fingers in the loop of his jeans.

"He grabbed the man's hair with his other hand and wrapped it around his hand, subduing him," she said. "My husband grabbed the girl, who had started to run away, in a bear hug."

Morris said three other people were at the back and that it soon became evident they were together.

Meanwhile, Jan Gile of Decatur was in the covered gathering place out front of the sanctuary.

"Those of us there could hear noise and knew that something was wrong," she said. "I looked up and saw people going toward the altar. I thought maybe someone might be attacking the pastor."

Gile said she soon had a general idea of what was happening and called the police.

"The men of the church brought the five people out to one of the benches outside," she said. "Members of the church gathered around them and began talking to them. I could not hear the conversations, but it appeared to be civil talk."

Morris said she was never so proud of Culotta.

"He was seated when it started, then he rose. Of course, he was shocked, and his eyes widened," she said. "I knew what that altar meant to him. Then he calmly turned and said, 'Call the police.' "

She said after order was restored, he talked calmly to the people.

"We had a lot of elderly people there," she said. "A woman behind me was sobbing uncontrollably, and crying out loud. I know upset how the father (Culotta) was, but it didn't show."

Morris said Culotta told the congregation that "this may have something to do with the article in the newspaper Saturday."

DAILY Religion writer Melanie B. Smith wrote a story titled "Honoring the Saints."

But if that were the case, Morris said, she doesn't believe they read the whole article.

"I will give an analogy. It's the same thing as having pictures of your father and mother. You look at them and remember what kind of people they are. It's the same way for Catholics in regard to saints. It's a remembrance. They died for their faith."

Culotta said the choir was closing the communion song when the attack began.

"We take a moment to be still and be quiet. When I opened my eyes, I noticed a man and woman sitting in the front pew I didn't recognize," he said. "Ten or 15 seconds later, they came up to the platform of the sanctuary, saying 'This is idolatry, you are worshipping false ideas, and these are end times.' He went in the back of the altar and pushed it over. It was unreal."

Culotta said the man's action is like someone going into your home and taking one of your most prized possessions and smashing it.

"We just had communion at this altar," the pastor said. "They defiled what's sacred to us. It was made from the original altar at St. Ann (the predecessor church downtown). Children were scared, and people were crying."

But Culotta said the congregation "prayed for those who had just done this. We asked the Lord to be forgiving and to help us to make sense of why something so senseless happens."

He said that after the incident, the church dedicated the month of October to the Virgin Mary and sought her intercession, that "we can all live as brothers and sisters."

Culotta said the sanctuary was in such disarray that Spanish-speaking worshippers, meeting at 1 p.m., had to congregate in the gathering place, where members brought a substitute altar.

"After the police came, I had all of the parishioners tidying up, and I have never received so many hugs in my life as today," Culotta said. "We had all shared in this hurt. It's great to have good from it. We will be stronger after this. But this was a very sad occasion."

Culotta would not allow media to take photographs of the shattered altar, which had been moved in pieces to a storage area.

"Photos would glorify violence," he said.

Church member Don Kyle, who is mayor of Decatur, said he believes a lot of people "get a lot of misinformation about the Roman Catholic Church and other denominations. And some form of frustration shows up from time to time, and you never know the circumstances.

"You just can't explain how people think sometimes. But this certainly doesn't appear to be a rational act."

Kyle added, "We are a pretty hardy bunch, and I don't believe this will impact us at all in a negative way."

Member Annette Lincoln said when she heard about what had happened, she was glad she went to the 8 a.m. Mass.

"At first, I was scared and I was like 'How could these people do this, and is it going to happen somewhere else?' Then I got mad and wished I had been there. I could have thrown my purse."

Repentance

A prodigal son attended Mass yesterday.

Former Gambino boss John "Junior" Gotti went to Mass yesterday — and listened very intently as the pastor spoke about repentance and breaking free from a sinful past.

