Pennsylvanian in exile

Palestinian Authority reforms from Hamas

The Precision Guided Humor Assignment for the week is to speculate what "reforms" Hamas will implement in the first 100 days. Here is my attempt at what I'll call the "Al Gorization of palestine"

- pass resolution stating that "you can't spell Palestine without Al"
- drive Israel into the sea, but in an environmentally sensitive manner approved by Al Gore
- reduce emission from car bombings
- remove gas guzzling, smog producing cars from the road by blowing them up outside Israeli cafes and restaurants
- due to Al Gore's revelation that the world will end in 10 years, start bombing Israel weekly to pick up the pace.

A son's adoration

For all you parents out there, this is a beautiful column about fathers and sons.

He had a loud voice, something that normally would have made me cringe. A loud talker on an airplane is always annoying. And when the loud talker is in the row opposite you? And the flight is nearly full and there is nowhere to run?

This is a prescription for a long flight.

But this loud talker wasn't a business person on a cellphone, making sure you hear every word. Or some teenager bragging to a friend -- ''So she was, like, amazing, you know?" -- wanting attention, wanting to be overheard.

This loud talker was a boy of 8 or 9 who wanted the attention not of all the people around him but of the one person who mattered most to him: his father.

''Dad! Dad! Is this plane ride farther than Puerto Rico?"

''Dad! Dad! Did you buckle your seat belt?"

''Dad! Look out the window. Did you see that?"

The child was seated in the row behind his dad -- four family members traveling together, a father, a son, and twin daughters who were just a few years older than the boy.

The father, a big man, sat in the middle seat next to one daughter. His son and the other daughter sat behind him.

Both girls were quiet. One leaned her head against the window and read a book. The other wore headphones and listened to music. The father, God bless him, kept attempting to read some thick business magazine. But his son would have none of it.

''Dad! Dad! Did you feel that bump?" he said as the plane took off.

''Dad! Dad! Look over there," he said as the plane climbed.

''Dad! Dad! Where are we now?" he said 60 seconds into the flight.

It went on like this, as coffee was served, and snacks -- ''Dad, what are you gonna have?" -- a never-ending litany of Dads.

And in this child's voice there was only love.

There was love in the father's responses, too. He turned and answered every one of his son's questions. He was patient. And his eyes were kind.

''Dad. Are you going to watch the movie?" the boy asked after the snacks were cleared. ''Do you know what the movie is?"

And then the movie began. And for maybe a minute the boy was silent.

But then came a whisper. ''Dad?" But it wasn't the whisper of a boy in church or a boy in school. It was a big, stage whisper, loud enough to be heard all the way in the back row, and in this case all the way in the plane's back seats.

''Dad. I want to sit next to you," the boy said.

I want to sit next to you. I want to be near you because movies are better with you beside me. Because looking out a window is better. And eating pretzels. Because everything is better with you, Dad.

It's a short time in a lifetime that a boy adores his dad. But here it was. And there I was, witnessing it.

Whatever the father said, the boy sat back and watched the movie and was silent.

But when it was finished, as the credits rolled, the father stood up and climbed over the stranger sitting in the aisle seat next to him and into the empty aisle seat beside his son.

And after that, the boy's ''Dads" were hushed.

''Dad," he said. And this time you had to strain to hear him. ''Dad, I see mountains under the clouds. Look, Dad. Isn't that so cool?"

And there was awe in the boy's voice, not only because of what he was seeing but also because he was seeing this with his father.

Too soon, the boy will be wearing headphones and ignoring Dad. Too soon he'll be too big to say, ''I want to sit next to you." It's only for now that it's ''Dad, what do you think?" and ''Dad, the lady's collecting the garbage."

Such a simple thing, love. A long flight was made shorter by this boy and his father.

The Enemy of My Enemy

A look at Islam from Touchstone Magazine.

"In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law the doctrine of one omnipotent God, he connected indissolubly with it the audacious falsehood that he was himself His prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus the faith and hope of immortal life and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE ... Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant ... While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace on earth, and good will towards men."

-- John Quincy Adams (emphasis his)

"Ever since the Crusades, the people of Western Christendom developed a stereotypical and distorted vision of Islam, which they regarded as the enemy of decent civilization . . . It was, for example, during the Crusades, when it was Christians who had instigated a series of brutal holy wars against the Muslim world, that Islam was described by the learned scholar-monks of Europe as an inherently violent and intolerant faith, which had only been able to establish itself by the sword. The myth of the supposed fanatical intolerance of Islam has become one of the received ideas of the West."

-- Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History (Modern Library, 2000), 179-80.

The more I learn about him, the higher does Old Man Eloquent rise in my esteem . . . But the Islamophilia of certain groups in our society warrants some attention. Why, when Islam has manifestly spread itself by the sword and indeed only by the sword, and when its vicinity to people of any other faith brings violence -- to Sikhs and Jains in the Punjab, Hindus in Pakistan and India, animists and Christians in Nigeria and the Sudan, Catholic Christians in the Philippines, Orthodox Christians in the Balkans, Jews in Palestine, and the few remaining Zoroastrians in Iran and in Chinese Turkestan -- do western liberals, haters of war, gloss over it, and prefer rather to slander "fundamentalist" Christians in their own country, fearing them more than they fear the ayatollahs?

What, in fact, is to fear from the "fundamentalist" Christians? Tax policy? States' rights? The rejection of Darwinism? Bible-believing Americans do not blow up trade centers; but they sure will help you put the roof back on your house after a big storm, and their kids tend to be polite enough. What's to fear? Theism? What are those on the left talking about when they see a "theocracy" coming out of Texas, but nothing at all from Teheran? Isn't it the reversal of that sexual revolution -- a revolution that has deeply compromised Bible-believing Christians themselves? What else can possibly be gained from deflecting attention away from Shari'a and towards (horribile dictu) people who believe that fornication, adultery, sodomy, and abortion (and, chillingly enough, even contraception) are immoral?

And then there are some on the right who make common cause with Muslims, as they probably should, to fight the lunatic anti-family proposals coming from the UN. To our great shame, we "Christian" nations now find ourselves looking up to the shining examples of such places as Saudi Arabia, whose people look upon our sexual madness with disbelief.

But the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. There was once a thriving Nestorian Christian culture, extending from the Levant all the way into China. It is no more. There was once a thriving Persian culture, centered around the intelligent and humane religion of Zoroaster; it was put to the sword. There is no Islamic Patrick, no Islamic Boniface, no Islamic Cyril and Methodius, no Islamic Damien of Molokai, no Islamic Jean de Brebeuf, no Islamic Matteo Ricci, no Islamic Teresa of Calcutta. Ms. Armstrong is too dull to draw distinctions; Old Man Eloquent saw them, and that was during a time of burgeoning interest in all things Islamic. But we are an effete culture -- literally, "birthed-out," barren, exhausted. We have not the strength even to replace ourselves with children.

Some years ago, after teaching a few classes on what happened to the works of the Islamic heretics Avicenna and Averroes, I asked a philosopher friend of mine whether their rejection was inevitable. So it seemed to me, reading selections from the Koran and from their bitter and clear-thinking opponent, the theologian Al-Ghazali. He said that he thought that Islam really left no room for the development of natural law thinking; the flaw lies at the heart of the religion, in the voluntarist conception of God. "What will happen to us, then?" I asked. "One side will destroy the other," he replied. And he was a liberal who detested war.

Twas the night before the Super Bowl...

'Twas the night before SuperBowl, when all through the town,
Steeler fans were ready for the Seahawks goin' down;

The flags and banners were all hung with care,
In hopes of the winners circle, the Steelers are there;

The players were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of finger rings danced in their heads;

With Cowher in charge, I had a night cap,
And settled down for one more night's nap;

When up at Ford Field there arose such a clatter,
Seattle fans wondered just what was the matter;

For at the stadium there was a great flash,
Someone had entered with no ticket, no cash;

The moon on the breast of factories covered in snow,
Gave the luster of mid-day to the man standing below;

When what to their wondering eyes should appear,
Who this man was, it became quite clear;

The smoke from his cigar made the air rather gloomy,
But they knew in a moment that it was Art Rooney;

He held the team roster, the plan of attack,
Big Ben to Hines Ward or the Bus in the back;

He saw in the defense a curtain of steel,
If they can't sack Matt then nobody will;

Troy will cover the field, he'll be everywhere,
I'm telling you Seahawks, you better beware;

His long locks of hair will flow in the breeze,
He'll catch Matt's passes with the greatest of ease;

Mr. Rooney walked the sideline; he paced to and fro,
He wore black and gold from his head to his toe;

A terrible towel he held oh so tight,
As he looked to the heavens on that cold Detroit night;

Then the words that he spoke left all feeling quite numb,
Lord get us this game and my one for the thumb!!!

Keeping the patriot Act strong

A sister of one of the hijacked 9-11 pilots argues for keeping the Patriot Act strong.

One of the most excruciating images of the September 11 attacks is the sight of a man who was trapped in one of the World Trade Center towers. Stripped of his suit jacket and tie and hanging on to what appears to be his office curtains, he is seen trying to lower himself outside a window to the floor immediately below. Frantically kicking his legs in an effort to find a purchase, he loses his grip, and falls.

That horrific scene and thousands more were the images that awakened a sleeping nation on that long, brutal morning. Instead of overwhelming fear or paralyzing self-doubt, the attacks were met with defiance, unity and a sense of moral purpose. Following the heroic example of ordinary citizens who put their fellow human beings and the public good ahead of themselves, the country's leaders cast aside politics and personal ambition and enacted the USA Patriot Act just 45 days later.

A mere four-and-a-half years after victims were forced to choose between being burned alive and jumping from 90 stories, it is frankly shocking that there is anyone in Washington who would politicize the Patriot Act. It is an insult to those who died to tell the American people that the organization posing the greatest threat to their liberty is not al Qaeda but the FBI. Hearing any member of Congress actually crow about "killing" or "playing chicken" with this critical legislation is as disturbing today as it would have been when Ground Zero was still smoldering. Today we know in far greater detail what not having it cost us.

Critics contend that the Patriot Act was rushed into law in a moment of panic. The truth is, the policies and guidelines it corrected had a long, troubled history and everybody who had to deal with them knew it. The "wall" was a tortuous set of rules promulgated by Justice Department lawyers in 1995 and imagined into law by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Conceived as an added protection for civil liberties provisions already built into the statute, it was the wall and its real-world ramifications that hardened the failure-to-share culture between agencies, allowing early information about 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi to fall through the cracks. More perversely, even after the significance of these terrorists and their presence in the country was known by the FBI's intelligence division, the wall prevented it from talking to its own criminal division in order to hunt them down.

Furthermore, it was the impenetrable FISA guidelines and fear of provoking the FISA court's wrath if they were transgressed that discouraged risk-averse FBI supervisors from applying for a FISA search warrant in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. The search, finally conducted on the afternoon of 9/11, produced names and phone numbers of people in the thick of the 9/11 plot, so many fertile clues that investigators believe that at least one airplane, if not all four, could have been saved.

In 2002, FISA's appellate level Court of Review examined the entire statutory scheme for issuing warrants in national security investigations and declared the "wall" a nonsensical piece of legal overkill, based neither on express statutory language nor reasonable interpretation of the FISA statute. The lower court's attempt to micromanage the execution of national security warrants was deemed an assertion of authority which neither Congress or the Constitution granted it. In other words, those lawyers and judges who created, implemented and so assiduously enforced the FISA guidelines were wrong and the American people paid dearly for it.

Despite this history, some members of Congress contend that this process-heavy court is agile enough to rule on quickly needed National Security Agency (NSA) electronic surveillance warrants. This is a dubious claim. Getting a FISA warrant requires a multistep review involving several lawyers at different offices within the Department of Justice. It can take days, weeks, even months if there is a legal dispute between the principals. "Emergency" 72-hour intercepts require sign-offs by NSA lawyers and pre-approval by the attorney general before surveillance can be initiated. Clearly, this is not conducive to what Gen. Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence, calls "hot pursuit" of al Qaeda conversations.

The Senate will soon convene hearings on renewal of the Patriot Act and the NSA terrorist surveillance program. A minority of senators want to gamble with American lives and "fix" national security laws, which they can't show are broken. They seek to eliminate or weaken anti-terrorism measures which take into account that the Cold War and its slow-moving, analog world of landlines and stationary targets is gone. The threat we face today is a completely new paradigm of global terrorist networks operating in a high-velocity digital age using the Web and fiber-optic technology. After four-and-a-half years without another terrorist attack, these senators think we're safe enough to cave in to the same civil liberties lobby that supported that deadly FISA wall in the first place. What if they, like those lawyers and judges, are simply wrong?

Meanwhile, the media, mouthing phrases like "Article II authority," "separation of powers" and "right to privacy," are presenting the issues as if politics have nothing to do with what is driving the subject matter and its coverage. They want us to forget four years of relentless "connect-the-dots" reporting about the missed chances that "could have prevented 9/11." They have discounted the relevance of references to the two 9/11 hijackers who lived in San Diego. But not too long ago, the media itself reported that phone records revealed that five or six of the hijackers made extensive calls overseas.

NBC News aired an "exclusive" story in 2004 that dramatically recounted how al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, the San Diego terrorists who would later hijack American Airlines flight 77 and fly it into the Pentagon, received more than a dozen calls from an al Qaeda "switchboard" inside Yemen where al-Mihdhar's brother-in-law lived. The house received calls from Osama Bin Laden and relayed them to operatives around the world. Senior correspondent Lisa Myers told the shocking story of how, "The NSA had the actual phone number in the United States that the switchboard was calling, but didn't deploy that equipment, fearing it would be accused of domestic spying." Back then, the NBC script didn't describe it as "spying on Americans." Instead, it was called one of the "missed opportunities that could have saved 3,000 lives."

Another example of opportunistic coverage concerns the Patriot Act's "library provision." News reports have given plenty of ink and airtime to the ACLU's unsupported claims that the government has abused this important records provision. But how many Americans know that several of the hijackers repeatedly accessed computers at public libraries in New Jersey and Florida, using personal Internet accounts to carry out the conspiracy? Al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi logged on four times at a college library in New Jersey where they purchased airline tickets for AA 77 and later confirmed their reservations on Aug. 30. In light of this, it is ridiculous to suggest that the Justice Department has the time, resources or interest in "investigating the reading habits of law abiding citizens."

