Pennsylvanian in exile

Rep. Barney Frank sees an "angry, divisive" fight ahead for Massachusetts if a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage reaches the 2008 state ballot.

The congressman blamed backers of the initiative petition for trying to provoke a new fight despite a lack of controversy over same-sex marriage.

"Basically, they're the disturbers of the civic peace," the Democrat said in a wide-ranging Associated Press interview Thursday. "We now have social peace in Massachusetts. They're the ones who want to stir it up ... This is a non-issue in Massachusetts."

The Massachusetts Family Institute said the 124,000 certified signatures it gathered for the petition, nearly double the number required, was a sign of strong public support for outlawing same-sex marriage.

"All they want is an opportunity to vote on the definition of marriage," said the group's president, Kris Mineau. "Now that the people have spoken, the good congressman has decided this is a divisive issue."

Before the amendment can be placed on the state ballot, it must be approved by at least 50 lawmakers during two separate sessions of the Legislature.

"I think by 2008, people will say, 'Do we really need to have an angry, divisive debate over a non-issue,'" Frank said. "The question for the 50 legislators is: Do they want to make this a front-page issue again, leading the TV news?"

Amendment supporters want to overturn a 2003 Supreme Judicial Court ruling that said denying marriage licenses to gays was unconstitutional. State-approved same-sex marriages began May 17, 2004.

# posted by Duane : 7:34 PM  0 comments

My friend Jim Hurst auctioned his sawmill in August.

Jim's decision to pack it in after 25 years of beating his head on the wall made big news here in northwest Montana but, alas, not a peep from this newspaper or the New York Times. That's too bad, because the loss of our family-owned mills also signals the loss of technologies and skills vital to our efforts to protect the West's great national forests from the ravages of increasingly fearsome wildfires.

Thanks to the nation's housing boom, business has been good for the West's sawmills for the past three years. But Jim faced an insurmountable problem: He couldn't buy enough logs to keep his mill running. This despite the fact that 10 times as many trees as Jim's mill needed die annually on the nearby Kootenai National Forest. From his office window, Jim could see the dead and dying standing on hillsides just west of the mill. They might as well have been standing on the moon, given the senseless environmental litigation that has engulfed the West's federal forests.

Thanks to Jim's resourcefulness, his mill survived its last five years on a steady diet of fire- and bug-killed trees salvaged from Alberta provincial forests. Such salvage work is unthinkable in our national forests, forests that, news reports to the contrary, remain under the thumb of radical environmental groups whose hatred for capitalism seems boundless. Americans are thus invited to believe that salvaging fire-killed timber is "like mugging a burn victim." Never mind that there is no peer-reviewed science that supports this ridiculous claim--or that many of the West's great forests, including Oregon's famed Tillamook Forest, are products of past salvage and reforestation projects.

The never-reported truth is that the family-owned sawmills that survived the decade-long collapse of the federal timber sale program no longer have much interest in doing business with a government they no longer trust. Most now get their timber from lands they've purchased in recent years, other private lands, tribal forests or state lands. Some even import logs from other countries, including Canada, New Zealand and Chile.

You would think environmentalists who campaigned against harvesting in the West's national forests for 30-some years would be dancing in the streets. And, in fact, some of them are. But many aren't. Railing against giant faceless corporations is easy, but facing the news cameras after small family-owned mills fold has turned out to be very difficult. Everyone loves the underdog, and across much of the West there is a gnawing sense that environmentalists have hurt a lot of underdogs in their lust for power.

Environmentalists also face a problem they never anticipated. Recent polling reveals some 80% percent of Americans approve of the kind of methodical thinning that would have produced small diameter logs in perpetuity for Jim's sawmill. We Americans seem to like thinning in overly dense forests because the end result is visually pleasing, and because it helps reduce the risk of horrific wildfire--a bonus for wildlife and millions of year-round recreation enthusiasts who worship clean air and water.

Many Westerners wonder why the government isn't doing more thinning in at-risk forests that are at the epicenter of our Internet-linked New West lifestyle. I don't. Until the public takes back the enormous power it has given radical environmentalists and their lawyers, the Jim Hursts of the world will continue to exit the stage, taking their hard-earned capital, their well-developed global markets and their technological genius with them.

# posted by Duane : 7:04 AM  1 comments

When troops from the Georgia National Guard raided a Baghdad home in early December, they had no idea that their mission in Iraq would take a different turn.

As the young parents of an infant girl nervously watched the soldiers search their modest home, the baby's unflinching grandmother thrust the little girl at the Americans, showing them the purple pouch protruding from her back.

Little Noor, barely three months old, was born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which the spinal column fails to completely close. Iraqi doctors had told her parents she would live only 45 days.

But she was tenaciously clinging to life, and the soldiers in the home -- many of them fathers themselves -- were moved.

"Well, I saw this child as the firstborn child of the young mother and father and really, all I could think of was my five children back at home and my young daughter," Lt. Jeff Morgan told CNN from Baghdad. "And I knew if I had the opportunity whatsoever to save my daughter's life I would do everything possible.

"So my heart just kind of went out to this baby and these parents who ... were living in poverty and had no means to help their baby. I thought we could do that for them," he added.

So Morgan and his fellow soldiers began working to get Noor the help she needs.

"We ... collectively decided this is going to be our project," said Sgt. Michael Sonen. "If this is the only contribution we have to defeating the war on terrorism, this is going to be it."

The soldiers brought Noor to a U.S. military base for medical examinations and got friends and charities in the United States to help get her the surgery that could save her life.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and his office are working to speed up the process of getting a visa for Noor's grandmother, who will accompany her to Atlanta.

Dr. Roger Hudgins, the chief of neurosurgery at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, has promised to perform the delicate operation for free.

Back in Baghdad, the news that Noor's journey may happen soon is heartening for both her family and the soldiers who have become involved.

"This just gives ... the courageous men of Charlie Company, it gives them a focal point outside of the normal day-to-day routine of trying to catch the insurgency," Morgan said. "It gives them something even more positive to focus on."

The lieutenant said that while his unit's main mission is to put down the insurgency in Iraq, it is also trying to help the country's citizens.

"We are also here to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. To show them that we are a just people, not only by helping them establish a constitution but helping them with their problems that they cannot handle," Morgan explained. "This little girl epitomizes the efforts of us to do that."

# posted by Duane : 10:34 PM  0 comments

A Malaysian mountaineering hero will be buried as a Muslim, against the wishes of his Hindu wife, who denied he had converted to Islam before his death.

The decision follows a High Court ruling that it cannot override the country's Islamic courts in matters of religious conversion.

An Islamic court had said the man, M Moorthy, had become a Muslim last year.

Lawyers say the case highlights problems faced by non-Muslims dealing with Malaysia's Islamic justice system.

"So much for good interracial relations," Haris Mohamad Ibrahim, a lawyer representing Malaysia's Bar Council, told The Associated Press.

"The judge has just told the widow and her family to go back and leave the body of their beloved to be buried by strangers."

M Moorthy, 36, was a Hindu when he became a national hero in 1997 as a member of the first Malaysian expedition to conquer Mount Everest.

But when he died a week ago family supporters and state Islamic officials jostled one another at the mortuary as each tried to claim his body.

An Islamic Sharia court subsequently upheld a claim by his former colleagues in the army that he had become a Muslim last year.

However his family, who want him to have a Hindu funeral, were not allowed to appear before the court to dispute his conversion because they are not Muslims.

The family went to the civil court and argued that Mr Moorthy was a practising Hindu right up to a recent accident when he fell from his wheelchair and lapsed into a coma.

They say he was even interviewed for local television two months ago about his preparations for the Hindu festival of Diwali.

But the High Court agreed with government lawyers who argued the civil court had no jurisdiction.

Lawyers for the dead man's relatives say the ruling leaves non-Muslims little protection in family disputes considered under Islamic law.

Most Malaysians are Muslim but the country's constitution guarantees freedom of worship for all.

# posted by Duane : 6:26 PM  0 comments

2005 was a banner year for the nation's Idiotarian newspaper of record, The New York Times.

What's "Idiotarian"? Popular warblogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and Pajamas Media coined the useful term to describe stubborn blame-America ideologues hopelessly stuck in a pre-September 11 mindset. The Times crusaded tirelessly this year for the cut-and-run, troop-undermining, Bush-bashing, reality-denying cause. Let's review:

On July 6, Army reserve officer Phillip Carter authored a freelance op-ed for the Times calling on President Bush to promote military recruitment efforts. The next day, the paper was forced to admit that one of its editors had inserted misleading language into the piece against Carter's wishes. The "correction":

"The Op-Ed page in some copies yesterday carried an incorrect version of an article about military recruitment. The writer, an Army reserve officer, did not say, 'Imagine my surprise the other day when I received orders to report to Fort Campbell, Ky., next Sunday,' nor did he characterize his recent call-up to active duty as the precursor to a 'surprise tour of Iraq.' That language was added by an editor and was to have been removed before the article was published. Because of a production error, it was not. The Times regrets the error."

Carter told Times ombudsman Byron Calame: "Those were not words I would have said. It left the impression that I was conscripted" when, in fact, Carter volunteered for active duty.

Funny how the "production errors" of the Times' truth doctors always put the Bush administration and the war in the worst light.

Not content to meddle with the words of a living soldier, the Times published a disgraceful distortion of a fallen soldier's last words on Oct. 26. As reported in this column and in the news pages of the New York Post, Times reporter James Dao unapologetically abused the late Corporal Jeffrey B. Starr, whose letter to his girlfriend in case of death in Iraq was selectively edited to convey a bogus sense of "fatalism" for a massive piece marking the anti-war movement's "2,000 dead in Iraq" campaign. The Times added insult to injury by ignoring President Bush's tribute to Starr on Nov. 30 during his Naval Academy speech defending the war in Iraq.

After Starr died, Bush said, "a letter was found on his laptop computer. Here's what he wrote. He said, '[I]f you're reading this, then I've died in Iraq. I don't regret going. Everybody dies, but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we're in Iraq; it's not to me. I'm here helping these people so they can live the way we live, not to have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. Others have died for my freedom; now this is my mark.'"

Stirring words deemed unfit to print by the Times.

The Times did find space to print the year's most insipid op-ed piece by paranoid Harvard student Fatina Abdrabboh, who praised Al Gore for overcoming America's allegedly rampant anti-Muslim bias by picking up her car keys, which she dropped while running on a gym treadmill:

" . . . Mr. Gore's act represented all that I yearned for -- acceptance and acknowledgment. . . . I left the gym with a renewed sense of spirit, reassured that I belong to America and that America belongs to me."

I kid you not.

In June, Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, pilot of downed American Airlines Flight 77, blew the whistle on plans by civil liberties zealots to turn Ground Zero in New York into a Blame America monument. On July 29, the Times editorial page, stocked with liberals who snort and stamp whenever their patriotism is questioned, slammed Burlingame and her supporters at Take Back the Memorial as "un-American" -- for exercising their free speech rights.

Yes, "un-American." This from a newspaper that smeared female interrogators at Guantanamo Bay as "sex workers," sympathetically portrayed military deserters as "un-volunteers," apologized for terror suspects and illegal aliens at every turn, enabled the Bush Derangement Syndrome-driven crusade of the lying Joe Wilson, and recklessly endangered national security by publishing illegally obtained information about classified counterterrorism programs.

So, which side is The New York Times on? Let 2005 go down as the year the Gray Lady wrapped herself permanently in a White Flag.

# posted by Duane : 6:22 PM  0 comments

The new Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, exhorted the country to defeat terrorists by countering their vision of evil with a daring message of love.

Dr Sentamu told a congregation in York Minster that Britain needed to create neighbourhoods that were "flourishing, safe, clean and generous".

Then it must recognise that the masterminds behind the bombers were inspirational, although their vision was used solely for evil.

Thirdly, he continued: "The only way to overcome terrorism is to out-imagine it."

He said the challenge was to offer "a vision of wholeness in a compelling and imaginative way that is so persuasive that would-be bombers would come to see this as their own vision".

"Relying on tough laws alone won't do it," said Dr Sentamu. "Together, we can out-imagine, out-plan and out-think would-be bombers and turn would-be enemies into friends. On our own, we can't get it together."

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, focused on the Middle East.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor deplored the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem.

He said the town of Christ's birth was "corralled" and "blocked in", and its economy was in shreds as a result of Israeli security measures.

He was speaking at midnight Mass at Westminster Cathedral, just hours before leaving for Sri Lanka to see the aftermath of the tsunami.

# posted by Duane : 7:29 AM  2 comments

Has The New York Times declared itself to be on the front line in the war against the War on Terror?

The self-styled paper of record seems to be trying to reclaim the loyalty of those radical lefties who ludicrously accused it of uncritically reporting on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Yet the paper has done more than merely try to embarrass the Bush administration these last few months.

It has published classified information — and thereby knowingly blown the covers of secret programs and agencies engaged in combating the terrorist threat.

The most notorious example was the paper's disclosure some 10 days ago that, since 9/11, the Bush administration has "secretly" engaged in warrantless eavesdropping on U.S.-based international phone calls and e-mails.

It's not secret anymore, of course — though the folks who reacted to the naming of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative aren't exactly shrieking for another grand jury investigation.

On the contrary: Democrats and their news-media allies — particularly on CNN and CBS — are openly suggesting that the president committed an impeachable offense and could (read: should) be removed from office.

In fact, the Times managed only to blow the lid off of what President Bush rightly calls "a vital tool in our war against the terrorists" — one that already has uncovered several terrorist plots.

Is it legal? The administration insists so, and notes that congressional Democrats got repeated briefings on the program, with few objections. Sure, the legality can be debated — but the case against it is far from a slam-dunk.

As for taking action without court-issued warrants, both the last two Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, used warrantless searches — and strongly defended them as fully justified under the authority granted the president by the Constitution. In fact, the Washington Times reports that Clinton expanded their use to purely domestic situations — such as violent public-housing projects.

The Times says it held the story for more than a year, provoking a predictable uproar on the left. So why did it finally go ahead?

According to a Los Angeles Times report, New York Times editors knew that a book by the article's author was to be published in just a few weeks — and they feared losing their "exclusive" to their own reporter's outside work.

But the exact timing is highly suspect. The article appeared on the very day that the Senate was to vote on a Democratic filibuster against renewal of the anti-terrorist Patriot Act — a vote the Bush administration then lost. At least two previously undecided senators said they voted against the act precisely because of the Times piece.

BUT it's not just the National Security Agency story.

Last May, the Times similarly "exposed" — in painstaking detail — the fact that the CIA uses its own airline service, posing as a private charter company, as "the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism."

In fact, as the Times itself reported, "the civilian planes can go places American military craft would not be welcome." In an unconventional war, like the one against terrorism, the ability to move personnel around quickly and inconspicuously — or to deliver captured terrorists to a third country — is indispensable.

Thanks to the Times, that ability has been irrevocably compromised — costing Washington yet another vital tool in the War on Terror.

Does The New York Times consider it self a law unto itself — free to subversively undercut basic efforts by any government to protect and defend its citizens?

The Times, it appears, is less concerned with promoting its dubious views on civil liberties than with undercutting the Bush administration. The end result of the paper's flagrant irresponsibility: Lives have been put in danger on the international, national and local levels.

The ability of the nation to perform the most fundamental mission of any government — protection of its citizens — has been pointlessly compromised.

The Jayson Blair and Judith Miller fias coes were high-profile embarrass ments for The Times, but at the end of the day mostly damaged the newspaper alone.

The NSA, CIA and NYPD stories are of a different order of magnitude — they place in unnecessary danger the lives of U.S. citizens.

The New York Times — a once-great and still-powerful institution — is badly in need of adult supervision.

# posted by Duane : 7:26 AM  0 comments

POSO, Indonesia — Masked, black-clad and brandishing machetes, the attackers sprang from behind a screen of tall grass and pounced on the four Christian girls as they walked to school. Within seconds, three of the teenagers were beheaded — fresh victims of violence that has turned this Indonesian island into yet another front in the terrorist wars.

"All I could do was pray to Jesus for his help," said 16-year-old Noviana Malewa, who fled with a gaping head wound. "I was streaming with blood." A thick scar runs from the back of her neck to just under her right eye.

Muslim militants are blamed for the October killings, the most gruesome yet in a campaign of terror against Christians on the island of Sulawesi.

The United States is closely watching Indonesia, where Jemaah Islamiyah militants are accused of carrying out a string of suicide bombings on Western targets since 2002, including attacks on the island of Bali that killed more than 220 people, most of them foreign tourists.

Along with the Philippines, the "Sulawesi scene ... is perhaps the major issue right now in Southeast Asia, because there the enemy have the opportunity to gather and train and build cohesive groups and from there deploy outward," said Henry Crumpton, the U.S. State Department's counterterrorism coordinator.

Despite an Indonesian crackdown, militants are still able to move within the region and there is evidence that extremists are honing their bomb making skills at terror training camps, said Maj. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai, Indonesia's anti-terror chief.

The Sulawesi war has never been credibly investigated, and only a few perpetrators have stood trial. The island's Muslim and Christian communities, each numbering about half the population of 12.5 million, nurture their own histories of the conflict, casting themselves as victims. Burned out buildings and abandoned shops, many housing refugees, still dot the region, and aid money for reconstruction is stolen by corrupt officials and soldiers, human rights activists say.

Christian-Muslim relations were generally harmonious until 2000, when fighting spread from the Malukus and quickly took hold. Each side killed hundreds and burned down scores of villages, among them the hilltop hamlet where Noviana and her schoolmates grew up.

Noviana's family, which fled the hamlet overlooking Poso, had recently returned, confident that tensions were subsiding.

Still recovering from the attack, the girl now lives under police guard in the Christian town of Tentena.

In her only interview since the killings, Noviana described how the girls in their school uniforms were taking a shortcut to school through jungle and plantations when they ran into at least five masked, black-clad men.

As she fled bleeding, the assailants collected her friends' heads, put them into black plastic bags and then dumped in Christian parts of Poso, one on a porch, the other two on the street.

"They were killed as if they were chickens," said Hernius Morangki, showing a reporter the spot where his daughter was decapitated. "I keep asking myself, what were my daughter's sins?"

# posted by Duane : 7:17 AM  0 comments

The State Department has launched an investigation into whether hard-line Islamic employees at the U.S Embassy in Egypt are working behind the scenes to deny visas to Coptic Christians, The Post has learned.

State Department officials are closely examining 15 to 20 Egyptian employees of the embassy's consular section after top officials received complaints from lawyers and human-rights groups about discriminatory behavior toward the Copts seeking visas to the United States, sources said.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, may have been wrongly denied visas, sources said.

In a recent meeting organized by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), top State Department officials were told that these employees, who conduct prescreening interviews and translations, appear to have unusual influence over a process that is supposed to be controlled by Americans.

"This is a widespread problem that we have been aware of for some time. Now, however, there are people stepping forward and are making formal complaints," said Father Keith Roderick, head of the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights, who attended the meeting.

Among those making complaints to the State Department is a Christian man who was seeking to donate a kidney to an uncle in New Jersey.

He says he was twice told to remove the cross he was wearing if he wanted a visa. He refused and was denied a visa.

Another is a woman who was scheduled to speak at a recent human-rights conference in Washington about what it is like to live in a Muslim-dominated country.

She claimed embassy officials demanded to see her speech.

She and two other Egyptian Copts were denied a visa while Egyptian Muslims were granted visas.

They have asked that their names not be made public for fear of retaliation in Egypt.

There have also been complaints that these employees keep posters in the embassy promoting supporters of the Hamas terror group.

"This should be a concern because if they can influence who they can keep out of the United States, they could also influence who can get in," said Caroline Doss, a Jersey City immigration lawyer who presented State Department officials with affidavits from Coptic Christian clients.

# posted by Duane : 6:59 PM  0 comments

They are Brooklyn cops who've learned to toughen themselves to deal with life's harshest realities. But the death of 9-month-old Dayna Andrea Cuapio last week touched them anyway.

So the officers of the 61st Precinct in Sheepshead Bay did what they could to ease the pain of one impoverished and now childless couple.

One hundred thirty cops raised $2,200 for Dayna's funeral and flight home to Mexico for burial — including $500 from a supervisor who's staying anonymous.

"When it comes to children — innocent victims or victims of car accidents or medical failures we have no control over — it really touches our hearts," Detective Santos Albino said.

The cause of death for little Dayna on Dec. 16 is pending, but law-enforcement sources say there is no indication of foul play.

The baby's dad, Rogelio, 24, and mom, Matilda, 35, were unable to come up with the money to bury their baby in their hometown in Mexico.

