Ceuta and Melilla
A story almost ignored by the American media, but in the headlines in Spain,
Africans die in Spanish enclave

At least five people have been killed during a mass attempt by migrants to get into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa.
"Three died on the Moroccan side of the border and two on the Spanish side," said Spanish deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega.

The BBC video link shows dozens, if not hundreds of men pouring into Melilla, the other Spanish enclave in North Africa.

The NY Times has more details

Five migrants were killed and nearly 100 injured Thursday during an attempt by hundreds of sub-Saharan Africans to cross from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta by scaling the razor wire fences along the border, the Spanish government said.

The mass attempt by several hundred Africans to enter the enclave on Thursday follows a sharp increase over the last two months in the number of migrants to attempt crossing the two razor wire fences that separate Morocco from Ceuta and Spain's other North African enclave, Melilla. Most appear to cross successfully, but many have been injured and nine have been killed, including the toll on Thursday, according to the Spanish government.

Ceuta and Melilla have become magnets for sub-Saharan Africans trying to make their way to Europe, many of them fleeing poverty or ethnic tensions in their own countries. Because the enclaves are Spanish territory, once the migrants arrive they can take advantage of the fact that borders have been virtually erased in the European Union.

Now Spanish newspaper El Pais (link in Spanish, via Barcepundit), states Al menos tres de los cinco inmigrantes muertos en Ceuta fueron tiroteados desde Marruecos. Rabat asegura que los disparos procedían de suelo español.- Zapatero y Jettu anuncian una investigación conjunta (my translation) At least three of the five immigrants that died in Ceuta were shot at from Morrocco. Rabat insists that the shots were fired from the Spanish side -- Zapatero and Jettu announce a joint investigation.

Tres de los cinco inmigrantes muertos esta madrugada cuando participaban en un asalto masivo en la valla de Ceuta fueron tiroteados con armas que no se corresponden a a las usadas por las fuerzas de seguridad españolas, según fuentes de la investigación. Así lo revelan las autopsias de los dos fallecidos en territorio español y la información de que uno de los tres muertos en suelo marroquí fue disparado con postas, munición que no usan los agentes españoles, según ha podido saber ELPAIS.es
Three of the five immigrants that died this morning when taking part in a massive storming of the fence at Ceuta were shot at from weapons that do not match those used by Spanish security forces, according to the investigation. El Pais has found that the autopsies of the two men that died in Spanish territory, and information that one of the three that died in Morroccan soil, reveals that they were shot at with postas, ammunition not used by Spanish officers.

Spain had recently granted amnesty to nearly 700,000 illegal immigrants, for which

Spain was royally rapped on the knuckles for its unilateral action at a recent meeting of the interior ministers of the G5 - Europe's five wealthiest nations.

The European Commission now calls for the European Union (EU) to strengthen legal immigration channels.

Also posted at Blogger News Network

Update Also via Barcepundit, What's With Those Spanish Enclaves in North Africa? And what's so special about Parsley Island?

(technorati tags Spain, Europe, immigration)

The ready for his close-up prosecutor
Dan at Riehl World View finds Prosecutor Earle's Movie Deal Is Troubling. Here's why:

Byron York, whose article DeLay’s Prosecutor Offered “Dollars for Dismissals”: How Ronnie Earle works I linked to yesterday, has another article on prosecutor Ronnie Earle's movie deal: Coming Soon: The Ronnie Earle Movie: The DeLay prosecutor has let a film crew follow him through the whole case

For the last two years, as he pursued the investigation that led to Wednesday's indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Travis County, Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle has given a film crew "extraordinary access" to make a motion picture about his work on the case.

The resulting film is called The Big Buy, made by Texas filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck. "Raymond Chandler meets Willie Nelson on the corner of Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in The Big Buy, a Texas noir political detective story that chronicles what some are calling a 'bloodless coup with corporate cash,'" reads a description of the picture on Birnbaum's website, markbirnbaum.com. The film, according to the description, "follows maverick Austin DA Ronnie Earle's investigation into what really happened when corporate money joined forces with relentless political ambitions to help swing the pivotal 2002 Texas elections, cementing Republican control from Austin to Washington DC."