We now have the ability to put remote control cameras on the surface of Mars. Why should we allow enemies to annihilate us simply because we lack the clarity or resolve to strike a reasonable balance between a healthy skepticism of government power and the need to take proactive measures to protect ourselves from such threats? The mantra of civil-liberties hard-liners is to "question authority"--even when it is coming to our rescue--then blame that same authority when, hamstrung by civil liberties laws, it fails to save us. The old laws that would prevent FBI agents from stopping the next al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were built on the bedrock of a 35-year history of dark, defeating mistrust. More Americans should not die because the peace-at-any-cost fringe and antigovernment paranoids still fighting the ghost of Nixon hate George Bush more than they fear al Qaeda. Ask the American people what they want. They will say that they want the commander in chief to use all reasonable means to catch the people who are trying to rain terror on our cities. Those who cite the soaring principle of individual liberty do not appear to appreciate that our enemies are not seeking to destroy individuals, but whole populations.

Three weeks before 9/11, an FBI agent with the bin Laden case squad in New York learned that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were in this country. He pleaded with the national security gatekeepers in Washington to launch a nationwide manhunt and was summarily told to stand down. When the FISA Court of Review tore down the wall in 2002, it included in its ruling the agent's Aug. 29, 2001, email to FBI headquarters: "Whatever has happened to this--someday someone will die--and wall or not--the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems. Let's hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, \[bin Laden\], is getting the most 'protection.'"

The public has listened to years of stinging revelations detailing how the government tied its own hands in stopping the devastating attacks of September 11. It is an irresponsible violation of the public trust for members of Congress to weaken the Patriot Act or jeopardize the NSA terrorist surveillance program because of the same illusory theories that cost us so dearly before, or worse, for rank partisan advantage. If they do, and our country sustains yet another catastrophic attack that these antiterrorism tools could have prevented, the phrase "connect the dots" will resonate again--but this time it will refer to the trail of innocent American blood which leads directly to the Senate floor.

Another advertisement for Catholic Schools

It's Catholic School Week, here's an example of why to avoid public schools.

A school has decided that showing the R-rated movie “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” is not an appropriate high school Spanish lesson.

Fernando Del Pino was suspended with pay Tuesday for showing the movie to students at Lexington’s Tates Creek High School a day earlier, said Lisa Deffendall, spokeswoman for Fayette County Public Schools. He resigned Thursday.

Del Pino, who was hired in August, said he decided to show the film after a student brought it to class and said it “was very funny,” the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

The movie is about a 40-year-old single man whose friends try to help him gain experience in sex.

Parents of Tates Creek students must give written permission for their children to watch an R-rated movie at school, according to the school’s video policy. Students whose parents object must be given alternative assignments.

The policy also states that the videos or movies “must be part of the lesson plan with genuine instruction objectives.”

Deal Hudson on Benedict's first encyclical

A good review by Deal Hudson:

The end of Benedict XVI's first encyclical reads, "Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 25 December, the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, in the year 2005, the first of my Pontificate." But it took two months before the Vatican released it publicly.

The name of the encyclical is in Latin, but even the untutored in that language can make out the meaning: "Deus est Caritas," or "God is love."

Thus, the new pope known for his scholarship and intellectual rigor, a leader who was not suppose to have the "feel" for the Church of his predecessor, picks the nature of love as the subject of his first encyclical.

Who would have predicted it?

Yes, the future Benedict XVI surprised us with the emotional candor of his tribute to John Paul II at his funeral.

Yes, he further surprised us with a childlike grin when Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, walked onto the balcony of St. Peter's.

We should have seen it coming. And his intention to connect his discourse on love to the Nativity of the Lord promises more than an abstract analysis of Christian love in the modern world. In fact he offers both; the first part he describes as "speculative," the second "concrete," treating "the ecclesial exercise of the commandment of love of neighbor".

Just as Redemptor Hominis, the first encyclical of John Paul II, contains all the basic themes of his papacy, we can expect that his successor is trying to do the same. We should look in this encyclical for the themes that will emerge in the papacy of Benedict XVI.

Deus est Caritas is a challenging document that will require serious study before its depths can be revealed. Clearly, however, Benedict is trying to accomplish three things with this encyclical:

1. Proclaim the nature of human and divine love in the face of its various counterfeits in the popular culture where we live and in the intellectual history that influences our images of God and man.

2. Demonstrate that the Church is the one reality where our "encounter with God's agape" unites with our created human yearning [eros] enabling us to love our neighbor with God's love.

3. Insist that acts of charity should necessarily flow directly from the nature of the Church as an expression of its shared love, not from any ideology or any false hope of replacing the role of the State.

The pope's text is laced with allusions to a myriad of saints and philosophers, and references to the books of the Old Testament and the history of Israel are seen throughout.

Benedict XVI reinforces his reputation as a theologian but shows that he is adept, not only at biblical interpretation, but considers exegesis of both Testaments necessarily central to presenting his message.

Going back to his funeral homily and his appearance at the door of St. Peter's, we could ask: "How has he surprised us?"

When you read this encyclical the first time you cannot help but be impressed with his concern for those who live in poverty and suffering, whose dignity could be partially restored by individual and corporate acts of charity.

It would be a mistake to interpret Deus est Caritas as a political commentary on American politics. The pope himself warns against this several times, stating that charity should not be accompanied by ideology.

Benedict XVI helps to distinguish the work of the Church from the State by saying that faith itself should not enter the political domain. Rather, politics is a work of reason, but one that can be "purified" by faith.

"From God's standpoint, faith liberates reason from its blind spots and therefore helps it to be ever more fully itself. Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly. This is where Catholic social doctrine has its place: it has no intention of giving the Church power over the State" [28 a].

This Catholic understanding of how faith strengthens reason, while allowing reason to operate in its own domain, speaks to a gaping whole in the present cultural debates. Men and women of faith can engage in public arguments yet not be guilty of advancing arguments based upon revelation.

The greatness of this first encyclical from Benedict XVI is itself a demonstration of reason purified by deep faith. He draws effortlessly on sources from all periods of civilization, both pagan and religious.

This pope represents the Catholic vision of life, the image of man and God, in a way that will undoubtedly continue and deepen the work of evangelization started by his predecessor.

If you want to read this encyclical for yourself, go the following link: God is Love.

Mainstream?

From the great talents of In toon with the World.

Democracy, Palestinian Style

Sheehan for Senate?

Oh boy, this could be fun!

For immediate release:
Friday, January 27, 2006

Contacts:
Jodie Evans, (310) 621-5635 (in Venezula and US)
Medea Benjamin, (58 416) 208-0134; (415) 235-6517

Cindy Sheehan to Dianne Feinstein:
Fillibuster Alito or I’ll Challenge Your Senate Seat
Caracas, Venezuela - Gold star mother Cindy Sheehan has decided to run against California Senator Diane Feinstein if Feinstein does not filibuster the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito. While in Venezuela attending the World Social Forum, Sheehan learned that several Democratic Senators had announced their plans for a filibuster but that Senator Feinstein, who’s up for re-election in November, had stated she would vote against the nomination but not filibuster it. “I’m appalled that Diane Feinstein wouldn’t recognize how dangerous Alito’s nomination is to upholding the values of our constitution and restricting the usurpation of presidential powers, for which I’ve already paid the ultimate price,” Sheehan said.

Sheehan is the grieving military mother whose vigil outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford last summer focused the nation’s attention on the human cost of the Iraq war. Her son Casey was killed in Iraq in April 2004.

Judge Alito has an extensive paper trail documenting the right-wing political agenda that he has actively advanced, not only as a high-ranking official in the Reagan Administration, but also as a judge. He has publicly supported the “Unitary Executive” theory, a radical notion that the President holds exclusive and inherent authority to execute all federal law. He has supported efforts to curtail privacy rights, including not only privacy from government surveillance and arbitrary arrest, but also other constitutional rights based on privacy, such as reproductive liberty for women. Alito has outspokenly sought to restrict Congress’ power, limiting the scope of the Commerce Clause of Article I of the Constitution. In addition, he has consistently applied his discretion as a judge in favor of certain interests and against others. He rarely votes against big business, police or prosecutors.

Sheehan is available for interviews from Venezuela through the contact people listed above. She returns to the United States on Monday morning and will travel to Washington, DC on Tuesday to participate in an alternative State of the Union event.

Fighting eco-terrorism - and their fellow travelers

The ACLU is ticked, but the feds nailed some ecoterrorists.

So, will the American Civil Liberties Union apologize to the FBI?

Just last month, the ACLU screamed bloody murder that the FBI was "using counterterrorism resources to monitor and infiltrate domestic political organizations, despite a lack of evidence that the groups are engaging in or supporting violent action."

What will they say now — following a 65-count federal indictment of 11 members of the radical "environmental" groups, Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front?

The indictments, brought earlier this month, allege 17 incidents of arson, vandalism and other destructive acts — including sabotaging a high-tension power line — in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. The indictment outlines a decade-long conspiracy.

Eight suspects are already under arrest, with three others still at large.

Particularly dangerous is Daniel AnDreas San Diego — suspected of planting bombs at two Bay Area companies specializing in biotechnology and beauty products. The FBI has a $250,000 reward for his capture.

None of this should come as a surprise to New York area residents.

ELF and ALF have been responsible for vandalism at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, torching partly built homes in Mount Sinai and stealing research animals from Cornell University laboratory.

Five years ago, two Suffolk County teens pleaded guilty to setting fires with information gleaned from ELF's Web site — which also, by the way, gives directions on how to make a bomb.

In short, it's long past time that these groups were shut down.

Their fellow travelers doubtless will say that, indictments aside, the FBI's surveillance of groups such as PETA or Greenpeace were unwarranted because they haven't engaged in violent behavior.

Any political movement can have extremists — but both PETA and Greenpeace have themselves engaged in behavior that crosses the line.

Greenpeace's attempts over the years to physically block whaling and nuclear testing has gotten it placed on various European nations' terrorist lists.

PETA has contributed money to ELF/ALF and refuses to condemn their eco-terrorist tactics

Just three years ago — after a donkey loaded with explosives was used on an unsuccessful attack — PETA head Ingrid Newkirk wrote to Yasser Arafat, urging the Palestinian Authority not to use animals to kill Israelis. Note that she didn't condemn the attacks against Israeli civilians, explaining, "It is not my business to inject myself into human wars."

As FBI Director Robert Mueller said recently: "Terrorism is terrorism."

None can be tolerated.

It's good that the feds moved against ELF now — before someone dies.

It's also a good thing that the FBI is keeping an eye on some of the other environmental domestic groups.

And, no, we're not expecting the ACLU to be offering an apology anytime soon.

Kerry yodels from Switzerland

John F'n Kerry took time out from hobnobbing with the elite at a 5 star ski resort to yodel about a filibuster.

President Bush's spokesman yesterday ridiculed Sen. John Kerry for "yodeling" for a filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito "from a five-star ski resort in the Swiss Alps."

"It was a pretty historic day. This was the first time ever that a senator has called for a filibuster from the slopes of Davos, Switzerland," chortled White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

"I think, even for a senator, it takes some pretty serious yodeling to call for a filibuster from a five-star ski resort in the Swiss Alps," he added.

Kerry phoned in his filibuster pitch while hobnobbing with the rich and famous at an international talkfest in Davos — then jetted home five days early to speak on the Senate floor.

Grumpy Democrats joined Republicans in deriding Kerry for his stunt at a playground for the rich, saying he had learned nothing from the flak in 2004 for windsurfing and cozying up to the French.

A filibuster means nonstop talking to block a nomination. It takes 60 of the 100 senators to cut off debate, so 41 votes are needed — practically impossible when at least 60 senators appear to support the confirmation.

Republicans — and plenty of Democrats — derided Kerry's move as a launching pad for his presumed 2008 presidential campaign and a bid to impress his party's left wing, despite polls showing the public backing Alito by 2-1.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) — a potential 2008 Kerry rival — yesterday said she'd support the filibuster "because I do not think Judge Alito would advance the principles Americans hold most dear."

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he privately expressed concern as to how to move forward, "but he strongly opposes Judge Alito's nomination and would support any attempts to keep him off the Supreme Court," a spokesman said.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada barely hid his frustration with Kerry's stunt, saying: "Everyone knows there are not enough votes to support the filibuster."

Kerry's move also delayed the final vote to confirm Alito until Tuesday — a boost to President Bush heading into his State of the Union speech that night.

"We couldn't have written a better script ourselves," guffawed a senior Republican strategist.

the gall of a cop killer

A cop killer on trial in New York, who alleges to now be Muslim, refuses to come to court on Fridays, the muslim sabbath. I guess it wasn't so holy when he killed cops on a Friday.

MARLON LEGERE'S trial will wrap up any day now. But hold on — there will be no court today out of respect for the accused double cop killer's religious beliefs.

And an irony unfolds.

"He found God in jail so, as a Muslim, he does not come to his court on his Sabbath, Friday," said Mike Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association.

"We all must have respect for anyone and all religions, but you see, Legere cannot come to court on Friday because of his religion, but he sure as hell can murder on a Friday," said Palladino.

Palladino was referring to the fatal shootings of Detectives Pat Rafferty and Bobby Parker on Sept. 10, 2004 — a Friday, the Muslim Sabbath.

"Friday was so holy that this guy, on that Friday, his Sabbath, could murder," Palladino said, obviously angry that this charade continues.

The city and the state are quite correct by suspending any court hearing on anyone's Sabbath. I would go bonkers, bananas, ballistic, if there was any at all business done on Easter.

But really, is this the point?

God was forgotten when Pat Rafferty and Bobby Parker were shot dead, but God was suddenly remembered or discovered a nanosecond ago.

Of course, under our legal system even Legere deserves the best available defense.

But even a law-and-order guy like me gets weary in the varicose veins seeing taxpayers' money spurt like a geyser.

Legere, a predicate felon, who actually was stealing his own mother's car when he was apprehended by Bobby and Pat, is represented by Wayne Bodden as his attorney. Wayne, I gotta give you an "A" for effort.

Bodden has been trying to have Legere's admission of guilt about blowing away two cops stricken from the record. He allegedly gave the statement while he was in pain — his body was riddled with bullets from two gutsy detectives.

"Yeah, he admits pulling the trigger but says he didn't know they were cops, yeah," said Detective Palladino.

The point is that Legere stole Bobby Parker's gun, and you know how many times the crazy lefty liberals say a cop shot an unarmed man?

Well, this was an unarmed man who killed two cops.

Legere is a legless cockroach, and whenever I think of him, I almost throw up. I can only remember little Kevin Rafferty, then 9, speaking at a church on Long Island, flanked by two little sisters.

"I love my dad more than anything in the world and I want you, dad, to know that."