"I really didn't expect the big donation, but I strongly believe in the police department," Rogelio Cuapio said through a translator.

# posted by Duane : 8:58 PM  0 comments

A firefighter riding his bicycle to work because of the transit strike was critically injured yesterday when he was hit by a bus that had been chartered to move stranded riders, police said.

Matthew Long, 39, broke both legs, an arm and his pelvis and suffered internal injuries after he was hit and dragged underneath the bus.

The bus was chartered by Bear Stearns to move office workers during the strike.

Long was rushed into emergency surgery at the New York Weill-Cornell Medical Center, police said.

He remained in critical condition last night.

The 12-year department veteran's terrific physical condition — he has competed in several triathlons and teaches physical fitness at the Fire Academy — likely helped him survive, his family said.

"He's a very strong individual. Over the last two years, he's trained extensively to prepare himself for triathlons and marathons, and that training is going to help him pull through this," said his brother, Jim Long, who is a Fire Department spokesman.

"We are praying and are hopeful he will pull through," he said.

Their father, Michael Long, is the head of the state Conservative Party. The two brothers own Third and Long, a Midtown bar popular with firefighters.

Mayor Bloomberg, who visited the hospital, asked all New Yorkers to "pray for him."

The accident happened at 5:18 a.m. at the corner of 52nd Street and Third Avenue when the bus turned right in front of him, from the avenue's middle lane onto the side street.

Long then slammed into the side of the bus.

He was wearing a helmet, which likely saved his life, a police source said.

The bus driver, Bryant Barr, 30, of Albany, was issued a summons for making an illegal turn.

"Our prayers are with the individual involved in this accident as well as with his entire family," Flake said in a statement.

Long was headed to work on Randalls Island and was riding the bike because of the transit strike, his family said.

"It was the easiest way for him to get around in the city with what was happening with the strike. Everyone was told to find other means to get to work, so he did," said his brother, Jim.

Fellow firefighters at Ladder Co. 43 in East Harlem, where Long was formally assigned, were stunned and praying for him to pull through.

"Matt's a great guy. Everybody's saying a prayer for him," said a firefighter at the house, who declined to give his name.

# posted by Duane : 9:00 PM  0 comments

- Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
- Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
- To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer. Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and aquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.
- Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
- According to Einstein's theory of relativity, Chuck Norris can actually roundhouse kick you yesterday.
- If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.
- The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
- Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.
- When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
- When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever.
- Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.
- A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
- Someone once tried to tell Chuck Norris that roundhouse kicks aren't the best way to kick someone. This has been recorded by historians as the worst mistake anyone has ever made.
- As a teen Chuck Norris impregnated every nun in a convent tucked away in the hills of Tuscany. Nine months later the nuns gave birth to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only undefeated and untied team in professional football history.
- Chuck Norris is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with ancestry, the man ate a frigging Indian.
- If Chuck Norris is late, time better slow the hell down. 1680 7.19
The quickest way to a man's heart is with Chuck Norris's fist. 2535 7.18
Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants. 2509 7.18
- Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse... horses are hung like Chuck Norris
- Once a grizzly bear threatened to eat Chuck Norris. Chuck showed the bear his fist and the bear proceeded to eat himself, because it would be the less painful way to die.
- Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is afraid of the dark, but the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris
- When Chuck Norris was in middle school, his English teacher assigned an essay: "What is Courage?" Chuck Norris received an "A+" for writing only the words "Chuck Norris" and promptly turning in the paper. 1668 7.16
- At birth, Chuck Norris came out feet first so he could roundhouse kick the doctor in the face. Nobody delivers Chuck Norris but Chuck Norris 2160 7.16
- Heart disease may be the new leading cause of death in women age 45 to 65, but Chuck Norris is still the leading cause of death in men age 0 to 125.

# posted by Duane : 6:29 PM  1 comments

Got milk? If you’re a new mother, you’d better.

Because beginning soon, hospitals will no longer be allowed to give free infant formula to mothers taking new babies home. Regulators want to promote breast-feeding, even if it means making Massachusetts the first state to ban the popular freebie.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” fumed Christine Kingdon of Brookline, mother of a 3-year-old and twin 12-day-old boys. “It’s a personal choice. (Breast feeding) doesn’t work for everyone.”


The free formula was “a big help,” said Camille Byron, a Mattapan mother who got a backpack full of free formula and coupons after giving birth to her son, now 2, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Formula is pretty expensive,” she added.

Nearly every hospital in Massachusetts — and across the country — gives new mothers commercial formula gift bags provided by formula companies. It’s often a diaper bag bearing the company logo and full of formula, formula literature, formula coupons and other items.

In many cases, the hospital receives free formula from the companies on the condition that the hospitals give the companies’ gift bags to all new moms. At some hospitals, the staff take out formula samples before giving the gift bags to mothers.
The regulations — adopted yesterday by the state Public Health Council — also require hospitals to have lactation consultants available to all new mothers.

Breast feeding advocates say the formula gift bags are a “marketing trick” and falsely imply that the hospital endorses formula feeding. They say studies have found that mothers who go home with the free formula bags are less likely to successfully breast feed — even if the formula is taken out.

“The issue here is really the promotion of breast feeding,” said Dr. Wanda Barfield of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Barfield said mothers shouldn’t be influenced by the formula companies’ marketing.

# posted by Duane : 6:13 PM  0 comments

At midnight on December 31, while Americans are ringing in the New Year, terrorists will have something to celebrate too: The expiration of 16 key provisions of the USA Patriot Act. Excuse us if we don't break out the Champagne.

There's still a chance a deal can be reached to extend the anti-terrorism law before the deadline, but don't count on it. That would require an act of responsibility from Senate Democrats--something that's in short supply these days on matters of national security. Instead, this Senate minority of 42 Democrats and four Republicans prefers to impose its will on bipartisan majorities by refusing to let the renewal of the Patriot Act come to the Senate floor for a vote. President Bush called the filibuster "inexcusable" this week, and most Republicans seem ready to fight this one out for a change. They ought to.

The Patriot Act was passed in 2001 by huge bipartisan majorities--357-66 in the House and 98-1 in the Senate. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, most Members of Congress believed that the law provided reasonable protection of Americans' civil liberties. Its most important contribution was to tear down the infamous "wall" between intelligence gathering and law enforcement.

The Justice Department says that without the Patriot Act it could not have broken up terrorist cells in Buffalo, Portland (Oregon), Seattle, Detroit and Virginia. Critics say that claim is impossible to verify, but we do know for sure that no court has verified a single example of the Patriot Act being used to curtail anyone's civil liberties. Rest assured the Act's critics would have found one by now if it existed.

Democrats don't even want to take responsibility for killing the legislation. Instead they want Republicans to let them extend the existing version for three months, which means they think it's just fine for Americans to live with the allegedly frightening terms of the original Act. This filibuster-and-pass-it-next-year strategy looks like an attempt to appease their vocal left-wing base that seems to think terrorism is a minor threat, while also dodging any responsibility for killing the Act as they head into next year's elections.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid gave this double game away when he boasted to a Democratic meeting last Friday that "I killed the Patriot Act." But after Mr. Bush cited him publicly for that quote, Mr. Reid turned around and said he really does want to pass it. If Democrats believe the Patriot Act is as terrible as they describe it, then let them take responsibility for their filibuster--and for killing it.

# posted by Duane : 7:12 AM  0 comments

Joe Paterno doesn't have to say "I told you so."

Paterno, who turns 79 on Wednesday, got an early birthday present Tuesday when he was an overwhelming choice as The Associated Press college football coach of the year.

So much for critics who said the game had passed him by.

"The only thing I wanted to do is try to get us back to where we were a good football team and we could be very competitive and make some plays we hadn't made," he said. "We got that done, and I feel good about that."

After four losing seasons in the past five years, Paterno and the Nittany Lions rebounded to go 10-1 season, sharing the Big Ten Conference title and earning a spot in the Bowl Championship Series.

For that, Paterno received 45 of 65 votes from media members on the AP's college football poll board. Texas' Mack Brown was second with eight votes after leading the Longhorns to a perfect regular season and a spot in the Rose Bowl. Notre Dame's Charlie Weis and Southern California's Pete Carroll, whose Trojans will face Brown's Longhorns for the national title, got three votes each.

West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez received two votes. Les Miles of LSU, Steve Spurrier of South Carolina, George O'Leary of Central Florida and Tommy Tuberville of Auburn, last year's winner, each received one vote.

"It's very flattering," Paterno said. "I think anytime, regardless of whether it be my first year or my 50th year, to have people recognize what's been done is very, very ... uplifting. The only thing I feel sometimes is that the head coach gets too much credit. I think sometimes it ought to be coaching staff of the year."

# posted by Duane : 8:01 PM  2 comments

The measure of Christmas can't be about Christmas cards or holiday cards, for Mary and Joseph had no address. It isn't about buying and selling things. Yes, wise men followed the star and brought gifts to the poor child. But their wisdom was not in the value of their gifts, but in their ability to see what the innkeeper missed: the power of the infant asleep in a wooden manger. The Christmas story instructs us to treasure every child, for even the poorest child of a homeless couple has limitless potential.

Unlike the reports on the business page, the reports on the moral page are grim. Poverty is up in this country -- more than 30 million now in poverty. Homelessness is up, with mayors reporting record numbers seeking shelter each night. More people go without health care for lack of insurance -- more than 45 million Americans now. The survivors of Katrina are being abandoned once more.

Reports from the values page are also pretty dismal as well. Inequality is at record levels, yet the administration insists on cutting taxes on the wealthy, while opposing any increase in the minimum wage. College tuition is soaring, but Congress voted to cut student loans to help pay for those top-end tax breaks.

What is Christmas about? It is about an oppressed people praying for a Messiah, a mighty warrior who would conquer their oppressors. The expectation grew so high that even Herod grew uneasy. But when the Messiah came, he came as the prince of peace, not of war. He taught love and hope and charity, not violence and vengeance. He was the greatest liberator of them all, but he carried no arms and provisioned no army. His army would be the legions of the faithful.

But this year, the reports from the peace page are also grim. Our soldiers are in armed occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our cities are girded against the threat of terrorist attack. We possess the mightiest military that the world has ever known, but we are more insecure than ever. We turn our backs on the genocide taking place in Darfur. The fake moralists howl about the labels on our store sales, not the hunger of the poor.

A mass for Christ is not about shopping, whatever the name. Christmas should celebrate family and community. It should remind us to measure ourselves by how we treat the ''least of these.'' Today in America, millions of poor children head to school not ready to learn. They suffer from malnutrition, from inadequate health care, from mean streets and broken homes. One of five children is raised in poverty. We are failing the standard he taught us.

# posted by Duane : 6:55 PM  1 comments

Germany has quietly released a Hizbollah member jailed for life for the murder of a
U.S. Navy diver, apparently disregarding Washington's wish to extradite him, diplomats and German officials said on Tuesday.

"He served his term," Eva Schmierer, a spokeswoman for Germany's justice ministry, told a news conference.

Sources in Berlin and Beirut said earlier that Mohammad Ali Hammadi, convicted of killing Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in Beirut during the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight and sentenced to life in prison, was flown back to Lebanon last week.

German legal sources said he had been released on Thursday and travelled to the Lebanese capital on Friday. Hizbollah sources confirmed that Hammadi had returned.

Schmierer said her ministry had never received a formal extradition request from Washington. But diplomats in Berlin said the German government was well aware that the Americans would have liked Hammadi extradited to the United States, where he is under indictment for Stethem's murder.

The diplomats said Hammadi's release could complicate relations between Germany and the United States, which have pledged to cooperate closely in anti-terrorism efforts.

The U.S. embassy in Berlin had no immediate comment on Hammadi's release.

Hammadi, now in his late 30s, was captured in 1987 and all attempts to have him exchanged with German hostages held in Lebanon in the late 1980s and early 1990s failed.

A Lebanese source said a senior German intelligence officer visited Damascus early this month but did not disclose the purpose of the trip. Syria is a key backer of Hizbollah.

A German court convicted Hammadi in 1989 of murder, air piracy and other crimes for his role in the June 1985 hijacking of the TWA passenger jet that was diverted to Beirut and Algiers. The court sentenced him to life in prison.

His life sentence was one that Germany reserves for the most serious and cruel crimes, but it did not necessarily require that he spend the rest of his natural life in jail.

Stethem, a native of Waldorf, Maryland, was based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the time of the hijacking.

Hammadi's release occurred shortly before German hostage Susanne Osthoff was freed in
Iraq. The archaeologist had disappeared on November 25. Germany said on Sunday she was in safe custody. She has made no public statement since.

The German Foreign Ministry denied any link between the Hammadi and Osthoff releases.

"There is no connection between these two cases," Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said.

Doris Moeller-Scheu, spokeswoman for the Frankfurt prosecutors office also denied any link. She said Hammadi was released after a standard review of his case.

# posted by Duane : 6:40 PM  0 comments

ANYONE who wonders whether the Democratic Party in general and Sen. Hillary Clinton in particular are really tough on terror — or are just posing for the cameras — needs to look at the vote by the entire Democratic Senate delegation (excepting only Nebraska's Ben Nelson and South Dakota's Tim Johnson) to prevent closure of their filibuster against the Patriot Act extension.

While the legislation President Bush proposed extends the entire act, certain key provisions are set to expire at year's end. (The rest of the act is good until September 2007.) By voting to allow these provisions to lapse, the Democrats have shown a total disregard for national security.

It is particularly galling that Sens. Clinton and Chuck Schumer — whose New York constituents are in the terrorists' bull's-eye — voted to let these vital protections expire.

How galling? One of the key provisions due to expire in two weeks is one that President Bill Clinton presented as the cornerstone of his response to the escalation of terrorism in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

The measure allows "roving wiretaps" — so that the FBI can tap all phones a suspect uses, rather than just one specific number. Hillary's vote to let this provision expire is incredible.

Equally irresponsible is the criticism Democrats are leveling at President Bush for his use of National Security Agency wiretaps to catch terrorists. Before Clinton and Schumer criticize this policy, they'd do well to reflect on the fact that the Brooklyn Bridge might well be rubble, with thousands dead, if Bush did not use these wiretaps.

In 2002, the feds (presumably the NSA) picked up random cellphone chatter using the words "Brooklyn Bridge" (which apparently didn't translate well into Arabic). They notified the New York Police Department, which flooded the bridge with cops. Then the feds overheard a phone call in which a man said things were "too hot" on the bridge to pull off an operation. Later, an interrogation of a terrorist allowed by the Patriot Act led cops to the doorstep of this would-be bridge bomber. (His plans would definitely have brought down the bridge, NYPD sources told me.)

Why didn't Bush get a warrant? On who? For what? The NSA wasn't looking for a man who might blow up the bridge. It had no idea what it was looking for. It just intercepted random phone calls from people in the United States to those outside — and so heard the allusions to the bridge that tipped them off.

In criminal investigations, one can target a suspect and get a warrant to investigate him. But this deductive approach is a limited instrument in fighting terror. An inductive approach, in which one gathers a mass of evidence and looks for patterns, is far more useful.

But, if the Democrats are to be heeded, it will no longer be possible.

Bye-bye, bridge.

# posted by Duane : 7:32 AM  0 comments

Negotiations between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Transport Workers Union Local 100 broke down last night, and the first full-scale transit strike since the city was hit in 1980 was under way.

But take heart, New York.

This, too, shall end.

But it's important to understand that, regardless of the outcome of this particular dispute, the larger economic and social issues driving the conflict won't be resolved any time soon.

The fact is that TWU members, relative to MTA riders, simply don't have it all that bad.

Just as most state and municipal employees don't have it all that bad — certainly not relative to the state's overburdened taxpayers.

Government in New York is unaffordable, or will be shortly — and the time to address

New York City is to be paralyzed by a union that's fighting to preserve the rights of people not yet even hired by the MTA to retire after just 25 years of employment: The notion would be laughable if it weren't so serious.

That's why Mayor Bloomberg reiterated the need for Albany to introduce some rationality on pensions — which TWU President Roger Toussaint at one point deemed to be a drop-dead strike issue.

Mayor Mike wants across-the-board pension reform for new government hires — and while he may be the only major elected official saying that out loud, others are pushing for it in private.

Reform would save the city billions — which is why so many of the public-employee unions have taken such an interest in the MTA-TWU bargaining.

And while pensions have become too rich for the blood of New York taxpayers, the problem is not just pensions.

The MTA also wants newly hired transit workers to contribute 2 percent of their wages to health-care premiums. Current workers contribute nothing — the most generous arrangement of any public-employee contract.

Notes Bloomberg, "Everybody's discovering that they cannot afford some of the things in the past that they agreed to. People living longer makes the costs of pensions much greater. The cost of medical care continues to go up, so providing those benefits without co-pay is getting more and more problematic."

Affordability aside, equity is also an issue: Nobody in the private sector enjoys benefits of that sort any longer — but it's the private sector that ultimately pays the bills.

The TWU — and its brethren unions — must get the message now: There has to be a way of making 21st century government affordable for all concerned.

That issue will remain, whatever the outcome of the current conflict.

# posted by Duane : 7:28 AM  0 comments

On December 2, the Liberal candidate for Mississauga-Erindale, Omar Alghabra, made his victory speech after winning the nomination. In that speech, he reportedly exhorted his audience, "This is a victory for Islam! Islam won! Islam Won! ... Islamic power is extending into Canadian politics".

Alghabra's victory speech was delivered to an audience of several hundred in the Coptic Christian Centre of the Church of the Virgin Mary and St. Athanasius in Mississauga.

David Ragheb, a member of the congregation, reported that following Alghabra's victory speech, Markham Councillor Khalid Osman took to the stage and declared, "We have the east, we have the west, and now we have Mississauga!" to cheers and applause from the audience. Ragheb also reported that Rogers Cable was present throughout and may have filmed the event. "A member of parliament is supposed to represent my concerns about taxes and roads in Mississauga, not promote an Islamic agenda," said Ragheb.

Victor Fouad, a Coptic Christian, was disturbed to hear of such Islamist rhetoric from a Liberal who could easily become a Canadian parliamentarian. Mr. Fouad assumed that Paul Martin would likewise disapprove of such incitement by a Liberal candidate, and so wrote to the Prime Minister detailing what had happened. That message was ignored. The event took place over 2 weeks ago, and Paul Martin's silence since that time can only be interpreted as approval of Mr. Alghabra's rhetoric.

"I was surprised that Prime Minister Martin showed no interest in such a dangerous mixing of religion and politics," said Mr. Fouad. "Since he has said nothing about it and this candidate is still representing the Liberal Party of Canada, I have to assume that Alghabra has the endorsement of the Prime Minister."

# posted by Duane : 9:55 PM  0 comments

What is it going to take to convince Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver of the need to crack down on illegal gun traffickers?
Another dead cop, in addition to the two murdered in New York City in just the past three weeks?

Something more?

On Friday, it seemed that Silver was close to signing on to Gov. Pataki's proposed package of anti-trafficking bills — so much so, in fact, that the governor called a special session of the Legislature for Wednesday to take up the measures.

Alas, Shelly is being Shelly.

A past master of political log-rolling, the speaker yesterday cancelled a planned Sunday meeting to discuss details, and his aides last night were plotting means to avoid doing anything meaningful on gun-trafficking while seeming to do just the opposite.

So why is Silver afraid to pass bills meant to dramatically increase jail time for criminals who deal in illegal guns?

Think political expediency.

Silver is in thrall to the Assembly's black and Hispanic caucus, which reflexively opposes all tough-on-crime measures as having a "disproportionate" impact on New York's minority groups.

No matter that the lives lost to illegal guns are predominately those of black and Hispanic New Yorkers.

When Silver became speaker in 1994, the caucus — most of its members hail from New York City — was crucial in securing him the top spot.

The caucus came through again in 2000, helping him fend off a coup attempt by an upstate Democrat.

And so now, when the caucus says dance . . . Shelly dances.

Before he was elected speaker, Shelly liked to bill himself as tough on crime. That might even have been true.

But now, not to put too fine a point on it, he won't lift a finger to go after the illegal guns that are taking the lives of New York's Finest.

But, of course, it's not just cops dying.

It's minorities who suffer most.

According to the NYPD, there have 509 homicides in 2005 (as of Dec. 11.) Of those, 62 percent were committed with guns — and 59 percent of victims were black; 27 percent were Hispanic.

Only 8 percent were white; 5 percent, Asian.

Numbers like these mean little to the caucus (and, thus, to Silver); its members are mired in '60s sensibilities regarding the police. But that doesn't mean that the blood of innocent black and Hispanic New Yorkers isn't on their hands (and, thus, Silver's.)