The former godfather and his 12-year-old son, John, attended the noon Mass at St. Dominic's Catholic Church in Oyster Bay, L.I., a mile from his $4.5 million home.

Gotti, wearing a yellow, short-sleeved shirt, black pants and loafers, looked noticeably muscular as he emerged from a black limo and walked into the church, which sits on a hilltop overlooking the town's harbor.

He and his son sat in the fifth row, not attracting much attention from the 200 other parishioners.

During the service, the 41-year-old father of five recited the prayers and sang the hymns quietly, occasionally putting his arm around his son.

When he noticed that photographers nearby were snapping pictures, he traded places with his son so that the boy wouldn't be in the photos.

Gotti, who claims he has broken ties with the Gambino crime family and regrets his Mafia past, listened very closely as associate pastor Dariusz Koszyk delivered a sermon on repentance and changing one's sinful ways.

"Jesus helps us find reconciliation with our past. He helps us with our conversion," the pastor said.

Redemption is available for all.

Why conservatives are pissed

The fiscal discipline of Newt's Contract on America has been discarded, as this column declares.

Yes, in the fifth year of Republican control of Washington, Washington is booming.

Republicans took control of Congress in 1994 by promising "the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money." A look out my window says that isn't happening.

A review of the federal budget confirms it. Federal spending was up 33 percent in President Bush's first four years, making Bush the fastest spender of taxpayer dollars since President Johnson. Between the pork-filled highway bill, the emergency spending bills for the war in Iraq and now the blank-check plans for Hurricane Katrina, he's breaking that record now.

When Katrina spending is factored in, Bush will likely be the fastest-spending president since Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.

Predictably, as resources are pulled from around the country to the capital, Washington is thriving. In the past four years, the Washington area gained more jobs than any other U.S. metro area. Real-estate prices have risen 89 percent in five years.

Three of the four richest counties in America are Washington suburbs. Only two states had faster income growth last year than D.C.

That's good news for those of us who own homes in Washington and enjoy the finer restaurants that serve a larger and wealthier population. But it's not good news for the rest of the country.

Money spent in Washington is taken from the people who produced it all over America. Washington produces little real value on its own. National defense and courts are essential to our freedom and prosperity, but that's a small part of what the federal government does these days. Most federal activity involves taking money from some people, giving it to others and keeping a big chunk as a transaction fee.

Every business and interest group in society has an office in Washington devoted to getting some of the $2.5 trillion federal budget for itself: senior citizens, farmers, veterans, teachers, social workers, oil companies, labor unions — you name it.

Muslims have terrorized Britian before

Too bad the publik skooz won't teach history events like this one:

On my travels for the past few days, I have been reading a book which tells the story of a quite astonishing part of British history of which I was previously unaware. In 'White Gold', Giles Milton records the appalling details -- gleaned,it appears, from a wealth of historical documents including diaries and letters -- of a seaborne Islamic jihad against Britain which lasted for no less than two centuries.

From the early seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, thousands of British men women and children were kidnapped by Arab corsairs and sold into slavery in Morocco where they were kept in conditions of unspeakable barbarism. The astounding thing is that these British victims were not merely seized at sea where they ran the gauntlet of such pirates in places such as the Straits of Gibraltar. They were actually abducted from Britain itself.

Corsairs from a place in Morocco called Sale -- who became known in Britain as the ‘Sally Rovers’ -- sailed up the Cornish coast in July 1625, for example, came ashore dressed in djellabas and wielding damascene scimitars, burst into the parish church at Mount’s Bay and dragged out 60 men women and children whom they shipped off to Morocco. Thousands more Britons were seized from their villages or their ships and dispatched to the hell-holes of the Moroccan slave pens, from where they were forced to work all hours in appalling conditions building the vast palace of the monstrous and psychopathic Sultan, Moulay Ismail, who tortured and butchered them at whim. Most of them perished, but the book records the survival of a tenacious Cornish boy Thomas Pellow, who survived 23 years of this ordeal and whose descendant, Lord Exmouth, finally ended the white slave trade when he destroyed Algiers in 1816.