"We approached him [Earle], and he offered us extraordinary access to him and, to an extent, to his staff," Birnbaum told National Review Online Thursday. "We've been shooting for about two years."

Birnbaum and Schermbeck showed a work-in-progress version of The Big Buy last month at the Dallas Video Festival.

My question is, is it legal to publicize full details of an investigation prior to any charges being filed?

Yesterday I criticized DeLay's ethics, but I agree with Dan that

If Delay violated the campaign finance laws, throw the bum out - though at this point there is ample reason to at least suspect he did not. However, to produce a movie so obviously biased according to the title and movie description has no place within our legal or political system.

As for the indictement, Attorney John Hindraker of Powerline (his emphasis) points out that one of his readers

apparently is ignorant of the elementary difference between alleging what the defendant did that was illegal, which is normally done, and pleading the evidence you will offer to prove that he did it, which is normally not done. My criticism of Earle's indictment was not that he didn't plead his evidence, but that he didn't specify what, exactly, DeLay supposedly did. (The indictment does, in contrast, recite specific acts that were allegedly perfomed by the other defendants.)

You can read the indictement here.

Uncle Fester got married

Uncle Fester in his bachelor days.


Uncle Fester's wedding.

(hat tip Ace)

Update

The ring bearer and the best man.

Update, Friday Sept. 30
The Addams family waits at the receiving line.

Thank you
Freedom Center Ends Quest For Home at WTC Site.

If it's that important to have the Freedom Center, then build it elsewhere.

More from Jeff Jarvis

The Democratic National Committee’s comparison of George W. Bush with Bull Connor, yet another dumb move
Just read this at The Anchoress

at the time of the police dogs and firehose incidents, CONNOR WAS A MEMBER OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE. He was the single Democratic National Committeeman from Alabama.

In the meantime, Chuck "Where's the TV camera" Schumer's illegaly procured a credit report.

On the republican side, Delay's been indicted by a prosecutor that Offered “Dollars for Dismissals”. The WSJ points out,

Our disagreement with the Majority Leader is that, as the GOP cemented itself in power, he let incumbency become more important than the principles that elected him in the first place.

Mr. DeLay browbeat his colleagues--and kept the vote open for three hours--to pass a giant new Medicare entitlement that will bedevil taxpayers and Republicans for decades. Only two weeks ago, he declared that the GOP had cut everything from the federal Leviathan that it possibly could; a week later he was back-tracking under pressure from his own supporters. His worst ethics problems--at least until yesterday--had developed because he stood by as former aides and cronies made themselves rich as influence peddlers by invoking his name.

And that was DeLay's dumb move.

Update Roger L. Simon's spot-on.

I've had it both with the ACLU, and with frivolous lawsuits
Back in the olden days I strongly supported the ACLU.

The olden days are gone.

Their persecution of the Boy Scouts of America was definitely the very last drop. They also believe in defending polygamy, child pornography, and pedophiles.

The ACLU receives taxpayers' money:

For instance, when the ACLU takes a city to court claiming a Christmas display violates the Establishment Clause, if the municipality loses, the city's taxpayers are often forced to pay ACLU attorneys. This law now creates an incentive for the ACLU to file ever more challenges of this kind. Do you want to know why the ACLU lawyers file these ridiculous lawsuits by the dozens? Because they get paid to do it – by you.

Another way to take the financial incentive out of these suits legislatively is by passing a law that cuts back the standing of the ability to bring Establishment Clause claims. Currently, anyone who is offended by what they see, a Ten Commandments display, a manger scene, a Christmas tree or a menorah, can bring suit.

Nowhere else in litigation is it so easy to make a claim. In most other areas of the law, you need to have a personal, direct injury.

This works as an incentive to bring absurd lawsuits, whether directly funded by the ACLU or inspired by the ACLU's exemplary bias: In the town of Las Cruces, which literally means THE CROSSES someone's filed a lawsuit demanding the removal of the three crosses on the city's official emblem, because

The lawsuit alleges the emblem violates the First Amendment by placing religious symbols on public property and spending public money to promote religion.