How many killings might have been avoided had Silver allowed meaningful gun-trafficking reform in the past?

How many won't be avoided if the speaker thwarts it again on Wednesday — as he seem intent on doing?

That's unknowable, of course.

So maybe it's time to stop asking why Silver won't attend the funerals of cops killed in the line of duty — and to begin wondering whether he'll show up at services for the next black or Hispanic child murdered with an illegal gun in New York City.

We'll be there; he can count on it.

# posted by Duane : 2:29 PM  0 comments

A friend of mine went to Jesuit-run Seattle University several years ago and proposed to do a Master's thesis on the Catholic theology of work. When she went to the theology prof to ask for source documents on this topic, he referred her to Marx's Das Kapital.

She replied that she was really looking for theological sources and asked if the Documents of Vatican II might be a place to look.

He replied that he couldn't say, but that he really needed to read them one of these days.

In desperation, she asked if Pope John Paul had written anything on the topic. The prof replied that he refused to read anything by "that man."

My friend, who was shelling out fabulous amounts of cash for all this, went away feeling a just bit cheated by the advertising brochures of the school which billed itself as "Catholic." However, since she was already deeply in their pockets, what with the astronomical cost, she persevered in both the Faith and her studies, and the day eventually came when she got her Master's and graduated. I went to the graduation ceremony, along with her Fundamentalist father (she and I are both converts to the Catholic Church).

The head of the Seattle University School of Theology came out and, by way of "Benediction," urged us all to pray "however we felt comfortable" in these terms: "If you want to pray to Buddha or the Spirit of the Northwest, then that's okay." Longtime Seattleites will recall that KIRO-TV's motto was the "Spirit of the Great Northwest." The thought, "We're being urged to pray to the local television station?" crossed my mind. The next thought that crossed my mind was, "How on earth does my friend explain to her father, a man already highly suspicious of the Catholic Church, that this twaddle is not representative of Catholic teaching when the head of the School of Theology is saying it?"

I wish such stories were rare on Catholic campuses, but in fact they are common. More recently, the University of Notre Dame declined an opportunity to participate in the advance promotion of Mel Gibson's Catholic film The Passion of The Christ — but did manage to announce its First Annual "Notre Dame Queer Film Festival" just days later (the Second Annual NDQFF was held in October 2005, with remarkably little comment). And, in case you were wondering, the aim of this festival was not to discuss the ways in which homosexual behavior is contrary to the teaching of the Faith, nor to discuss the ways in which gay "marriage" constitutes yet another attack on the institution of the family (not to mention a metaphysical impossibility and a desecration of the sacrament of marriage). Nope, the purpose of the Film Festival was to teach students that homosexual practice is A-OK and that the Church is full of beetle-browed Neanderthals who just love persecuting anybody who is different.

How do schools get away with this kind of stuff? I suspect the fact that a lot of alumni are not humanities majors has something to do with it. Somebody who got a degree in engineering or business at Apostate U can spend a whole academic career never having to take classes designed to "raise consciousness" about reproductive rights for Nicaraguan lesbians. An MBA leaves you blessedly free from having to endure many hours trapped in a room with a ex-Jesuit Marxist bent on proving to you that Jesus' body was eaten by wild dogs and that all the stuff you dumb freshmen learned in Sunday School is just patriarchal claptrap invented to buttress Constantinian tyranny. (You think I'm exaggerating? The same friend with whom I endured the SU graduation ceremony had a prof there who openly boasted about his love of destroying the faith of incoming freshmen.) A number of the "hard science" disciplines tend to insulate students from having to endure what humanities majors have to face every day. So many graduates come out of Catholic schools blissfully unaware of the fundamental ways in which those schools have betrayed their mission.

Further, Golden Memories have something to do with it, too. Parents or grandparents who graduated a couple of decades ago simply don't know how much a school has declined. They have fond memories of the Way Things Were and simply don't know that when they send their kids to a Catholic school and write the checks for the Alum drive, they are now helping to fulfill the grim assessment of Boston College's Peter Kreeft, who bluntly said that Catholic colleges are excellent places to go to lose your faith.

It doesn't have to be so, however. And the first step is to deny the hogs their feed. Universities run on money and academics are, fortunately, deeply cowardly as a rule. One quick way to send them a loud message very fast is to empty the slop from the trough. I see no reason why any Catholic alumnus should support academic institutions which parasitically feed off the goodwill and trust of betrayed Catholics while working overtime to despoil their children of the Faith. I think that alumni and donors to schools which behave like Seattle University or the organizers of the Notre Dame Queer Film Festival would do well to make it plain via their pocketbooks that it is beyond the pale for a Catholic university to so utterly prostitute itself to the god of this world. If integrity does not drive allegedly Catholic schools to their knees in repentant shame, then perhaps waning contributions from disgusted alumni and supporters will. If mammon is their god, then let it be their judge.

# posted by Duane : 9:13 PM  0 comments

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has demanded that a Roman Catholic men’s fraternity, the Knights of Columbus, award a lesbian couple damages for refusing to rent them a hall for their same-sex “wedding.”

The Tribunal said the Knight’s, however, had the right, as a religious group, to refuse the facility to the women, but that the women should be compensated for the “undue hardship” that cancelling the event had on them.

“The Knights could have taken steps such as meeting with the complainants to explain the situation, formally apologizing, immediately offering to reimburse the complainants for any expenses they had incurred and, perhaps, offering assistance in finding another solution,” the tribunal’s written decision stated.

In 2003, Deborah Chymyshyn and Tracey Smith rented the hall in Port Coquitlam. When the Knights became aware that it was to be for a homosexual couple, they cancelled the booking. The Tribunal heard the case in January and the ruling was handed down yesterday.

The Knights, faithful to church teaching against homosexual marriage, cancelled the rental contract that had been signed, returned the couple’s deposit and paid for the rental of a new hall and the reprinting of wedding invitations. That still didn’t satisfy the two lesbians who went to the Human Rights Commission.

The Knight’s lawyer, George Macintosh, told the CP that it is untrue that the Knights did not try to accommodate the women. “The complainants located another hall the next morning, so that was taken care of,” he said. “The Knights, when they found out about the misunderstanding, apologized to the complainants for the misunderstanding and offered to refund the hall rental. The communication just broke down when the Knights asked for a release to be signed before refunding the hall rental and the cost of printing the invitations, and that led to the hearing.”

Hauser was fired from Costco November 3, 2004 - one year and two days after Smith and her same-sex partner Deborah Chymyshyn rented the hall.

Hauser's very openly gay boss, Mike Checko, and a friend of Smith's, fired Hauser. Hauser contends that his firing was completely without cause. He said his letter of release cited "violence in the workplace," allegedly committed in early August 2004. Hauser related that he and his wife were on vacation for two weeks during the early to mid-weeks of August. Another homosexual co-worker alleged in writing that Hauser had said he wanted to meet a fellow worker outside after work for a brawl.

"The workplace was absolute trouble for me - the manager of the 225 employee Costco warehouse constantly badgered me about it [the hall issue]." Hauser said the homosexuals in management at the store "constantly tried to lure him into arguments."

Hauser's claims to unfair treatment are supported by other former supervisors at Costco. One letter, from co-worker Jared Gilles who was also Hauser's former supervisor, dated August 4, 2004, said, "In my view, Dave was sunk before all this ever happened. Our management isn't open and objective towards him," Gilles explained. "They get hourly [employees] to write hearsay letters of certain instances - whether it's true or not and whether they are witnesses or not. Dave's guilty because he's blacklisted. People can just write letters about people they don't like and if management doesn't like you, you're in trouble. No one will support Dave's views, whether he's done something or not."

"He told me to watch out because this guy was after you from the day you walked in," Hauser added.

Events at Costco following Hauser's firing suggest that there was some problem with the supervisor who fired Hauser. Checko was demoted two weeks after Hauser's firing, "from a $120,000 per year position, to a checkout clerk," Hauser said.

On November 23, 2004, Human Resources Canada, after initially refusing Hauser's claim for employment insurance payments, responded to Hauser's appeal of the refusal. After HRC asked for clarification from Costco, a letter was returned that stated a different reason for Hauser dismissal that the one given on his dismissal letter.

"[Costco's] statement contradicts the letter of dismissal," stated L. Bell, an insurance benefit officer with HRC, in a letter in Hauser's possession. "In the letter of November 3, 2004, the employer states that the employee was dismissed because of an incident that occurred in August. The incident involved allegations of threats made by the claimant to a co-worker. The employer has not provided detail of the alleged incident."

"Given the lack of clarification from the employer, we'll conclude that the claimant was dismissed due to a series of minor incidents. Some of the incidents may have been genuine violations of company policy, but there is also a sense that there was some friction between the claimant and the employer. Fault is sometimes difficult to define, but it is often mutual. Clearly the employer was not happy with the claimant, and although the violations of company policy may or may not have been genuine, there is an indication that they were looking for reasons to terminate his employment. It is not even clear what the final incident was that ultimately led to the claimant's dismissal and therefore we cannot conclusively prove there was misconduct involved in the final incident. Under the circumstances, we have no choice but to allow the claim."

Hauser further explained that he "was fighting a 90-day demotion for allegedly driving a fork-lift at a guy's head," in June-August of 2004. "I should have been arrested for something like that," Hauser said. "I got three fellows to write statements who had seen the whole thing. I then went to the regional manager, Patrick Noon - Mike Checko's boss."

The suspension was over-ruled by Costco's regional office.

"The day I walked in [Checko] wanted me out," Hauser emphasized. "It went on and on - he treated me terribly. When Hauser went into work the day after the two women were told that they could not have the hall, Hauser says Checko ordered him to re-book the hall for then, stating, "Get those people back in there now!" In the end, claims Hauser, "he fired me for kicking them out [of the K of C hall]."

CAN'T FIND OTHER WORK WITH DISMISSAL ON RECORD - MAY LOSE HOME

Hauser said he had hoped his 14 years at Costco would lead to life-long employment. "The company is doing very well," he said. Because of the circumstances of his firing, Hauser has been unable to find other work. "It's hard to get a job when your reference letter says you were fired for violence in the workplace," he said. He has focused on home painting, something he did part-time to support his stay-at-home wife and three young children before. His business is called "Passion for Painting."

Hauser, who initially re-financed his mortgage after the job loss, faces the prospect of losing his home if nothing changes in the next few months. "It's pretty degrading and humiliating for Sandra and I . . . and all for that cause."

Michael A. Wagner, the lawyer representing Mike Checko, had his office call to say Checko was unable for comment.

Several calls put into Costco for comment were not returned. Calls placed to Costco's lawyers were also not returned.

To express concerns to Costco:

General Customer Service: 800-463-3783

E-mail address: service@costco.ca

Costco Canada Corporate Office
Mailing address: 415 West Hunt Club Road Ottawa, ON K2E 1C5
http://www.costco.ca/en-CA/CustomerService/EmailUs...

# posted by Duane : 9:05 PM  0 comments

I was raped at 11, by my 17 year old boyfriend. I chose not to tell my parents because I didn't think their involvement would help, that was the right choice for me. Planned Parethood helped me deal with the aftermath of the rape allowing me to deal and cope as best as I could in my own way.

# posted by Duane : 8:28 AM  0 comments

Georgia's Republican leaders say that passing a law to toughen sentences for sex offenders who assault children is one of their top goals for the 2006 legislative session.

The measure, sponsored by House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island), would impose a minimum sentence of 25 years for a person convicted of aggravated child molestation.

The bill also would prohibit a registered sex offender from working within 1,000 feet of a child care facility, school or other area where children congregate, toughen sex offender registration requirements, and require the most dangerous sex offenders to wear tracking devices for the rest of their lives.

Recent national headlines about particularly heinous crimes against children have spurred lawmakers across the country to propose tougher sex offender laws. Many include longer sentences for offenders, residency requirements and electronic surveillance. Twelve states have passed legislation in the past two years that mandates satellite tracking of some sex offenders, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Georgia's top lawmakers say they plan to support Keen's bill. Both Senate President Pro Tempore Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) and House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) have pinpointed the sex offender bill as a high priority for 2006.

Richardson said he and other state lawmakers began discussing ideas for the bill after hearing about Jessica Lunsford, a 9-year old Florida girl who was snatched from her bed, raped and buried alive last spring. John E. Couey, a convicted sex offender, confessed to kidnapping and killing the girl.

"When I heard that, after I wiped the tears from my eyes, I was mad," Richardson said. "I have a daughter about that age. And I said, you know, that should never happen again. I think that's probably the genesis for a lot of the conversations. We said that should not happen in Georgia."

The proposed bill worries some criminal defense attorneys and therapists who work with sex offenders. They say they are not convinced that tougher sentencing and buffer zones that prohibit sex offenders from working near public places such as bus stops really will increase public safety. And they argue that lawmakers should factor in the costs of tracking devices and longer prison terms for sex offenders when considering the bill.

"Georgia already has some of the toughest penalties for offenses in this country and this bill is not necessary to properly prosecute and punish offenders," the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys said in a memo to legislators.

That argument may not resonate with the public. Several political scientists predicted the bill would draw widespread support from voters and earn the state Republican Party points as it gears up for the midterm elections, including the governor's race.

"No one ever lost an election in Georgia being too tough on sex offenders," said Charles Bullock, a political scientist at the University of Georgia. "This is something that will pass and it will give Republicans something to point to as an accomplishment. Other items have been very controversial, such as the voter photo ID bill. This would be a slam-dunk. ... Who would come out against this?"

Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon) said that while he was not yet familiar with the bill's details, he believed Democrats would work with the GOP to pass the measure.

"Given the problems we've had with sex offenders with young children, we should tighten up our laws on anything that would give these people an opportunity to prey on our children," Brown said. "In that regard, I don't have any problem with the bill. I'd have to look at the details, but it's not something I would see our caucus as opposed to."

Critics, including defense attorneys, human rights activists and professionals who work with sex offenders, expressed concern about many of the bill's provisions last week at a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee. The defense attorneys association questioned the wisdom of the proposed mandatory minimum sentences, arguing instead that such cases needed to be treated individually. The group also cautioned lawmakers about the cost of longer prison sentences for sex offenders.

Others pointed out that the current draft of the bill did not address treatment measures for sex offenders.

Several people opposed a provision in the bill that barred sex offenders from working within 1,000 feet of a place where children congregate. They argued that in metropolitan areas, it could be virtually impossible for sex offenders to find a job.

Keen, the bill's sponsor, said he understood the 1,000-foot restriction could make life difficult for sex offenders. "I think the protection of our children from the type of people who commit these type of crimes is of far greater importance than the convenience of someone who has committed these crimes," Keen said.

# posted by Duane : 7:42 PM  0 comments

For some time, a large number of Americans have lived in an alternate universe where everything is supposedly going to hell. If you get up in the morning to read the New York Times or Washington Post, watch John Murtha or Howard Dean on the morning talk shows, listen to National Public Radio at noon, and go to bed reading Newsweek it surely seems that the administration is incommunicado (cf. “the bubble”), the war is lost (“unwinnable”), the Great Depression is back (“jobless recovery”), and America about as popular as Nazi Germany abroad (“alone and isolated”).

But in the real adult world, the economy is red-hot, not mired in joblessness or relegating millions to poverty. Unemployment is low, so are interest rates. Growth is high, as is consumer spending and confidence. Our Katrina was hardly as lethal as the Tsunami or Pakistani earthquake. Thousands of Arabs are not rioting in Dearborn. American elderly don’t roast and die in the thousands in their apartments as was true in France. Nor do American cities, like some in China, lose their entire water supply to a toxic spill. Americans did not just vote to reject their own Constitution as in some European countries.

The military isn’t broken. Unlike after Vietnam when the Russians, Iranians, Cambodians, and Nicaraguans all soon tried to press their luck at our expense, most of our adversaries don’t believe the U.S. military is losing in Iraq, much less that it is wise now to take it on. Instead, the general impression is that our veteran and battle-hardened forces are even more lethal than was true of the 1990s — and engaging successfully in an almost impossible war.

Nor are we creating new hordes of terrorists in Iraq — as if a young male Middle Eastern fundamentalist first hates the United States only on news that it is in Iraq crafting a new Marshall Plan of $87 billion and offering a long-oppressed people democracy after taking out Saddam Hussein. Even al Jazeera cannot turn truth into untruth forever.

Instead, the apprentice jihadist is trying to win his certification as master terrorist by trying his luck against the U.S. Marines abroad rather than on another World Trade Center at home — and failing quite unlike September 11.

Like it or not, wars are usually won or lost when one side feels its losses are too high to continue. We have suffered terribly in losing 2,100 dead in Iraq; a vastly smaller enemy in contrast may have experienced tens of thousands of terrorists killed, and is finding its safe havens and money drying up. Panic about Iraq abounds in both the American media and the periodic fatwas of Dr. Zawahiri — but not in the U. S. government or armed forces.

The world does not hate the United States. Of course, it envies us. Precisely because it is privately impressed by our unparalleled success, it judges America by a utopian measure in which anything less than perfection is written off as failure. We risk everything, our critics abroad almost nothing. So the hope for our failures naturally gives reinforcement to the bleak reality of their inaction.

The Europeans expect our protection. The Mexicans risk their lives to get here. Indians and Japanese want closer relations. The old commonwealth appreciates our strength in defense of the West. Even the hostile Iranians, North Koreans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Chinese, and radical Islamists — despite the saber-rattling rhetoric — wonder whether we are naïve and idealistic rather than cruel and calculating. All this we rarely consider when we read of anti-Americanism in our major newspapers or hear another angry (and usually well-off) professor or journalist recite our sins.

Al Zarqawi is in a classical paradox: He can’t defeat the American or Iraqi security forces or stop the elections. So he must dream up ever more macabre violence to gain notoriety — from beheading Americans on the television to mass murdering Shiites to blowing up third-party Jordanians. But such lashing out only further weakens his cause and makes the efforts of his enemies on the battlefield easier, as his Sunni base starts to see that this psychopath really can take his supporters all down with him.

The Palestine problem is not even worse off after Iraq. Actually, it is far better with the isolated and disgraced Arafat gone, the fence slowly inching ahead, the worst radical Islamic terrorists on the West Bank in paradise, Israel out of Gaza, and the world gradually accepting its diplomatic presence. The real hopeless mess was 1992-2000 when a well-meaning Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, and Dennis Ross still deluded themselves that a criminal gang leader like Yasser Arafat was a legitimate head of state or that you could start to end an endless war by giving his thugs thousands of M-16s.

The European way is not the answer, as we see from the farcical negotiations over Iran’s time bomb. Struggling with a small military, unsustainable entitlement promises, little real economic growth, high unemployment, falling birth rates, angry unassimilated minorities, and a suicidal policy of estrangement from its benefactor the United States, Europeans show already an 11th-hour change of heart as we see in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, and soon in France.

Europe’s policy about Iran’s nuclear program can best be summed up as “Hurry up, sane and Western Israel, and take out this awful thing — so we can damn you Zionist aggressors for doing so in our morning papers.”

The administration did not prove nearly as inept in the Iraqi reconstruction as the rhetoric of its opposition was empty. The government’s chief lapse was not claiming the moral high ground for a necessary war against a fascist mass murderer — an inexplicable silence now largely addressed by George Bush’s new muscular public defense of the war. In contrast, we can sadly recall all the alternative advice of past critics across the spectrum: invade Iraq in 1998, but get out right now; trisect Iraq; attack Syria or Iran; retreat to the Shiite south; put in hundreds of thousands of more troops; or delay the elections.

Donald Rumsfeld’s supposed gaffe of evoking “Old Europe” is trumped tenfold and almost daily by slurs that depict Abu Ghraib as worse than Saddam, Guantanamo as the work of Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot, Bush as the world’s greatest terrorist, the effort to democratize Iraq as unwinnable, and American troops terrorizing Iraqi women and children.

Most Americans may grumble after reading the latest demonization in the press of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld, but they are hardly ready to turn over a complex Middle East to something like a President John Kerry, Vice President Barbara Boxer, Secretary of State Howard Dean, National Security Advisor Nancy Pelosi, and Secretary of Defense John Murtha — with a kitchen cabinet of Jimmy Carter and Sandy Berger.

So at year’s end, what then is happening at home and abroad?

For the last three years we have seen a carbuncle swell as the old Vietnam War opposition rematerialized, with Michael Moore, the Hollywood elite, and Cindy Sheehan scaring the daylights out of the Democratic establishment that either pandered to or triangulated around their crazy rhetoric. The size of the Islamicist/Baathist insurrection caught the United States for a time off guard, as was true also of the sudden vehement slurs from our erstwhile allies in Europe, Canada, and Asia. Few anticipated that the turmoil in Iraq would force the Syrians out of Lebanon, the Libyans to give up their WMDs, and the Egyptians to hold elections — and that all the killing, acrimony, and furor over these developments would begin to engulf the Middle East and threaten the old order.