Oh, well, Legere will be fat and happy for 25 or 30 years. He'll be toasty warm in the winter courtesy of the heated jails, cool in the air-conditioned summer — all on the taxpayer's dime.

But I hope he doesn't do any work in prison on a Friday because that's unholy, as it should be. And I respect any religion.

Out of respect for all religions, wouldn't we be better suited to give Legere a juice jab cocktail?

But certainly not on a Friday.

Walmart to Chicago: screw you!

Since Chicago told Walmart to take a hike, Walmart built their new store - and its tax revenue - one block outside the city limits.

Eighteen months after the Chicago City Council torpedoed a South Side Wal-Mart, 24,500 Chicagoans applied for 325 jobs at a Wal-Mart opening Friday in south suburban Evergreen Park, one block outside the city limits.

The new Wal-Mart at 2500 W. 95th is one block west of Western Avenue, the city boundary.

Of 25,000 job applicants, all but 500 listed Chicago addresses, said John Bisio, regional manager of public affairs for Wal-Mart.

"In our typical hiring process, you're pretty successful if you have 3,000 applicants," he said. "They were really crowing about 11,000 in Oakland, Calif., last year. So to get 25,000-plus applications and counting, I think is astonishing."

Assistant manager Rachael Fierro, who was still interviewing prospects Wednesday, said "we saw a little bit of everything -- people who hadn't worked for a long time, people who saw an opportunity to do something with themselves. That's the information I got from applicants."

The 141,000-square-foot store has 36 departments, a "tire and lube express," vision center, Subway restaurant, pharmacy, garden center and drugstore. It will sell some groceries but no fresh produce or meats and no liquor. It is expected to generate $1 million in sales and property tax in the first year -- a windfall in a village that collects about $3 million a year in sales taxes, said Evergreen Park Mayor James J. Sexton. Evergreen Plaza, with 100 stores, generates about $2 million.

Anticipating the usual protests over wages, benefits and anti-union practices, the Evergreen Park store was union-built. A protest over minority set-asides was defused in one day. Wal-Mart also came bearing gifts -- Tuesday night, the corporation donated $35,000 to the village library, local hospital, churches and other village institutions, Sexton said.

Big Labor's war on Walmart...and the poor

Good article on how Big Labor's war on Walmart is hurting the working poor of Maryland.

In Big Labor's war against Wal-Mart, "collateral damage"--in the form of lost jobs and income for the poor--is starting to add up. Of course, since the unions and their legislative allies claim that their motive is to liberate people from exploitation by Wal-Mart, these unintended effects are often ignored.

Here in Maryland, however, that's getting hard to do. The consequences of our Legislature's override of Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich's veto of their "Fair Share Health Care Act" on Jan. 12 will be tragic for some of the state's neediest residents. The law will force companies that employ over 10,000 to spend at least 8% of their payroll on health care or kick any shortfall into a special state fund. Wal-Mart would be the only employer in the state to be affected.

Almost surely, therefore, the company will pull the plug on plans to build a distribution center that would have employed 800 in Somerset County, on Maryland's picturesque Eastern Shore. As a Wal-Mart spokesman has put it, "you have to take a step back and call into question how business-friendly is a state like Maryland when they pass a bill that . . . takes a swipe at one company that provides 15,000 jobs."

Unfortunately, in Somerset, the new law looks more like a body blow than a "swipe." The rural county is Maryland's poorest, with per capita personal income 46% below the state average and a poverty rate 130% above it. Somerset's enduring problem is weak labor demand that greatly limits its 25,250 residents' economic opportunities.

There are just 0.8 jobs per household in Somerset, barely half the 1.5 figure that applies to the rest of the state. Somerset's top 10 list of employers features sectors like food services (average annual compensation per employee: $9,637), poultry and egg production ($14,320) and seafood preparation and packaging ($19,190).

It is hard to exaggerate how much the planned distribution center might have meant to Somerset's economy. Using an input-output model, we forecast the "ripple effects" of the new income and spending that could have emanated from Wal-Mart's facility as follows:

• The center's 800 employees would have created an additional 282 jobs among "upstream" suppliers and "downstream" retailers and service establishments; all told, the center would have boosted county employment by 14% and private-sector employment by 20%.

• Total annual employee compensation in Somerset would have risen by $46.5 million, or 19%.

• Annual output (or "gross county product") would have risen by $128.3 million, or 19%.

• State and local tax receipts would have increased by $19.2 million annually; this would include $8.5 million in property taxes, $5.6 million in sales taxes, and $1.4 million in personal income taxes.

Those losses, though dramatic, probably understate the full extent of the damage in this case. They do not include forgone employment and income from construction of the facility and related infrastructure improvements. What is more, Wal-Mart's tentative plans for a second distribution center in Garrett County, in mountainous western Maryland, also appear dead. Garrett, with a poverty rate that is 70% above the state's, is only slightly better off than Somerset.

Let the Church know that Murderous Michael's wedding isn't valid

Jimmy Akin has a lengthy post in how to make the Bishops show some backbone.

Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, has married his long-time live-in mistress.

In a Catholic church.

This is extremely problematic for the obvious reason: namely, that the Church seems to be putting its blessing on the marriage of a man who killed his wife in order to marry his mistress.

There ought to be a law against that kind of thing.

And in fact, there is.

Canon law specifically provides an impediment to prevent exactly this thing. It's known as the impediment of crimen (Latin, "crime"). If you bring about the death of your spouse with a view to marrying another person and then you attempt marriage, the impediment of crimen makes that new marriage automatically invalid.

The Code of Canon Law provides the following:

Can. 1090 §1. Anyone who with a view to entering marriage with a certain person has brought about the death of that person’s spouse or of one’s own spouse invalidly attempts this marriage.

§2. Those who have brought about the death of a spouse by mutual physical or moral cooperation also invalidly attempt a marriage together.

Further, only the pope can dispense from the impediment of crimen.

Now, when Michael Schiavo and his long-time mistress (with whom he has had children while his wife was in the hospital) applied to be married in a Catholic church in Safety Harbor, Florida then either the pastor took steps to contact Pope Benedict and have the impediment of crimen dispensed--and B16 did that (fat chance!)--or the pastor authorized an invalid union under Church auspices between Michael Schiavo and his mistress, Jodi Centonze.

Either way, this must be clarified. If the pope dispensed from crimen in this case then, given the gravely scandalous nature of this union, the fact of the dispensation must become public or, to mitigate the grave scandal done by the invalid union, the competent ecclesiastical officials must make clear that the union was invalid and that the Church's law prohibits precisely this kind of thing.

You may be thinking, "Well, there's not a lot that could be done at this point, is there?"

And you'd be wrong. There is a canon law procedure for handling this situation.

If the competent ecclesiastical officials (possibly involving those in Rome) do not clarify this situation then people will die.

Those wishing to contact relevant individuals to request a public clarification of the matter may contact:

Rev. Stephen Dambrauskas, JCL
Promoter of Justice
Diocese of St. Petersburg
905 South Prospect Avenue
Clearwater, Florida 33756-4039

Phone: UPDATE: 727-344-1611 Also: 727-446-2326 / 442-8884
Fax: 727-446-4287
E-Mail: tribsp@tampabay.rr.com

They may also contact:

His Excellency Pietro Sambi
Apostolic Nuncio
3339 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20008

Telephone: (202) 333-7121
Fax: (202) 337-4036

Murderous Michael Schiavo remarries....IN THE CHURCH?!?!?!?!!

Michael Schiavo, now that he disposed of his wife, has married his mistress.

Michael Schiavo, who had his disabled wife Terri killed last March by refusing her food and water, was re-married last Saturday in the Roman Catholic Church of Espiritu Santo in Florida.

Schiavo married Jodi Centonze. He had two children with her during the years he worked towards achieving Terri’s death.

Terri Schiavo was killed in March 2005, in spite of her family’s strenuous fight to prevent the removal of her feeding tube and water. Terri was left severely brain damaged after collapsing at age 26. Although medical authorities said she was in an irreversible “vegetative” state, her family maintained that she was able to interact with them, and they sought to have authority for her care transferred to them.

On Saturday, Terri Schiavo’s sister Suzanne Vitadamo spoke out against the Catholic bishops of Florida, saying Terri may not have been killed if the bishops would have supported the fight to protect her life.

Speaking at a “Stand Up for Life” rally in South Carolina, Ms. Vitadamo said if the Florida bishops had stepped forward and denounced what was taking place "there would have been such an enormous outcry of support from parishioners in our diocese and from Catholics around the world that my sister could very well be alive today."

Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Florida, outraged Catholics when he offered his only statement during the 13 days it took Terri to die from dehydration, encouraging her family to reconcile with Michael Schiavo in the name of “peace.”

The Catholic Church of Espiritu Santo, where Michael Schiavo’s second marriage took place, is in Bishop Lynch’s diocese of St. Petersburg.

While the Florida Bishops dismally failed to intervene and speak out in defense of Terri and of the value of all human life, the Vatican issued repeated condemnations of the decision to cause her death.

In four different appeals, Vatican officials sought protection for her life and spoke out against the inhumanity of withholding food and water.

“Without the tube which is providing life-giving hydration and nutrition, Terri Schiavo will die. But it is not that simple. She will die a horrible and cruel death,” wrote Cardinal Renato Martino. “She will not simply die; she will have death inflicted upon her over a number of terrible days, even weeks. How can anyone who claims to speak of the promotion and protection of human rights - of human life - remain silent?”

Suzanne Vitadamo warned listeners at the rally about the implications of Terri’s death for all vulnerable people.

"Our society has shifted to a quality of life mentality and has lost sight
of the value (and) sacredness of all human life," Vitadamo said. "We now as
a nation are deciding when it is OK or not OK to kill those suffering from
disabilities."

Seems Old Jodi better have a really good living will, or he'll starve her to death too.

Terror for Dems

Arnold Ahlert nails the
appeasement weasels.

FOUR questions regarding the War on Terror that most Democrats can't — or won't — answer.

* If Iraq is the "wrong war, etc." where — exactly — should America be prosecuting the war on terror? Hint: If we capture or kill Osama bin Laden, is the War on Terror "over"?

* If all diplomatic measures fail to deter Iran's quest for nuclear capability, should the nations of the West use military force?

* If those other nations are either militarily incapable or simply unwilling to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, should the United States act unilaterally?

* If "war is not the answer" — and, as many Democrats have made clear, neither is the attempt to "democratize" the Middle East — how do you propose stop the spread of Islamo-facism?

There are serious questions — far too serious to be ignored or demagogued. The American people have a right to know what, if any, serious alternatives Democrats have for dealing with the War on Terror — before the 2006 election.

Jack Bauer facts

From the folks at notrly.com.

- The reason why terrorists attacked New York City was because Jack Bauer was in LA.
- You can lead a horse to water. Jack Bauer can make him drink.
- Jack Bauer let the dogs out.
- If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.
- Every time you masturbate Jack Bauer kills a terrorist. Not beacuase you masurbated, but because that is how often he kills terrorists.
- If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.
- Colin Farrell smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. Jack Bauer smokes a pack of terrorists anytime he feels like it.
- Deaf people listen to Jack bauer.
- Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.
- Jack Bauer killed 93 people in just 4 days time. Wait, that is a real fact.
- Jack Bauer has been to Mars. Thats why theres no life on Mars.
- Jack Bauer cannot stick his elbow in his ear, but he can stick your elbow in your ear.
- Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
- 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
- Osama bin Laden's recent proposal for truce is a direct result of him finding out that Jack Bauer is, in fact, still alive.
- Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.
- If Jack Bauer was gay, his name would be Chuck Norris.
- Jack Bauer's favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.
- Jack Bauer doesn't miss. If he didn't hit you it's because he was shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.
- Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.
- If Jack and MacGyver were locked in a room together, Jack would make a bomb out of MacGyver and get out.
- Jack Bauer got Hellen Keller to talk.
- The quickest way to a man's heart is through Jack Bauer's gun.
- Jack Bauer once told God he needed access, the event has since been referred to as "The Big Bang."
- Lets get one thing straight, the only reason you are conscious right now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.
- When you open a can of whoop-ass, Jack Bauer jumps out.
- When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer frigging hates lemonade.
- Did you know there was a national disaster last night while you were sleeping? Of course you didn't, Jack Bauer was on duty.
- When the boogie man goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Jack Bauer.
- Jack Bauer played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.

Teddy's skeletons

The bloated senator from Taxachusetts shows more hypocrisy.

Sen. Ted Kennedy long ago made clear that he has no shame when it comes to the darker elements of his life — a point made even clearer with news that he actually owns a dog named "Splash." (Says Jay Leno: "Isn't that like O.J. Simpson having a dog named 'Slash'?")

But the senior senator from Chappaquiddick — who tried to use Judge Samuel Alito's past membership in a conservative Princeton alumni group to derail his Supreme Court nomination — now turns out to have even more skeletons in his closet that first supposed.

For more than a half-century, Kennedy has been a dues-paying member of a Harvard social outfit called the Owl Club; indeed, he just gave the group $10 last year. (A paltry sum, sure, but it's really not the money, don't you know — it's the principle of the thing.)

Lo and behold, for five decades, Kennedy seemed never to notice that the Owl Club does not admit women. Now that it's been called to his attention, Teddy has asked that his name "be taken off their rolls."

Apparently, it also never came to his attention that Harvard formally disassociated itself from the Owl Club in 1984. (That's 33 years after Harvard had disassociated itself from the future senator, expelling him in a cheating scandal where he'd had another student to take an exam for him. He was later readmitted and graduated — after all, he is a Kennedy.)

A spokeswoman went to great pains to declare that "there is zero comparison" between the Owl Club and the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, to which Alito belonged — because, you see, of Teddy's "lifelong commitment to fighting for civil rights, equal rights and justice."

Nevertheless, when asked if he would have been able to run the gauntlet that he and his fellow Democrats constructed for Alito, and qualified for confirmation, Kennedy conceded: "Probably not."

That's putting it mildly. Time for Teddy, who's now said to be writing a children's book (Washington as seen through Splash's eyes, believe it or not), to retreat back to his glass house.

"so, are you sleeping together?"

The university of Florida is going to offer health benefits to domestic partners of UF employees, but only if they pledge they are having sex with them.

University of Florida employees have to pledge that they're having sex with their domestic partners before qualifying for benefits under a new health care plan at the university.

The partners of homosexual and heterosexual employees are eligible for coverage under UF's plan, which will take effect in February. The enrollment process began this month, and some employees have expressed concern about an affidavit that requires a pledge of sexual activity.

