In an unscientific survey, 290,000 Americans responded to a poll by American Online which asked the question: "Do you agree with Cindy Sheehan's views?" 56 percent said no while 44 percent said yes.

When asked, "Do you agree with Sheehan's tactics?" the results were even worse. 59 percent said no to 44 percent saying yes.

"In the age of utopianism we demand impossible standards of perfection. Then when they cannot be met, we conclude that we are not good at all, but the equivalent of a Pol Pot, Hitler, or Saddam himself — an elected American president who is a worse terrorist than Osama bin Laden."

---Victor David Hanson

A BIG SURPRISE ..................

Abu Mazen declares in Gaza: The Great Jihad has begun.

The Palestinian leader demanded Saturday that Israel hand over fully evacuated land in West Bank too, after Gaza. He set the Palestinian general election date for Jan 25, 2006.

DEBKAfile: Abbas is increasingly borrowing from Hamas threatening rhetoric. It is now promising to carry on its terrorist campaign in the West Bank.

More...

Clinton Lawyers Fretted Over bin Laden's Comfort

I can picture Chris Mathews plugging his ears and singing during this interview:

"The lawyers were more concerned with bin Laden`s safety and his comfort than they were with the officers charged with capturing him," former bin Laden desk chief Michael Scheuer told MSNBC's "Hardball."

The CIA's former bin Laden desk chief revealed Thursday night that Clinton administration lawyers warned counterterrorism agents that Osama bin Laden had to be kept as comfortable as possible if they captured him during planned raids into Afghanistan."

Full Story.

Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world

Russian pair challenge UK expert over global warming

Two climate change sceptics, who believe the dangers of global warming are overstated, have put their money where their mouth is and bet $10,000 that the planet will cool over the next decade.

The Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev have agreed the wager with a British climate expert, James Annan.

The pair, based in Irkutsk, at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, believe that global temperatures are driven more by changes in the sun's activity than by the emission of greenhouse gases. They say the Earth warms and cools in response to changes in the number and size of sunspots. Most mainstream scientists dismiss the idea, but as the sun is expected to enter a less active phase over the next few decades the Russian duo are confident they will see a drop in global temperatures. FULL DETAILS.

Cartel Assassins

Lack of border enforcement has made the drug gangs so bold that they are no longer content to keep a low profile on American soil. Special report.

Midwives to Nuclear Terror

Europe and the U.N. are no match for Iran -- hence why we're likely to go it alone.

France, Germany, and England have spent two years trying to talk the Iranian terrorist regime out of its nuclear weapons program.

[SNIP]

Last week the negotiations reached their inevitable and comprehensive failure when Iran announced the resumption of uranium processing at its Isfahan nuclear facility. The EUnuchs' reaction was consistent with their strategy. They reneged on their promise to demand that the UN's embalmed nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, pass a resolution reporting Iran's violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to the UN Security Council for consideration of sanctions. To understand why they didn't we must listen to Hosein Mosavian, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. In an interview last week he said that Iran had already maneuvered the EUnuchs into a promise to block any effective UN action against the birth of nuclear terrorism.

In an interview with Iran Television, Mosavian revealed that the EU-3 have committed an act of appeasement that, by comparison, renders Neville Chamberlain's 1938 Munich agreement with Hitler a masterful act of statesmanship. Mosavian said, "During these two years of negotiations, we managed to make far greater progress than North Korea. North Korea's most important achievement had to do with security guarantees. We achieved the same thing a year ago in the negotiations with the Europeans. They agreed to give us international guarantees for Iran's security, its national rule, its independence, [and] non-intervention in its internal affairs, [as well as] its national security, and for not invading it." There is no denial of Mosavian's assertion from the EUnuchs. Silence is an horrific proof.

The enormity of the EUnuchs' action cannot be overstated. They have unilaterally given Iran more than the North Koreans have always demanded and never received: a guarantee against military and UN diplomatic action to stop their nuclear weapons program. Their concession to Tehran is a de facto agreement to enable the world's principal terrorist nation to reshape not only the Middle East, but the entire world. If Iran becomes a nuclear power, it will -- as its one-time leader, Rafsanjani, advocated -- use those weapons on Israel. It will threaten to use them against American forces deployed anywhere in the Middle East, and be able to deter American military action against it and its terrorist proxies. It will hold Europe in thrall to its nuclear threat, and arm its terrorist proxies with those weapons to attack any nation that opposes them. The world will be safe for Islamic terrorism -- and for nothing else -- if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.