The lawsuit also accuses the city of violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by requiring prospective employees to sign job applications that include a religious symbol.

Of course, one can't leave out the "it's all about me, me, ME!!" aspect of the issue:

Weinbaum and Boyd accuse the city of invading the privacy of their homes with government-sponsored proselytizing.

"This symbol serves no governmental purpose other than to be divisive, to alienate, and disenfranchise Weinbaum, his minor daughter and Boyd," the lawsuit says.

I have no idea and no desire to know just how old are Weinbaum and Boyd (obviously Weinbaum's daughter is young), but according to Wilkipedia Las Cruces was incorporated as a city in 1907. Either Weinbaum and Boyd weren't born yet or they're approaching Biblical seniority. Going by Weinbaum's and Boyd's claim, the city's founding fathers must have named the town and adopted its official emblem for the express purpose of "alienating, and disenfranchising Weinbaum, his minor daughter and Boyd" a full ninety-eight years down the road.

Snarky comments aside, the problem is not that it's all about Weinbaum and Boyd. The problem is that the ACLU is eroding civil society.

Readers of this blog might ask what my position is regarding Intelligent Design vs. the theory of evolution: While I oppose the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classes, I also support a scientific analysis of the theory of evolution that would include whatever findings support or contradict said theory. To me, rigorous scientific study can be introduced at a very early age in schools. Embracing either Intelligent Design or the theory of evolution unquestioningly is wrong. Science, by definition, evolves based on the impartial analysis of facts that can be quantified and reproduced. Maintaining science in the science classroom is a top priority in any society.

If you're a blogger, visit the Stop the ACLU. I'm joining their blogburst today, and quote them

This was a production of Stop The ACLUblogburst. Over 100 blogs are already on board. If you want to join us, just register through our portal. We will add you to our mailing list, and send you the info on how to get aboard and fight the ACLU.

Enough with the ACLU.

The smuggled bodies of Body Worlds Tour 2 coming to Philadelphia
The Frankin Institute Science Museum will host the controversial (and if you ask me, reprehensible) Gunther Von Hagens's Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies, from October 7, 2005 to April 23, 2006.

The primary goal of BODY WORLDS and BODY WORLDS 2 is health education. On the one hand, 200 individual specimens are used to compare healthy and diseased organs, i.e., a healthy lung with that of a smoker, to emphasize the importance of a healthy life-style. On the other hand, 25 life-like posed whole-body plastinates illustrate where in our bodies these organs are positioned and what we are: naturally fragile in a mechanized world.

Thus, the exhibitions are targeted mainly at a lay audience to open up the opportunity to better understand the human body and its functions.

Sounds interesting enough. Then, why do I say this is reprehensible? Ah, because it possibly includes the bodies of people executed by Communist China. Lost Budgie Blog has been looking into this very distinct possibility: (emphasis mine)

A Toronto Star newspaper article gloss glosses over past allegations against the show's creator, Gunther Von Hagens, stating that he was "vindicated" by German prosecutors.

Lost Budgie's enquiries show anything but "vindication". On January 22, 2004, during a Body Worlds show in London, England, Von Hagens was forced to return seven corpses to China when a Chinese employee let it slip that two "fresh" executed persons of the "highest quality" were used in displays.

Von Hagens pleaded ignorance about the corpses exhibiting "head wounds" - a euphamism [sic] for "bullet holes in the skull".
. . .
Von Hagens now lives in the Chinese city of Dalian where his company employs more than 200 people to dissect and preserve corpses. Business is booming, with the travelling shows providing only a part of the revenues derived from the sale of body parts. The company also sells whole cadavers and body parts to medical and educational institutions.

For Von Hagens to locate his business in China and to partner with the Communist Chinese government makes perfect sense - given that the Chinese Communists already sell the organs of executed Chinese for medical transplants, and use the skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to manufacture cosmetics.
. . .
UPDATE: September 28, 2005

An accomplice of Body Worlds owner Gunther Von Hagens has just been convicted in Russia of illegally smuggling corpses to Von Hagens in Germany in 2001. Dr. Vladimir Novosyolov, head of criminal pathology in Novosibirsk, falsely told relatives of the dead that their loved ones had been cremated, and then charged them for "the ashes". He shipped fifty-six stolen bodies to von Hagens's Institute of Plastination in Heidelberg, Germany.