Fielding questions about the pledge at a Faculty Senate meeting Thursday, UF's vice president of human resources said he's heard concerns about the affidavit, though overall feedback about the plan has been positive.

"I would say 95 percent of the affidavit is fine," Kyle Cavanaugh said in an interview after the meeting.

In addition to declaring joint financial obligations, prospective enrollees must "have been in a non-platonic relationship for the preceding 12 months," according to the affidavit.

Marylou Behnke, a UF senator, told Cavanaugh she found the requirement "offensive."

As a member of the Senate, representing faculty in UF's College of Medicine, Behnke said she was compelled to learn more about UF's plan. She said she was taken aback to find that employees would be required to swear to prior sexual activity, a standard not applied to married couples covered by UF's primary health care plan.

"Are you going to police it?" Behnke asked Cavanaugh.

Cavanaugh said he had no plans to personally enforce the sex pledge. The "non-platonic" clause is "increasingly standard" in domestic partnership plans, Cavanaugh said. The clause is one of several methods used to legally ensure that an employer is only obligated to cover employees in a committed relationship, not longtime roommates.

Does this mean a husband can say to his wife "have sex with me, or you lose your coverage?" How many married couples might be in danger of losing their health benefits if this pledge applied to MARRIED couples? (tongue firmly in cheek).

Another judge needing to be hit with the Cluebat^TM

In Philly, a former professor, who drugged and raped a woman, convinces a judge to let him move to Italy.

A judge on Friday permitted a former University of Pennsylvania professor, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a young woman in his office, to leave the city for a job in Italy.

In March, Common Pleas Judge Rayford A. Means sentenced Tracy McIntosh to house arrest at his home in Media for 11½ to 23 months.

"Words cannot express my sense of outrage," District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said in a statement issued after Means' decision Friday. McIntosh was scheduled to leave Philadelphia today for a job at a hospital in Milan, Italy, Abraham said.

McIntosh "should have been sentenced to jail, and he should be in jail now," Abraham said.

"Our victim is crushed by today's events, which make a mockery of her and of all victims of sexual assault who are brave enough to come forward in hopes of getting justice."

McIntosh, 53, a married father of two who headed Penn's Head Injury Research Center, pleaded no contest in December 2004 to sexual assault and possession of an illegal substance.

Prosecutors said that in September 2002, he had taken a woman out to dinner and had taken her back to his office and raped her.

They alleged that he drugged her with an animal sedative, which he denied.

Are you a Ted Kennedy Love Child?

From the evil geniuses at IMAO specifically Right Wing Duck:

The "Are You A Ted Kennedy Love Child?" Quiz.

Think back to your childhood and answer these questions honestly.

1. When you sat on the cool, cool grass in your backyard, looking up at the night sky, what did you ask yourself?

A. What makes the stars shine?
B. Is the moon made out of cheese?
C. Is Roe V. Wade really “settled law”.

2. When I was growing up, I longed to join:

A. The Boy Scouts
B. The circus
C. The local union

3. Late at night, when the house was quiet and I was still awake, my greatest fear was:

A. A burglar
B. Monsters in the closet
C. Wal-Mart


4. When snuggled up by the fireplace and reading a good childrens' book, my favorite drink was:

A. Hot Cocoa
B. Apple Juice
C. Beer

5. My favorite childhood toy was:

A. My race car
B. My choo-train
C. My Beer

6. Elmo was my favorite stuffed toy because…

A. I liked Sesame Street
B. Elmo was cute and cuddly
C. Elmo was chosen through affirmative action

7. My favorite action figure was:

A. G.I. Joe
B. Superman
C. Jimmy Carter

8. When mommy and daddy talked about the upcoming family reunion, they were talking about going to:

A. A restaurant where we’d sit in a big banquet room
B. Picnics in the park on Sunday.
C. A rape trial


9. When my family asks me, “What does it mean to enunciate?” I answer:

A. “Separate each syllable as best I can”
B. “Speak slowly and clearly”
C. “wha jyou meeeen I huvhuvhub to shssssssssssspk anan an whu?”


10. Growing up I always wanted to be:

A. G.I. Joe
B. Superman
C. Jimmy Carter

**

How do you feel you did? Well, around here – we ain’t Democrats so we’re going to actually have to COUNT the points.

Scoring:
1 point for each A answer
2 points for each B answer.
3 points for each C answer.

10-12 points. It’s pretty safe that you aren’t Ted Kennedy’s kid. I’d say you had a typical childhood.

13-20 points. Probably not a Love Child, but it wouldn’t hurt you to get a little bit of therapy on the side.

21 – 28 points. You might consider getting tested. Consider collecting some Teddy saliva for DNA testing. If he won’t give it to you, go to his next speech and try to sit in the first three rows.

30 points. I’m sorry but jyou meeeen I huvhuvhub to shssssssssssspk anan an whu?

Yet another reason to not be Episcopalian

How can you belong to a church that pretends to be Christian but thinks it's OK to kill the unborn.

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church has approved the Church’s membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), an organization whose literature states its “primary role is educating the public to make clear that abortion can be a moral, ethical, and religiously responsible decision.”

The vote during the Jan. 9-12 meeting held in Des Moines, Iowa, came upon a recommendation from the Executive Council’s Committee on National Concerns. John Vanderstar, an Executive Council member from the Diocese of Washington who proposed the resolution, said it was intended to clarify the Church’s relationship to the organization.

SO, just what is this "Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice"? Let's look at their website.

Great, all the usual far left stuff about why ALito is the anti-Christ, abortion is cool, minors shouldn't have to tell their parents, etc. Basically it is the democrat position on everything, with some bible verses to try to justify the unjustifiable. This one passage really makes my blood boil:

The phrase “the sacredness of life” means one thing to Catholic bishops—that the life of the fetus is all-important—but to most people of other Christian denominations it means that there is a presumptive right to life that is not absolute but is conditioned by the claims of others. For us the right to life and the sacredness of life mean that there should be no absolute or unbreakable rules that take precedence over the lives of existing human persons.

The pro-life position is really a pro-fetus position, and the pro-choice position is really pro-woman. Those who take the pro-fetus position define the woman in relation to the fetus. They assert the rights of the fetus over the right of the woman to be a moral agent or decision maker with respect to her life, health, and family security.

The triumph of Reaganomics

Gee, cutting taxes DOES stimulate the economy.

Twenty-five years ago today, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States promising less intrusive government, lower tax rates and victory over communism. On that same day, the American hostages in Iran were freed after 444 days of captivity. If the story of history is one long and arduous march toward freedom, this was a momentous day well worth commemorating.

All the more so because over this 25-year period prosperity has been the rule, not the exception, for America--in stark contrast to the stagflationary 1970s. Perhaps the greatest tribute to the success of Reaganomics is that, over the course of the past 276 months, the U.S. economy has been in recession for only 15. That is to say, 94% of the time the U.S. economy has been creating jobs (43 million in all) and wealth ($30 trillion). More wealth has been created in the U.S. in the last quarter-century than in the previous 200 years. The policy lessons of this supply-side prosperity need to be constantly relearned, lest we return to the errors that produced the 1970s.

The heart and soul of Reagan's economic agenda were sound money (making the dollar "as good as gold," as Reagan used to put it) and lower tax rates. On monetary policy, Reagan has won a resounding victory. Today, nearly all economists agree with Reagan's then-controversial belief that the sole purpose of monetary policy should be to keep prices stable. Double-digit inflation is a distant memory unlikely to recur anytime soon.

On tax policy, Reaganomics has also carried the day, if somewhat less completely. Tax rates in the U.S. are on average half as high now as they were in the 1970s, and almost every nation has followed the Reagan model of lower tax rates. Even Bill Clinton only dared to raise the top marginal income tax rate back to 39.5%, not 50% or 70%.

Recruiting priests

A nice article about the diocese of Erie (the diocese of my hometown) and its efforts in recruiting and preparing men for the priesthood.

Seeds grow on the second floor of St. Mark Catholic Center.

They are tenderly nurtured, lovingly given what they need to improve and gently guided if they sprout in the wrong direction.

Half probably won't make it all the way.

Those that do will bloom into priests for the Catholic Diocese of Erie.

St. Mark Seminary has been training young men for the priesthood since 1945, said its current rector, the Rev. Michael Kesicki, a graduate of the program. The seminary has been located within the center, 429 E. Grandview Blvd., since 1960.

Kesicki called the seminary a "seed bed" where men who want to be priests come to grow.

For 21-year-old seminarian Matt Durney, the seminary is home, and the men he lives with there are family.

"We call each other brothers because we're brothers in faith," he said.

St. Mark now has 14 seminarians, 12 from the Erie diocese and two from the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg.

Kesicki said the average enrollment is 12 to 14 men.

They live in single rooms on the center's second floor, going up one flight for the dining room and downstairs for the chapel.

"It's almost like a dorm, except it's a house of prayer," said Durney, of Oil City, as he sat on a couch near a pool table in the living area.

The men attend Mass at 6:45 a.m., then ride "Big Blue," a blue conversion van, to Gannon University for breakfast, classes, lunch and more classes. Evening prayer is at 5, followed by dinner and time to talk with the rectors, practice music or attend cultural programs.

St. Mark is a minor seminary, sort of like undergraduate school. Students usually live, work and pray there for four years while earning a bachelor's degree at Gannon and taking classes in philosophy, theology and Latin.

Men who earned a degree before entering the minor seminary are part of a two-year pre-theology program. They complete a minor in philosophy and also study theology and Latin.

From St. Mark, students go on to four more years of priestly studies at a major seminary such as St. Vincent in Latrobe, St. Mary in Baltimore or North American College at the Vatican.

Nine men from the Erie diocese are now attending major seminaries, Kesicki said.

Some of the men start the journey straight from high school. Others need more time.

Christopher Barnes, 34, of Rouseville, first thought about the priesthood when he was a child. Later, he fell away from the church, went to college, started working, and then ran into a priest who reminded him what he wanted to be.

"I feel like I'm supposed to be here," he said.

Unsung heroes: the combat engineers

Ralph Peters with the details.

AMERICA's soldiers are al ways good for a surprise: The enthusiasm the Army's combat engineers show for our mission in Iraq would dumbfound even our military's most fervent supporters.

Privileged to speak with officers and NCOs from the Army's Maneuver Support Center in Missouri last week, I came away proud to have worn the same uniform as those men and women. Every one of them had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now they were briefly back home, working hard to incorporate combat lessons-learned into doctrine and training the young soldiers they'll lead during their next Mideast tours.

All that nonsense about a "broken Army"? What I heard was the conviction that we're not only doing the right thing in Iraq, but doing it far better than the media tell the American people.

Along with those combat engineers, the audience consisted of infantry, military police and chemical corps leaders — veterans all. Not one was discouraged by the political tempests blowing in Washington (where the hot air is a prime cause of global warming). The best word for what our soldiers displayed is zeal.

I only wish my fellow citizens were given an honest view of our troops, their morale and their accomplishments — along with a fuller sense of our military's complexity. Yes, the infantry leads the way, along with the other combat arms. But who hears about the combat engineers? Even though they often lead the infantry?

Well, here's to the heroes who clear the minefields, defuse the improvised explosive devices (IEDs), blow open the doors, dig the trenches, build the defensive barriers, renovate the schools and clinics, plunge into the tangle of wires that passes for an electrical grid — and fight as infantrymen when the need arises.

When you see those dramatic photographs of infantry teams taking down an urban target, the soldiers up front are often combat engineers, opening a path for the grunts to go in.

Every branch of our Army makes its own unsung contributions, but a glimpse at the combat engineers offers a sense of how complex the Iraq mission really is — and how bravely those in uniform have faced up to the challenges. So here are a few anecdotes from the officers and NCOs I met last week:

* All a soldier has to do to make headlines is to whine to a reporter. But we don't hear about the NCO lying in a stateside hospital ward who, after losing an eye defusing an IED, begged his visiting commander to help him get back to his unit in Iraq.

* In the past, active-duty leaders often dismissed the National Guard as "weekend warriors." Not anymore. The highest praise I heard was for a "dump-truck" outfit, the 1457th Engineer Battalion from the Utah National Guard, that served in Baghdad and central Iraq. A colonel described them as remarkably brave and resourceful. Operating at as low as 65 percent of their authorized strength, those mountain lions from the Rockies never ducked a high-risk mission — whether they'd been trained for it or not.

* When the highly paid contractors failed to show up with the bullets flying, combat engineers often were thrown in to get the electricity working out in the boonies. And they did. But all we heard about were the problems in Baghdad — where the contractors were responsible.

* Having just returned from Iraq, one officer said, "I'd give up my promotion to go back." Even allowing for the moment's enthusiasm, that family man believed that his sacrifices made a vital difference. Why don't men like him make the evening news?

* Even during an occupation, the Army has to train for its full range of missions. At a division commander's request, our engineers built a tank-gunnery range with 64 miles of protective berms to keep the main-gun rounds from going astray. One example among many — all in a day's work for the bulldozer boys.

* That day's work includes some of the most dangerous missions in Iraq — defusing IEDs. The equipment and techniques have gotten better, but it remains a nerve-wracking challenge. Combat engineers volunteer to do it.

* As in the Army's better-known units, our combat engineers see impressive re-enlistment rates. Soldiers sign up knowing they'll be sent back to Iraq. Tough as it is, they love what they do. As one command sergeant major put it, "This is what they signed up for, this is what it's all about."

Of course, no list of this sort can begin to capture the courage of these soldiers. They have families they love and the prospect of long lives in the greatest country on earth. Yet, they continue to risk death or mutilation because they will not quit on America — or Iraq — in the middle of a war.

At a time when we're bombarded with so much doom-and-gloom nonsense from those who'd like to abandon the world to terrorists, it's a shame we don't hear more about the men and women who stay in uniform, who do our nation's toughest work and receive so little credit from the know-it-alls safe at home.

Harvard and Yale? Keep 'em. The finest Americans are those who have gone through the School of the Soldier. A "broken military"? Nope. Anyway, if it was broken, the combat engineers would fix it. Under fire.

Brokeback Diplomacy

Serial killer does us all a favor

Since they didn't give this serial killer the death penalty, I guess he decided to do the right thing.

Convicted serial killer David Maust died this morning in a Lake County, Ind., hospital, one day after hanging himself in his jail cell, authorities said.

Maust was pronounced dead at 7:34 a.m. at St. Anthony Medical Center in Crown Point, Ind., according to Lake County sheriff's spokesman Mike Higgins. Maust's body will be taken later today to the county coroner's office.