Europeans blame all the world's ills on American unilateral action, but when they act unilaterally to protect the world's most dangerous regime, it's not for us, says Germany's Schroeder, to dissent. President Bush said that force remained an option against Iran, but only as a last resort. Schroeder's retort was, at least, succinct: "Let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work." In fact, Germany and its two partners have agreed with Iran that the military option is already off the table. In so doing, they have preemptively destroyed the minuscule chance that anything could have been done at the UN to block effectively Iran's violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Iranians have played Europe like a ten-ounce trout hooked to a twenty-pound test line. Whatever direction the Iranian line pulled, the EUnuch fish was dragged along. Not that the UN would do anything but talk even if the Iran nuclear program were brought before it. But now -- with two of the Security Council's veto-holding members in agreement against interference with Iran's "internal affairs [and] national security" -- the UN option is off the table. Worse by far, the EUnuchs' concessions leave us without the option of an international coalition based on the NATO nations that might be able to pressure Iran effectively without resort to military action. What's left? Nothing, except to stand alone against Iran. Which the President must begin doing without delay.

[SNIP]

Because the EUnuchs have already given up all others, the military option the President mentioned is all we have left. It is essential to understand what this option is, and what it isn't. There is no invasion option. Even if our forces weren't stretched too far in Iraq, we haven't either the ability or the necessity of mounting a ground invasion of Iran. But there are three other parts to the military option.

[SNIP]

Opponents of air strikes and other military action say that if we attack Iran, it will unleash every terrorist it employs against us, and more Americans will die. But the choice they pose, between inaction and terrorism is a false one. The choice is between action now, and nuclear terrorism later. It is false to say that the ends never justify the means. FULL ARTICLE

A Bulletin From Ben Stein

There is such a thing as evil in this world and such a thing as good. It is simply not true that all is relative and similar. Beheading Iraqi civilians with a saw on the Internet is absolutely evil. Helping children in Mosul get pure water is absolute good. Sending homicide bombers to blow up elementary schools at a kibbutz is evil. Treating the children of your enemies in the finest hospitals in Israel is good.

In Europe and Asia and South America and in much of North America, this idea is unknown. All is relative and the only point is to get away another day without having the evil ones attack you. Appeasing the terrorists, ignoring them and their instigators, pretending that the good guys are the bad guys -- all of these are now standard practice in the capitals of the world, and in the academies of America and in the Democratic Party at high levels."

Stein accurately notes that if we did not have George Bush as President, we would then have a moral relativist like Kerry or Gore; and this would mean we would now be playing the same appeasing games as "Chamberlain played with Hitler, and which France and Germany, Spain and Italy, Norway and Belgium, tragically, even Canada, play with the enemies of the human spirit."

Stein says, and correctly so, President Bush believes evil does exist. (This is troublesome to many on the left). Bush sees it and acts on it. (This also bothers many on the left.)

In his last paragraph, Stein expresses his concern:

The terrifying part is that he will be gone from power in less than three years. Then what? The evil will remain in men's souls, and who will be there to fight it? We have to start thinking right now of who sees and recognizes the difference between good and evil and start energizing ourselves to make that man or woman President. George Bush's shoes will be terrifyingly difficult to fill."

Yes, indeed. Will we elect another President who will keep his/her eye on the ball and fight terrorism? Or, will we revert back to the policies of the previous 12 years like the first Pres. Bush and the two terms of Clinton and pretend the problem does not exist or an unwillingness to tackle the big problems?

FROGMARCHED INTO RAILROAD CITY

From TTP Intelligence Bulletin

"You saw the above-the-fold front page headlines, saw the prime time television news stories late last week about Adam Kidan being arrested by federal agents for wire fraud, right? What’s that? You never heard of Adam Kidan? Of course you haven’t because he’s a nobody.

That’s why the feds politely called his lawyer and asked he show up at their offices in Florida at a convenient time for him. The fellow you read about on the front page and saw getting busted on national TV was Kidan’s business partner – someone the Washington Post and the New York Times have spent years demonizing, the infamous Jack Abramoff.

With Abramoff, the Feds had to be sadists with a purposefully cruel publicity stunt: arresting and handcuffing him without warning on a street in Los Angeles while he was with his 12 year-old daughter. I hope there is a special place in hell for such folks.

I hope it is also a chilling reminder that our beloved government has the ability and the will to be completely fascist whenever and wherever it wants to. Most all of us are allowed to live our lives in peace. But if a prosecutor decides to come after you, on whatever whim he dreams up, you are simply screwed.

Jack Abramoff was frogmarched into Railroad City, nationally humiliated in front of his daughter, and has been the target of a left-wing media vendetta, for one and one reason only: to use him to try and get Tom DeLay.

The Democrats and the their media buddies could care less about Abramoff. That he was close to DeLay is all that matters. So they harped on and ramped up scandals about him – over a dozen front page stories in the WaPo alone – until they had the fascist egos of prosecutors sufficiently lathered up.

So let’s take a close look at the indictment. It alleges “wire fraud” on the basis of a fax which “appeared to confirm a transfer of money” from Kidan’s bank account which at the time had already been closed. The fax was signed by Kidan and a fellow named Ben Waldman.