The book makes clear that this assault upon the British people (and upon Europeans and Americans who were similarly seized) was a jihad. The Sally Rovers, writes Milton, were called ‘al-ghuzat’-- the term once used for the soldiers who fought with the Prophet -- and were hailed as religious warriors engaged in a holy war against the infidel Christians who were pressurised to convert to Islam under threat of hideous punishment. What is even more striking was the response of the British crown. For almost two centuries, it made only the most ineffectual attempts to rescue its enslaved subjects. Those who had succumbed to the torture and inhumanity of the Sultan and converted to Islam were deemed to be no longer British and therefore outside the scope of any rescue. The pleas of Pellow’s parents were simply brushed aside. Popular outrage forced successive Kings to dispatch a series of feeble emissaries to try to get the Sultan to end this vile traffic and release the slaves, all to no avail.

But this went on for virtually two centuries. For almost 200 years the British state either sat on its hands or wrung them impotently while the Islamic jihad seized, enslaved and butchered its people. And then it appears, this staggering onslaught was all but airbrushed out of our history.

Food for disquieting thought.

Zero Tolerance Intelligence

As a fellow diabetic, this school district's idiocy hits close to home.

A lawsuit was filed Wednesday on behalf of a diabetic student at Mountain Pointe High School in Ahwatukee who was told he could not carry his glucose testing equipment on campus.

Alex Lagman, 17, of Chandler, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes on his 12th birthday and has been self-monitoring his blood sugar using small lancets to prick his finger four to 10 times a day. The Arizona Center for Disability Law filed the suit against Tempe Union High School District in federal court on his behalf.

The school wants Alex to visit the nurse's office for testing, said his father, Bruce Lagman. But that's not practical, he said, because if his son's blood sugar is very low he might not make it without passing out. Also, he said, the nurse is not always available, and the trips would cause his son to miss class.

There can be long-term risks, too, if blood sugar gets too high or low, Lagman added.

School district officials refused to answer questions about Lagman or whether this policy is being applied to other diabetic students.

Shereen Arent, managing director of legal advocacy with the American Diabetes Association, said it's a major issue.

"We see families having problems with diabetes care in school," she said.

The trouble is often resolved with education and negotiation with schools before it gets to court, Arent said.

John Wright, president of the Arizona Education Association, said students' needs should be examined on a case-by-case basis. "I think what we have in a very-well intentioned manner is a blanket policy that's being applied that doesn't meet the standards of common sense."

Lagman said Mountain Pointe Principal Brenda Mayberry called his son into the office Sept. 7 after someone turned in Alex's emergency backup pack, which includes lancets and injectable needles.

He accidentally left the kit in his locker at the end of the school year in May and someone found it there in August when school resumed, Lagman said.

"I forgot the combination," Alex said. "I knew there was nothing in there, and I was wrong."

Leaving the needles in the locker was a mistake, Alex said, but added: "Carrying around my tester could save my life."

After confiscating his tester, the school called his mother, Liz Lagman, to say he wasn't allowed to have lancets on campus.

"My wife went down to the school and said she wasn't going to allow our son to stay in school without a tester because it's not safe," Lagman said.

Jerri Katzerman, attorney for the Arizona Center for Disability Law, said the school told the Lagman family there is a district policy against needles on campus, but has not produced the document.

Janet Seegren, assistant superintendent for human resources at the district, said they couldn't comment on the incident or the lawsuit. She referred to a policy on the district Web site, but it didn't address needles or lancets.

The Arizona Department of Education does not set guidelines on bringing diabetes kits to schools but leaves it up to individual districts, said project program specialist Melanie Ragone.

Even if there is a policy, Katzerman added, a district must make accommodations.