In the face of that growing ulcer of discontent, we quietly kept on killing terrorists, promoting elections in Iraq, pressuring Arab autocracies to democratize, and growing the economy. All that is finally lancing the boil, here and abroad — and what was in there all along is now slowly oozing out, making the cure seem almost as gross as the malady.

# posted by Duane : 9:21 PM  0 comments

Thousands of law enforcement officers from Pennsylvania and other eastern states gathered at a Beaver County church this morning to honor slain State Police Cpl. Joseph Pokorny.

The funeral Mass at St. Frances Cabrini Roman Catholic Church in Center remembered Cpl. Pokorny's dedication as a trooper as well as his humanity, and the pastor made it a point to remind mourners not to take their police for granted.

On the way to the service, hundreds of police cars lined the Parkway West and detoured to the exit in Carnegie where Cpl. Pokorny was shot during a traffic stop early Monday. A Pittsburgh man has been charged with the killing.

Afterwards, Cpl. Pokorny's fellow troopers and other uniformed officers formed ranks that nearly filled the parking lot and stood at attention as the casket was taken from the church for the trip to a nearby cemetery. State police said more than 2,000 officers in uniform were present, and that does not count detectives and other plainclothes officials.

At the head of their ranks were Gov. Ed Rendell and Col. Jeffrey Miller, the head of the state police.

Police filled half the church and even stood in the aisles for the emotional ceremony.

The pastor, the Rev. Joseph J. Kleppner, referred to St. John's Gospel passage, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

"In that sense," Father Kleppner said, "Joseph Pokorny was the model of a Christian life."

He noted that Cpl. Pokorny was the kind of man who would work a long shift doing hurricane cleanup and then volunteer in his town to do more the same day.

"Joe was known to say 'If you need me, I'll be there,' " Father Kleppner said.

Father Kleppner said this would be a difficult Christmas season for the family, including the two children who were "at the center of his life." But he said it gave everyone the chance to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas.

"Christ comes to bring God's love, to bring us hope, to show us the way to heaven. But along the way is the cross -- suffering and death." Father Kleppner also said the trooper's slaying focused attention on the police officers who are often taken for granted.

"A tragic event like this makes us stop and express to them our deepest respect and heartfelt gratitude."

The ceremony was attended by Bishop Donald Wurel, state Attorney General Tom Corbett, local U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan and other officials.

A bag piper piped the casket into and out of the church. Perhaps the most emotional moment occurred when James Markel, a Monroeville police officer, sang "Danny Boy," without accompaniment, at the end of the Mass.

On the way to the cemetery this afternoon, the procession passed through an arch created by Aliquippa fire department ladder trucks in the Broadhead Road business district. People lined the road, saluting or holding their hands over their hearts. Merchants placed signs of support in their windows.

# posted by Duane : 8:22 PM  2 comments

IN the space of 11 months, the nation of Iraq has held three national elections in the midst of war, terror and chaos. The first chose the people who would write a constitution. The second was to ratify the constitution, which passed. And yesterday, the third election was to select the 275 members of the new Iraqi parliament.

As American public opinion turned and growled and complained and as American politicians and thinkers scurried about in search of a place to hide, the people of Iraq and the developing political class of Iraq began taking a firm hold of their own future.

In each election, turnout was higher than the last — and the word being used everywhere to describe yesterday's voting numbers is "overwhelming." Sunnis who had stupidly decided to boycott Election No. 1 finally came out in force. They've figured it out, even though the lunatics on the left in this country and elsewhere haven't yet: Representative government has come to Iraq, and you gotta represent.

While Iraqis braved the terrorists, many Americans trembled before them.

"We can't win in Iraq," shouted Howard Dean, who might have confused Iraq with Iowa, where he couldn't win.

"We've become the enemy," yawped John Murtha — who later told Time magazine that he probably would have said nicer things about the war and its prospects if President Bush had invited him over to the White House for a coke and a few hands of canasta the way his father did.

Cindy Sheehan, mother of a slain soldier, moved to Bush's front yard for the month of August and was treated like a heroine by the media . . . until she called both Hillary Clinton and John McCain warmongers — and you can't criticize either Hillary Clinton or John McCain.

Here at home, a perfect political storm developed. The cold front formed by the political opportunism of the president's partisan opponents met the warm front formed by the Leftist wackoes led by Sheehan, and they both swirled around the calm eye occupied by those all-too-knowing armchair experts who confidently informed the world at every turn about how the Bush administration had mishandled everything in Iraq.

And you know what? It's all nonsense and flapdoodle, all of it. All the talk about Iraq inside the United States in the year 2005 has been meaningless.

Oh, maybe the political storm here will have political consequences next year for the Republicans. Maybe it won't. Maybe, even now, John Murtha is being measured for his angel's wings by a grateful Divinity. Maybe, on the other hand, God likes his angels a little more coherent. Who's to say?

But here's what really happened in 2005: The Iraqis voted and voted and voted again. And no matter what was said to him or about him or of him, George W. Bush didn't blink and didn't falter. He stuck to his policy with a steely determination. Oh, he could have done a better job earlier in the year explaining it all to the American people.

And above all, the heroic American military has learned things about fighting insurgencies that will give our soldiers a new understanding of how to win wars — an understanding so deep that, when this war is won, insurgents elsewhere will be terrified to engage with us.

The story of 2005 is a story of determination in the face of adversity and peril — both physical and political. The people of Iraq, the men and women of the U.S. military and George W. Bush end this year with pride and the knowledge that they have done good for the world.

# posted by Duane : 8:19 AM  0 comments

THESE Jews sure know how to put the oy! back in Joy.

From the "holiday trees" planted on Long Island, to the ban on green-and-red party napkins in Texas schools, a holy war has been declared against American goyim.

From coast to coast, Godless Hebrews and tyrannical agents of the American Civil Liberties Union have forcibly removed Christ from Christmas, swiped the baby Jesus from the manger, and strong-armed Americans into planting nonsensical Hanukkah bushes on the front lawn.

Well, some people are not going to take this lying down. And it was the Chosen People who chose to come out yesterday in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, to speak out against the de-Christianization of Christmas.

And speak. And speak. And speak some more.

"Merry Christmas!" New York's Jewish mascot, comedian Jackie Mason, shouted from the steps of the cathedral.

"Enough of the 'Happy holidays!' " said Mason, as he introduced "Jews for It's OK to Say 'Merry Christmas.' "

"Is this how you pay back the people who gave us the freedom to be Jews in America? The Christians are the ones who gave us the right to be free.

"We have the right to pornography. Erections are allowed to be mentioned every day!

"But you can't say, 'Merry Christmas!' "

Mason was joined by such esteemed Jewish personages as radio talker Barry Farber, Rabbi Aryeh Spero and Don Feder.

So it's been decided. From this December forward, you are hereby forbidden from greeting your goy neighbors with a "Peaceful Kwanzaa."

We won't be offended.

The Jews have spoken. And we won't shut up.

# posted by Duane : 8:08 AM  0 comments

President Bush and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., agreed to language Wednesday on a bill to ban U.S. interrogators from using "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of detainees in the War on Terror.

"We reached this agreement and now we can move forward and the whole world can know as we know that the United States does not permit cruel and inhuman treatment," McCain said Thursday after an Oval Office meeting with the president and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

"We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists," McCain said. "We have no grief for them, but what we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are. And I think this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world in the War on Terror."

Bush made clear that the language is not about banning torture. That is something the United States already prohibits.

"This government does not torture," he said. "We adhere to the International Convention of Torture, whether it be here at home or abroad."

Bush also thanked McCain, who spent more than five years in a POW camp in Vietnam where he was frequently tortured, for being a leader who upholds American values.

Outside the White House, McCain and Warner said they were confident the language agreed to by the president for the defense authorization bill is a done deal and that loose ends will be tied up in the next 24 hours.

"I'm absolutely confident, Senator, that this McCain legislation, which is landmark legislation very much needed for our nation, will become finalized by our president," Warner said.

The Senate included McCain's provisions in two defense bills, including a must-pass $453 billion spending bill that provides $50 billion for the Iraq war. But the House omitted them from their versions and the bills have stalled.

Still, the language proposed by McCain has received overwhelming support in Congress. Late Wednesday, the House voted 308-122 for a non-binding resolution in support of the Senate-passed ban.

For months the White House has stated concerns that the McCain language goes too far. Administration officials cited doomsday scenarios where a detainee may have information that is critical to the safety of the United States and interrogators may need greater latitude to get prisoners to speak.

The administration was seeking language in the bill that would offer some protection from prosecution for CIA interrogators accused of violating McCain's provision.

"The debate has never really been about torture. There's a domestic law on the books prohibiting torture and we have an international prohibition against torture and the president says as a matter of policy, we don't engage in torture," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told FOX News.

"The debate has been about, what does it mean to deal in cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment? In some countries, there's stuff on the books to say you can't even insult somebody.
So, we want to simply insure that the American government has the tools necessary to question dangerous terrorists in order to gather information that may protect America from another attack," Gonzales said.

Supporters of the provisions say the extra language is needed to clarify current anti-torture laws in light of abuses at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and allegations of misconduct by U.S. troops at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. McCain said the deal addresses "legitimate concerns raised regarding the rights of interrogators."

The language mimics the military code by saying it will provide CIA and other interrogators with legal counsel and certain protections when they followed orders that a reasonable person would be expected to carry out. Those orders are not to contradict principles agreed to under the Nuremberg Principles developed in 1950, McCain said.

The language also includes a specific statement that those who violate the standards will not be afforded immunity from civil or criminal lawsuits.

"I think it's excellent, I think Sen. McCain was on the right track," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told FOX News after he heard about the deal.

But others question whether the U.S. government will have enough leeway to get the information that they need. It is still uncertain if the deal would limit measures such as stress techniques even in interrogations of high-value terrorists who may know about coming attacks.

Some analysts add that limiting "degrading" treatment could mean almost anything. For instance, a female interrogator questioning a Muslim prisoner could be perceived as degrading to the prisoner.

"If you apply it literally, it prohibits detention as such because it is absolutely degrading to be sitting, instead of running around and applying your trade of killing Americans, it is degrading to be sitting in a cell," said David Rivkin, an international law attorney and former Justice Department official.

# posted by Duane : 8:57 PM  0 comments

I’m a middle-aged white woman with a taste for Film Forum—Coach Carter is not what I’d rent on my own. But I volunteer with a local group called the Haven Coalition that offers free overnight home stays to women who come to New York for late-term abortions. Adeena, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, is 24 years old and 24 weeks pregnant. She’d caught a Greyhound from Pennsylvania earlier that day, and spent the afternoon at a clinic in midtown getting part one of an abortion that will be completed tomorrow. “Pick whatever you want,” I’d said at Blockbuster.

Adeena says she’s never been in a white person’s home. She peers at the paintings on my walls and at the jammed bookcases and Cuban bolero CDs and cassettes of classics from the Yiddish theater.

“Can I ask you something?” she inquires. “Why you doing this?”

“You mean sharing my place with you?”

I tell her I’m upset that people like her have such a hard time getting abortions, and besides, I remember being young and being (more than once) in a similar fix. I don’t tell her about the differences: how I always had Blue Cross Blue Shield and never went past seven weeks.

Adeena tells me she makes minimum wage as a health-care aide for mentally disabled children. “You have to pay a lot of attention to them,” she says, and I can see she’s trying to attend to me too. She wants to be sociable, but tonight it’s hard. This afternoon, sticks made of seaweed were inserted into her cervix, and a drug that causes fetal heart failure was injected into her belly. Now the seaweed is getting moist and swelling, and Adeena no longer feels movement in her womb. By tomorrow the swelling will have opened her cervix a few centimeters, allowing a doctor to extract the dead fetus with surgical tools and a vacuum machine.

I don’t know how much Adeena knows about these details. But I know, and so do other Haven members. The organization gives us a handout explaining everything so we’ll be prepared if our guests experience side effects. Of course, some complications go beyond the medical.

Late-term abortion is serious, hard-core. At 24 weeks, a fetus is at the same stage of development as those gruesome images shown on pro-lifers’ protest placards. “The last woman I hosted showed me her sonogram,” says Jennifer, a 26-year-old host who lives in Carroll Gardens. “Then she pointed out that the fetus was a boy. God! I didn’t know what to say.”

Every once in a while, after hosting a guest, I have bad dreams about sick babies. I have to remind myself that my dreams are just dreams, and that they’re less important than my guests’ realities.

# posted by Duane : 6:50 PM  0 comments

Like football and hockey players, soccer players would have to don helmets on the field to protect their heads, under a new legislative proposal.

The measure, scheduled for a hearing today on Beacon Hill, would cover peewee leagues to college teams.

No other states appear to have passed a similar law, Massachusetts lawmakers and physicians said. The proposal marks the first time this debate, which has long roiled the youth soccer world, has spilled into the state's political arena.

With strong evidence of long-term neurological damage among a portion of veteran soccer players, some soccer officials, parents, and physicians around the nation have recently been pushing for more safety measures for young players, including an outright ban on heading, an integral part of the world's most popular sport.

The measure up for discussion before the Joint Committee on Public Health was initially a heading ban, but was rewritten at the last minute to the helmet requirement.

Now, each league decides whether to require helmets, and most don't, according to soccer officials and physicians. The professional New England Revolution would not be affected by the state proposal.

Physicians say requiring headgear for youth soccer players is not unreasonable because collisions between players, and player crashes into goal posts, are the most frequent causes of soccer head injuries.

''There's pretty good evidence that growing brains are more susceptible to injury," said Dr. Lyle J. Micheli, director of sports medicine at Children's Hospital, Boston. ''It might make sense for kids under 14."

But some soccer coaches, trainers, and parents say the Beacon Hill measure and other efforts are misguided and unnecessary meddling by politicians.

Allison Canale, 44, of Rutland, who has been involved with soccer for 12 years as a coach and parent, said children don't have enough collisions to warrant helmets.

''It's a contact sport from the hips down," she said, adding that her young players probably would feel hampered on the field by headgear. ''It's already difficult for me to get the boys to wear the ankle guards."

Moreover, soccer helmets ''will look silly," said Stephen DeFranc, Weymouth High School's athletic trainer. ''It'll look like football."

And don't get youth soccer players started on the subject.

''It's really just something extra that you don't really need," said Ben Bratt, 13, of Winchester, who plays for two soccer teams in his town. ''I think it would just be kind of annoying."

His mother, Amy Sterling-Bratt, has cringed from the sidelines at on-field smash-ups, but on this topic she concurred with her son.

''I've seen some pretty nasty head collisions on the field," she said. ''I can't imagine that helmets are going to make a difference."

Representative Deborah D. Blumer, a Framingham Democrat and the bill's sponsor, said she thinks the helmet requirement is unlikely to pass because lawmakers dislike a measure based on disputed research. But she believes lawmakers might go for another part of the bill that would set up a legislative commission on sports injuries.

# posted by Duane : 6:28 PM  0 comments

THE last scene of the real Bronx Tale wrapped up yesterday at St. John Chrysostom Church when Edward Cardinal Egan said: "Rest in peace, Daniel."

The cardinal then referred to slain Officer Daniel Enchautegui as "this young hero of The Bronx."

Now compare the morals, courage, integrity and generosity of Daniel, 28, to the other actors in this Bronx Tale, which began last Saturday with a cowardly shooting.

Look at Steven Armento, 48, a walking chemical factory, a sleazy bully who lived in a daze long enough to short-circuit another person's life.

This man even tried to be the fixer in a broken romance between his daughter Stefanie, 20, and the abusive, rambling, self-absorbed druggie actor Lillo Brancato.

Mayor Bloomberg compared the dead officer to the old-fashioned knights in armor. I compare Armento and Brancato to spineless wannabes. Brancato did his rehearsing on "The Sopranos" and failed in his efforts to act out the real thing on the streets.

"Where do we get police officers like Danny?" Police Commissioner Ray Kelly asked yesterday.

They came from the same superb stock as Officer Dillon Stewart, who determinedly chased his killer even as he had a bullet in his heart. And detectives like Bobby Parker, 43, and Pat Rafferty, 39, who continued to blaze away at a vicious killer gunmen even as they watched their lifeblood ebb.

What is it in these men who defy the human instinct of survival and choose the alternative of going down fighting?

"A Bronx Tale," the real thing, would show Daniel as someone who worked around the clock as a good Samaritan in the neighborhood and a superb cop in the borough he loved.

"Sometimes it's true what they say," Kelly observed. "Only the good die young."

Sadly, it follows that Steven Armento and Lillo Brancato are assured a long life — even if it's a miserable one.

# posted by Duane : 6:16 PM  0 comments

In 1986 Gale Norton was 32 and working for the secretary of the interior on matters pertaining to the proposal to open a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- area 1002 -- to drilling for oil and natural gas, a proposal that then had already been a bone of contention for several years. Today Norton is the secretary of the interior and is working on opening ANWR.

But this interminable argument actually could end soon with Congress authorizing drilling. That would be good for energy policy and excellent for the nation's governance.

Area 1002 is 1.5 million of the refuge's 19 million acres. In 1980 a Democratically controlled Congress, at the behest of President Jimmy Carter, set area 1002 aside for possible energy exploration. Since then, although there are active oil and gas wells in at least 36 U.S. wildlife refuges, stopping drilling in ANWR has become sacramental for environmentalists who speak about it the way Wordsworth wrote about the Lake Country.

Few opponents of energy development in what they call "pristine" ANWR have visited it. Those who have and who think it is "pristine" must have visited during the 56 days a year when it is without sunlight. They missed the roads, stores, houses, military installations, airstrip and school. They did not miss seeing the trees in area 1002. There are no trees.

Opponents worry that the caribou will be disconsolate about, and their reproduction disrupted by, this intrusion by man. The same was said 30 years ago by opponents of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which brings heated oil south from Prudhoe Bay. Since the oil began flowing, the caribou have increased from 5,000 to 31,000. Perhaps the pipeline's heat makes them amorous.

Ice roads and helicopter pads, which will melt each spring, will minimize man's footprint, which will be on a 2,000-acre plot about one-fifth the size of Dulles Airport. Nevertheless, opponents say the environmental cost is too high for what the ineffable John Kerry calls "a few drops of oil." Some drops. The estimated 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil -- such estimates frequently underestimate actual yields -- could supply all the oil needs of Kerry's Massachusetts for 75 years.

Flowing at 1 million barrels a day -- equal to 20 percent of today's domestic oil production -- ANWR oil would almost equal America's daily imports from Saudi Arabia. And it would equal the supply loss that Hurricane Katrina temporarily caused, and that caused so much histrionic distress among consumers. Lee Raymond, chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil, says that if the major oil companies decided that 10 billion barrels were an amount too small to justify exploration and development projects, many current and future projects around the world would be abandoned.

But for many opponents of drilling in the refuge, the debate is only secondarily about energy and the environment. Rather, it is a disguised debate about elemental political matters.

For some people, environmentalism is collectivism in drag. Such people use environmental causes and rhetoric not to change the political climate for the purpose of environmental improvement. Rather, for them, changing the society's politics is the end, and environmental policies are mere means to that end.

The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society's balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivism -- of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America -- is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality.

People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources.

Therefore, one of the collectivists' tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern -- the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use environmentalism to advance a collectivizing energy policy. Focusing on one energy source at a time, they stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting, manufacturing or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power.

A quarter of a century of this tactic applied to ANWR is about 24 years too many. If geologists were to decide that there were only three thimbles of oil beneath area 1002, there would still be something to be said for going down to get them, just to prove that this nation cannot be forever paralyzed by people wielding environmentalism as a cover for collectivism.

# posted by Duane : 6:12 PM  0 comments

State police yesterday charged Leslie Mollett in the slaying of state police Cpl. Joseph Pokorny.

The arrest was announced last night by state police Maj. Frank Monaco at a news conference at county police headquarters in Point Breeze.

Maj. Monaco said Mr. Mollett, 30, a recent state prison parolee, would be charged with criminal homicide, theft by taking, resisting arrest, attempting to elude police and firearms violations. Cpl. Pokorny, a 22-year state police veteran, was shot to death early Monday near the Extended StayAmerica hotel in Carnegie.

The theft charge related to Cpl. Pokorny's service weapon, which has not been recovered, Maj. Monaco said.

The arrest culminated three days of intense investigations by state, county and city law enforcement officials.

"Investigators did not stop for one moment or one hour for the past three days," said Allegheny County police Assistant Superintendent James Morton.