Jack Abramoff’s signature was not on the fax, it was not sent from his office (it was sent from Kidan’s), and Abramoff has consistently claimed he had no knowledge of it. Yet it was he who was frogmarched while Kidan was allowed to politely surrender to the FBI in private – and Ben Waldman is not part of the indictment at all.

The game is now to threaten total ruination of Kidan’s and Abramoff’s lives, years in jail and massive fines, unless they “plea-bargain” with enough incriminating testimony to indict the single most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill, Tom DeLay.

The WaPo was quite clear about this. Here’s a quote from their story (Washington Post, August 13, 2005, p. A8):

"What (prosecutors) are looking for is how many names can they give -- and by names I mean members of Congress or other prominent people -- and what kind of message do they want to send," said Mike Missal, a former government lawyer now practicing white-collar-crime defense in Washington. "If just Abramoff goes down, it is not that big a deal for prosecutors. If he brings down members of Congress, it is a much more noteworthy case. That would be the ultimate target here."

There is not a peep of protest about this from any Republican on Capitol Hill (with a couple of exceptions), any conservative activist in Washington, nor from any right-wing blogger in the supposedly influential Alternative Media or “blogosphere.”

All of them remain too intimidated by the elite Mainstream Media and by the horrifying capacity of the feds' fascism to circle the wagons around DeLay, or to support one of their own, even when he’s frogmarched into Railroad City in front of his little girl.

It’s about time they, especially the bloggers and activists, started figuring out the importance of supporting Jack Abramoff, instead of being deer caught in fascist headlights."

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GAZA PULLOUT

When the pullout is complete and the Palestinians have Gaza city all to themselves, the real test begins. "What test is that?" you ask HeavyHanded.

Well, what will the Palestinians do with this city of "theirs"?

Gaza city is about the same size (140 square miles) and population of Philadelphia (1 to 1.3 million). It is located right along the Mediterranean Sea, at a major crossroad of world trade. And with a claim on the support of all the oil billionaires of the Middle East, they have no excuse in not becoming a booming and successful city. The Hong Kong of the Middle East, if you will.

What are the chances of this actually materializing? Well, I cannot put a numerical probability to it. Suffice it to say, the chance of this happening, simply put, is not very good.

The Palestinians have yet to show any ability to put together a functioning society or economy (60% unemployment) and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Palestinian Authority tribes are more than likely going to rip into each other in what will in all probability turn into a very a long and bloody power struggle between themselves.

Their future is not one of much promise.

On the Culture Front.....Do Morals Matter ?

"The Democrats have a number of excuses to explain their steadily loosening grip on the electorate on a national scale: The Republicans have brainwashed voters, the war has skewed the voters' sense of reality, and the voters are just plain dumb. Well, as it turns out, the truth is more colorful than that. A series of focus groups run by Demo pollsters Stan Greenberg and Karl Agne show that cultural issues are driving many voters these days, and the Republicans perform much better in this area than Democrats.

The Demos want to believe that they have an advantage over Republicans with economic issues, dissatisfaction over the war and the direction in which the country is headed. However, these topics take a back seat to abortion, family values, religion and same-sex marriage for many voters. The Demos were labeled by focus group participants as "morally bankrupt" and "anti-religious." Focus groups may not necessarily be representative of the population in general, but we here in our humble editorial shop are nodding in agreement."
---FederalistPatriot

Camp Gitmo

The U.S. has, reportedly, come to an agreement with the government of Afghanistan to transfer approximately 70 Afghani nationals being detained at Guantanamo, back to Afghanistan and Afghani custody. Citing them as no longer useful as intelligence sources for "U.S. counter-terrorism operations", the U.S. wants to keep the dangerous enemy combatants off the battlefield, yet at the same time, don't want to become the world's jailer.

HeavyHanded is kinda' wonderin' if these detainees are going to like their lodging arrangements and the personal care they will receive in their new "home" as well as the "treatment" they received at Camp Gitmo. I strongly suspect, based on what little concern the Middle East has on humanitarian conditions and humane treatment, they will prefer Camp Gitmo.

The Washington Post Walks Crawls Away

"The Washington Post has knuckled under to the anti-war crowd and withdrawn co-sponsorship of the "Freedom Walk," an event organized by the Pentagon to honor the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Anti-war protestors came crawling out of the woodwork when they heard that The Post was working with several other DC media outlets and the Department of Defense to help organize the event. The whiners, who included a number of the paper's reporters, forced The Post to change its mind, claiming that such a move would politicize the event. They would know best, since they are the ones who actually did politicize it. Apparently, these folks are happy only when The Post is objectively savaging Republican administrations and even-handedly reporting all the bad news on Iraq that fits."
---Federalist Patriot

The disingenuous verbage of the day: When talking about abortion, refer to it as "womens reproductive health".