Alex has continued to attend school and carry his testing kit. Teachers have been supportive and said they'd "look the other way" when Alex had to use his tester, his father said.

"I just think it's kind of awkward," Alex said. "It's almost like I'm hiding in a corner.

"I don't think I should get in trouble for trying to live healthier."

GOP needs to lead with ideas

The WSJ says it better than I could: GOP leadership has an idea deficit, not an ethics deficit.

In liberal Beltway mythology, the GOP took the House in 1994 because Newt Gingrich shrewdly used Jim Wright and Dan Rostenkowski to portray Democrats as corrupt. That's about one-tenth of the story. The real reason Democrats were ousted is because they raised taxes after saying they wouldn't, and they promoted a liberal policy agenda (HillaryCare/gun control) that they couldn't find the votes to pass. The Gingrich Republicans responded with the Contract for America of conservative proposals, and what might have been a mild midterm rebuke of Democrats became an epic change of power.

The real danger for Republicans now isn't ethics; it is that, like those 1994 Democrats, they seem to have grown more comfortable presiding over the government than changing it. No one typified this more than Mr. DeLay, who has always been more fiercely partisan than he is conservative. Among the GOP House leaders who took power in 1994, Dick Armey was the genuine idea man. Mr. DeLay provided the political muscle of fund-raising and vote-counting.

Every Congressional majority needs both kinds of Members, but in recent years the GOP Congress has become mostly about its money and muscle--and the incumbency it helps to sustain. The policy and intellectual fervor, such as it was, has all but vanished. Nothing typified that more than Mr. DeLay's comments on September 13, when he declared post-Katrina that there was nothing left in the federal budget to cut. They had already trimmed all the fat. This prompted Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.), one of the newer fiscal conservatives, to wonder whether he and Mr. DeLay were serving in the same Congress.

In those same remarks two weeks ago, Mr. DeLay invited those calling for offsets to pay for hurricane-relief spending to present him with some. But when the House Republican Study Committee launched "operation offset" to do just that, the GOP leadership tried to quash the effort.

Here are the depressing facts. Domestic discretionary nondefense spending is up 70% since 1994. Spending growth slowed in 1995 and 1996 as the Republican-controlled House pushed for a balanced budget. But spending began to rise rapidly again in the later 1990s, as Republicans and Bill Clinton "compromised" by spending more on both of their priorities. And the gusher has continued under President Bush, as Republicans have failed to trim domestic pork to pay for the necessary increases in defense.

Except for the 2003 tax cuts, we can't think of a single recent major policy accomplishment. There have been smaller victories--trade bills, some modest tort reform, and now some judges approved. But the drive for major reform has stalled. Mr. Bush was a co-conspirator in passing the 2003 Medicare drug bill that is the largest expansion of the entitlement state since LBJ's Great Society. But even when Mr. Bush has pressed for reform, as he did this year on Social Security, Republicans on Capitol Hill have whined and resisted. If Mr. Bush failed to mobilize the country, it was in part because Congressional Republicans were so vocal in their caterwauling.

The real leadership deficit on Capitol Hill is one of ideas, not ethics. In the absence of any policy ambitions, Congress has drifted and the Democrats' ethics complaints have filled the vacuum. The one thing Republicans did pass and then brag about during the August recess--the $286 billion highway bill--has now boomeranged as its 6,371 "earmarks" have been exposed as petty and self-serving after Katrina. This is what happens when Republicans try to become the party of government.

Rangel's race baiting

Deborah Orin in the NY Post rips Charles Rangel a new one.

REP. Charles Rangel has scored plenty of headlines in his 35 years in Congress, but lately, he's outdone himself by comparing President Bush to the revolting Southern racist "Bull" Connor, who sicced attack dogs on black protesters in 1963.

"George Bush is our 'Bull' Connor," claimed the Harlem Democrat — New York's most senior member of Congress — as he charged that the Hurricane Katrina response was slow because many victims were black.