Maj. Monaco praised the cooperative effort that resulted in yesterday's arrest. "They have worked beyond my wildest dreams," he said of the agencies on the investigation.

"We're all like family here." Maj. Monaco said. "It's like losing one of your own."

Earlier yesterday, investigators escorted Mr. Mollett from the Allegheny County Jail to county police headquarters, where state police have set up a temporary base for their investigation. They kept Mr. Mollett there for several hours, although Mr. Mollett's attorneys, James Ecker and John Elash, advised their client to make no statements.

Mr. Mollett, who was paroled Nov. 17 from the State Correctional Institution Fayette, was taken into custody Monday after dozens of police investigating the slaying surrounded the South Side home of his reported girlfriend, Charise Cheatom, 23.

Since then, Mr. Mollett has been jailed as a parole violator.

Mr. Mollett, who has listed previous addresses in St. Clair Village, Wilkinsburg and Greensburg, has an arrest record dating to 1996. He was released last month from the prison in Fayette County, where he'd been held since July 2004 after pleading guilty to charges of possession and possession with intent to deliver drugs and conspiracy in two separate cases.

In one case, city police arrested Mr. Mollett on Dec. 30, 2002, in the bedroom of his Fisher Street apartment with 75 packets of heroin and $650. Five months earlier, he was arrested on Aug. 2, after he was found riding in a car with two other men, 160 bags of heroin and seven bags of marijuana.

He was sentenced by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Donald Machen to 2 to 4 years in prison.

Mr. Mollett, who sometimes goes by the alias Torrence Carter, also has been arrested for drug possession, fleeing and eluding police, reckless endangerment and numerous traffic violations. He pleaded guilty each time and was sentenced to probation.

Mr. Mollett and Ms. Cheatom were taken into custody Monday afternoon after walking out of her home in the 2800 block of Sarah Street into a phalanx of waiting officers. Investigators had surrounded her home after identifying Ms. Cheatom's Mercury Sable as the car carrying several passengers that Cpl. Pokorny radioed he was pulling over at 2:08 a.m.

A short time later, Cpl. Pokorny, 45, of Moon, became involved in a violent confrontation that ended with him fatally shot and lying in a snowbank. His handgun was missing, his belongings were scattered nearby and another handgun was left at the scene.

Cpl. Pokorny's cruiser was equipped with a dashboard camera and the tape it contained is being analyzed, Trooper Robin Mungo said. But she said she could not comment on its contents, or what Cpl. Pokorny said to dispatchers in his last radio transmissions.

Ms. Cheatom was charged with hindering apprehension and providing a false report to police after she admitted she lied to troopers about Mr. Mollett's whereabouts and the location of her car when they initially contacted her Monday morning. She is being held in the county jail on $100,000 cash bond.

# posted by Duane : 7:21 AM  0 comments

Reformers, take note. There's a big lesson to be learned from this state's ongoing, bare-knuckle fight over property rights. Ballot initiatives are all well and good, but they are only half the equation. First, voters must boot judges who legislate from the bench.

Oregonians, like many others, have been fighting to force their state government to honor property rights. Like reformers in other states, residents here had seized upon the one tool more powerful than entrenched state politicians: the ballot initiative. In 2000 and again in 2004, voters passed measures to protect landowners from state regulations that reduced their property value.

Yet nothing has changed. This is because initiatives are only as powerful as the court system lets them be. Two separate judges struck down the property measures on embarrassing legal grounds. And voters can't count on a state Supreme Court that revels in meritless decisions to right things on appeal.

This is a bitter pill to swallow, especially given how hard Oregonians have fought to get this far. Oregon's property regime traces back to the 1970s, when elites worried that all the rednecks in the pretty parts of the state might get the uppity idea of developing their land and ruining urbanites' weekend playground. A new law gave the state control of land use, stripping power from counties that were far better positioned to respond to local needs. The law was also behind "urban growth boundaries," within which development was fair game. Anything outside was labeled "forest" or "farming" or "open" land and frozen in time.

In addition to its abuse of constitutionally protected property rights, the law has also had devastating economic effects. Property prices inside the boundary artificially skyrocketed, while rural areas were barred from development that would create new jobs. No other state has been foolish enough to pass a copy of the law.

Throughout the 1980s, Oregonians pressed the legislature for relief, only to find that their representatives were either unable or unwilling to enact reform. The state's creative gerrymandering also made it impossible to vote the worst offenders out of office.

Bureaucracy is also a culprit. Oregon's legislature only meets every other year (which is largely excellent news). But between this and high turnover on land-use commissions, few politicians had the knowledge to untangle a deliberately complicated law. In the decades that property owners have been pushing for change, the legislature has passed real reform only once, in 1995. The Democratic governor promptly vetoed it.

In 2000, in the face of this dysfunction, voters took over. A group called Oregonians in Action got a measure on the ballot that would require the state to pay landowners for the value of property they "took" via regulation. Not everyone understood what it would do, and many undecideds were worried about the dollar-cost it would impose on the state, yet "Measure 7" passed with 53% of the vote.

Opponents soon filed suit in Marion County, home to the state capital and at least a few judges hostile to citizens' rights. They found just such a soul in the circuit's presiding judge, Paul Lipscomb. He quickly struck down Measure 7 on a technicality, arguing it was improperly presented to voters.

Oregonians in Action started over and drew up a new initiative, Measure 37, designed to satisfy Judge Lipscomb's complaints. The new language also solved the money concern, by offering government a choice between compensating property owners and simply exempting them from restrictions. And last year, despite being outspent four-to-one by national green groups, and overwhelming opposition from the press and Democrats, Measure 37 passed by 61%--among the most popular citizen-initiatives in state history.

Not that it mattered. Even as the state moved ahead, receiving thousands of Measure 37 claims and granting exemptions, environmental critics went back to court. And this October, Judge Mary James, also of Marion County, came up with five objections to the law--most insurmountable. At the top of this piece of creative writing was her argument that the law was unconstitutional because it limited the power of the state government over private land. Put another way, Oregonians have absolutely no right to defend against any state use of their property.

If this weren't enough, Judge Lipscomb, who overturned Measure 7 in 2001, has taken a personal stand in the Measure 37 fight, blowing any claim at impartiality. He recently sued the state for allowing his neighbors in Deschutes County to develop their property under a Measure 37 claim, arguing he has a right to quiet, rural living. And the suit has been filed in Marion County, where he is the presiding judge! It also seems he became aware of his neighbors' Measure 37 claim before he had a role in a dispute over which Marion County judge (ultimately Judge James) would hear the broader Measure 37 case.

Oregon judges can operate this way because they have near-foolproof job protection. The state still allows its judges to put an "i" (for "incumbent") next to their names on the ballot, which gives them a huge advantage in elections. Combine this with voters' traditionally apathetic approach to judicial elections, and it is no surprise that no judge in Oregon has lost a re-election for at least a decade, if not longer.

This may change. Already a local group is collecting signatures to recall Judge James. But more important, voters are pledging to make the judiciary their top priority in upcoming elections. In doing so, they join reformers across the country who in the past year have begun tossing out court incumbents, encouraging real judicial races, and demanding judicial elections be more fair.

In fact, 39 states hold some form of judicial elections. Good-governance types are already arguing that the new partisan focus on judicial candidates threatens the integrity of the courts, and that may be a debate worth having. But for now, the fact remains that it is voters who are tasked with filling the bench. And to that extent, they have a right to choose candidates who respect the law--and the wishes of citizens.

# posted by Duane : 7:09 AM  0 comments

Anett Michell Maldonado-Carbajal was born in Guatemala, but she uttered her first word, "Papa," in Georgia.

And that, according to the U.S. government, is a problem, because although her father, Edgar Maldonado, is a legal U.S. resident, 2-year-old Anett is an illegal immigrant. The government wants her out of the country.

Maldonado's attorney, Robert Beer, says the case is an outrage. He believes the government has better things to do than prosecute a toddler.

"This kid isn't a terrorist," Beer said. "She hasn't committed any crime."

The government maintains it has acted properly in the case because Anett entered the United States illegally, carried across the Rio Grande by her mother, who had been caught and ordered deported in a previous illegal entry. Even so, John Mata, Atlanta director for detention and removal for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has promised the case will get careful scrutiny by his agency.

"We do look at these types of cases with a humanitarian eye," he said. "This is not one of those that is just going to be handled in a routine manner."

Beer says Anett poses no threat to national security and would not be a drain on community resources because Maldonado has a successful construction business in Austell and can comfortably support his daughter.

But he and Maldonado acknowledge that his wife's efforts to enter into the United States illegally have complicated what might have been a routine process.

On Tuesday, while responding to Anett's immigration court summons — which could result in either deportation or a departure agreement — Beer asked an immigration judge for time to write an urgent letter to Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff asking that Anett be allowed to stay. If Chertoff declines, Anett could be sent to Honduras, where Jackie Carbajal — her mother and Maldonado's wife — is now living.

# posted by Duane : 9:23 PM  0 comments

Earlier Wednesday, the IAF targeted a car outside of Gaza City in which suspected terrorists were traveling, killing four people and wounding three.

The car was carrying members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a small, Gaza-based network linking Fatah, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

According to the army, the car was headed for the Karni crossing, where the PRC members planned to detonate the bomb-laden vehicle.

The strike set off the explosives in the car, producing a massive blast.

A PRC spokesman identified the dead men as Husam Abu Nada, Muhammad Goha, Rashad Rahim and Hamdan Mahana.

The IDF said the men were responsible for multiple mortar and rocket attacks against Israel.

# posted by Duane : 8:44 PM  0 comments

Gwyneth Paltrow has praised Londoners for their resilience after the British capital's transport network was attacked by suicide bombers on July 7.

The Shakespeare In Love beauty, who lives in London with her rock star husband Chris Martin and daughter Apple, admits she is amazed by the locals' courage in the face of adversity.

She says, "I find the English amazing how they got over 7/7.

"There were no multiple memorials with people sobbing as they would have been in America.

"There, they are constantly scaring people but at the same time, people think nothing of going to see a therapist."

# posted by Duane : 8:37 PM  1 comments

Almost every month, medical research or horrifying news stories strengthen the argument - and public support - for a tightening of Britain's abortion laws. Statistics published this week, comparing the effect on women of miscarriages and abortion, offer a case in point. Although miscarriage causes more mental distress in the six months after the loss of a baby, the negative effects of abortion last much longer.

The main statistic, produced by researchers at the University of Oslo, is so striking as to be hard to believe. After five years, less than three per cent of women who had miscarried were still suffering distress; the corresponding figure for women who had undergone an abortion was 20 per cent.

If we find this surprising, that in itself is a reflection of how imperfectly we understand abortion. The politicisation of the debate means that it is usually only unfashionable pro-life activists who point out its psychological dangers, and they are rarely given a proper hearing. Meanwhile, the Family Planning Association continues to insist that "there is no evidence to suggest that abortion directly causes psychological trauma".

The Oslo research exposes the absolute fatuity of that last claim. Abortion, like miscarriage, involves the loss of a baby; unlike miscarriage, the loss is the result of a conscious decision. And the operation itself, as Germaine Greer has taken to reminding her fellow feminists, is a gruesome one. No wonder that a fifth of women continue to feel depression, shame or guilt.

At this point we should stress that those feelings may be (and probably are) inappropriate. This newspaper has never offered a view on the morality of abortion per se. What is blindingly obvious is that women who are suffering as a result of an abortion need psychological help. Yet - in a society that offers counselling to anyone who has watched a distressing episode of EastEnders - such help is hard to obtain.

"We don't see that many women for post-abortion counselling," says the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. Why? Because they do not need it? Or because they have been assured that abortion is a mere "procedure", tantamount to contraception?

In the short term, more post-abortion counselling is needed. In the long term, the need for it should be reduced by a change in the law. The current limit of 24 weeks is appallingly high; yet Tony Blair, a practising Christian, has opposed efforts to reduce it even slightly. It is he, rather than women who have been pressurised into having abortions, who should feel ashamed.

# posted by Duane : 9:18 AM  0 comments

A Saudi prince believed to be the wealthiest businessman in the Muslim world has donated $40 million for Harvard and Georgetown to expand their Islamic studies programs, the schools announced Monday.

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, who gave $20 million to each university, is a nephew of the late King Fahd and worth upward of $20 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which ranked him fifth on its 2005 list of the world's billionaires.

Harvard and Georgetown officials said they will use the gifts to add faculty and scholarships and expand their Islamic studies curricula.

"Bridging the understanding between East and West is important for peace and tolerance," Prince Alwaleed said in a statement issued by both schools.

Harvard, which is naming its newly created program after Alwaleed, already has more than two dozen faculty researching or teaching in the field of Islamic studies.

"This program will enable us to recruit additional faculty of the highest caliber, adding to our strong team of professors who are focusing on this important area of scholarship," Harvard President Lawrence Summers said in a statement.

Georgetown will use the gift, the second-largest in its history, to expand its Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. The center, which was founded in 1993, also will be renamed after Alwaleed.

"At this time of world conflict, Georgetown is committed to build upon our role as a Catholic, Jesuit institution in fostering greater understanding among religions around the world," said the university's president, John DeGioia.

# posted by Duane : 8:06 AM  0 comments

Governor Edward G. Rendell today offered his condolences to the family and friends of State Police Cpl. Joseph R. Pokorny, a 22-year veteran trooper who was shot and killed during a traffic stop shortly after 2 a.m. on Interstate 279 near Pittsburgh.

“Cpl. Pokorny died while serving the citizens of the commonwealth,” Governor Rendell said. “His tragic death reminds us once again that our law enforcement personnel put their lives at risk each time they put on their uniforms. Midge and I extend our deepest sympathies to Cpl. Pokorny’s children and parents.”

State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller described Cpl. Pokorny, 45, as “an outstanding member of the department who displayed outstanding qualities of leadership. He took great pride in his daily performance of duties. His death is felt deeply by every member of the State Police family.”

Cpl. Pokorny was the 91st member of the department killed in the line of duty since the formation of State Police in 1905.

Cpl. Pokorny was a Patrol Unit supervisor at the Troop B, Pittsburgh, station at the time of his death. During his career, he also served at stations in Washington, Belle Vernon, Findlay and Newville. He was promoted to corporal in September 2000. He graduated from the State Police Academy in Hershey in November 1983.

Cpl. Pokorny was a 1978 graduate of Center Area High School, Monaca. Survivors include his son, Joseph, 17; daughter, Alexandre, 15; and parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pokorny Sr. of Aliquippa.

A state police corporal who stopped a car early Monday was fatally shot in the chest after what police said was a violent struggle. Now at least two people are in custody in connection with his death.

Cpl. Joseph Pokorny, who was assigned to the Moon Township state police barracks, was shot shortly after 2 a.m. near the Carnegie exit of Interstate 279, known locally as the Parkway West and located about 5 miles southwest of the city, officials said.

Early this afternoon two people were taken into custody in the 2800 block of Sarah Street on Pittburgh's Shouth Side.

A man was seen emerging from a home there with his hands in the air.

He was handcuffed and led away in a state police cruiser.

A woman came out of the home just behind the man - she was also taken into custody.

Both were taken to Allegheny Police Headquarters in Point Breeze.

The man had been negotiating with police for hours before he surrendered.

"I just want to say that we are going to work this investigation until the suspects involved in this cowardly murder are behind bars," said state police Col. Jeffrey B. Miller, who had to pause while speaking to reporters to hold back tears.

# posted by Duane : 7:45 PM  0 comments

Describing his 1976 challenge to incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan wrote, "It was time to scale back the size of the federal government, reduce taxes and government intrusion in our lives, balance the budget, and return to the people the freedoms usurped from them by the bureaucrats."

Reagan helped define the mission of the Republican Party. By re-establishing limited government as the central principle of the GOP, he laid the groundwork for the political revolution that bears his name. Almost 30 years later, the Republican Party is at a similar defining moment. Once again, challengers to certain Republican incumbents are needed to help restore limited government to its rightful place at the center of the Republican agenda.

Today, the Club for Growth PAC will endorse Steve Laffey, the Republican Mayor of Cranston, R.I., in his primary challenge against Sen. Lincoln Chafee. Steve Laffey is a pro-growth, Reagan Republican. Sen. Chafee epitomizes the GOP's waning commitment to limited government and economic freedom.

Sen. Chafee has consistently opposed tax cuts. Citing the federal deficit, he opposed the Bush tax cuts that have generated our powerful economic expansion. But his concerns about deficits don't extend to government spending. Bills he has sponsored would add nearly a half-trillion dollars in new spending over 10 years. The National Taxpayers Union gave him a dismal 49% rating for his profligacy with taxpayer money. A close ally of organized labor, he opposes school choice, and just last month voted for a minimum-wage increase. A recent Boston Globe profile describes his ideology as "well-suited for a centrist Democrat."

Despite his liberal record, Sen. Chafee is warmly embraced by the Republican Party establishment which dutifully enforces an unprincipled, though ironclad, mutual-defense agreement that ignores ideology.

Steve Laffey makes a stark contrast. After an inspiring climb from rags to riches, he returned to his hometown to run for mayor and rescue the city of Cranston from impending insolvency. As mayor, Mr. Laffey ruthlessly attacked the mismanagement that had caused Cranston's problems. He cut costs, established financial controls, rooted out waste and took on bloated union contracts in the courts--as well as in the court of Rhode Island public opinion. Today, Cranston has recovered its investment-grade credit rating and the voters there have re-elected him twice. This in a city where only 14% of voters are Republicans!

As a senator, Mr. Laffey would cut wasteful spending, especially corporate welfare; make the Bush tax cuts permanent; expand international trade; reform insolvent entitlements and fix broken tort laws. In short, he's precisely the kind of pro-growth, limited-government Republican the Senate badly needs more of.

After 10 years of controlling Congress, Washington Republicans have an identity crisis. It was Republicans who gave us a farm bill that only a Soviet central planner could love; a campaign-finance reform bill that expands government's unconstitutional restrictions on speech; a prescription-drug entitlement program that Lyndon Johnson could only have dreamed of; and a transportation bill with more than 40-times as many pork projects it took to earn Reagan's veto. So, we ask a fair question: Is Reagan's vision of limited government--the fundamental principle that brought Republicans to power--still part of the Republican identity, or has it been abandoned in favor of the seductive power of controlling unlimited government?

The fate of two bills before Congress, and a few Republican primaries, might help to answer the question. After years of spending increases, Republicans are now struggling to pass--over the opposition of Sen. Chafee and other so-called moderates--a tiny, mostly symbolic, cut in the growth of future federal spending. And if that were not enough, the Chafee cabal is attempting to block a bill extending the very tax cuts that have given us economic expansion.

The party of Reagan has been reduced to this--which is why it's time for Laffey vs. Chafee, the first skirmish in a very important battle.

# posted by Duane : 7:05 AM  0 comments

Another city cop died in the line of duty yesterday, gunned down while trying to stop a break-in at a neighbor's house by two men — including a drug-plagued actor who once starred in the Robert De Niro film "A Bronx Tale" and appeared in the HBO series "The Sopranos."

Despite being mortally wounded, Officer Daniel Enchautegui, 28, managed to shoot both men before collapsing in his Bronx driveway — a bullet near his heart.

Cops were investigating last night whether the men had mistaken the house on Arnow Place in Pelham Bay for that of a drug dealer who lived a block away.

It's also possible that the duo was looking to rob a former tenant of the now-vacant apartment. An NYPD source said a search of the home of suspect Steven Armento turned up a prescription-drug vial bearing the name of the apartment's last tenant.

The bloody confrontation was an act of bravery on the part of Enchautegui — who was said to have dreamed his whole life of wearing the NYPD blue.

Just last week, he attended the funeral of slain Officer Dillon Stewart.

Yesterday morning, Enchautegui arrived home after working a 4-to-midnight Friday shift at the 40th Precinct in Mott Haven.

He heard glass breaking at 5:21 a.m., called 911, then checked it out himself.

"I'm armed, and I'll meet the Police Department in front of the location," he said in reporting the suspicious noise, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The three-year member of the force then went outside and yelled, "Police! Don't move!" according to his landlord.

Said Mayor Bloomberg: "He did what he was trained to do."

After Enchautegui bravely confronted Armento, 48, and Lillo Brancato Jr. — a 29-year-old actor who played stockbroker-Mafia wannabe Matthew Bevilacqua on "The Sopranos" — he was struck by a bullet allegedly fired by Armento, cops said.

Undeterred by his ultimately fatal wounds, Enchautegui emptied his gun, hitting Armento four times and Brancato twice, police said.