Some relatives are still trying to recover their loved ones' bodies from Von Hagens.

(More on the Russian connection here)

Lost Budgie has been banned in Communist China.

Back in 2003 a top Kyrgyz medical official was fired amid rumours that the bodies in the Body Worlds show were obtained illegally in Kyrgyzstan.

Last year, Gunther Von Hagen was fined 144,000 euros (£96,000) (approx. $170,000) for using the title Professor:

His title was awarded by a Chinese university - but the University of Heidelberg complained that he gave the impression he got it in Germany.

Michael Browning of the Palm Beach Post has more on the Chinese corpse trade.

(hat tip to Sigmund, Carl and Alfred)
(technorati China, Body Worlds, plastination, Philadelphia)

Irán a Irán, version 2
(for background, see version 1 here, and prior pondering)
In today's news, Iran hails Venezuela vote against IAEA resolution

"The vote shows the depth of the two countries' brotherly and friendly ties," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying during a telephone conversation with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez.

The 35-member Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Saturday adopted a resolution presented by the European Union on Iran's nuclear case by a vote of 22 to 1 with 12 abstentions. Venezuela cast the only blackball.

Hugo's working on keeping his wholesaler happy. After all, doesn't Iran Suggest Axis of Good? (via Hispalibertas)

“We have many friends but would like to express our special gratitude for those countries who were not led astray by the propaganda against Iran: Russia, China, Venezuela, Algeria, the South African Republic, Mexico, Tunisia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Yemen, Brazil, Sri-Lanka and Vietnam,”

In addition to the mullahs, Venezuela's also cultivating a friendship with Batasuna, the banned political party of the Basque terrorist group ETA, which will feast Hugo and fidel at the upcoming summit in Salamanca, Spain. And let's not forget those Sandinistas in Venezuela oil deal.

In other Venezuelan news, Venezuela is poorer as Chávez doles out nation's oil wealth, something TBHB readers have read about.

Hugo expects to be around until 2021, but some think it'll be more like 2030, along with his best friends

Update Isn't it precious?

REMEMBER THAT last year US troops were disinvited for the October 12 parade in Madrid? Remember that one year before that, when Zapatero hadn't yet gained power with the 'push' of the jihadists on March 11, he conspicuously refused to stand up when the Stars and Stripes was passing in front of him ("Why should I? It's not my flag"; see this post for background).

Well, guess which countries are good for Zapatero: he's inviting for this year's October 12 military parade... Cuba and Venezuela!

The Spanish national holiday, October 12, commemorating Columbus's discovery of America, will see all the Latin American countries, including Cuba and Venezuela, participate in the traditional military parade. The holiday is two days before the Ibero-American summit, to be held in Salamanca. The armies of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez will march through the streets of Madrid. In 2003, at the very same parade, then opposition leader Zapatero refused to stand up as the United States flag passed by as a protest against the Iraq war.

(technorati Iran, Cubazuela, Cuba, ETA, Venezuela)

Victor Davis Hanson on academic diversity
Ivory Cower: University presidents have lost their dignity

More importantly, we have lost sight of what university presidents are supposed to be. Their first allegiance ought to be to honesty and truth, not campus orthodoxy masquerading as intellectual bravery amid a supposedly reactionary society. In a world of intellectual integrity, Robert Birgeneau would ask, "Why are Asians excelling, and what can Berkeley do to encourage emulation of their success by other ethnic groups?" Denice Denton might wonder whether open hiring, monitored by affirmative action officers, applies to university staff or only those who are not associates of the president. President Hoffman would decry Ward Churchill's crass behavior and order a complete review of affirmative action and the politicized nature of hiring, retention, and tenure practices at Colorado. And Larry Summers? In the old world of the campus, he would defend free inquiry and expression, and remind faculty that all questions are up for discussion at Harvard. And if self-appointed censors wished to fire him for that, then he would dare them to go ahead and try.