Huh?

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."

--John Adams

I LOVE IT..................

By JAMES TARANTO

A Teachable Moment
"A local insurgent attacked a settlement near Crawford, Texas, yesterday, Reuters reports:

Some 800 white wooden crosses, bearing the names of soldiers killed in Iraq like her son, have lined the road near the area where [Cindy] Sheehan has pitched a tent. Witnesses said they saw a truck dragging a pipe and chains drive over some of the crosses on Monday night.

Larry Northern, 46, of nearby Waco, Texas, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief in connection with the incident, Crawford Police Chief Donnie Tidmore said.

Now, we have no truck with mischievous criminals, but at the same time it's important to understand what motivates people to do things like this. After all, one man's vandal is another's freedom-fighter. The Sheehanoids should be asking: Why do they hate us?

Think about it: If outside settlers were occupying your land, demonizing your leaders and slandering your country, wouldn't you have feelings of rage and hopelessness? Again, we're not condoning what Larry Northern allegedly did. Our point is that only by understanding what drove him to this desperate act can we put an end to the cycle of recrimination."

Grief = Moral Authority? I Think Not

"The media know that grief doesn't confer upon a person instant lucidity and authority, though they act as if it does, provided the grief inspires a political position they favor. Had Sarah Brady, say, responded to her husband's gun injury by joining the staff of the NRA, the media wouldn't have paid the slightest bit of attention to her except maybe for purposes of mockery."

---George Neumayr, executive editor of The American Spectator

Ain't This The Truth

"Live 8 concerts are nice, and the photographs of starving children will break the coldest heart, but unless Europe and the West accompany aid with the kind of supervision nobody has the courage to impose, the aid will wind up in the usual Swiss banks, and 20 years from now another generation of children will die while naive hearts bleed."

---Wesley Pruden

"In the days after 9/11, we heard innumerable reprises of the lazy leftist trope 'poverty breeds terrorism.' But the Arab world is wealthy. It suffers, as David Pryce-Jones has said, from intellectual poverty."

---Mark Steyn

"One of the great questions of our time is whether Europe will, in the coming century, maintain its identity and civilization, or be gradually absorbed into the expanding Muslim world. And America's fate cannot be divorced from that of its forebears."

---Mona Charen

"The United States should...do a better job of deporting Muslim extremists and keeping new ones out. The Washington Post recently reported on the proliferation of mosques in the outer suburbs of Washington, DC. If they are like many other mosques cropping up around the country, Saudi Arabia is likely footing much of the bill to promote Wahabbism, the most virulent and poisonous form of Islam."

---Cal Thomas

A Crapshoot

"As a result of 'evolving standards' and 'nuanced' judicial decisions, we no longer have clear-cut rights. We have a ticket to a crapshoot in a courtroom. That ticket is worth a lot more to those with slick lawyers than to ordinary citizens."

---Thomas Sowell

"There is no outward sign of true chivalry that does not rest on a deep moral foundation."

---Johann Goethe (1749 – 1832) was a German novelist, dramatist, humanist, scientist, and philosopher.

Some Things Don't Change........

"I never liked the atmosphere of Washington. ...[T]he leaders were spending most of their time, thought and energy in trying to get into office, or in trying to stay there after they were in."

---Booker T. Washington

"[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore...never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market."

---Thomas Jefferson

"IDIOCRACY"

This is just stupid beyond words. This appears in Opinion Journal
E Pluribus Unum?
Not in Hawaii.

BY SLADE GORTON AND HANK BROWN

"The Senate is poised to sanction the creation of a racially exclusive government by and for Native Hawaiians who satisfy a blood test. The new race-based sovereign that would be summoned into being by the so-called Akaka Bill would operate outside the U.S. Constitution and the nation's most cherished civil rights statutes. Indeed, the champions of the proposed legislation boast that the new Native Hawaiian entity could secede from the Union like the Confederacy, but without the necessity of shelling Fort Sumter.

The Akaka Bill classifies citizens by race, defying the express provisions of the 14th Amendment. It also rests on a betrayal of express commitments made by its sponsors a decade ago, and asserts as true many false statements about the history of Hawaii. It should be defeated."

The whole thing can be read here.

Poll finds Hispanics split on illegals, immigration

More than 40 percent of Hispanic voters say the rising tide of illegal aliens is hurting the country, and more than one-third want the government to discourage additional legal immigration, according to a Democratic survey.

War games seen as 'message'
by Bill Gertz, The Washington Times

"A joint Chinese and Russian military exercise is meant as a political signal to the United States, in addition to helping Moscow showcase its weapons for sale to China, U.S. defense and intelligence officials said yesterday."

School Board Compared to Terrorists?