Gunshots rang through the neighborhood, alerting Officers Josue Sepulveda and Courtney Mapp, patrolling nearby.

They rushed over and spotted Brancato at Arnow and Westchester Avenue.

He was leaning against his father's Dodge Durango — blood dripping all over the silver SUV.

Then, just as Sepulveda and Mapp noticed a second man running west on Arnow, Sgt. Michael Hurley and Officer Paul Maldonado pulled up and focused on Armento.

"What are you doing?" they asked.

"I just got shot," he replied, pointing toward the break-in site and describing Enchautegui.

"What were you doing there?" Armento was asked.

"That's when he didn't say another word," Inspector Michael Coan said.

As Hurley and the other three cops pulled up to the driveway, alarmed neighbors pointed them toward the slumped Enchautegui, telling them, "We think he's a cop."

Said Coan: "He's got a shield around his neck, his gun to his side and a cellphone near his hand. It was unbelievably by the book."

Enchautegui, struck by a bullet from a .357-caliber Smith & Wesson, died at Jacobi Medical Center. A single man, he is survived by his parents and sister.

Armento was listed in serious condition last night at the same hospital. Brancato — who, police said, was found unarmed — was in critical condition.

The mayor and the NYPD had nothing but praise for the fallen police officer.

"This is a loss to the department and the city," said Bloomberg, who joined Kelly at the hospital. "We now have another life to mourn, taken from us for no sensible reason."

Kelly praised Enchautegui's "incomprehensible courage."

# posted by Duane : 6:17 AM  0 comments

The state Superior Court has overturned the sentence of a convicted sex offender, ruling that a Cumberland County judge should have imposed a longer prison term.

The decision means Matthew Oliver of Carlisle, who already served a county prison sentence, may have to come back before Judge Kevin A. Hess to be sentenced to state prison.

Oliver's attorney, Karl Rominger, said yesterday that he will ask the Superior Court to reconsider its ruling or appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Hess sentenced Oliver, 47, to 111/2 to 23 months in county prison in October 2004 after a jury convicted Oliver of aggravated indecent assault, sexual assault, indecent assault and corruption of a minor for molesting a 17-year-old boy.

That sentence was imposed even though Chief Deputy District Attorney Jaime Keating argued that the law required that Oliver be sentenced to at least 3 years in state prison.

Keating then took the unusual step of appealing to state court.

In its ruling, the Superior Court didn't criticize Hess or say he was deliberately too lenient.

It concluded a "misunderstanding" regarding sentencing rules for sexual assault convictions led the judge to impose a penalty "well below the applicable sentencing guidelines."

The state court vacated Oliver's sentence and sent the case back to Hess for reconsideration. It did not specify what penalty should be imposed.

Keating declined to comment, saying the Superior Court's ruling speaks for itself.

Rominger immediately vowed to challenge the decision. "Respectfully, they should have given deference to the trial judge," he said.

He had also contested Oliver's conviction, claiming it reflected not the law, but the jury's repugnance at Oliver's homosexual conduct and the age difference between Oliver and the boy.

During the trial, Rominger tried unsuccessfully to convince the jurors that the January 2004 contact between Oliver and the teen was consensual and therefore legal.

# posted by Duane : 8:40 AM  1 comments

Who are you going to believe: Howard Dean or your own ears?

Dean, the chairman of the Demo cratic National Committee, is backpedaling from the incendiary assertion he made Monday: "The idea we're going to win this war [in Iraq] is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong."

The comments have sent Democrats fleeing, and have provided grist for a new GOP ad showing footage of Dean, Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry (all calling for some version of retreat) with a white flag waving in front of them and urging that, "Retreat and defeat is not an option."

So now Dean's claiming he was misunderstood.

Dean's meaning seemed plain enough: Hang in there, terrorists! Time's on your side — the Democrats are seeing to that.

That was then.

Now he claims — in a TV interview days later — that the quote was "out of context" and "cherry-picked."

What he really meant, he says now, was that the Democrats actually have a strategy for victory.

That is, as Dean calls it, "strategic redeployment."

"We need to bring the 50,000 [National Guard] troops home in the next six months. They don't belong there in the first place," says.

Sigh.

Dean simply has no idea what he's talking about on this front. The National Guard and Reserves have been an integral part of the Army's "total force" for a generation; bringing them home would unravel Operation Iraqi Freedom — which, of course, is precisely the outcome Dr. Dean is prescribing, whether or not he understands that.

Dean also proposes moving 20,000 troops from Iraq to Afghanistan — where current troop levels have been working just fine.

And the Democratic leader even calls for "a special task force of anti-terrorist troops stationed in the Middle East" to "deal with [Abu Musab] Zarqawi."

Umm, like the troops already deployed in Iraq, Dr. Dean?

Dean, clearly, is trying to walk back his comments for the benefit of mainstream Democrats.

Of course, his party's whack-job base won't stand for that — so he'll be tacking left any day now.

And so, the Democratic Party is stuck where it has been for some time on Iraq: in a state of utter incoherence.

All of this would be comical — if it wasn't encouraging the enemy.

There's an ugly word for that.

Sedition.

# posted by Duane : 8:32 AM  0 comments

People who are grossly overweight, who smoke heavily or drink excessively could be denied surgery or drugs following a decision by a Government agency yesterday.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) which advises on the clinical and cost effectiveness of treatments for the NHS, said that in some cases the "self-inflicted" nature of an illness should be taken into account.

But the report bars any discrimination against patients on grounds of age alone.

Nice stressed that people should not be discriminated against by doctors simply because they smoked or were overweight. Its ruling should apply only if the treatment was likely to be less effective, or not work because of an unhealthy habit.

The agency also insisted that its decision was not an edict for the whole NHS but guidance for its own appraisal committees when reaching judgments on new drugs or procedures.

But the effect is likely to be the same.

Nice is a powerful body and the cause of much controversy. It is seen by some as a new way of rationing NHS treatment.

Across the country primary care trusts regularly wait for many months for a Nice decision before agreeing to fund a new treatment.

One group of primary care trusts is ahead of Nice. Last month three PCTs in east Suffolk decided that obese people would not be entitled to have hip or knee replacements unless they lost weight.

The group said the risks of operating on them were greater, the surgery may be less successful and the joints would wear out sooner.

It was acknowledged that the decision would also save money.

# posted by Duane : 9:37 PM  0 comments

A banned Islamist militant group blamed for a series of bombings in Bangladesh has threatened to kill women, including non-Muslims, if they do not wear the veil, a statement said.

The statement by the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen came hours after Thursday's suicide bomb attack in a northern town that killed at least eight people, the latest of a series of blasts blamed on militant groups in their campaign for an Islamic state.

"Women will be killed if they are found to move around without wearing burqa (veil) from the first day of Jilhaj," the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen said in the statement sent to a Dhaka newspaper office.

Jilhaj refers to the Arabic month beginning early January.

"Women, including non-Muslims, are hereby advised not to go out of home without burqa. Seclusion has been made compulsory for you," said the statement in Bangla language, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Friday.

The group, which wants the introduction of sharia laws in mainly-Muslim Bangladesh, also ordered women students at Dhaka University not to step out after sunset, prompting police to increase security around the campus.

Earlier, a police officer said 30 suspected members of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and another outlawed group, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, were arrested for involvement in a wave of bomb attacks that have rattled the impoverished nation this year.

A dozen bombs were seized in raids across the country, the official said, as police hunted for the leaders of the two outlawed groups.

Two bombs exploded on a crowded street in the northern town of Netrokona on Thursday, killing eight people and wounding 50, many on their way to work.

A suicide bomber was believed to be among the dead, while another was found wounded with an unexploded bomb strapped to his body.

"These bombers are enemies of Islam and must be stopped," said an official at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, adding the government had asked clerics to spread the message from the nation's 250,000 mosques.

Thursday's deaths took the number of people killed by suspected suicide bombers to 28 in three weeks, including judges, lawyers and policemen. At least 150 people have been wounded.

Bangladesh is the world's third-most-populous Muslim country after Indonesia and Pakistan.

State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar said last month that Islamists had formed a 2,000-strong suicide squad to press home their demands.

# posted by Duane : 9:08 PM  0 comments

Authorities have surrounded and sealed off a village in southern China where police fatally shot protesters in a dispute over land use this week, villagers said Friday.

Thousands of people took part in Tuesday's demonstration in Dongzhou, a village in Guangdong province, international rights groups said. They were anger over plans to construct a wind power plant on local land.

Police fired into the crowd, killing at least two people, the reports said. Villagers have put the number as high as 10.

State media have made no mention of the violence and both provincial and local governments have repeatedly refused to comment. This is typical in China, where the ruling Communist Party controls the media.

"The riot police are gathered outside our village. We've been surrounded," said one villager reached by phone on Friday. "Most of the police are armed. We dare not to go out of our home."

She refused to give her name for fear of retribution.

"We are not allowed to buy food outside the village. They asked the nearby villagers not to sell us goods," the woman said, sobbing. "The government did not give us proper compensation for using our land ... Now they come and shoot us. I don't know what to say."

She added: "I'm scared."

Another villager said authorities were trying to find the leaders of the demonstration.

"Several young men were shot by the police" on Tuesday, said the man, who also refused to give his name. "Their bodies are just lying there."

"Why did they shoot our villagers?" he asked. "They are crazy!"

Rural protests have multiplied in recent months as anger comes to a head over corruption, land seizures and a yawning wealth gap that experts say now threatens social stability. The government says about 70,000 such conflicts occurred last year, although many more are believed to go unreported.

The clashes have also become increasingly violent, with injuries sustained on both sides and huge amounts of damage done to property as protesters vent their frustration in face of indifferent or bullying authorities.

"These reports of protesters being shot dead are chilling," Catherine Baber, deputy Asia director at Amnesty International, said in a statement Thursday. "The increasing number of such disputes over land use across rural China, and the use of force to resolve them, suggest an urgent need for the Chinese authorities to focus on developing effective channels for dispute resolution."

# posted by Duane : 7:20 AM  0 comments

I FERVENTLY refuse to consider or brook any debate as to whether sky marshals acted on time and in line in the shooting death of Rigoberto Alpizar.

Tragically unhinged he might have been, but for the sky marshals to act in any other way would have been a dramatic departure from law enforcement sanity.

It's a no-brainer.

But I want to take the debate further — a lot further.

Here we have the schemer-screamer, Democratic honcho Dr. Howard "Doofus" Dean, not only telling the United States but also telling the architects of slaughter in Iraq, that we can't win the war.

In World War II, that was called giving "comfort and succor to the enemy," punishable by forfeiture of passport and/or jail time.

On Wednesday, in small measure, the air marshals showed that whether you are mentally unhooked, politically ill-advised or pathologically anti-American — if you threaten the safety of innocent airline passengers, you will die.

Going further — I have traveled to Israel four times during various crises on El Al airline.

One, you have to be there three hours before departure. Two, you are interviewed by a multilingual staff about your reasons for going to Israel. Three, you may get thoroughly searched for no reason at all. In fact, on four occasions I have been pulled out for individual searches and even once on a return trip at JFK I got checked out.

So let's not have a debate about the sad death of someone unhinged, but instead let's take a page out of El Al airline — and let me tell you that I don't mind being searched once, twice, three times or even four times.

You and I live longer this way.

# posted by Duane : 7:16 AM  2 comments

The fir has been flying on Long Island over a Christmas tree-lighting celebration in the tony North Shore community of Manhasset. The North Hempstead town supervisor, who is Jewish, objected to a local Catholic priest's religious blessing at last Friday's ceremony, and he made his displeasure known — in front of the entire crowd. What followed was a mini-holy war, waged via phone and e-mail, that ended with Supervisor Jon Kaiman bowing to public out rage and repeatedly apologizing to the Rev. Nick Zientarski by letter and in person.

In a widely circulated e-mail, "Father Nick," associate pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Manhasset, noted that when he was invited to the annual event, "I thought about what kind of blessing to give — something generic or something 'Catholic.'

"It seemed to me that because this was a Christmas tree, it would be OK to use the blessing from my Catholic tradition."

But when he did, he heard Kaiman fuming behind him, saying "something to the effect of, 'This is nonsense,' 'We're not doing this next year,' 'I can't believe this.' "

When the blessing was finished, the priest said, Kaiman took the microphone and "in a harsh, annoyed voice," told the crowd, "I just want to make it clear that this is in no way a religious ceremony . . .

"We're here to celebrate the holiday tree lighting. This is not the place for a religious ceremony."

Father Nick asked his e-mail recipients, "Was I wrong to give a Christian blessing at a Christmas tree lighting that also included music like 'Silent Night' and featured Santa Claus coming in on a firetruck at the end?"

The answer — straight from a very repentant Kaiman — is no.

"I'm taking a more open view of the matter, and I've apologized for how I handled the matter and will have a better understanding in the future," he told The Post yesterday.

Kaiman said he attended the event believing it was a holiday tree lighting, "but it turned out it was something different than I expected."

"In retrospect, after conversations with a number of people, including Father Nick Zientarski, there's nothing wrong with calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree."

"It was what people expected and what they got, and there's nothing wrong with that. I even appreciate that it's OK to have it on public property," he said.

And next year?

"I will be there, looking forward to a Christmas tree lighting and a Christmas tree ceremony," he said.

Father Nick is delighted.

"Everything is reconciled," he said last night. "He told me he didn't understand fully what was happening that evening."

"It's such a big issue in our culture, trying to say the right thing, but he messed up. He realized he didn't handle it in an appropriate way."

# posted by Duane : 7:09 AM  0 comments

December 11, 1941

FDR declares war on Germany, forming an unholy alliance with Winston Churchill. This alliance, in turn, creates ten times more Nazis than Hitler ever did.

# posted by Duane : 7:00 AM  0 comments

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming. Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session.

"I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium.

Coulter's appearance prompted protests from several groups, including Students Against Hate and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center. They criticized her for spreading a message of hate and intolerance.

Nearly 100 students gathered inside the Student Union for a rally against Coulter. About a half-dozen people held protest signs outside the auditorium.

After a book signing following her appearance, Coulter called the audience's reaction "typical."

Coulter, originally from New Canaan, Conn., has a history of bashing Democrats in best-selling books, frequent television appearances and speeches. Harding University in Arkansas dropped her from its lecture series in September, citing her abrasive image.

Last April, the president of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota denounced a speech on the campus by Coulter, calling it hateful. In October 2004, University of Arizona police arrested two men who ran on stage and threw custard pies at Coulter; one of the pies glanced off her shoulder.

In her speech at UConn, Coulter called Bill Clinton an "executive buffoon" who won the presidency only because Ross Perot took 19 percent of the vote. She called California Sen. Barbara Boxer a good candidate for the Democrats because "she is a woman and she's learning disabled."

During the question-and-answer session, someone asked Coulter if she really was against a woman's right to vote.

"Not having women vote is a joke," she said, reversing comments she has previously made.

Eric Knudsen, a 19-year-old sophomore journalism and social welfare major at UConn, didn't attend the speech.

"We encourage diverse opinion at UConn, but this is blatant hate speech," said Knudsen, head of Students Against Hate.

Kareem Mohni, a 20-year-old junior and a member of a campus Republicans group, said he was disgusted with the Jorgensen crowd.

"It really appalled me that we're not able to come together as a group and listen to a different view in a respectful environment," he said.

# posted by Duane : 7:19 PM  0 comments

Today's fighting in Iraq bears little resemblance to Pickett's charge or the Union assault on Marye's Heights in Fredericksburg. For one thing, the Civil War was infinitely bloodier: Its worst battles killed more American soldiers in a day than have died in two-and-a-half years of fighting in Iraq. And the purpose for which our current war was begun--capturing Saddam Hussein's supposed stash of WMDs--seems nobler than the fight over who held Fort Sumter. Still, some key parallels remain. Toppling Saddam and seizing his chemical and biological weapons probably wasn't worth the sacrifice of 2,000-plus American lives (as long as nuclear weapons weren't in the picture). Similarly, control over the Mississippi wasn't worth the bloodletting across the length of the Confederacy's border that took place in Lincoln's first term.

Thankfully, Lincoln saw to it that the war's purpose changed. George W. Bush has changed the purpose of his war too, though the change seems more the product of our enemies' choices than of Bush's design. By prolonging the war, Zarqawi and his Baathist allies have drawn thousands of terrorist wannabes into the fight--against both our soldiers and Muslim civilians. When terrorists fight American civilians, as on September 11, they can leverage their own deaths to kill a great many of us. But when terrorists fight American soldiers, the odds tilt towards our side. Equally important, by bringing the fight to a Muslim land, by making that land the central front of the war on Islamic terrorism, the United States has effectively forced Muslim terrorists to kill Muslim civilians. That is why the so-called Arab street is rising--not against us but against the terrorists, as we saw in Jordan after Zarqawi's disastrous hotel bombing. The population of the Islamic world is choosing sides not between jihadists and Westerners, but between jihadists and people just like themselves. We are, slowly but surely, converting bin Laden's war into a civil war--and that is a war bin Laden and his followers cannot hope to win.

We see the fruits of that dynamic across the Middle East. Democracy is rising, fitfully to be sure, but still rising: in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Egypt, in Iran, even in Saudi Arabia--not just because it is also rising in Iraq, but because its enemies are the same as our enemies. That is a war very much worth fighting.

Today our forces and Iraqis are fighting together and, slowly, winning a good and noble war that holds the hope of bringing to millions a measure of freedom they never knew before. And yet today, America seems ready, even eager, to concede defeat and withdraw: a sad twist on the famous George Aiken formula for extricating American soldiers from Vietnam. It sounds bizarre--why would anyone want to throw away the chance of such a great victory, when victory seems within reach? But it isn't bizarre. On the contrary, it has happened before.

Again, consider the politics of the Civil War. In 1863 the Northern street--the term didn't exist then, but the concept did--rose, and New York saw the worst rioting in our nation's history. The rioters' cause was ending the draft on which Lincoln's war depended. A year later Lincoln seemed headed for electoral defeat, even as Grant's and Sherman's armies seemed headed for decisive military victories. Victory often seems most elusive to civilians when it is most nearly within soldiers' grasp. And noble causes often do not sound noble to the nation whose sons must fight for them. (Those who do the fighting understand: Lincoln had the overwhelming support of soldiers in the field, and I would bet my next paycheck that today's soldiers overwhelmingly support fighting through to victory in Iraq.) In many American towns and cities, then as now, the cause of freedom for others did not seem a cause worth fighting and dying for.

But it is, partly because--as Lincoln saw better than anyone--others' freedom helps to guarantee our own. A world where Southern planters ruled their slaves with the lash was a world where Northerners' rights could never be secure; if birth and privilege and caste reigned supreme in the South, those things would more easily reign elsewhere, closer to Northern homes. Lincoln had it right: Either democracy and freedom would go on to new heights or they might well "perish from the earth." So too today. A world full of Islamic autocrats is a world full of little bin Ladens eager to give their lives to kill Americans. A world full of Islamic democracies gives young Muslim men different outlets for their passions. That obviously means better lives for them. But it also means better and safer lives for us.

None of this excuses the bungling and bad management that have plagued the Iraq war. The administration has made some terrible mistakes that have cost precious lives, both among our soldiers and among Iraqi civilians. But bungling and bad management were far more evident in Lincoln's war than they have been in Bush's. Most wars are bungled; battle plans routinely go awry. Sometimes, error gives rise to larger truths; nations can stumble unawares onto great opportunities. So it was in the 1860s. So it is today in the Middle East.

Two-and-a-half years ago, our armed forces set out to fight a small war with a small objective. Today we find ourselves in a larger war with a larger and vastly better purpose. It would be one of history's sadder ironies were we to turn away because that better purpose is not the one we set out to achieve. Either we fight the fight our enemies have chosen until they are defeated or (better still) dead, or millions of Muslim men and women may lose their "last, best hope"--and we may face a mushroom cloud over Manhattan, the work of one of the many Mohammed Attas that Middle Eastern autocracies have bred over the last generation. The choice belongs not to the president alone, but to all of us. Here's hoping we choose as wisely as Lincoln's generation did.

# posted by Duane : 7:10 AM  0 comments

The House is scheduled to vote today on legislation that would extend a tax cut that has been crucial to the economic rebound of the past two years. The bill provides for a two-year extension of the current 15% tax rate on capital gains and dividends, due to expire in 2008. Pay attention, for this may be the most important vote on the economy the House has taken all year.

What's surprising is that the vote is expected to be a cliff hanger. The Senate passed its tax bill without any capital gains and dividend provisions, so passage in the House is necessary if there is any hope of keeping the issue alive.