The signs of erosion on our campuses are undeniable, whether we examine declining test scores, spiraling costs, or college graduates' ignorance of basic facts and ideas. In response, our academic leadership is not talking about a more competitive curriculum, higher standards of academic accomplishment, or the critical need freely to debate important issues. Instead, it remains obsessed with a racial, ideological, and sexual spoils system called "diversity." Even as the airline industry was deregulated in the 1970s, and Wall Street now has come under long-overdue scrutiny, it is time for Americans, if we are to ensure our privileged future, to re-examine our era's politicized university.

Will there ever come a time when the United States and the international community concludes that forcing Israel into making unilateral concessions is not a prescription for peace, but a guarantee of more war?
asks Cal Thomas

Here's a news item that has gone ignored, Hamas releases video of hostage

Palestinian militant group Hamas has released a video of a bound and blindfolded Israeli businessman it says it kidnapped and later killed.
The body of 51-year-old Sasson Nuriel, who vanished last week, was found near Ramallah in the West Bank on Monday.

Hamas said it had planned to trade him for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, but decided to kill him after Israel began raids in the West Bank

Instead, we hear that the Israeli escalation and assassinations represented a grave jeopardy for the peace process and the region

Cha-ching!
Louisiana Conservative hears the cash register bells ringing.

Corruption as usual, says Anne Applebaum.

On a related subject, Ben Stein writes on a A Big Lie Put to Rest

(techonorati tag Katrina)

Lip balm to replace ipecac

ip·e·cac n.

A preparation that is made from the dried roots and rhizomes of the shrub Cephaelis ipecacuanha that is used to induce vomiting.

One problem with ipecac is that it is difficult to determine the correct dose. Jay Nordlinger finds the lip balm to replace it,

Che lip balm, made in Australia

A swipe of Che lip balm would be enough to make me hurl. Just the thought of it makes me queasy.

A whole new world of possibilities opens up: A Babalu commenter suggests Preparation Che.

(technorati Che)

Terrorist kills 10, serves 8 years, is released early, and goes right back to work
Convicted terrorist is 1 of 9 arrested in France

Bourada was among 36 Islamic militants sentenced in February 1998 for providing support for bomb attacks that terrorized France in 1995. Bourada received the maximum 10-year sentence but won early release in 2003, the police official said, adding that others arrested Monday also served jail time but not on terrorism-related charges.

A judicial official said the nine are suspected of links with the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, a militant Algerian movement that declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and is known by its French initials GSPC.

The Socialist Party wanst Sarkozy to explain himself (link in French) because he mentioned on September 21 -- five days before the arrests -- that "there would be preventive arrests". Sarko has been known to blab, as he did last July, when he stated that some of the London bomb suspects were arrested last year, and that

the explosives were thought to have come from the Balkans or eastern Europe

after which he left that meeting early, much to the annoyance of the British hosts.

Hitchens looks lovely when he gets angry at phony peaceniks
(and unlike me, can use his prepositions correctly, too) Anti-War, My Foot: The phony peaceniks who protested in Washington

To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as "antiwar" when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side. Was there a single placard saying, "No to Jihad"? Of course not. Or a single placard saying, "Yes to Kurdish self-determination" or "We support Afghan women's struggle"? Don't make me laugh. And this in a week when Afghans went back to the polls, and when Iraqis were preparing to do so, under a hail of fire from those who blow up mosques and U.N. buildings, behead aid workers and journalists, proclaim fatwahs against the wrong kind of Muslim, and utter hysterical diatribes against Jews and Hindus.
. . .
There are only two serious attempts at swamp-draining currently under way. In Afghanistan and Iraq, agonizingly difficult efforts are in train to build roads, repair hospitals, hand out ballot papers, frame constitutions, encourage newspapers and satellite dishes, and generally evolve some healthy water in which civil-society fish may swim. But in each case, from within the swamp and across the borders, the most poisonous snakes and roaches are being recruited and paid to wreck the process and plunge people back into the ooze. How nice to have a "peace" movement that is either openly on the side of the vermin, or neutral as between them and the cleanup crew, and how delightful to have a press that refers to this partisanship, or this neutrality, as "progressive."