Higgins could not say whether Maust ever regained consciousness before he died. Maust, 51, who admitted killing three teenagers in Hammond in 2003 and burying their remains in the basement of his rented home, was found hanging from a braided bedsheet about 4 a.m. Thursday.

He was unconscious, and corrections officers administered CPR before Maust was taken to St. Anthony.

Thursday was the day Maust was to be transported to prison to serve his life sentence. In a sprawling, seven-page handwritten suicide note, the contents of which were provided by the county prosecutor's office, Maust apologized repeatedly for his crimes. He also was convicted in 1981 of killing an Elgin teen and was imprisoned for manslaughter while he served in the U.S. Army in Germany.

5 murders - that we know of - committed by this guy. The revolving door of justice strikes again.

Hardcore beliefs

I'll never complain about kneeling too long at Mass after seeing this:



A man crosses himself after plunging into the icy water of the Moskva River near Moscow to mark Russian Orthodox Epiphany. Temperatures in Moscow that stood at -24F didn't deter the faithful, who continued an annual ritual by jumping into holes cut into ice on rivers and ponds to cleanse themselves with water deemed holy for the day, imitating the baptism of Jesus.

Looking for a place to watch the Steelers?

If so, here is a list of Steeler Bars.

Lock them and throw away the key....

...or better yet, hang them high. Either way, these cop killers need to stay locked up.

New York's most notorious cop-killers are making another bid to be sprung loose after more than 30 years in prison.

Here's hoping neither gets to taste freedom, this time around — or ever again.

Back on May 21, 1971, Herman Bell, Anthony Bottom (aka Jalil Muntaqim) and a fellow Black Revolutionary Army partner savagely gunned down two heroic New York City cops for no other reason than that they wanted to "off some pigs."

Bell targeted Office Joseph Piagentini, 28. Still alive and conscious, despite being hit by more than a dozen bullets, the wounded cop pleaded for mercy. Bell responded by taking Piagentini's gun from his holster and firing the fatal shots.

The other cop killed was Waverly Jones, 33, who died instantly from four gunshot wounds. Bell, after learning that Jones was African-American, reportedly lamented, "We hit the wrong one" — only to be told by Bottom: "A pig is a pig, f--- them all."

Both men and their partner (who, happily, died in prison) got sentenced to 25 years to life — but with the possibility of parole. Luckily for them, the death penalty had gone out of favor.

Since then, neither man has expressed even the slightest remorse for this horrific crime.

In 2002, Bottom asked a parole board to set him free and was backed by a cabal of radical nitwits and even some elected officials, who absurdly labeled him a "prisoner of war." He was turned down, as was Bell two years later.

Now they get another crack at freedom.

Bell is to face the parole board during the week of Feb. 13. Bottom/Muntaqim gets his next chance in July.

Tomorrow, Officer Piagentini's widow, Diane, will address the parole board, accompanied by Patrolmen's Benevolent Assn. President Pat Lynch, and deliver a victim impact statement.

(Both officers left behind a wife and two young children.)

Time hasn't eased her pain, nor should it. The fact remains that Bell and Bottom still have a hope of walking free — but Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones are lying in their graves.

Each time they've come up for parole, we've asked Post readers to voice their opinions directly to the board on whether these men should go free. Now, we ask you once again to make your feelings known.

Send your letters to:

KEEP HERMAN BELL & ANTHONY BOTTOM ON ICE

N.Y. State Board of Parole

97 Central Ave.

Albany, NY 12206

Maybe they AREN'T surrender monkeys

Ol' Jacques Chirac says France could nuke terrorists.

France said on Thursday it would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against it, reaffirming the need for its nuclear deterrent.

Deflecting criticism of France's costly nuclear arms program,
President Jacques Chirac said security came at a price and France must be able to hit back hard at a hostile state's centers of power and its "capacity to act."

He said there was no change in France's overall policy, which rules out the use of nuclear weapons in a military conflict. But his speech pointed to a change of emphasis to underline the growing threat France perceives from terrorism.

"The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part," Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in northwestern France.

"This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind."

Chirac, who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, said all of France's nuclear forces had been configured with the new strategy in mind and the number of nuclear warheads on French nuclear submarines had been reduced to allow targeted strikes.

It was the first time he had so clearly linked the threat of a nuclear response to a terrorist attack.

Got a REALLY big fish

Seems our missle strike in Pakistan barbecued Al Qaeda's bomb maker.

ABC News has learned that Pakistani officials now believe that al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert was one of the men killed in last week's U.S. missile attack in eastern Pakistan.

Midhat Mursi, 52, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was identified by Pakistani authorities as one of four known major al Qaeda leaders present at an apparent terror summit in the village of Damadola early last Friday morning.

The United States had posted a $5 million reward for Mursi's capture. He is described by authorities as the man who ran al Qaeda's infamous Derunta training camp in Afghanistan, where he used dogs and other animals as subjects for experiments with poison and chemicals. His explosives training manual is still regarded as the bible for al Qaeda terrorists around the world.

"He wants to cause mayhem, major death, and he puts his expertise on the line. So the fact that we took him out is significant," said former FBI agent Jack Cloonan, an ABC News consultant, who was the senior agent on the FBI's al Qaeda squad. "He's the man who trained the shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, as well as hundreds of others."

Pakistani officials also said that Khalid Habib, the al Qaeda operations chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi, a senior operations commander for al Qaeda, were killed in the Damadola attack. Authorities tell ABC News that the terror summit was called to funnel new money into attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

"Pakistani intelligence says this was a very important planning session involving the very top levels of al Qaeda as they get ready for a new spring offensive," explained Alexis Debat, a former official in the French Defense Ministry and now an ABC News consultant

As for Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 man, U.S. and Pakistani officials agree that it is still possible but increasingly unlikely that he was killed. If he is alive, he has lost many of those close to him, however.

"Zawahiri, if he slept three hours on a normal night, he's sleeping an hour and a half right now with his eyes wide open," Cloonan said. "He's looking around right now and wondering who handed him up. Not a nice feeling."

Plantation?

Wacky Warning Label Winners

Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, has a contest every year to point out the most absurd warning labels, created by our litigious society. Here are the winners!

A heat gun and paint remover that produces temperatures of 1,000 degrees and warns users, “Do not use this tool as a hair dryer” has been identified as the nation’s wackiest warning label in M-LAW’s annual Wacky Warning Label Contest.

The contest, now in its ninth year, is conducted by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, to reveal how lawsuits, and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for common sense warnings on products.

The winning labels were selected from a list of M-LAW’s finalists by listeners of the Dick Purtan show on Detroit radio station, WOMC-FM. The label on the heat gun was found by Tom Brunelle of Holland, Michigan. He receives $500 and a copy of the national bestselling book, “The Death of Common Sense,” by Philip K. Howard.

OTHER WINNERS:

For those people who aren’t “the sharpest knife in the drawer.” The $250 second place award went to Jam Sardar of Grand Rapids, Michigan for a label on a kitchen knife that warns: “Never try to catch a falling knife.”

“Hurry up, bartender! I’m late for the regatta.” The $100 third place award goes to Alice Morgan of La Junta, Colorado who found a very wacky warning on a cocktail napkin. The napkin has a map of the waterways around Hilton Head, South Carolina printed on it along with this: “Caution: Not to be used for navigation.”

And don’t eat the yellow snow, either. Kirk Dunham of Seabrook, Texas gets an honorable mention for a warning label he found on a bottle of dried bobcat urine made to keep rodents and other pests away from garden plants. It says: “Not for human consumption.”

But will it get cold in the refrigerator? Another honorable mention goes to Lyne Anton of Elk, California who found the following warning label on a baking pan: “Ovenware will get hot when used in oven.”

“Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times,” said Robert B. Dorigo Jones, M-LAW president. “An unpredictable legal system – in which judges allow anyone to file a lawsuit on almost any theory – has created a need for product makers to plaster wacky warnings on everything. When judges see it as their job to dismiss cases that are rooted in frivolous theories, we’ll see fewer wacky labels and more fairness in the courts.”

M-LAW is a non-partisan organization working to increase awareness of how litigation is hurting America. Dorigo Jones is writing a book entitled “Remove Child Before Folding, The 101 Stupidest, Silliest and Wackiest Warning Labels Ever” that will be published next year by Warner Books.

A return to small government

Rep. John Shadegg is running for the majority leader in the House, and he brings up some very good points.

Ten years ago, the American people put Republicans in control of the House of Representatives for the first time in more than 40 years. It was a historic achievement, made possible because we stood for the principles the American people believed in: smaller government, returning power to the states, lower taxes, greater individual freedom and--above all--reform.

Some Republican leaders in the House seem to have lost sight of those principles, though the American people still believe in them. Meanwhile, Americans are sick of scandals. To fully regain their confidence--and to retain and grow the Republican majority--we need to make a clean break with the past and return to our ideals.

Republicans promised the American people two things in 1994. First, we promised to rein in the size and scope of the federal government. Second, we promised to clean up Washington. In recent years, we have fallen short on both counts. Total federal spending has grown by 33% since 1995, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Worse, we have permitted some of the same backroom practices that flourished in the old Democrat-controlled House. Powerful members of Congress are able to insert provisions giving away millions--even tens of millions--of dollars in the dead of night. The recent scandals involving Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff have highlighted the problem, but this is not just a case of a few bad apples. The system itself needs structural reforms.

This has been clear for some time. I did not discover reform as an issue--like Saul on the road to Damascus--when I entered the majority leader race. It has been an integral part of my record, not at one time a decade ago, but constantly, year in and year out since 1994. Yesterday John Boehner wrote on this page about a proposal to reform the earmark process offered by Rep. Jeff Flake. While Mr. Boehner is suddenly talking about this idea, I was one of the first co-sponsors when it was introduced last spring.

We need sunshine in the earmark process, and an end to secret, backroom deals. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, the total number of earmarks in 2005 was nearly 14,000--compared with only 1,439 in 1995. Earmarked money is often spent without the oversight and consideration in the regular appropriations process, so waste, abuse or even fraud is more likely. Congress should base decisions on what is good for America, not what is good for the lobbyist friends of a few.

Every year Congress adopts a budget, and every year we exceed it. Cheats and dodges--supplemental spending without offsets, "off budget" spending--hide this expenditure, but it is added to our national debt, a legacy of irresponsibility to burden future generations. We are still using a budget process that dates from 1974, when Democrats ruled the House and the government was a fraction of its current size. We need reforms in our budget rules to force Congress to stay within the budget it adopts.

No elected official who takes a bribe, including a member of Congress, should get a taxpayer-funded pension. This is a reform I proposed months ago, as soon as we learned about Duke Cunningham's crimes, and it is one that others have urged for years. Who is afraid of this reform?

I grew up watching the example of Barry Goldwater, who worked closely with my father. He taught me that "a government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." That philosophy guided me when I ran for Congress in 1994. I was thrilled to be part of the Revolutionary Class of '94, and the sense of hope and mission of the early days after the American people elected a Republican majority in the House is still with me. We believed then that we could take back our government, and I believe it today.

When I ran for policy chairman last year, I said I wanted to help the leadership, and our entire Republican Conference, achieve our agenda for the American people, and I still do. I was able to reach out to all corners of our conference, and was honored to be elected without opposition. Since then I have worked to bring the conference together by hosting a series of Unity Dinners to find consensus on the difficult issue of immigration reform. The bill we passed at the end of last year was significantly based on the progress we made.

In order to make clear my commitment to this race, and my goal of leading a reinvigorated Republican majority, I resigned from my position as policy chairman. I am proud of the work the policy committee has done, but I believe it is not appropriate to try to retain one position in our elected leadership while running for another. My campaign is based on reform, and those who claim reform should lead by example.

House Republicans differ about policy and tactics, but we stand together in our respect for this institution, our hatred of corruption, and our support for the basic principles of our party. The American people overwhelmingly support the principles we stand for. We cannot allow the current scandals to distract their attention from our substantive agenda. If we do not make a clear, public break with the recent past, there is a good chance we will lose our majority.

I do not need a poll or questionnaire to tell me what Republicans stand for. The party of Ronald Reagan exists not to expand government, but to protect the American people from government's excesses. President Reagan once said, "If you're afraid of the future, then get out of the way, stand aside. The people of this country are ready to move again." House Republicans are ready to move again, too.

One less scum in the world

I don't care how old he was, Clarence Allen finally received his punishment.

Clarence Ray Allen, a twice-convicted murderer enfeebled by age and illness after more than two decades on Death Row, was executed by lethal injection early today at San Quentin State Prison for ordering three killings from his prison cell in 1980.

Allen, who turned 76 on Monday, was pronounced dead at 12:38 a.m., a prison spokeswoman said. He is the oldest prisoner ever executed in California and one of the oldest ever put to death in the United States.

The execution took longer than usual, about 18 minutes, and required a second dose of the heart-stopping chemical potassium chloride, the last of the three-chemical sequence, officials said.

Allen's last hope of avoiding execution was extinguished Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request for a stay. Allen was legally blind, suffered from diabetes, had a heart attack last September and was confined to a wheelchair, and his attorneys argued that executing a prisoner so old and sick would violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Only one justice, Stephen Breyer, voted to grant a stay.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had denied a clemency request Friday that also stressed Allen's age and infirmity. "The passage of time does not excuse Allen from the jury's punishment," Schwarzenegger said.

Allen was able to walk into the death chamber under his own power but was helped onto the gurney where the lethal drugs were administered.

Allen was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murders of Bryon Schletewitz, 27, Josephine Rocha, 17, and Douglas White, 18. All three were shot Sept. 5, 1980, while they were closing up a Fresno market.

Until he reached middle age, Allen hardly seemed like a candidate for Death Row. He went from growing up poor and picking cotton in Oklahoma to building a successful security firm in the San Joaquin Valley, where he even served a stint as a church deacon.

His friends and family said he loaned money to those in need, gave lavish gifts to his employees, framed his own poetry as presents and was dedicated to his two sons, whom he raised after he and his first wife divorced.

But there was also a sinister side to Allen. While in his 40s, officials say, Allen orchestrated eight residential and commercial robberies in the Central Valley. In some cases, he used his security firm to scope out a place in advance.

Prosecutors have described him as a charismatic figure who collected Fresno County's impressionable dregs and turned them into crime lieutenants.

In 1974, Allen and his crew burglarized Fran's Market, a country store on the east side of Fresno. Allen knew the owners, Raymond and Frances Schletewitz. In his less affluent days, he had rented a small house on their property for $75 a month. The Schletewitzes' daughter, Patricia Pendergrass, said there were times when Allen couldn't afford to pay the rent, so her father would let him work it off by tilling their grove.