"It's in the choice of words, but you decide.. is American Civil Liberties Union chief Joe Cook calling the Tangipahoa Parish School Board members a bunch of terrorists?

Cook was asked about a meeting Monday, during which the school board spoke to all teachers and workers about policy for this year, and had been asked by the ACLU to remind teachers to be extra careful not to allow prayer at school functions. This is what the ACLU chief had to say:

"They believe that they answer to a higher power, in my opinion. Which is the kind of thinking that you had with the people who flew the airplanes into the buildings in this country, and the people who did the kind of things in London."

Tangipahoa school officials tell reporters it's ludicrous to compare the Tangipahoa school board's "fight for religious freedom and freedom of expression in schools" with terrorist motivated attacks."

Opinion Journal responds: "If you don't find this troubling, imagine someone saying the reverse: They don't believe in God, which is the kind of thinking you had with the people who imprisoned dissidents in the gulag and murdered millions through famine."

OUCH !

Oh, just shut up and take your medicine like a man!

"The medicine men of old were quacks who exercised disturbing influence over their patients by claiming to possess great healing powers. The Democrats are inheritors of this tradition of charlantry. They are not the party of medicine but of medicine men. They are not the party of science but of scientific mumbo-jumbo. They use bogus science and its omnipotent claims to seduce the public.

The medicine-man party found its voice in John Edwards last year when he declared that Christopher Reeve would have been walking were a Democrat in the White House. The medicine men of old, fearing exposure as frauds and loss of power, never wanted their enthralled patients to encounter real doctors. Here too the Democrats resemble medicine men: As they sucker the public with pseudo-science, they conceal from them real science that cuts against their ideology and reveals their exercise of power in the name of science as corrupt.

Look at how quickly the Democrats turn skepticism about science on and off, depending on their ideological needs. When speaking of the grand medical promise of experimentation on the stem cells of destroyed human embryos, they show no skepticism about science whatsoever and make fantastical claims about its power. But when scientists report the dangers of RU-486, the Democrats suddenly assume the posture of skepticism and show a resistance to science's niggling claims. Like shamans shooing away missionary doctors, the Democrats tell the American public to close their ears and keep taking their liberal medicine."

---George Neumayr

Hey, Big Spender.......

When [George W.] Bush ran for president in 2000, he described his Democrat opponent, Vice President Al Gore, as a reckless high-roller who would unbalance the federal budget. ... Five years later, what is over is the GOP reputation for fiscal sobriety. Republicans today are simply the other big-government party -- just as capable of squandering public funds, and just as eager to fill barrels with pork, as their fellow-spendthrifts across the aisle."

---Jeff Jacoby

This is sadly so.

This is - Like, so Right on, Man.........

"Some ideas seem so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and still be believed the tenth time. Other ideas seem so implausible that they can succeed nine times in a row and still not be believed the tenth time. Government controls in the economy are among the first kinds of ideas and the operation of a free market is among the second kinds of ideas."

---Thomas Sowell

NANNY-STATE

"I think the so-called conservative is today what was, in the classic sense, the liberal. The classical liberal, during the Revolutionary time, was a man who wanted less power for the king and more power for the people. He wanted people to have more say in the running of their lives and he wanted protection for the God-given rights of the people. He did not believe those rights were dispensations granted by the king to the people, he believed that he was born with them. Well, that today is the conservative."

---Ronald Reagan

It would seem so. The liberals of today are advocates of the "nanny-state".

Protection from Eminent Domain

"Alabama...became the first state to enact new protections against local-government seizure of property allowed under a Supreme Court ruling that has triggered an explosive grass-roots counteroffensive across the country. Republican Gov. Bob Riley signed a bill that was passed unanimously by a special session of the Alabama Legislature, which would prohibit governments from using their eminent-domain authority to take privately owned properties for the purpose of turning them over to retail, industrial, office or residential developers. ... The backlash against the judicial ruling has not received much attention in the national press, although legislative leaders in more than two dozen states have proposed statutes and/or state constitutional amendments to restrict local governments' eminent-domain powers."

--Donald Lambro

What About Culture, Multiculturalism, and Tolerance?

"Tolerating intolerance, goodhearted people are beginning to see, does not necessarily produce tolerance in turn.

... Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures are morally equal, except ours, which is worse.

But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures, but in certain specific times and places -- mostly in Britain and America, but also in various parts of Europe.

In America, as in Britain, multiculturalism has become the fashion in large swathes of our society. So the Founding Fathers are presented only as slaveholders, World War II is limited to the internment of Japanese-Americans and the bombing of Hiroshima. Slavery is identified with America, though it has existed in every society and the antislavery movement arose first among English-speaking evangelical Christians. But most Americans know there is something special about our cultural heritage.