The very fact that it is proving so difficult to secure a mere two-year extension of President Bush's most notable first-term domestic-policy achievement underscores how far Republicans in Congress have stumbled of late. The 2003 tax cut is about as clear a policy success as has come out of Washington in many years:

• The stock market has risen by about $4 trillion in value, and an estimated 40% of that gain is directly attributable to increases in the after-tax return on equities, thanks to the tax cut. (If the tax cut expires, the market will instantly give back those gains.) Housing values have soared so rapidly that the fear is we now face a bubble. Household net wealth has climbed by $10 trillion.

• Business investment--which had sunk into the abyss during the recession, falling by 21% between 2000 and 2002--has roared back to life. Spending is up nearly 25% over the past 30 months.

• Dividend payments to shareholders have doubled in two years, according to data gathered by the American Shareholders Association. The cumulative impact of the tax cut and the higher dividend payments has put $100 billion into the pockets of America's burgeoning investor class.

• The macro-economic signs all point to a solid, sustainable expansion. Employment is up 4.4 million and real GDP growth has averaged 4%--or twice the OECD average--since 2003. Today's unemployment rate of 5% means there are now roughly one million more Americans working than were projected before the tax cut.

• Oh, and yes, there was a $120 billion reduction in the budget deficit in 2005. That's because tax receipts rose by more than in any previous year in U.S. history, even adjusting for inflation. Receipts were up by $55 billion above projections in 2004; $122 billion above projections in 2005; and are already running well ahead of projections so far in fiscal 2006 (which began in October).

• Finally, we wonder if any of the faux debt-hawks in Congress noticed that thanks to the sizzling economy, states and localities are now running hefty budget surpluses, reversing years of red ink and painful service cutbacks. Even New York City--which for years looked like the U.S. version of debt-plagued Argentina--is back in the black.

House Republicans will scrape for every last vote today to get the 218 needed to prevent the reversal of this resounding tax-policy success. They need almost every Republican vote because the Democratic Party of Howard Dean is reflexively against pro-growth tax policies--even when they raise revenues. Republicans can take a big step toward reversing their slide in the polls--and advertise themselves as the party of prosperity--by enthusiastically distancing themselves from that bankrupt economic philosophy.

# posted by Duane : 7:01 AM  0 comments

Take Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean — the sedition-mongering former governor of Vermont who once presumed to the presidency and who now is working overtime for a terrorist victory in Iraq.

Once the Democratic Party was led by men of vision and courage — men like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S Truman and John F. Kennedy. All were partisan pols to the core, but they knew the dangers of totalitarianism and reflexively rose above petty place-seeking to inspire America in times of peril.

Today, the party has Dean — as petty a place-seeker as can be found on the planet, and devoid of anything even approaching vision and courage.

"[The] idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," he said Monday. "Bring the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately. They don't belong in a conflict like this anyway."

Dean doesn't know what he's talking about, on several levels.

The National Guard and Reserves have been an integral part of the Army's "total force" for a generation — there's no bringing them home without collapsing the entire effort in Iraq.

Such an outcome, of course, would be much to Dr. Dean's liking — because, again, it "is just plain wrong" to think "we're going to win the war in Iraq."

(Dean, of course, has never even been to Iraq — in stark contrast to Sen. Joe Lieberman, who's been there four times in the last 17 months, most recently at Thanksgiving. Lieberman spoke on the subject yesterday, and excerpts of his remarks can be found on the preceding page.)

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman quite properly castigated Dean's defeatist attitude — terming his prediction "outrageous."

It "sends the wrong message to our troops, the enemy and the Iraqi people just 10 days before historic elections."

That's one way to put it.

We would have preferred a little less varnish on Mehlman's message.

For what Dean did was send an unambiguous message of encouragement to America's mortal enemies both in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.

Hang tough, Dean was telling al Qaeda: You may not be able to defeat the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, but we're doing your work for you right here at home.

For sure, Dean's words will be rattling around the Mideast for days — courtesy of al-Jazeera.

"Give' em Hell" Harry Truman, for one, must be spinning in his grave, to see his party in the hands of the spiritual heir to George McGovern.

# posted by Duane : 7:07 AM  1 comments

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.

- William Sherman

# posted by Duane : 8:38 PM  0 comments

Timothy Andrus: owes $144,040 for the support of 2 children.

Brad Henderson: owes $85,198 for 3 children

Max Mata, Sr.: owes $81,747 for 1 child

# posted by Duane : 7:23 PM  0 comments

A group of atheists at UTSA was asking students to exchange bibles for porn magazines Wednesday, and that has made some religious leaders angry. News 4 WOAI first broke the story at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

At a Wednesday night church service, The Bible is the bond between believers, but on the UTSA campus a group of students were calling scripture, smut.

“We consider The Bible to be a very negative force in the history of the world,” student Ryan Walker said. He is part of a student group calling itself the "Atheist Agenda."

Club members were on campus asking students to exchange religious materials for pornographic magazines like Black Label and Playboy.

News 4 WOAI’s Demond Fernandez showed the Athiest Agenda's "Smut for Smut" fliers to Pastor Rick Hawkins of the Family Praise Center.

“In my opinion, there are no atheists. There are fools,” Hawkins said. “So, that would be foolish propaganda.”

Other Christians we talked to agreed with Pastor Hawkins.

Athiest Agenda members said they got the idea from students in Austin. They claimed they were only exercising freedom of speech.

“I don't know one believer that would take his Bible and turn it in for pornography,” Pastor Hawkins said.

So far, only five students have exchanged their bibles for porn.

# posted by Duane : 6:52 PM  0 comments

Here's one way Congress could be useful in fighting the terrorists in Iraq: Confirm Gordon England as Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Conducting a war requires a fully staffed Pentagon, something the U.S. Senate is proving itself unwilling to provide. President Bush was forced to use his recess-appointment power last summer to name Eric Edelman as Undersecretary for Policy, the department's No. 3 position, when Democrat Carl Levin refused to lift his hold on the nomination over a spat pertaining to Mr. Edelman's predecessor, Douglas Feith. Ditto for Peter Flory, Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy.

Now it looks like the President will have to follow suit with Mr. England, who has been in limbo since he was nominated in March. It's a good thing Donald Rumsfeld seems to like his job. If the 73-year-old Defense Secretary were to retire, who knows whether a successor could be confirmed.

Mr. England's stalled confirmation is all the more outrageous since he is being held up by a member of the President's own party. Olympia Snowe is miffed that, as Navy Secretary, Mr. England did not fight some cuts in the ship-building budget dear to the heart of the Senator from Maine. Her office tells us he did not show sufficient "leadership." "I don't know what it would take" to get the Senator to lift her hold, a Snowe spokesman says. Translation: This is payback, so forget about it.

Another Republican, Mississippi's Trent Lott, has had similar problems with Mr. England's lack of devotion to naval pork. He finally lifted his own hold last month, after meeting with Mr. England, who has been Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense since May, when Paul Wolfowitz left to head the World Bank. Under the rules governing political appointments, he is permitted to serve as "acting" since he already has a government job--that of Navy Secretary.

But with the Senate's recent confirmation of a new Navy Secretary, things are getting complicated. When Donald Winter eventually takes the oath of office, Mr. England will lose both his jobs. To keep that from happening, Defense is looking for a lower-level position--one that doesn't require Senate confirmation--to which Mr. England can be appointed for the purpose of allowing him to continue as Acting Deputy. We'd then have the absurd situation in which the official rank of the No. 2 man in the Pentagon is several notches down the totem pole from those who work for him.

The purpose of such a charade would be to keep Mr. England on until the next session of Congress begins next year, when he would receive a recess appointment. A recess appointment expires at the end of the following Congressional session, so if he were recess-appointed now he could serve only until the end of 2006. If Mr. Bush waits until next year to appoint him, Mr. England could stay until the end of 2007--perhaps even long enough to make a difference.

A far better outcome would be for the Senate to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities and give Mr. England an up-or-down vote. The unwritten tradition of the "hold," whereby an individual Senator can delay indefinitely a Presidential nomination, is an abuse of the Senate's advise-and-consent power and is seriously interfering with the operation of the Pentagon. It means that a single Senator can essentially defeat a Presidential nominee.

If national security and the Constitution are not enough to move Senators, they might consider their own self-interest. By refusing to vote on a President's nominees, they are undermining the authority of the Senate itself and encouraging this and future Presidents to rely more on recess appointments, bypassing that body altogether.

# posted by Duane : 7:10 AM  0 comments

Imagine a college accepting your donation, then saying that you cannot have the same access to the school as all other alumni--but that you must continue making donations. Unbelievable? But that is what most law schools now claim: The U.S. government must continue funding universities to the tune of hundreds of millions, despite their decision to deny military recruiters the same access to students granted to all other recruiters.

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear FAIR v. Rumsfeld, an appeal from a 2-1 decision by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals holding that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to condition its funding to universities on military recruiters being afforded equal access to students. The case arises out of an attack on the Solomon Amendment, enacted by Congress in 1994 and signed into law by President Clinton, which mandates that federal funds be withheld from any university in which any part (for example, a law school) denies military recruiters that access.

The Supreme Court has previously sustained the "wide latitude" that Congress has "to attach conditions on the receipt of federal assistance," in order to further a government interest. All parties in this case agree that military recruitment is an important government interest.

Although recognizing the general right of the government to condition its funding, the Court of Appeals struck down the Solomon Amendment on the ground that it violates the universities' academic freedom not to appear to endorse the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the military. This conclusion makes no sense. All that the government asks is that students who wish to hear a military recruiter's message have the same access as students do to hear other recruiters' messages.

The assertion that academic freedom is being violated by giving students the freedom to hear a military recruiter's message is Orwellian. The Supreme Court has made clear that academic freedom is primarily the right of students, not the right of school administrators to limit what students can hear to what is politically correct. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, in which school board sanctions against students for wearing arm bands to communicate their view on the Vietnam war were held unconstitutional, the court said, "In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the [school] chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments which are officially approved."

Plaintiffs in this case--an association of 38 law schools and law faculties--argue that equal access violates their free speech rights. This is baseless: Military recruiters on campus, while this lawsuit has been winding its way through the courts, have invariably been met by demonstrations in which administrators, faculty and students have openly exercised their free speech rights to oppose military policy. In essence, the law schools claim that, because of their disagreement with a military policy, they have a right to prevent students who wish to hear from the military.

It is the antithesis of academic freedom for one group of faculty and students to prevent the communication of a message that other students wish to hear. As the Supreme Court explained in Rosenberger v. Rector, "The quality and creative power of student intellectual life . . . remains a vital measure of a school's influence and attainment. For the university . . . to cast disapproval on particular viewpoints . . . risks the suppression of free speech and creative inquiry in . . . its college and university campuses."

Likewise, plaintiffs' claim--that their freedom of association is violated by forcing the universities to endorse military policy, merely because the military recruiters are treated the same as hundreds of other recruiters--is contrary to reality. No one believes that a law school endorses any or all of the recruiters who participate in its annual employment fair. This is obvious from the fact that, for example, legal groups on both sides of the abortion issue can have recruiters at a law school. A law school merely acts as a clearinghouse to allow students to meet with those recruiters whose messages each student wishes to hear. Again, the Supreme Court held in Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens that "students are mature enough and are likely to understand that a school does not endorse or support . . . speech that it merely permits on a nondiscriminatory basis."

Plaintiffs say that law schools are only enforcing their nondiscrimination policy, which they require all recruiters to endorse, swearing that they will not discriminate on the basis of various factors, including race, religion, sex and sexual orientation. On the surface, this argument sounds plausible. But unlike discrimination on the basis of race, religion and sex, which are banned in employment by the law of the land, no federal statute bans sexual orientation discrimination.

The "Don't Ask Don't Tell" military policy--which is the true target of the schools' objection to military recruiters as discriminatory against gays--is the law of the land, enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. Since then, all courts which have considered this statute have upheld its constitutionality. Thus, what the law school administrators and professors are attempting is to substitute their view of what the law should be for what Congress, the president and the courts have determined the law is. Closing campus doors to military recruiters is not the way to seek to alter the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy; lobbying Congress to change it is the proper procedure.

In the end, there is no reason to exclude military recruiters from the axiom that he who pays the piper picks the tune. The federal government has the right to condition its grant of funds to universities on the simple condition that military recruiters receive equal treatment. Both law and logic dictate that the Solomon Amendment be held constitutional.

# posted by Duane : 7:08 AM  0 comments

WITH the trial of Saddam Hussein under way, those in the God-damn-America camp find themselves uncomfortably wedged. Should they justify their opposition to the war by downplaying Saddam's crimes while sheeting home blame for the present turmoil to the US and its allies? Or do they opt for the defence of moral equivalence, conceding that Saddam was indeed a monster but those US presidents who once backed his regime, including George H.W. Bush, are the real monsters.

The best riposte to this warped analysis is a scholarly and sober 700-page volume recently published in France, of all places. Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein (The Black Book of Saddam Hussein) is a robust denunciation of Saddam's regime that does not fall into the trap of viewing everything in Iraq through a US-centric prism. The writers - Arabs, Americans, Germans, French and Iranian - have produced the most comprehensive work to date on the former Iraqi president's war crimes, assembling a mass of evidence that makes the anti-intervention arguments redundant.

"The first weapon of mass destruction was Saddam Hussein," writes Bernard Kouchner, who has been observing atrocities in Iraq since he led the first Medecins Sans Frontieres mission there in 1974. "Preserving the memory of the arbitrary arrests that Saddam's police conducted every morning, the horrible and humiliating torture, the organised rapes, the arbitrary executions and the prisons full of innocent people is not just a duty. Without that one cannot understand either what Saddam's dictatorship was or the urgent necessity to remove him."

The obsession of many journalists and commentators with the fruitless hunt for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has meant much of the evidence of Saddam's atrocities in liberated Iraq has been under-reported. Sinje Caren Stoyke, a German archeologist and president of Archeologists for Human Rights, catalogues 288 mass graves, a list that is already out of date with the discovery of fresh sites every week.

"There is no secret about these mass graves," Stoyke writes. "Military convoys crossed towns, full of civilian prisoners, and returned empty. People living near execution sites heard the cries of men, women and children. They heard shots followed by silence."

Stoyke estimates one million people are missing in Iraq, presumed dead, leaving families with the dreadful task of finding and identifying the remains of their loved ones.

Abdullah Mohammed Hussein was a soldier fighting in the mountains when Iraqi troops took the Kurdish village of Sedar and deported three-quarters of the inhabitants, including his mother, his wife and their seven children. They were taken to a concentration camp at Topzawa and from there some were taken to an execution ground near the archeological site of Hatra, south of Mosul. The remains of 192 people have been found, 123 women and children and 69 men, among them Abdullah's wife and three of their children. There is no trace of his mother and the other four children. They were victims of the genocidal Anfal campaign, which sought to exterminate the Kurds.

Between February and September 1988, 100,000 to 180,000 Kurds died or disappeared. The bombing of the Kurdish village of Halabja with chemical weapons including mustard gas, tabun, sarin and VX on March 16, 1988, which killed 3000 to 5000 civilians, was the most publicised of these atrocities because it occurred near the Iranian border and Iranian troops were able to penetrate with the assistance of Kurds, filming and photographing the victims.

Halabja was not an isolated case however. Saddam used chemical weapons at least 60 times against Kurdish villages during Anfal.

And Kurds were not the only victims of Saddam, who ordered the arrest of numerous Shi'ites. Saadoun Kassab, an engineer who helped build Abu Ghraib in 1957, a prison that was designed to hold 4000 prisoners, was later to be held there for a year. He told Chris Kutschera, the book's editor: "When I was imprisoned in Abu Ghraib in 1985, there were 48,500 prisoners. I was imprisoned for eight months in a space 1mx1.5m, a box. I was sometimes in there for a fortnight without going outside. I wanted to be interrogated to get outside, to see daylight and human beings. All that because I said hello to Saad Saleh Jaber [son of a former Shi'ite prime minister from the time of the monarchy]. I saw people die."

Abdoul Hadi al-Hakim, a Shi'ite, was arrested with 90 members of his family on May 10, 1983, and was detained for eight years without being charged or tried. The youngest Hakim detained was only 14. His father and two brothers, together with 13 other relatives, were executed within the first weeks of detention. He and the rest were held in Abu Ghraib, 22 in a cell that measured 4mx6m. There was no running water and a hole in the corner served as a toilet. Recounting his detention in the book, Abdoul al-Hakim says: "The worst moments? It was all terrible, but the worst was the fear of being executed. Each time we heard the lock turn we were silent; it could be the moment to leave, for me, for another. I am angry with those who mix the crimes of the Americans with those of Saddam when they are not comparable."

The repression of the Shi'ites included the forced deportation of Iraqi Shi'ites into Iran, which started when the Baathists seized power. At least 40,000 were deported in a first wave in 1969-71 and a second wave of at least 60,000 were deported nine years later. Deportations continued throughout the 1980s. At the time of the fall of Saddam, 200,000 Iraqis were living in Iran, one-quarter Kurds and three-quarters Arab Shi'ites. Of these exiles, 50,000 were living in refugee camps in great poverty.

The extermination of the Marsh Arabs, an ancient population that had been living in the marshlands of Mesopotamia, took place between 1991 and 2003. Of a population of 400,000 Arabs living in the marshes of southern Iraq 30 years ago, there are today only 83,000; 11,000 fled to Baghdad and are living there in great poverty and 80,000 have fled to Iran. Thousands were murdered by Iraqi soldiers and the marshes were drained, bringing famine and illness to those that remained.

The brutal repression of the Shi'ite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War resulted in another 300,000 deaths, most of them civilians.

In Saddam's Iraq no one, not even the dictator's closest relatives and collaborators, was safe. Tariq Ali Saleh, a former Iraqi judge and the president of the Iraqi Jurists Association, writes that during the reign of the Baath party from 1968 to 2003, the security services arrested and imprisoned people without charging them, with no access to a lawyer or contact with their family. Everyone was targeted, including women and children. Torture was systematically used to secure confessions including beating, burning, ripping out finger nails, rape, electric shocks, acid baths and deprivation of sleep, food or water.

Then there were the victims of Saddam's three devastating wars. It is estimated that more than one million people in both countries died during the Iran-Iraq conflict which has been compared by Kutschera to World WarI with its trench warfare and colossal loss of human life. The enormous cost of the Iran-Iraq war inspired Saddam to invade Kuwait to seize its assets and Saddam's refusal to comply with the UN resolutions obliging him to disarm finally led to Iraq's invasion and his downfall.

For Kouchner, these murders need to be set out one by one, in all their horror, describing their nature and affirming that which is too often forgotten: Saddam was one of the worst tyrants in history and it was urgent to rid the Iraqi people of him.

Kouchner, who was France's health minister until he was picked by UN secretary-general Kofi Annan as his special representative for Kosovo, had hoped that a united international community might be able to bring down Saddam in the way that resolute action by the international community liberated that country. He felt bitterly ashamed when the French veto in the Security Council divided the international community and made it impossible to bring about a united front to bring down the dictator. "Was there a worse way of duping those who hoped for so much from us?" he writes.

It seems surprising that such a robust denunciation of Saddam should come from France and even more so that many of the contributors of this scholarly work would be considered to be left of centre.

While Australian anti-war protesters have lauded France's obdurate opposition to the war, Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein charts the sorry history of France's slavish support for Saddam, from Right and Left, for 30 years, a relationship that was fundamentally based on the trade of Iraqi oil for French missiles, fighter jets and nuclear technology.

French President Jacques Chirac's friendship with Saddam goes back to the '70s when he was prime minister under president Valery Giscard d'Estaing. When Saddam came to France, he spent a private weekend with Chirac in Provence, and on another visit Chirac went to the airport to meet his "personal friend" for whom he felt respect and affection.

The only rupture in this idyll was the invasion of Kuwait, when France joined the UN coalition to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty. But in the 15 years after the Iran-Iraq war, France worked energetically to lift sanctions and normalise relations with Iraq and with Saddam to restore a lucrative trading partner.

Determined to keep Saddam in power, the French never once denounced the dictator. Yet far from preventing war, the French veto in the Security Council facilitated it. In the absence of a UN resolution authorising force against Saddam, the only possibility was a US-led coalition.

The French, like all those who opposed the war, have implicitly or explicitly argued that although Saddam had his unsavoury side, he was no worse than the leaders in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and Egypt, or farther afield in Zimbabwe, Burma, North Korea and China.

For the French and for many opponents of the war, the argument proffered was that without Saddam there would be chaos in Iraq. One French diplomat is cited as saying: "The opposition doesn't exist. The situation in Iraq won't change for a certain amount of time. If Saddam Hussein disappears, it's the regime that will be swept away and there will be federal anarchy."