That the words "liberal" and "progressive" have become debased enough to be used on this crowd is disgraceful. Treasonous, reactionary, anti-Semitic, dishonest and demagogic would be more appropriate.

Ralph Peters says that for them, "The answer is never personal responsibility, but joining a support group".

Contrast those protestors with these.

Improvised Explosive Devices, Slate, and Belmont Club
The "Oil Spot" Theory of Counterinsurgency

What is sometimes called the "oil spot" theory of counterinsurgency has been applied to Fallujah: Clear and hold one spot, then expand to another. In Malaya, there were 20 soldiers and policemen per 1,000 civilians. In Fallujah, portions of two American and three Iraqi battalions occupy the city, providing a security ratio in line with the Malayan experience.

Fallujah was the bastion and the symbol of the Sunni-based insurgency and the sanctuary of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and like-minded terrorists. In November, they were crushed in the fiercest house-to-house fighting since the Vietnam War battle for Hue City in 1968. In November, Marine squads engaged in more fights inside houses than have all the SWAT police teams in the United States in the past decade. Since November, the two U.S. battalions in Fallujah have shifted from high-intensity fighting, for which the American force was trained and equipped, to the tedious, messy conditions that confront an army occupying a restive, hostile population. IEDs account for about 70 percent of American casualties. The insurgents have learned to avoid direct firefights. This is frustrating for soldiers and Marines trained to close in on and destroy the enemy.

Most American combat units are deployed to truculent Sunni cities, where they encounter IEDs, glares, or blank stares. In the Shiite south and the Kurdish north, where the population was oppressed by Saddam, they are not needed militarily. So, American soldiers receive neither the gratitude of those liberated by the overthrow of Saddam nor the satisfaction of mission accomplishment that comes from engaging and defeating an enemy force in conventional warfare.

American battalions like L'Etoile's have demonstrated the experience, adaptability, and determination to drive the insurgency down to the level currently seen in Fallujah, while maintaining morale. This is a testament to the leadership from corporal to colonel and to the singular spirit of the American infantryman.

Belmont Club comments on Oil Spots and Maneuver

Analysts who talk about the 'unstoppable IED' should consider the problems posed to the enemy by the American precision strike, which is in its way the rival "weapon from hell". If a modified cell phone represents a detonator to a triggerman lying in wait for an American target, a regular cell phone in the hands of an Iraqi working for American intelligence is a means to rain down certain destruction on any safehouse, hideout or enemy installation. The defense against IEDs, while difficult, is a known quantity: route surveillance, snipers scanning the roads, the "96 hour" patrols of Lt. Col. Joseph L'Etoile, electronic countermeasures, vehicle armor, etc. But difficult as these are, the defense against precision strikes is far harder because it requires preventing any unvetted person from viewing your movements. Abu Nasir, the late Emir of the Qaim region, may have had twenty or more bodyguards or companions with him; but they simply perished with him because his security measures failed to prevent some person, perhaps a man in the employ of America, perhaps someone with a grudge against him, perhaps even a rival in his own organization from making a cell phone call which brought down a guided weapon on his head. (It's a little more complex than that because verification is required before the strike, and positioning coordinates established, but the principle holds). The insurgents too must maintain their oilspot, by patrols, checkpoints and identity controls -- not to prevent a man with a truckful of explosive from entering their haunts -- but to keep the man with the cellphone or miniaturized American radio in his pocket from reporting on them. Defending against an IED means interdicting a physical object of several tens of pounds; defending against a precision strike means embargoing information. It's hard to defend against a precision strike.

But the worst of it is the wastage to cadres. Those who write that body counts are a meaningless metric to apply against the insurgency ignore the fact that formations which sustain heavy casualties lose their organizational memory while those who suffer lightly retain them. Lt. Col. Joseph L'Etoile is on his third and half of his men are on their second tours of Iraq . For Abu Nasir and many of his foreign fighters, the memory of what to avoid next time has been lost on this, their last tour of Iraq.

On a lighter vein, Iowahawk has a guest commentary. . .