... Mutilculturalist intellectuals do not think our kind of society is worth defending. But millions here and increasing numbers in Britain and other countries know better."

--Michael Barone

(Emphasis mine - HH)

"Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country."

---Noah Webster

Met watchdog joins critics of shooting

SIR IAN Blair, the embattled head of the Metropolitan Police, was last night forced to defend himself over the fatal shooting of an innocent man on a Tube train, as members of London's police authority raised doubts about his force's conduct.

Center staff won't check legal status of laborers

The staff at a newly approved day laborer center in Herndon will not check the immigration status of the workers who use the facility, town officials said yesterday.

Uhhhh... Whatever.

Ehrlich says Duncan wrong on illegal aliens

"Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. says most Marylanders would disagree with Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan's view that local governments should embrace illegal aliens."

Did he (Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan) see an accurate, scientific, unskewed, non-weighted, unbiased poll on this? Or, is this just another case of an elitist "knowing what's best" for the masses - the peons? Hmmmmmmmm..?

Why nature should be left to take its course

REINTRODUCING species requires careful thought and planning, otherwise the result is almost invariably disaster,writes Brian Morton

Sir Ian tried to stall killing probe

SIR Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, tried to delay an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of an innocent man mistaken for a suicide bomber as he felt the force's main terror inquiry would be compromised, police have admitted.

Are you crazy lefties paying any attention to this?

Alternative to embryo research found

SCIENTISTS have found a way of deriving stem cells from umbilical cords which may end the need to clone human embryos in an attempt to cure diseases.

A Message to the U.N.

........... and to our own government:

"Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed
or regulated by any power on earth but our own."

-- Thomas Jefferson

More teachers planning early exit strategy

Forty percent of public-school teachers plan to exit the profession within five years, the highest rate since at least 1990, according to a study being released today.

Mexico funds staging areas for illegals

The Mexican staging area for illegal aliens that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson demanded this week be bulldozed is among hundreds of similar sites along the border sponsored and maintained by the Mexican government.

AT WAR

In a piece written for the Opinion Journal, Ronald Griffin, who is the father of Spc. Kyle Andrew Griffin, a recipient of the Army Commendation Medal, Army Meritorious Service Medal and the Bronze Star, writes about Cindy Sheehan. Mr. Griffin's son, Kyle, was killed in a truck accident on a road between Mosul and Tikrit on May 30, 2003.

The article, "She Does Not Speak for Me; My son died in Iraq -- and it was not in vain," can be read here.

I lost a son in Iraq and Cindy Sheehan does not speak for me.

I grieve with Mrs. Sheehan, for all too well I know the full measure of the agony she is forever going to endure. I honor her son for his service and sacrifice. However, I abhor all that she represents and those who would cast her as the symbol for parents of our fallen soldiers.

The fallen heroes, until now, have enjoyed virtually no individuality. They have been treated as a monolith, a mere number. Now Mrs. Sheehan, with adept public relations tactics, has succeeded in elevating herself above the rest of us. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida declared that Mrs. Sheehan is now the symbol for all parents who have lost children in Iraq. Sorry, senator. Not for me.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times portrays Mrs. Sheehan as a distraught mom standing heroically outside the guarded gates of the most powerful and inhumane man on earth, President Bush. Ms. Dowd is so moved by Mrs. Sheehan's plight that she bestowed upon her and all grieving parents the title of "absolute moral authority." That characterization epitomizes the arrogance and condescension of anyone who would presume to understand and speak for all of us. How can we all possess "absolute moral authority" when we hold so many different perspectives?

I don't want that title. I haven't earned that title.

[SNIP]

.....what emerges from those conversations is an empathy for Mrs. Sheehan's suffering but a fundamental disagreement with her politics.

[SNIP]

[another parent]............. "My grief sometimes seems unbearable, but I cannot add the additional baggage of anger. Mrs. Sheehan has every right to protest . . . but I cannot do that. I would be protesting the very thing that Kimberly believed in and died for."

[SNIP]

[another parent].............

Mrs. Sheehan is doing she has every right to do, but she is dishonoring all soldiers, including Karen's son, Zack.

[SNIP]

My wife, Robin, has a different take on Mrs. Sheehan. She told me, "I don't care what she says or does. She is no more important than any other mother."

[SNIP]

Thirty-five years ago, a president faced a similar dilemma in Vietnam. He gave in and we got "peace with honor." To this day, I am still searching for that honor.

[SNIP]

Those who lost their lives believed in the mission. To honor their memory, and because it's right, we must believe in the mission, too.

We refuse to allow Cindy Sheehan to speak for all of us. Instead, we ask you to learn the individual stories. They are glorious. Honor their memories.

Honor their service. Never dishonor them by giving in. They never did.

Go read the whole thing.