People who took this view feel vindicated by every setback the new regime in Iraq confronts and the attacks of suicide bombers.

Far from glossing over the difficulties in rebuilding Iraq, the book documents the extent to which this was inevitable after 35 years of a brutal dictatorship in which Saddam ruthlessly eliminated civil structures, political opponents and those within his party he viewed as a threat.

The repressive system put in place by Saddam was impregnable from within. There was no democratic solution to Saddam's dictatorship.: no popular movement, no insurrection could have overthrown him, as the Kurds and Shi'ites found out through bloody experience.

"The American war was perhaps not a good solution for getting rid of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. But, as this book shows, after 35 years of a dictatorship of exceptional violence, which has destroyed Iraqi civil society and created millions of victims, there wasn't a good solution," Kutschera writes.

Saddam and seven co-defendants are charged with ordering the killing of more than 140 people from the mainly Shi'ite Muslim town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after an attempt on Saddam's life there in 1982.

# posted by Duane : 8:55 PM  0 comments

Nearly half of the $3 billion is going to three projects, the largest being the $800 million Greene Energy Resource Recovery Project to be constructed on the former LTV mine site on the Monongahela River in Greene County.

The project is commonly described as a power plant, but Bill Derby, a principal with Wellington Development-WVDT LLC, the Fairmont, W.Va., developer that is building it, says a more accurate description is "an environmental cleanup project."

It is designed to turn 100 million tons of coal waste in Greene, Fayette and Washington Counties into fuel for a 525-megawatt power plant, as well as to clean "hundreds of millions of gallons" of highly polluted acidic water that drains into the Monongahela River each year. "It does make and sell electricity, and that's how we pay for all this environmental cleanup," Mr. Derby said

Construction, scheduled to begin Oct. 1, has been delayed by an appeal filed with the state by a pair of environmental groups, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Group Against Smog and Pollution. They are seeking to overturn the state Department of Environmental Protection's approval of Wellington's air quality control plan.

If Wellington prevails, construction may begin in one to two years, with the work employing an average of 900 workers over a period of four years, peaking somewhere between 2,000 and 2,400 workers. Upon completion, it's expected the recovery project will employ about 160 to 200 workers and generate $65 million to $70 million annually in payroll, purchases and other business activity, Mr. Derby said.

# posted by Duane : 1:42 PM  0 comments

In a letter delivered today to Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston, close to 100 area Catholics -- many of them prominent business and grassroots leaders -- demanded that Catholic Charities disinvite Mayor Tom Menino as the honoree of their Christmas fundraising dinner.

The letter begins by commending the Archbishop for withdrawing from the dinner honoring a pro-abortion Catholic politician but asks him to take further action. "We request that you avoid further scandal and confusion to the faithful by insisting Catholic Charities disinvite Mayor Menino and find a suitable candidate to honor in his place on December 9."

In support of their request, the signers quote from a recent document published in 2004 by the U.S. bishops, which reads, "Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors, or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

The letter also puts the responsibility for the Menino affair at the feet of Fr. Bryan Hehir, the head of Boston's Catholic Charities, "If the current leadership refuses to maintain communion with the Archbishop and the Roman Catholic Church by disinviting the mayor, we request that you appoint and install new leadership." Fr. Hehir was president of Catholic Charities USA until Archbishop O'Malley asked that he return to his home diocese to oversee local operations of the same organization.

Before being made aware of the letter, Mayor Menino labeled those who were calling for his withdrawal as being motivated by "animosity" and lacking "charity." Menino excused Archbishop O'Malley's withdrawal from the dinner as being necessitated by the U.S. Bishops' Conference, and added, "I like O'Malley."

In a Boston Globe article, Menino responded to the pro-life Catholic activism by saying, "The church should teach to the faithful but should not interfere in issues that involve the civil rights of the entire population." He also said, ''When the pope speaks on doctrine, that is absolute. I don't think choice and gay marriage are doctrine."

The two Catholic activists whose protest spurred the Archbishop's actions are C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts and Carol McKinley of Boston's Faithful Voice.

I asked Carol McKinley what she thought of the mayor's accusation that she was motivated by animosity. She replied, "We're not being hostile to the mayor personally. What he's actually objecting to is our hostility towards the immorality, violence, and murders he advocates to our children. The diocese is still not in compliance with the directive and it's a classic example of how pro-abort politicians use their 'honors' to trample mothers and fathers attempting to hold the Bishop accountable to the promises he makes."

C.J. Doyle said of Menino's comments that "you could cut the hypocrisy with a knife." Mayor Menino, he explained, "boycotted the St. Patrick's Day parade because it would not allow a militant gay activist group to march. Then he ordered all the shamrocks and Irish symbols off the city's fire equipment because they were symbols of 'tribalism.' Now he presumes to preach to the rest of us about inclusiveness."

It's clear that local Catholics like Doyle and McKinley are not going to rest until either Menino withdraws from the dinner or Fr. Hehir is removed from Catholic Charities. Their pressure will put additional pressure on Archbishop O'Malley to take action beyond simply not attending the dinner.

The letter signers realize that theirs is a "difficult request" but believe such steps are necessary "It is time to put 'Catholic' beliefs and teachings back into Catholic Charities of Boston."

# posted by Duane : 10:19 AM  1 comments

A Texas-based atheist group has filed a federal lawsuit against the Utah Highway Patrol and the Utah Department of Transportation, demanding that crosses erected in honor of fallen UHP troopers be removed from highways on the principle of separation of church and state. In the suit filed in U.S. District court Thursday, American Atheists Inc., a nonprofit Texas corporation with main offices based out of New Jersey, says several of the 12-foot steel crosses memorializing troopers killed in the line of duty are located on public land in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. "It is the government endorsement of religion and of one particular religion," said Mike Rivers, Utah director of American Atheists and one of the plaintiffs. Two other Utah members, Stephen Clark and Richard Andrews, have also joined the suit.

News of the suit spread quickly through the UHP community and among friends and family of fallen troopers. "Generally speaking, the crosses are to memorialize these officers who have given the ultimate sacrifice to the state," UHP spokesman Jeff Nigbur said. Nigbur said a large number of the crosses are located on private property near public highways. As for the religious symbolism, Nigbur said, the cross symbol was chosen as a general symbol to memorialize the fallen. "We chose the cross because the cross is the international sign of peace, and it has no religious significance in it," Nigbur said.

"I think that's less than honest," said Salt Lake civil rights attorney Brian Barnard, who represents the atheists. Barnard said the cross is a symbol of Christianity. He has no objection to memorializing fallen troopers, but Barnard said there has to be a better, non-denominational way to do it. "I don't think there's any question that these troopers should be honored. They have given the ultimate sacrifice," Barnard said. "They can be honored in a way that doesn't emphasize religion."

As for being on private property, several crosses located by Barnard are actually on government land and he has copies of permits issued by the Utah Department of Transportation that allow the crosses. UDOT spokesman Tom Hudachko said his department has yet to fully review the suit and did not want to comment on pending litigation.

Todd Royce, former president of the Utah Highway Patrol Association, which helps place the memorial crosses, calls the suit a little late. "This was years in the working," Royce said. "Some of these crosses have been up for seven or eight years. When we put them up, nobody opposed them."

Lori Lucas-Foster said even replacing the crosses for another symbol at this point would be like tampering with a gravesite. The daughter of a fallen UHP trooper, Lucas-Foster said although her family is traditionally Catholic, they are not very religious. "To us the symbol is not about religion or a symbol of Christianity. To us, it's a memorial marker for the life that my dad sacrificed for the whole community," she said. Her father's cross stands off southbound I-15 in Layton. Tom Rettberg was a longtime UHP pilot whose helicopter crashed in Woods Cross on Feb. 11, 2000, while he attempted an emergency maneuver as part of training. Lucas-Foster and Royce both point out that crosses are used to mark graves at government memorial sites, such as Arlington National Cemetery.

# posted by Duane : 6:35 PM  2 comments

There are a host of college football games being played this Saturday. Several are for conference championships and have corporate names on them. A number of spots in the Bowl Championship Series are at stake. Schools like Virginia Tech and Texas, heavy favorites against mediocre (four loss) competition, have millions of dollars at stake. So does Southern California in its showdown against cross-town rival UCLA.

The conference title games have one thing in common: money. That's what created them, that's what drives them. That doesn't mean there aren't very good teams involved or that the quality of the football might not be very good. Those games though are what college football today is all about: greed.

There is one game Saturday that ISN’T what college football today is all about. It is a complete anachronism. There's no corporate name slapped on it and there are no BCS dollars at stake. The game will be a sellout not because one team is about to go to a third straight bowl game or because the other is on the rise again after going through the worst stretch in its 115 years of playing football. People don't go to Army-Navy because of what may be at stake, they go to Army-Navy because it is Army-Navy. They go because they know they will see a game played as hard and as clean as any football game all year. They go because there is nothing like the march-ons prior to the game and because there's nothing like the playing of the alma maters after the game. They go because when the national anthem is played they can look to either side of the stadium and see 4,000 hands snap to salute position almost as if they are all on the same string. They go because they understand that the young men playing in the game are special people -- they have to be or they wouldn't survive the academic and medical demands of the schools they play for.

I write this column every year about Army-Navy because it is worth remembering why Army-Navy is like no other rivalry in sports -- not just football, all sports. Fans of other rivalries frequently bristle about how their rivalry often decides national championships or about how much their rivalry means or about how many of their players have gone on to star at the pro level. Those rivalries all have much to offer and it is easy to understand why the people involved become emotional when talking about them.

Army-Navy last involved a team with a chance to win the national championship in 1963 when Roger Staubach won the Heisman Trophy and led Navy into a Cotton Bowl game against Texas for the national title. As recently as 2002, the teams came into the game having won a combined total of two games. The game was still sold out, it still got a very solid television ratings and the chills in the stadium during the march-ons, the anthem and the alma maters were no different than in 1963 or 1943 or 1923. That's why Army-Navy is like no other rivalry.

Is everyone involved in this year's game delighted that both teams have beaten Air Force, meaning Saturday's winner will take home The Commander-in-Chief's Trophy? Absolutely. Is it great news that Navy is 6-4 and headed to a third straight bowl game after losing more senior starters than any Division 1-A team in the country off of last year's 10-2 team? You bet. Is everyone on both sides glad to see Bobby Ross turning Army in the right direction after the disastrous regime of Coach Todd Berry and Athletic Director Rick Greenspan bottomed out in 2003 when Army was 0-13 and not even close to competitive in any of those games? No doubt about it.

What happened to Army during the Berry/Greenspan "era" is instructive because it gets back to why this game is unique. Greenspan arrived at West Point in 1999 as a hot-shot young AD who was convinced that he knew better what it took to win at Army than people who had been around Army for years. He fired Bob Sutton, who had coached at the school for 17 years, on a Philadelphia street corner the day after the Army-Navy game, then bristled at people who criticized him for showing so little class in firing a man who had given his heart-and-soul to the academy for so many years. What did they know? Sutton had gone 3-8 and had been through three straight losing seasons. (The fact that the school had made a disastrous decision to enter Conference-USA didn't seem to matter much to Greenspan). So what if he fired him on a street corner. What was the big deal? This was about winning, not about dignity or class. All of which showed that Greenspan had no clue what West Point was about. He knew who he wanted to hire: Todd Berry, his coach at Illinois State when he was AD, like him a young hot-shot.

The problem with being a young hot-shot is you still have to understand the place where you work. Berry thought understanding Army meant putting up a lot of photos he had taken with various generals in his office. Greenspan thought it meant wearing Battle Dress Uniform (aka BDU's) even though he never served in the military around West Point to show people what a military kind of guy he was. If there was a moment that summed up Berry and Greenspan's complete lack of understanding about where they were, it was the very first play of Berry's very first game. Sutton and his predecessor Jim Young had used some form of a wishbone offense for 15 years -- with a good deal of success. Berry was going to throw the ball around, spread things out, make Army football exciting. All of which was fine if he thought that was the best way to win.

What wasn't fine was having his players line up in a wishbone formation on the opening play of that opening game and then "break" the bone to move to a spread formation. It was an absolute slap in the face directed at Sutton; directed at all of those who had played for him; directed, in fact, at many of the players on the field who had also played for Sutton and felt both loyalty and affection for him. At that moment, it was clear Todd Berry didn't get West Point.

He never did. He recruited poorly; his spread offense was a disaster and his players finally stopped playing for him because they got sick and tired of hearing him blame everyone but himself for losses. He was finally fired after going 5-35 through three-and-a-half seasons. Greenspan left soon after, somehow landing a job at Indiana. It was a happy day for everyone at Army.

While Army was suffering, Navy was rebuilding. After an 0-10 season in 2001, Admiral John Ryan -- then the school's superintendent -- and Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk focused on one coach: Paul Johnson. They wanted Johnson, who had won two national titles at Georgia Southern, because he had been at Navy before (as offensive coordinator) and seemed to understand the culture of the place. Plus, his option offense was much like the kind Air Force had won with for so many years and not unlike the one that Young and Sutton had been successful with at Army.

Johnson knows that his players have obligations beyond football. He knows he isn't going to out recruit Georgia or Florida State or Notre Dame (as Berry claimed he would) for players. He knows the kind of player and -- just as important -- the kind of person who can succeed at Navy. After going 2-10 that first season -- but still crushing Army 58-12 -- he has gone 8-5, 10-2 and now 6-4 in what started out as a rebuilding year. Most of Navy's key players are back next season.

That's true too of Army, where Bobby Ross has followed the same path Johnson has taken. Army is out of Conference-USA now and will play an independent schedule next year that will give it a chance to succeed. This year, with a brutal early schedule (Boston College, Iowa State, Baylor, Connecticut) they began 0-6. Now, they are 4-6. Like Johnson, Ross doesn't waste his time recruiting NFL prospects. Like Johnson, he knows the war in Iraq is a major concern to many parents. "If they say they don't want their sons in the military right now, we understand," Ross said. "And we move on."

Understanding that places that are more than 200 years old and steeped in tradition aren't going to change for YOU or anyone else is part of succeeding at Army and Navy. Understanding the kids who play for you is a big part of it too. Johnson and Ross both get it. After Army won at Air Force for the first time since 1977, Ross told his players the win was the biggest of his coaching career.

This is a man who won a national championship at Georgia Tech in 1990, a man who coached the San Diego Chargers into the Super Bowl. To him, winning at Air Force was the biggest win of his career.

Only one thing would be bigger: beating Navy to win The Commander-in-Chiefs trophy.

You see, once you have been a part of Army-Navy, whether as a player, a coach, a cadet, a midshipmen or any fan, you understand that this is the one game that has nothing to do with what college football is all about.

It is what our country is all about. It is why, even in troubled times like these, we can all still feel proud. It is why, when those hands snap to salute position, we'll all get a chill. There's only one game like that. This year and every year.

# posted by Duane : 9:01 AM  0 comments

MANY of America's universities want to ban recruiters for the U.S. military from campus — but the Solomon Amendment, a law authored by New York Rep. Gerry Solomon in 1996, denies federal funds to any school that does. On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments from a consortia of 38 law schools (including mine) that want the Solomon Amendment declared unconstitutional.

The schools have long claimed that the problem is the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuality — which they say violates their anti-discrimination policy.

The claim is laughable.

What's really driving this is not equal treatment for gays: It's academia's deep contempt for the armed forces, dating to the Vietnam era.

I started law school just days after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq. Orientation centered on a case of determining the rightful owner of a painting stolen by a soldier in World War II.

It struck me as odd that with countless legal decisions in Anglo-American jurisprudence, the school chose — as an introduction to the study of law, during a time of war — to focus on a case where the bad guy was an American soldier.

The professor leading the class used examples from his practice to illustrate legal concepts. And he had cut his legal teeth defending draft dodgers, so his lessons typically involved a bumbling and heartless U.S. military persecuting a saint-like draft evader.

In my legal education, I've heard a former dean explain to my class that 9/11 was payback for the My Lai massacre and listened to a guest speaker compare U.S. soldiers to Nazis. My wife's also a law student; one question on the final exam of her legal ethics class incorporated an anti-military theme mocking operations in Iraq.

Earlier this semester, the law school invited an Army Special Operations commander to discuss the war in Iraq. (He was not in uniform and representing his own views, not the military's.) Not surprisingly, the dean of the school opened the round of questions with a knee-jerk query about Abu Ghraib and a loaded question comparing Iraq to Vietnam.

How do I know that this bias, rather than "don't ask, don't tell," is the issue? Because of how my school, and others, deal with the people who actually set that policy — our elected representatives.

Under our Constitution, civilians control the military. (Legal scholars generally know this.) Why ban the military from campus when Congress passed "don't ask, don't tell" into law?

Rep. Nita Lowey, whose district includes my school, voted in favor of "don't ask, don't tell" in 1993. In March 2004, she voted to significantly strengthen the Solomon Amendment. That same month, Lowey was welcomed to campus and given the "Pioneer of Justice and Equality for Women and the Law" award.

An Army JAG recruiter who might not even support "don't ask, don't tell," and is powerless to change it, is vilified and barred from campus. Meanwhile, the lawmaker who voted for the legislation is a "pioneer of equality and justice."

The hypocrisy of legal educators who want to ban the military but remain on the federal dole — and use the Constitution as a cloak for their hatred of the military — stands in stark contrast to integrity of the Constitution's defenders, whom many law professors want banned.

Kieran Lalor is a student at Pace University School of Law in White Plains and the founder of the Eternal Vigilance Society (eternalvigilancesociety.org)

# posted by Duane : 7:20 AM  0 comments

A double murderer who said he didn't want to be known as a number became the 1,000th person executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed 28 years ago.

Kenneth Lee Boyd, who brazenly gunned down his estranged wife and father-in-law 17 years earlier, died at 2:15 a.m. Friday after receiving a lethal injection.

After watching Boyd die, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page said the victims should be remembered. "Tonight, justice has been served for Mr. Kenneth Boyd," Page said.

Boyd, 57, did not deny killing Julie Curry Boyd, 36, and her father, 57-year-old Thomas Dillard Curry. But he said he thought he should be sentenced to life in prison, and he didn't like the milestone his death would mark.

"I'd hate to be remembered as that," Boyd told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I don't like the idea of being picked as a number."

The Supreme Court in 1976 ruled that capital punishment could resume after a 10-year moratorium. The first execution took place the following year, when Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in Utah.

During the 1988 slayings, Boyd's son Christopher was pinned under his mother's body as Boyd unloaded a .357-caliber Magnum into her. The boy pushed his way under a bed to escape the barrage. Another son grabbed the pistol while Boyd tried to reload.

The evidence, said prosecutor Belinda Foster, clearly supported a death sentence.

"He went out and reloaded and came back and called 911 and said 'I've shot my wife and her father, come on and get me.' And then we heard more gunshots. It was on the 911 tape," Foster said.

# posted by Duane : 7:03 AM  0 comments

IT WAS a little like the first man on the moon, who confirmed what we thought all along: Nothing was there.

So yesterday, outside the 70th Precinct station house on Lawrence, between Ocean Parkway and McDonald, the Rev. Al Sharpton confirmed what we thought all along:

Complete with his three-piece suit and double-breasted vest, he is a four-star general of trash.

The reverend was allegedly there to give support and sympathy to colleagues of Officer Dillon Stewart, shot dead by a microbe Monday.

That would be OK.

But the wily huckster somehow tied the whole thing to the Abner Louima case. His press release screamed: "Reverend Al Sharpton to visit the 70th Precinct in Brooklyn for the first time since the Abner Louima incident, to express his outrage and offer condolences to the co-workers of NYPD Officer Dillon Stewart."

If this was a condolence call, Al, why in the freakin' hell was Louima's name even mentioned?

I reminded the rev. that on Sept. 10 of last year, Detectives Pat Rafferty and Bobby Parker were gunned down in East Flatbush — not far from that 70th Precinct.

Where were you, Al?

Al, of course, had better things to do. He was running for office.

"So we miss a lot . . . I'm not the mayor," he said yesterday.

Attorney Charlie King, a sensible and serious man who is running for attorney general of New York, was also there yesterday.

I suggested to him that maybe he should not have been with Sharpton when that leader of the coven of fools linked Abner Louima to a dead cop.

"I think the Rev. Sharpton was trying to say that he protested against the 70th Precinct during the Louima case, but that he felt the pain of a fallen cop. Perhaps he was inartful to link the two."

Sharpton hadn't even talked to the Stewart's widow before he took his show on the road.

Inartful?

A bloody explosion of cold-hearted ego over the body of one of our Finest.

# posted by Duane : 9:34 PM  0 comments