But as Allen's security business grew, he was able to buy his own ranch in the area and stock it with fancy show horses, an airplane and a swimming pool.

To gain entrance to Fran's Market, Allen invited the Schletewitzes' son, Bryon, to a party. While Bryon was swimming, someone rifled through his pants pockets for a key to the store's security system. Allen and two associates broke into the market and stole $500 and money orders worth $10,000.

Mary Sue Kitts, the 17-year-old girlfriend of Allen's son, told Bryon Schletewitz about the burglary.

Raymond Schletewitz confronted Allen, who denied knowing anything about the crime. According to associates who testified at his 1977 trial, he ordered his henchman Lee Furrow to kill Kitts because he wouldn't tolerate "snitches." When Furrow waffled, Allen told him he would end up dead, too, if he didn't do it, according to prosecutors.

Kitts was strangled and thrown into the Friant-Kern Canal, never to be found, according to investigators. Allen was convicted of Kitts' murder and sentenced to life in prison.

In Folsom Prison's cafeteria, Allen met a soon-to-be paroled inmate, Billy Ray Hamilton, and enlisted him to kill eight people who had testified against him at his trial, including Raymond and Bryon Schletewitz.

Allen's goals, according to prosecutors, were personal vengeance and to permanently silence the witnesses before his upcoming appeal. Another inmate testified he had heard Allen offer Hamilton $25,000 for the killings, said Deputy Attorney General Ward Campbell.

Allen is said to have smuggled instructions out of prison in his grandchild's diaper to his son so he could help Hamilton carry out the killings.

On Sept. 5, 1980, Hamilton and his girlfriend Connie Barbo went to Fran's Market and hung around until closing time. Hamilton then killed Bryon Schletewitz, Rocha and White at close range with a sawed-off shotgun. He also shot a fourth worker, Joe Rios, who survived.

Barbo was arrested at the scene, and Hamilton was caught a week later holding a hit list with the names and addresses of the eight witnesses. Barbo was sentenced to life in prison, and Hamilton was sent to join Allen on Death Row.

Die hard Steeler fans

I was born and raised in Western PA, which means I am a die hard Steelers fan, or as it is pronounced back home, "Stillers." The Jacksonville sports news the other night was trying to quantify what makes the Steelers, well, the Steelers, and what is it about Steeler fans. This story sheds some light.

Talk about a heart-stopping game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts.

Fifty-year-old Terry O'Neill of Pittsburgh says he was watching the game at a bar when he had a heart attack just seconds after Steelers player Jerome Bettis' fumble at the two-yard line late in the fourth quarter.

The play allowed the Colts to have a renewed chance at winning the game.

O'Neill says Bettis is his hero, and he was upset with the idea the player might have ended his career with an error.

"I wasn't upset that the Steelers might lose," O'Neill told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "I was upset because I didn't want to see him end his career like that. A guy like that deserves better. I guess it was a little too much for me to handle."

Doctors are planning to implant a pacemaker in O'Neill to help control an irregular heartbeat along with prescribing him medication to deal with hypertension.

When asked how he was feeling, O'Neill told the Tribune-Review: "The Steelers won the game and I'm still alive, so I guess I'm doing pretty good."

Yes, we DO live and die with our Steelers, any questions?

Dhimmi Update: Scotland

The Religion of Peace^TM wants a Catholic school in Scotland to become a Muslim school.

AN ISLAMIC campaign group has called for a Catholic primary school to be based on the Muslim faith.

The Campaign for Muslim Schools said 90 per cent of pupils at St Albert's Primary, in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow, are Muslim, yet children are having to take part in Catholic rituals like saying the Lord's Prayer and attending mass.

Osama Saeed, co-ordinator of the alliance of Glasgow's main mosques and Muslim organisations, said he could see no reason why the main faith of the school should not change.

He said: "Clearly the parents of that area find a faith school, even if it is of another denomination, preferable to a secular one. But surely it should be possible for them to have one that is relevant to their own faith.

"To move towards this would be a fantastic example of good faith - in more ways than one - on the part of the Church."

The call came just days after Scotland's most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, sparked controversy by stating that Scotland's core faith was Christianity and that other faiths should recognise they were "living in Scotland as a Christian country". A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland was not available for comment tonight.

Inquistor Kennedy

Where can I get a job like this?

For the record, I lived in the DC area for four years and loved the Metro system. However, next time there is a fare increase, keep this story in mind.

The severance package for outgoing Metro Chief Executive Richard A. White, which includes a six-figure salary for life, is more generous than ones offered by three of the nation's other large transit agencies.

The deal, giving White a $238,000 one-time payment and an annual pension of $116,000, was revealed last week when Metro board members announced that they were asking for White's resignation after he had led the agency for almost a decade. Board members said his severance package was in line with deals at other systems, and they handed out news clippings to support the claim.

He's 53, you do the math.

Iran to host hatefest to deny Holocaust

The holocaust-denying president of Iran is going to host a conference to "examine the evidence of the Holocaust."

Iran, whose president has denied the Holocaust, said Sunday it would hold a conference to examine the scientific evidence concerning Nazi Germany's extermination of 6 million Jews.

Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has recently provoked global condemnation for saying the Holocaust is a "myth" and calling for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth.

Iran further alarmed Western countries last week by restarting its research at a nuclear facility after a two-year freeze.

"It is a strange world. It is possible to discuss everything except the Holocaust," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

"The Foreign Ministry plans to hold a conference on the scientific aspect of the issue to discuss and review its repercussions."

Asefi did not say where or when the conference would be held or who would attend.

Earlier this month, the Association of Muslim Journalists, a hard-line group, proposed holding a similar conference.

But Asefi said he was not aware of the association's wishes. He said the conference he announced was planned and supported by the ministry.

On Saturday, Ahmadinejad urged the West to be open-minded enough to allow a free international debate on the real aspects of the Holocaust.

Rep. Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, has said he understood Iran was considering a conference to call into question the evidence that the Nazis conducted a mass murder of European Jews during World War II.

Never mind that the meticulous record keeping of the Nazis proved their own guilt, never mind the death camps that were liberated by the Allies, these devils are going to get together and deny the Holocaust. Wonderful.

Finding Jesus at a truck stop

Breezewood is a area off of the PA turnpike full of restaurants, motels, and truckstops. TOday's P-G has a interesting story about The Breezewood Trucker/Traveler Ministry.

Even here, in this oasis of neon signs and regular unleaded, the road can feel like the loneliest place on earth.

More than 6 million souls pass through Breezewood each year on their way to Somewhere Else. Most have never been here before, and most will never come back. To them, the place is a credit card swipe and a leg stretch, not a destination. A quarter-mile of motels, truck stops and all-night waffle houses stuck in the middle of farm country, it is neither here nor there.

At night, rows of 80,000-pound tractor-trailers idle in parking lots, huffing diesel fumes into the fog, their running lights like carnivals. Travelers fill the vinyl booths of diners, cradling cups of coffee and calculating mileage, their thoughts already focused on what lies ahead.

But Breezewood is not just a place travelers pass through. It is also a place where people break down, and get stuck, both automotively and spiritually, says the Rev. Bruce Maxwell, chaplain of the Breezewood Trucker/Traveler Ministry.

The ministry has seen them all: the fugitive from the law in search of spiritual counsel, hoping to finally stop running; the chronically homeless man who willingly spends his life in a constant state of motion; the lonely trucker, just wanting someone with whom to talk after days spent staring through a windshield.

There are the kooks and the prophets, the lot lizards and the runaways. There was the pregnant teenager living on dwindling rations of lunch meat, and the illegal Mexican laborers left stranded alongside a totaled van, their driver long gone.

Hospitality is a business here, and Breezewood's reason for being. For Mr Maxwell, however, it is a calling -- an opportunity to offer food, shelter and spiritual assistance to the travelers who find themselves stranded at this Bedford County crossroads.

The ecumenical ministry operates out of the Gateway TA and the All-American Petro travel plazas on either side of Route 30. It began in the late 1980s, organized and sponsored by the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, which noticed the growing need for pastoral care among the millions who pass through Breezewood.

Mr. Maxwell keeps a CB radio in his office to keep in touch with the truckers. He distributes care packages assembled by volunteers from local churches and gives people rides to hospitals and shelters as far away as Cumberland and Hagerstown, Md. With support from businesses, the ministry arranges meals, emergency lodging, gas money and phone use for down-on-their-luck travelers.

"Many of these folks I would call 'people of the highway,'" said Mr. Maxwell, an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church, who has served as chaplain since 1992. "People who have left home, people who are between homes, people for whom home is wherever they lay their head at night."

Making his "pastoral rounds," he weaves his way through the back parking lots, the garage bays and the fuel line, the coffee shops and convenience store aisles, stopping to talk with everyone. As chaplain, he is one of the few shared entities between the two intensely competitive truck stops, and has virtually total access to the grounds.

The night before, a woman named Patty, a longtime employee of the Perkins Restaurant, passed away after a short battle with cancer. The travel plaza staff was feeling emotionally fragile, and Mr. Maxwell spoke with many of them about the loss.

That morning at 7 a.m., he held a weekly Bible study session in a corner both of the Perkins Restaurant, open to all. He was joined by Randie Kensinger, a former Marine and tractor-trailer mechanic who had just ended his night shift.

Mr. Kensinger has been involved in the ministry since the beginning; two of his three children were baptized by the previous chaplain.

The men thumbed through their Bibles, the pages stuffed with Post-it Notes, while piped-in music played quietly in the background, including, appropriately enough, Joan Osborne's hit "(What if God Was) One of Us."

There are many Bible verses that pertain to travelling, such as the story of the Good Samaritan. But with Epiphany approaching, Mr. Maxwell told the story of the three wise men, who ascertained the stars over Bethlehem, and of Mary and Joseph's flight into Egypt.

"Back in Jesus' time, people were always moving, moving, moving," said Mr. Kensinger. "Just like it is with Breezewood."

Lessons from McCarthy wasted on the dems

Arthur Herman makes an interesting comparison between the abuses of Joe McCarthy and the abuses of Biden, Kennedy and pals.

BUT liberals have not learned this lesson. McCarthy's defeat seemed to vindicate their own excesses. Liberals began to label conservatives as closet fascists, embodiments of a primitive and pathological "paranoid style" of politics, while the media applauded.

Over the next decades, while conservatives were reining in the rhetoric, liberals were settling into the habit of attacking every Republican as a crypto-Nazi, a racist, a sexist and a religious bigot — and those who supported them as an ignorant redneck lynch mob.

So instead of a Red Scare, America endured 30 years of a Conservative Scare. The volume and fury of denunciation reached new heights with each battle over GOP Supreme Court nominees, from Clement Haynesworth through Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas — to Sam Alito.

Democrats came to see themselves as entitled to smear every conservative as a racist and every conservative organization as a looming threat to civil liberties, while the media accepted that rhetorical excess as standard operating procedure.

And — like McCarthy — as the Democrats' political fortunes began to slip, they assumed that the way to reverse course was to ramp up the rhetoric, "to get their message out," instead of turning it down.

Then came Wednesday.

THIS time, the TV camera, trained by chance on Mrs. Alito's face, revealed the human cost of their recklessness — just as it did that June afternoon in 1954.

The media filter's control of the direction of our public perceptions and sympathies has been suddenly reversed. Americans can see which is the party of reason and compassion, and which the party of demagogues.

And Sen. Kennedy's strident demands for a closed session to sniff out Judge Alito's connection to a long-defunct conservative Princeton alumni group sounded precisely like McCarthy's "Point of order, Mr Chairman," during the Army hearings — the exact same kind of "are you now, or have you ever been" guilt-by-association attack that McCarthy made famous.

Yet men like Kennedy have no clue how they appear to the rest of us. After Welch's denunciation, McCarthy kept asking his staff in genuine puzzlement, "What did I do?" If he didn't know, of course, no one could tell him. Now, no one can tell the Democrats, either.

They are going to have to learn the hard way, just as Republicans did.

Top 9 things that make Teddy Kennedy cry

Drink alert in effect for this masterpiece from The Nose on Your face.

9. "NBC news is reporting tonight that there has been a major spill at the Dewar's bottling plant."

8. "I have some unbelievable news dear! Splash has developed the ability to speak! Now he can talk to us about all of those adventures you two have gone on. Isn't this wonderful?"

7. "Senator, I know that you don't normally take visitors this late in the evening, but there are several associates of Judge Alito here and they are quite enthusiastic about speaking with you."

6. "A four-way? Yeah, keep dreaming 'little' brother. Bobby, Jack you fellas ready to go?"- Marilyn Monroe

5. "And in other news, Massachusetts has passed a law making it a dry state."

4. "Honey, remember how concerned you were about the horrendous treatment minorities were receivng after Katrina? Well, I've invited a few hundred real live negro families to stay with us for awhile. You know, just til they get on their feet."

3. "I'm sorry Mr. Kennedy, but this particular strain is resistant to pennicillin."

2. "Last call!"

1. "Senator, there's a woman claiming to be the ghost of a Mary Jo something or other here to see you."

Religion of Peace^TM Update: kill the victim!

In Iran, we have the heartwarming story of a teenaged girl who killed a man who tried to rape her - and the girl has been sentenced to hang.

An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi has denied the charges.

In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.

The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.

Instead of harassing Joe Paterno, where is NOW's outrage at this?

Yep, he did it

Death penalty opponents were ferverently hoping that DNA testing would show that a man fried in 1992 was really innocent....oh well, they can find another cause celebre.

DNA tests released this afternoon confirmed the guilt of a Virginia man who had proclaimed his innocence in a slaying and rape even as he was strapped into the state's electric chair in 1992.

Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) said modern-day genetic analysis that was not available in the early 1990s proves that Roger K. Coleman was present at the crime scene.

"We have sought the truth using DNA technology not available at the time the Commonwealth carried out the ultimate criminal sanction," Warner said in a statement. "The confirmation that Roger Coleman's DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and the sanction."

Coleman, a coal miner from the small Appalachian town of Grundy, drew nationwide attention when he proclaimed his innocence in a series of newspaper and television interviews in the months before his death. After he was strapped into the electric chair on May 20, 1992 he declared: "An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight."

Coleman was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1981 rape and stabbing of his sister-in-law, 19-year-old Wanda McCoy.

During Coleman's trial, authorities said there was compelling evidence of guilt, including hair on McCoy's body that was similar to Coleman's and the account of a jailhouse informant. Officials also noted that he had been convicted of attempted rape in 1977.