Blunders led to police killing of an innocent man

It appears now that Scotland Yard made a real big mistake in the killing of the young man who got on the subway. Video tapes are purported to show him walking, not running, and sitting down calmy on the bus. Police statements reveal radically different series of events before the shooting.

An innocent man shot dead by police who mistook him for a suicide bomber was not running away from armed officers, was grabbed by them before being killed and was never adequately identified as a suspect, according to leaked police documents revealed last night.

Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician, stopped to pick up a newspaper and used a travelcard to pass through the ticket barrier of a London Tube station, according to witness statements obtained by ITV News - contradicting earlier claims that he had vaulted the barriers and sprinted down the escalators."

Key points
• Leaked documents claim suspect was not running away when shot
• Earlier claims on suspect's dress and vaulting of barrier also challenged
• Revelations will add to embarrassment of Met Police over killing

Key quote
"As he walked out of my line of vision I checked the photographs and transmitted that it would be worth someone else having a look. I should point out that, as I observed this male exiting the block, I was in the process of relieving myself." - SURVEILLANCE OFFICER

Full Story.

'It's Freedom, Ma'am'

The grief of losing a loved one can be a devastating process. Losing a child can be, to many parents, the most grievous situation they will have to endure. My heart goes out to all parents who have lost a son or daughter in the armed forces during this battle against terrorism, including Cindy Sheehan, although I do not agree with her methods. She is being used by some to promote an agenda.

A blogger named Mohammad Fadhil from one of my favorite blogs called IraqtheModel responds to Cindy Sheehan:

I know how you feel Cindy, I lived among the same pains for 35 years but worse than that was the fear from losing our loved ones at any moment. Even while I'm writing these words to you there are feelings of fear, stress, and sadness that interrupt our lives all the time but in spite of all that I'm sticking hard to hope which if I didn't have I would have died years ago.

Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity. Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim someone from their families. Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.

Our fellow country men and women were buried alive, cut to pieces and thrown in acid pools and some were fed to the wild dogs while those who were lucky enough ran away to live like strangers and the Iraqi mother was left to grieve one son buried in an unfound grave and another one living far away who she might not get to see again.

We did nothing to deserve all that suffering, well except for a dream we had; a dream of living like normal people do.

We cried out of joy the day your son and his comrades freed us from the hands of the devil and we went to the streets not believing that the nightmare is over. . . .

The mothers went to break the bars of cells looking for the ones they lost 5, 12 or 20 years ago and other women went to dig the land with their bare hand searching for a few bones they can hold in their arms after they couldn't hold them when they belonged to a living person.

I recall seeing a woman on TV two years ago, she was digging through the dirt with her hands. There was no definite grave in there as the whole place was one large grave but she seemed willing to dig the whole place looking for her two brothers who disappeared from earth 24 years ago when they were dragged from their colleges to a chamber of hell.

Her tears mixed with the dirt of the grave and there were journalists asking her about what her brothers did wrong and she was screaming "I don't know, I don't know. They were only college students. They didn't murder anyone, they didn't steal, and they didn't hurt anyone in their lives. All I want to know is the place of their grave."

Why was this woman chosen to lose her dear ones? Why you? Why did a million women have to go through the same pain?

We did not choose war for the sake of war itself and we didn't sacrifice a million lives for fun! We could've accepted our jailor and kept living in our chains for the rest of our lives but it's freedom ma'am. Freedom is not an American thing and it's not an Iraqi thing, it's what unites us as human beings."

Well said Mohammed. A big thanks to all our armed forces personnel for their service and a special thanks to their families who have to make sacrifices as well.

Worth reading from the Opinion Journal:

Europe is starting to realize it has a terrorism problem.

Democrats try to outflank the GOP on immigration.

The Next Justice: The White House wants to confirm Judge Roberts, but conservative leaders have broader goals in mind.

Power-hungry world embraces nuclear energy

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Nuclear power is on the rise here and abroad after decades of dormancy, driven by the need for a cleaner environment and steady, secure sources of power in the Internet age. In the United States, plans are on the drawing board to build as many as six new power plants -- the first since 1973 -- while hundreds more are under consideration in China, India, Russia and other countries.

"Nuclear power is experiencing a budding renaissance," said Steven Taub, director of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "High fossil-fuel prices, low interest rates, and concerns about the environment and energy security have all combined to increase momentum in the construction of new nuclear plants around the globe." DETAILS (Registration required)

Durbin offered proof of column

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A law professor who used Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin as a source for a column last month about federal Judge John G. Roberts Jr. -- a column that Mr. Durbin later disputed -- has a taped phone message that he says proves the accuracy of his reporting.

"The taped message is consistent with my notes as well as my email and telephone communications with editors," George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in a letter earlier this month to Mr. Durbin. "There was never a question as to the accuracy of the [column]. The only issue ever raised by your staff was whether you would be mentioned in the article." FULL ARTICLE (Registration required)

"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."