But that's not all.

Rangel raised eyebrows by saying the Iraq war to topple Saddam Hussein was as bad as the Holocaust — "This is just as bad as the 6 million Jews being killed" by the Nazis, he said in June.

In July, Rangel got into a flap after the official Congressional Record ran a statement under his name blaming a fictitious 1712 slave-owner, "Willie Lynch," for tactics that destroyed the black family. Rangel denied saying it.

Then the Washington Times found the Congressional Record with the Rangel "Lynch" statement — based on Internet fake documents.

Rangel aide Emil Milne said an intern wrote it and it somehow got into the Record without Rangel knowing.

Last month, Rangel turned medical expert and told New York 1 that Vice President Dick Cheney is too sick to do his job: "He's got heart disease, but the disease is not restricted to that part of his body. He grunts a lot, so you never really know what he's thinking."

What's up?

Rangel didn't return calls. But aides say he's just being himself. They note that in February, he called fellow Democrat Bill Clinton a "redneck." (He insisted that was a compliment, and it's hardly a "Bull" Connor-type insult.)

Republicans claim Ran- gel, 75, sounds irascible and frustrated because he's been waiting 11 years and now knows he'll never chair the powerful tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, since Democrats are unlikely to regain a House majority any time soon.

"Most of us are not too upset with the fact that Charlie has chosen this approach, because it exemplifies that case that we've been making that Democrats are devoid of ideas and non-constructive and hateful," said a New York Republican in Congress.

No top Dems have yet dared to distance themselves from Rangel, and both Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer ducked giving an opinion on his "Bull" Connor remark.

NYFD's terrorist denying Iman quits

Steve Dunleavy rips into the NYFD brass for not firing the infidel.

NOBODY would dare criticize Imam Intikab Habib's faith in the Muslim religion, which in its true form is pure.

But you have to doubt this man's grip on stark reality.

If Habib truly believes the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were from Saudi Arabia — the country where he studied for six years — were not solely responsible for 9/11, then in the eyes of al Qaeda, he is an infidel. Why? Al Qaeda took credit for the slaughter of almost 3,000 innocents.

So how come he doesn't believe them?

It's hard to imagine having to ask potential chaplains who they think was behind the massacre of 343 firefighters, so maybe Fire Commissioner Nick Scoppetta can't be fully faulted for hiring this fruitcake, but how could he have let the guy just resign?

FDNY brass gave Habib the option to resign. I believe in being courteous to clergy, but I can't understand why Scoppetta didn't just drum him out of the corps so he could peddle his delusions elsewhere. I'm not the only one asking that question.

"We are getting dozens of calls from families of the victims, retired firefighters and the general public who are outraged by the insults visited upon them by Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta," said Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

"This Habib just walked away from the job, walked away. He should have been fired by Scoppetta within seconds."

Instead, Scoppetta hides behind the FDNY's Islamic Society, who fire officials say recommended Habib as their chaplain.

"So what is he doing now? Putting weight on the Islamic Society, who I have immense respect for," Cassidy said. "When a Catholic chaplain is hired, he doesn't consult the Holy Name Society. He does the hiring; he has the last word and the first word."

I'm prepared to believe Scoppetta is a good guy, but compare his record as commissioner of the Bravest to Ray Kelly, commissioner of the Finest.

There just isn't a contest.

And as for the imam, by all means, "Go with God."

Just so go someplace where you can get a clue.

Dhimmi update: banning Piglet!

Why can't anyone show backbone to easily offended Muslims.

NOVELTY pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office — in case they offend Muslim staff.

Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.

Bosses acted after a Muslim complained about pig-shaped stress relievers delivered to the council in the run-up to the Islamic festival of Ramadan.

Muslims are barred from eating pork in the Koran and consider pigs unclean.

Councillor Mahbubur Rahman, a practising Muslim, backed the ban. He said: “It’s a tolerance of people’s beliefs.”