Coleman said he had an alibi and would not have had time to commit the killing. Defense attorneys also have gathered affidavits from people who said another man boasted of killing McCoy. Time magazine featured his case in a cover story titled "Must This Man Die?"

On the morning of his execution, as L. Douglas Wilder, the governor at the time, debated his fate, Coleman was secretly taken to a police building for a lie-detector test. He failed.

Tax cuts and the return of the Bull market

Forbes makes the case for the Bush tax cuts bringing back the 11,000 point Dow.

The bull market is now prominently in the American consciousness. The iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the 11,000 mark this week for the first time since June 7, 2001, which was before the worst of the recession and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Big, round numbers are sometimes only psychologically important, but this milestone also carries economic and political significance.

On Jan. 31, President George W. Bush will deliver his State of the Union address and make the case for maintaining the current tax treatment of investment income--postponing or repealing large scheduled tax hikes. Given the overwhelming success of his 2003 tax policy changes, as demonstrated by the revival of the stock market as well as the broader economy, this should be the top domestic priority of both the president and the GOP congressional leadership.

Dow 11,000 is just the latest in a long line of compelling evidence that the 2003 reductions in the tax rates on capital gains and dividend income worked. The day those tax-rate cuts passed the Senate, the Dow stood at just 8,601. The story since then has been that incentives matter--as Milton Friedman says, when you tax something, you get less of it; and when you tax something less, you get more of it.

Reducing the tax bite on investment income, by 25% for capital gains and by more than 50% for dividends, triggered a wave of investment activity that revived the stock market. About six months later, the Dow broke through 10,000, and by the second anniversary of the tax-rate reductions, the Dow was over 10,500. With this week’s milestone, the Dow has now climbed 28% since those rate reductions.

The bull market has created an astonishing $5 trillion in shareholder wealth. Overall gross domestic product growth was a robust 4.2% in real terms in 2004, and more than 3.7% through the first three quarters of 2005--significantly higher than the post-World War II average of just over 3%. Unemployment, even after three major hurricanes, keeps declining, and is now at a historically low rate of 4.9%.

With the budget deficit at a paltry 2.6% of GDP, and the economy humming, it should be unthinkable to enact a series of massive tax hikes to derail the good times and send Dow 11,000 tumbling back into four-digit territory. Unfortunately, the tax rates on investment income are scheduled for automatic hikes in less than three years--a relatively short horizon for many investors--unless the president can spur Congress to act.

If he fails, the tax rate on capital gains will increase 33%--destroying trillions of dollars of shareholder wealth and slamming the brakes on economic growth. The tax rate on dividends will increase 133%, making companies less accountable to investors and creating strong incentives for companies to hoard cash inefficiently.

Democrat Debacle over Alito

Soxblog details the carnage the dems have inflicted to themselves:

From a tactical point of view, this has been the Democrats’ worst week since John Kerry saluted and said “Reporting for duty.”

There have been two incidents of note so far in the Alito hearings. The first came mid-day yesterday when Ted Kennedy and Arlen Specter began crabbing at each other like two senior citizens arguing over who owed what portion of the check at a Del Ray deli. If you read the liberal blogs, you’ll see they think Kennedy spanked Specter. If you read the conservative blogs, you’ll see they think Specter kicked Kennedy.

Regardless of who won the pissing contest, this was the biggest tactical blunder by a Kennedy since the Bay of Pigs. This incident was one of the two things from the hearings that caught the eye of the mainstream public (that generally lives in blissful ignorance of our Senators’ blustering). Because of this contretemps, Ted Kennedy became the public face of the Alito opposition.

So, in the public’s eyes, it is now Ted Kennedy who purports to judge the character of Sam Alito. Ted Kennedy – the heavy drinking guy whose immorality actually has a body-count. Liberals could argue that Kennedy has put his life together and now is an admirable lion in winter, but the indisputable fact is that west of Cambridge, Ted Kennedy is a joke, someone who has been consistent fodder for late night talk show hosts for almost four decades. Obviously if this thing comes down to Kennedy versus Alito, the Kennedy side loses.

And then there’s yesterday’s other memorable moment. So distraught was Judge Alito’s wife over the abuse the windbags had doled out to her husband, when Lindsey Graham apologized for that abuse she bolted from the hearing room in tears.

To say this was a disastrous turn of events for the Democrats would be an understatement. American’s don’t mind dirty politics. Attack politics are almost part of our national DNA.

But there is one limit – leave the opponent’s family alone. When the New York Times investigated the adoption process of John Roberts’ children, the nation’s chattering class was appalled. When New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Doug Forrester ran an ad featuring the commentary of his opponents’ ex-wife, Garden State voters were repulsed.

Kudos to the New Orleans Catholic schools

Deal Hudson details the remarkable spirit in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Fr. Neal McDermott, O. P. has a problem, or it should be said, multiple problems. Everyday he grapples with the devastation of Katrina, because his job is to oversee Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Fr. McDermott reports that an astonishing 74 of 107 Catholic schools have re-opened. Thus far three public schools in New Orleans have opened, along with a handful of charter schools.

The Archdiocese has seen 38,000 of its 48,000 Catholic students return to the classroom. Only 8000 of 60,000 public school students are presently re-enrolled.

The Window asked Fr. McDermott how the schools were able to re-open and the students return so quickly.

"This has been an experience of the Church like I have never seen," McDermott began. "When 200,000 people fled New Orleans to Baton Rouge, Covington, Houston, and other cities, they opened their arms to us. Wherever people went they took us in."

"Getting these schools re-opened began in places like Baton Rouge where our people went and found homes and schools who charged them nothing. It was in Baton Rouge that Archbishop Hughes set up a temporary chancery office for New Orleans."

"When the levees broke as soon as the storm was over, we met everyday to find out the situation. As soon as you heard a school could be utilized we sent parents, students and teachers back."

The problem of financing the school system was immediately apparent, says McDermott. "In September we paid the salary of every teacher, in spite of the schools being closed, and in October we paid their complete fringe benefits - that, by itself, cost millions."Schools need to be repaired, refurbished, employees paid, and teaching materials supplied for students and teachers. Jesuit High School alone in New Orleans will cost $10,000,000 for repairs caused by the flood.

"The Archdiocese had plenty of insurance for storm damage but none for the flood. That's what is really hurting us."

Father McDermott explains, "You have to see the level of devastation for yourself. Where I live on the Bayou St. John there used to be 12,500 homes. Mine is the only one that survived. In the evening I can't see a single light from my windows."

He talked to The Window at length about specific schools, some with historic significance, such as the three important African-American schools. St. Augustine's and St. Mary's Academy were completely flooded, but Xavier Prep escaped damage and is now teaching 550 students.

Again, damage to St. Augustine's alone is estimated at $10,000,000.

The Window asked Fr. McDermott the inevitable question, "How is the Archdiocese going to pay for this?"

"The good news is that we were just given $9,500,000 by the bishops. The Knights of Columbus have donated $500,000, and the Children to Children fund $400,000. The bad news is that I have 30,000 kids who need tuition assistance, and I have only enough to help 5,000 of them."

More important, however, is what Fr. McDermott reports about the experience of being part of the Church. At the end of our conversation he told me about the re-opening in October of St. Dominic's Parish where he had been pastor for 12 years. "3,500 families belong to the parish in an area that is still uninhabitable, but 1,200 people attended Mass - it was standing room only. That's what I mean by experiencing the Church."

(To help Fr. McDermott, you can send a check made payable to the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Specify "Assistance to Catholic schools," and mail it to: Archdiocese of New Orleans, 1800 S. Acadian Thruway, Baton Rouge, LA 70808. Write "Attn: Father Neal McDermott" at the bottom of the envelope.)

Big Brother spying on diabetics in NY

As a diabetic, I really am bothered by NYC monitoring diabetics.

New York City is starting to monitor the blood sugar levels of its diabetic residents, marking the first time any government in the United States has begun tracking people with a chronic disease.

Under the program, the city is requiring laboratories to report the results of blood sugar tests directly to the health department, which will use the data to study the disease and to prod doctors and patients when levels run too high.

The unprecedented step is being hailed by many health experts as a bold attempt to improve care for diabetes, one of the nation's biggest medical problems, which is burgeoning into a crisis because of the aging population and the obesity epidemic.

Some public health experts, ethicists and privacy advocates, however, say that the initiative raises serious concerns about confidentiality and is an alarming government intrusion into people's medical care.

Under the plan, beginning on Sunday all 120 New York medical testing laboratories with the ability to transmit data electronically will be required to report the results of a blood test known as A1c within 24 hours. Diabetics undergo the test at least once a year to provide a long-term measurement of how well they are controlling their condition, in addition to the blood testing they do several times a day.

Health officials first plan to use the data to monitor the quality of care and to determine which parts of the city are being hit hardest by diabetes.

But health officials also plan to use the data to directly intervene in individual patients' care. In a program that will be tested first in the South Bronx, city officials will alert doctors about patients whose blood sugar levels are not being well controlled and will offer advice.

The plan has alarmed privacy advocates, particularly because the information is being collected without first getting patients' consent.

"It's an incredible invasion to privacy to have your sensitive medical information grabbed by the city of New York," said Robin Kaigh, a New York lawyer who opposes the effort. "It shocks the conscience that they are not even required to tell you this is happening."

Doctors may not even know data on their patients are being collected.

"It's a little creepy that it's being done so undercover -- in the laboratories -- where it's completely out of sight of the doctor-patient interaction," said Twila J. Brase of the Citizens' Council on Health Care, a nonprofit group in Minnesota.

Beyond the city having the information, other privacy advocates are concerned about whether the data could be passed on.

"This is really a recipe for invasion of privacy," said Sue A. Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom, a Washington-based advocacy group. "Under the law, personal health information can be shared without consent for many purposes. All it takes is a click of a mouse."

That fear is shared by some diabetics.

"I don't want the city knowing any more about my private life. I fear this information could be taken out of the data bank and disseminated to people or places I don't necessarily want it to be disseminated," said Steven Lazarus, 44, a diabetic who lives in Manhattan. Lazarus is also uncomfortable with the government getting involved in his medical care.

"I don't want the city telling me what to do nor do I want the city telling my physician what to do," Lazarus said.

wishing NY used the death penalty

Two scum were arraigned yesterday for the murder of an NYPD cop, and Steve Dunleavy wishes they would get fried.

IT WAS a cop killers' day — or should we give lice the benefit of the doubt and call it an alleged cop killers' day?

In The Bronx and Brooklyn yesterday, three sub-humans went before judges, and you have to wonder what happened to that creaky dinosaur called the death penalty for killing a cop.

Truthfully, the death penalty just doesn't exist here — and the sooner we face that, the better.

"He's not a killer, he's a good boy," Domenica Brancato said of her son, "The Sopranos" actor Lillo Brancato, who, with his pal Steven Armento, is charged with killing Officer Daniel Enchautegui.

Mrs. Brancato is a sad woman who has been inflicted with a special pain by the worthless kid she sacrificed to adopt.

Lillo Sr. was asked how did a kid who had everything go so wrong.

A shadow fell over his pale face: "I just don't know what happened."

Officer Joe Nolan of the 40th Precinct regularly partnered with Danny Enchautegui.

"This nasty kid made more money from films and TV than the average cop would make in a lifetime. And yet he's there when one of the best guys I ever met would be murdered. What's Brancato's excuse?"

Then, a short train ride to Brooklyn, we saw another example of a twisted human being. He is Marlon Legere, who on Sept. 10, 2004, ended the lives of Detectives Pat Rafferty and Bobby Parker.

I will never forget the devastating night I sat with Pat's widow, Eileen, and their three children.

When I last spoke to her, she said: "You just don't heal. We are all trying to get there, but we are not there yet."

Now this whole death-penalty thing is a farce. You hear the death penalty threatened on TV shows like "Law & Order" — but there won't be an execution in New York 'til Hell freezes over.

The last execution in New York was in 1963, and the bleeding hearts would beat their breast bones to a pulp if a cop killer was ever given the juice-jab.

Why don't we just face it: There is no death penalty in this state. Why continue with this canard?

Of course, if this were Texas, these three scums in court today would be on an express train to hell.

Incumbency over Ideas

Today's WSJ details the biggest problem with the Republican House: they care more about power than accomplishments.

The real House GOP problem isn't about lobbyists so much as it is the atrophying of its principles. As their years in power have stretched on, House Republicans have become more passionate about retaining power than in using that power to change or limit the federal government. Gathering votes for serious policy is difficult and tends to divide a majority. Re-election unites them, however, so the leadership has gradually settled for raising money on K Street and satisfying Beltway interest groups to sustain their incumbency.

This strategy has maintained a narrow majority, but at the cost of doing anything substantial. The last year in particular was an historic lost opportunity. House Republicans were also the main culprit in watering down Medicare reform, while Ohio's Mike Oxley has run the Financial Services Committee more or less as liberal Barney Frank would. Beyond welfare reform and tax cuts (and perhaps health-savings accounts), the GOP has achieved little in the last decade that will outlast the next Democratic majority.

Meanwhile, the most talented and policy-driven Members have continued to leave Congress for other opportunities. Chris Cox now runs the SEC, Rob Portman is the U.S. trade rep, J.C. Watts is in the private sector, and others are running for Governor or the Senate. The leaders who remain have become ever more preoccupied with process, money and incumbency. Ideas are an afterthought, when they aren't an inconvenience.


Our sense is that Republicans don't yet appreciate the trouble they're in. Confident of K Street money and gerrymandered districts, they think the voters will never turn Congress over to a party run by Nancy Pelosi. But that's also what Democrats and the media thought about Republicans led by Newt Gingrich in 1994. Eventually, voters may grow more disgusted with Republicans who care only about re-election than they are afraid of Ms. Pelosi's San Francisco liberalism.

Calypso turns you into a moonbat

I can't think of any other explanation, since Louis Farrakhan was a calypso singer and so is Harry Belafonte, who produces idiocy like this.

American singer and human rights activist Harry Belafonte has called US President George W Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" saying millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including actor Danny Glover, Princeton University scholar Cornel West and farmworker advocate Dolores Huerta that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday and attended his television and radio broadcast on Sunday.

"No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people… support your revolution," Belafonte told Mr Chavez during the broadcast.

"We respect you, admire you, and we are expressing our full solidarity with the Venezuelan people and your revolution."

The 78-year-old singer, famed for his calypso-inspired music, including the Day-O song, was a close collaborator of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr and is now a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.