-- John Adams

Comment & Analysis

Iraq's slide to Iranian theocracy

IF all goes according to plan, we will know this week what kind of Iraq coalition troops and their Iraqi allies have fought and died to create: Iraq's Sunni, Kurdish and Shi'ite leaders are about to release their inaugural constitution to the world. With inadequate numbers of American troops worn down by two years of a losing battle against a strengthening insurgency (and with British troops also increasingly war weary), Washington and London are hoping that the document will not be so imperfect as to prevent them from hailing it a success, declaring victory and packing up to go home. That is certainly how the Bush and Blair governments intend to spin it. But the terrible truth, plain for all to see, is that Iraq is far from being a success, much less a victory.
FULL COMMENTARY

"We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and
proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times."

-- George Washington

Italy to expel 700 terrorist suspects

ITALIAN security forces have arrested more than 100 suspected Islamic militants and plan to expel hundreds more in Europe's most sweeping counter-terrorism operation, officials revealed yesterday.

"So we are we left with Judeo-Christian values and secular left values. The latter, as noted, hold sway among the world's elites. But they are personally so unfulfilling and morally so confused that they cannot work. Western Europe will hopefully awaken to this fact as its socialist economies fail and as it realizes that you cannot fight faith (radical Islam) with no faith (secularism). ... The Judeo-Christian value system is not only the best value system for humanity; it is the only viable one. If we do not promote it, moral chaos will ensue. And we can't promote it if we don't know what it is."
--Dennis Prager

"On this showing, the nature of the breakdowns of civilizations can be summed up in three points: a failure of creative power in the minority, an answering withdrawal of mimesis on the part of the majority, and a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole."
--Arnold Joseph Toynbee

"Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country."
--Noah Webster

Iraqis: Constitution Will Beat Deadline

Serious divisions remain among the Shiite Muslim, Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi leaders rushing to finish a constitution Saturday reported tentative agreements on distribution of oil wealth and other issues, but there was no deal on the main obstacle: federalism.

President Jalal Talabani predicted the constitution would be submitted to the National Assembly on Sunday - one day before the deadline for parliamentary approval. DETAILS.

Iran's Hard-Line Cabinet Moving Toward Confrontation

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's new president nominated a Cabinet on Sunday that has hard-liners in all key ministries and is likely to lead to more confrontation in the country's dispute with the Washington and Europe over its nuclear program.

Not one of the 21 ministers that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated is known to be pro-democratic reform in Iran. The nominees, who have to be approved by parliament, are widely seen as followers of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a noted conservative who has the final say on all state matters. DETAILS.

McCain: U.S. Must Keep Military Option Open With Iran

WASHINGTON - The president must keep open a military option in dealing with Iran and its nuclear program, Sen. John McCain said Sunday, calling recent Bush comments appropriate. DETAILS.

NARAL Communications Chief Resigns

Just 24 hours after last Thursday night's announcement that an anti-John G. Roberts ad was being pulled from the airwaves, David E. Seldin, NARAL's communications director, sent an e-mail to friends saying that he was leaving his job, according to a report in the Washington Post. DETAILS.

Bush views force in Iran as an option
President Bush said he could consider using force as a last resort against Iran if it refuses to comply with international demands to halt its nuclear program, pointedly noting he has already used force to protect U.S. security.

Iraqi Chemical Stash Uncovered

BAGHDAD, Aug. 13 -- U.S. troops raiding a warehouse in the northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said Saturday.

Monday's early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, "some of them quite dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, said in Baghdad.

Combined, the chemicals would yield an agent capable of "lingering hazards" for those exposed to it, Boylan said. The likely targets would have been "coalition and Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi civilians," partly because the chemicals would be difficult to keep from spreading over a wide area, he said.

(Photo By Department Of Defense)

Police chase truck full of illegal immigrants from China.
"They appear to be from China. They hardly speak any English at all. We did find the majority of them have about $50.00 on them…a little food, a little water, so apparently they were trying to make it up north somewhere." Officials said in the last six months or so they have seen quite a few illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico and they say that is a big concern."

Mexican government criticizes New Mexico border emergency declaration.
Mexico said the declarations "don't jibe with the spirit of cooperation and understanding" and ordered its consul in Albuquerque to meet with New Mexico officials "to promote appropriate actions by the officials of both countries."

Border emergency declared in New Mexico

The declaration said the region "has been devastated by the ravages and terror of human smuggling, drug smuggling, kidnapping, murder, destruction of property and the death of livestock. ...

"[It] is in an extreme state of disrepair and is inadequately funded or safeguarded to protect the lives and property of New Mexican citizens."

New Mexico shares 180 miles of border with the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

"The situation is out of hand," Richardson said Friday night on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," noting that one 54-mile stretch is particularly bad.