He also has been outspoken in criticising the US embargo of communist Cuba.

Attending the live "Hello President" program under a canopy at a farming cooperative southwest of Caracas, Belafonte said he had come to learn about Mr Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution," which includes a wide range of social programs for the poor and is named after South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.

Belafonte accused US news media of falsely painting Mr Chavez as a "dictator," when in fact, he said, there is democracy and citizens are "optimistic about their future."

John Murtha, turncoat

Iraqi veteran and founder of The Eternal Vigilance Society Keiran Michael Lalor has some words for John Murtha and it ain't pretty.

LAST spring, I dropped by an anti-war rally in White Plains. When I made it clear that I was an Iraq vet who supported the war, the insults began to fly. Most slurs were boilerplate anti-war clichés, but one man struck a nerve: He marched up to me, looked me straight in the eye to ask, "You joined the military?" — and when I proudly answered "yes," responded, with utter disgust, "You are a sucker."

I felt the same rage last weekend just watching Rep. Jack Murtha declare on TV that, were he younger, he wouldn't join today's military.

I expect that kind of rhetoric from the washed-up anti-war rabble that congregate on street corners to relive their glory days — not from retired Marine colonels.

Murtha's call last year for a cut-and-run strategy in Iraq was one thing — irresponsible and unwise, but basically just stating a policy position. This is different.

What a nice New Year's treat for the beheaders and suicide bombers to know that a decorated Marine and lawmaker thinks the U.S. military is not only "broken" but not worth joining. Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi will no doubt use Murtha's words to inspire his band of thugs to hold out longer and kill a few more Americans assuring them that ultimately we will wilt like Murtha.

Why would Murtha not want to be part of a military that in the past four years has liberated 50 million souls and heroically brought aid to tsunami and earthquake victims, saving untold lives? Surely he knows that all was chaos in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina until Gen. Russell Honore's 1st Army and the 82nd Airborne came to town and provided relief and a security presence.

Evidently, Murtha doesn't think this is noble work.

Or, rather, the congressman doesn't like the way Iraq is going, so he disparaged the entire military — forgetting about our sailors working tirelessly to keep the seas open, Marines bravely guarding our embassies and soldiers standing watch in Korea and elsewhere to protect the democratic from the despotic.

Thirty-seven years in the Marine Corps should have taught Murtha that our military has historically been and continues to be the world's greatest meritocracy. No other institution has allowed people to climb the ranks and reach their potential regardless of their socioeconomic status like the U.S. military.

Similarly, Jack Murtha should know that millions of men and women have personally benefited from the discipline, training and structure of the military and used the traits learned in uniform to make countless contributions to civil society after their service.

If Murtha wouldn't want to be a part of a military that did in Afghanistan in three months what the Red Army couldn't do in seven years and that put genocidal maniac Saddam Hussein behind bars and his brutal sociopath sons in the ground, I am glad he is not.

You will buy warm beer and you will like it!

Hat tip to The Emperor for this story about a real moron in need of a cluebat^TM to the head: Missouri State Senator wants to ban sales of cold beer.

A state senator wants to force Missouri stores to sell warm beer. Under a bill by Sen. Bill Alter, grocery and convenience stores would risk losing their liquor licenses if they sold beer colder than 60 degrees. The intent is to cut down on drunken driving by making it less tempting to pop open a beer after leaving the store.

"The only reason why beer would need to be cold is so that it can be consumed right away," Alter, who has been a police offer for more than 20 years, said Thursday.

He said the idea came from a fifth-grade student in Jefferson County who was participating in a program to teach elementary students about state government. He sought their suggestions for new laws and chose the cold beer ban from a list of the top three ideas.

"I thought it had the best chance at getting legislative attention," said Alter, R-High Ridge. "Plus, I think it's a good idea whether or not other people do."

Some lawmakers and lobbyists, however, are lukewarm about the idea.

Ron Leone, executive vice president for the Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, said the combination of Missouri's drinking and driving laws and designated driver programs already have curbed the number of people who drink and drive.

"It would be an inconvenience for law-abiding citizens who want to purchase cold beer for picnics, parties and social gatherings," he said. "People who want to drive drunk will drive drunk anyway."

I would think a law as stupid as this, in a state where Anheuser Busch is headquartered, would have a hard time coming to pass. I am embarassed that this idiotarian is a fellow Republican.

Another reason to hate Microsoft

Microsoft can't fix security flaws in its applications but they can cave in to the Chinese communist government.

Microsoft Corp. has shut down the Internet journal of a Chinese blogger that discussed politically sensitive issues, including a recent strike at a Beijing newspaper.

The action came amid criticism by free-speech activists of foreign technology companies that help the communist government enforce censorship or silence dissent in order to be allowed into China's market.

Microsoft's Web log-hosting service shut down the blog at the Chinese government's request, said Brooke Richardson, group product manager with Microsoft's MSN online division at company headquarters in Redmond, Wash.

Although Beijing has supported Internet use for education and business, it fiercely polices content. Filters block objectionable foreign Web sites and regulations ban subversive and pornographic content and require service providers to enforce censorship rules.

"When we operate in markets around the world, we have to ensure that our service complies with global laws as well as local laws and norms," Richardson said.

Richardson said the blog was shut down Dec. 30 or Dec. 31 for violating Microsoft's code of conduct, which states that users must be in compliance with local laws in the country in which the user is based.

The blog, written under the pen name An Ti by Zhao Jing, who works for the Beijing bureau of The New York Times as a research assistant, touched on sensitive topics such as China's relations with Taiwan. Last week, he used the blog to crusade on behalf of a Beijing newspaper.

Reporters at the Beijing News, a daily known for its aggressive reporting, staged an informal one-day strike after their chief editor was removed from his post. The editor's removal and the strike attracted comments on Chinese online bulletin boards, which censors then erased.

Online bulletin boards and Web logs have given millions of Chinese an opportunity to express opinions in a public setting in a system where all media are government-controlled.

But service providers are required to monitor Web logs and bulletin boards, erase banned content and report offenders.

Foreign companies have adopted Chinese standards, saying they must obey local laws.

Microsoft's Web log service bars use of terms such as "democracy" and "human rights." On the China-based portal of search engine Google, a search for material the Dalai Lama, Taiwan and other sensitive topics returns a message saying "site cannot be found."

Murtha rooting for our defeat in Iraq

After his remarks at a Moveon.org conference, can there be any doubt that John Murtha wants us to lose in Iraq.

Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has come to national prominence since his call for a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, said Thursday night that he worries about "a slow withdrawal which makes it look like there's a victory."

Appearing at a town meeting in Arlington, Virginia, with fellow Democratic Rep. James Moran, Murtha said, "A year ago, I said we can't win this militarily, and I got all kinds of criticism." Now, Murtha told the strongly antiwar audience, "I worry about a slow withdrawal which makes it look like there's a victory when I think it should be a redeployment as quickly as possible and let the Iraqis handle the whole thing."

Sounds like treason to me. And for those who want to say "he served his country in the Marines" well so did Lee harvey Oswald.

Cleaning house

The Wall Street Journal says that the Abrahamoff scandal is a perfect excuse to clean house.

More broadly, however, the Abramoff scandal wouldn't resonate nearly as much with the public if it didn't fit a GOP pattern of becoming cozy with Beltway mores. The party that swept to power on term limits, spending restraint and reform has become the party of incumbency, 6,371 highway-bill "earmarks," and K Street. And it's no defense to say that Democrats would do the same. Of course Democrats would, but then they've always claimed to be the party of government. If that's what voters want, they'll choose the real thing.

One danger now is that, rather than change their own behavior, Republicans will think they can hide behind the political cover of "lobbying reform." While this has various guises, most proposals amount to putting further restrictions not on Congress but on "the right of the people . . . to petition the government," as the Constitution puts it explicitly.

Lobbyists per se aren't the problem; most of them are hired to protect Americans from a federal government that wants to take more of their money or freedom. Mr. Abramoff could make so much hay with Indian tribes only because he and they knew that Congress had given Washington the power to make or break fortunes simply by rediscovering "lost" tribes and giving them the power to sponsor casino gambling. The root of the scandal is this Beltway discretion and its misuse, not the lobbyists who attempt to protect their own interests.

Most "lobbying reform" also accepts the liberal premise that private money is somehow corrupt while government money isn't. More disclosure is fine by us, but any new rules should also apply to AARP, the Sierra Club, Harvard University and "nonprofit" lobbies or foundations, including their grants from the government and George Soros.

Republicans won't escape voter anger by writing new rules but only by returning to their self-professed principles. Gradually since 1994 they've decided they want to reform and limit government less than they want to use government to entrench their own power, and in the case of the Abramoffs to get rich doing so. If Speaker Dennis Hastert, interim Majority Leader Roy Blunt and other GOP leaders are too insulated to realize this, then Republicans need new leaders, and right away.

Judge gives kidde raper 60 days because he "doesn't believe in punishment"

One more reason to hate judges, as some moonbat of a judge in Vermont gives a man who raped a girl - starting when she was SEVEN years old - a 60 day sentence.

There was outrage Wednesday when a Vermont judge handed out a 60-day jail sentence to a man who raped a little girl many,many times over a four-year span starting when she was seven.

The judge said he no longer believes in punishment and is more concerned about rehabilitation.

Prosecutors argued that confessed child-rapist Mark Hulett, 34, of Williston deserved at least eight years behind bars for repeatedly raping a littler girl countless times starting when she was seven.

But Judge Edward Cashman disagreed explaining that he no longer believes that punishment works.

"The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul," said Judge Edward Cashman speaking to a packed Burlington courtroom. Most of the on-lookers were related to a young girl who was repeatedly raped by Mark Hulett who was in court to be sentenced.

The sex abuse started when the girl was seven and ended when she was ten. Prosecutors were seeking a sentence of eight to twenty years in prison, in part, as punishment.

"Punishment is a valid purpose," Chittenden Deputy Prosecutor Nicole Andreson argued to Judge Edward Cashman.

"The state recognizes that the court may not agree or subscribe to that method of sentencing but the state does. The state thinks that it is a very important factor for the court to consider," Andreson added.

But Judge Cashman explained that he is more concerned that Hulett receive sex offender treatment as rehabilitation. But under Department of Corrections classification, Hulett is considered a low-risk for re-offense so he does not qualify for in-prison treatment.So the judge sentenced him to just 60 days in prison and then Hulett must complete sex treatment when he gets out or face a possible life sentence.

Judge Cashman also also revealed that he once handed down stiff sentences when he first got on the bench 25 years ago, but he no longer believes in punishment.

"I discovered it accomplishes nothing of value;it doesn't make anything better;it costs us a lot of money; we create a lot of expectation, and we feed on anger,"Cashman explained to the people in the court.

The sentence outraged the victim's family who asked not to be identified.

"I don't like it," the victim's mother,in tears, told Channel 3. "He should pay for what he did to my baby and stop it here. She's not even home with me and he can be home for all this time, and do what he did in my house," she added.

Hulett -- who had been out on bail-- was taken away to start his sentence immediately.

Fine. Get a group of guys, a rope, and a tree and be waiting outside the jail 60 days from now.

PSU 26, FSU 23, 3OT

from the Miami Herald:

Penn State had to fight all day to get where they were, from overtime to the trophy presentation. Just like they had to fight all season.

USC and Texas might be better. But nobody is tougher than Penn State. This proved it.

65 million reasons to hate teachers unions

Seems the NEA gave over 65 MILLION DOLLARS to left wing groups that have nothing to do with educating our children.

If we told you that an organization gave away more than $65 million last year to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups, you'd probably assume we were describing a liberal philanthropy. In fact, those expenditures have all turned up on the financial disclosure report of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union.

Under new federal rules pushed through by Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, large unions must now disclose in much more detail how they spend members' dues money. Big Labor fought hard (if unsuccessfully) against the new accountability standards, and even a cursory glance at the NEA's recent filings--the first under the new rules--helps explain why. They expose the union as a honey pot for left-wing political causes that have nothing to do with teachers, much less students.

We already knew that the NEA's top brass lives large. Reg Weaver, the union's president, makes $439,000 a year. The NEA has a $58 million payroll for just over 600 employees, more than half of whom draw six-figure salaries. Last year the average teacher made only $48,000, so it seems you're better off working as a union rep than in the classroom.

Many of the organization's disbursements--$30,000 to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, $122,000 to the Center for Teaching Quality--at least target groups that ostensibly have a direct educational mission. But many others are a stretch, to say the least. The NEA gave $15,000 to the Human Rights Campaign, which lobbies for "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights." The National Women's Law Center, whose Web site currently features a "pocket guide" to opposing Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito, received $5,000. And something called the Fund to Protect Social Security got $400,000, presumably to defeat personal investment accounts.

There you go, 65 million reasons why my son will go to Catholic schools.

Prayers Needed for the Miners

By now I'm sure you've heard of the trapped miners in West Virginia. Prayers need to be lifted for their safe rescue. The Patron saint of miners is Saint Anne, the Mother of Mary.

Good Saint Anne, you were especially favored by God to be the mother of the most holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Savior. By your power with your most pure daughter and with her divine Son, kindly obtain for us the grace and the favor we now seek. Please secure for us also forgiveness of our past sins, the strength to perform faithfully our daily duties and the help we need to persevere in the love of Jesus and Mary. Amen.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling

The Washington ComPost asked some Chicken Littles to write of what life would be like in 2030. Here is one of the more laughable ones.

Our Washington area of 2030 is so much smaller than that of 2005 that it is sometimes hard to understand how our ancestors made such laughably wrong growth projections 25 years ago. They ignored three vital forces: the rising water, advances in communications technology and the crumbling of the federal government.

The good news has been the way the major world powers, China and India, have competed to expend some tiny fraction of their vast wealth and technological expertise on preserving the quaint historic districts of Washington. They view the District in the sentimental way Americans at the turn of the 21st century regarded Venice. That's why they have surrounded the tourist core with towering dikes.

The Asians originally viewed rescuing some D.C. real estate as a fiscal necessity. As the U.S. government's vast debt made Treasury bonds worthless, they started looking for tangible assets to claim. The melting of the south polar ice cap inundated Maryland's Eastern Shore and much of Prince George's County. So fearing a loss like that of New Orleans back in '05, the Asians enclosed the Mall with 200-foot levees. Engineered by the Dutch, not the Army Corps of Engineers, these new dikes work. At least so far.

The end result is that the urbanized Washington area is barely half the size it was in 2005. East of the Coastal Causeway (formerly known as Interstate 95) lies the open Atlantic.