Meanwhile, at Good News Central
Good News From The Front has Volume 17 of Good News From Afghanistan. The Society section has details on the parliamentary elections; Economy section has a new radio station and new roads, Humanitarian Aid continues and includes establishing medical emergency centers; Coalition troops include Japan's extending a naval mission in the Indian Ocean, where it is providing rear-guard support for U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan; Security efforts, from increasing border controls to disarming terrorists continue.

Go read it, and while there don't miss Good News From Iraq, installment #36.

Carnival of the Revolutions
hosted this week by Am I a Pundit Now?, with news from all over the world.

Mass media hysteria, new movies, and other items
Maria, TBHB Deputy Researcher, sent several items of interest:
Michael Barone looks at The big picture and finds things are moving in the right direction.

The cable news outdid themselves with story after story of "hundreds of dead" at the Superdome, only to find the Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated

After five days managing near-riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA - Beron doesn't remember his name - came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

"I've got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome," Beron recalls the doctor saying.

The real total was six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside.

At the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, just four bodies were recovered, despites reports of corpses piled inside the building. Only one of the dead appeared to have been slain, said health and law enforcement officials.

That the nation's front-line emergency management believed the body count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent. As the fog of warlike conditions in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath has cleared, the vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know.

On lighter news, there's a new movie coming out called "Inside the Bubble," about which Lloyd Grove says,

I hear that John Kerry loyalists are kicking themselves for cooperating last year with filmmaker Steve Rosenbaum on "Inside the Bubble," a potentially devastating behind-the-scenes look at the Massachusetts senator's failed presidential campaign.
I'm also told that Hillary Clinton partisans are licking their chops to see the film, which "could end up being the silver bullet that kills Kerry's presidential chances for 2008," says a Lowdown spy.

And here I thought Kerry's presidential chances for 2008 were killed last year.

Also from Maria, Shofar Idol.

Update, Maria's quote of the day for today, Peter King, (R-NY) to Chris Matthews: 'Just because the president doesn't watch you on television, it doesn't mean he's not doing his job'

The #1 news story: Al Zarqawi's Number Two Man Killed
Via Ace of Spades

The No. 2 al Qaeda leader in Iraq was killed Sunday night, U.S. officials say. Abu Azzam, reportedly the deputy to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was shot during a house rain(*) in Baghdad, according to Pentagon officials.

As the aide to Zarqawi, Azzam was reportedly in control of financing foreign fighters coming into Iraq, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

(*I suppose they mean a house raid)
This is importante news, and has long-range consequences. What are the media going to be yammering about instead?

This. The Anchoress asks, Can a posing session for Playboy be far behind?

Now, if they'd only lay off the McCartney sisters
IRA 'has destroyed all its arms'.

Yeah, right.

Relatives of Mr McCartney said the IRA intimidation campaign against them was intensifying.

Background here.

Pallywood
Via Yourish.com, Pallywood.

Watch it. Tell a friend.

Iran in the news
Why Tehran hopes for war

Suppose that the tussle over Iran's nuclear plans goes to the Security Council — which fails to take a decision, thanks to Russian and Chinese vetoes, and America (after much huffing and puffing) launches airstrikes against Iran's nuclear installations.

Iran's retaliation could begin with orders to the forces it controls inside Iraq to attack U.S. and British troops. The Lebanese branch of Hezbollah would launch massive rocket attacks against Israel, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad (whose leaders spent the past month in Tehran, meeting Khamenei and his aides) would begin suicide operations against Israel from Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Iran-allied Hazara Shiites might begin strikes against Kabul, the Afghan capital, from the west, while Pushtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the remnants of the Taliban attack across all of Afghanistan.

U.S./U.K. forces might answer with a conventional attack out of Iraq. But the Iranians could retreat to the Zagross mountain range, the first line of Iran's natural defences. The IRGC is now building several new bases to bolster this line. The bases would assure supplies for a quarter of a million troops, and provide shelter for half a million refugees from the border.
The Americans could attempt to "decapitate" Iran with cruise missiles against "regime targets" in Tehran. But the regime would already be in Mashad, protected by the Eighth Imam.
Meanwhile, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz — thereby choking off the world supply of oil, which would surely top $100 a barrel, plunging the global economy into a crisis..
The U.N. Security Council would surely meet in emergency, perhaps forcing the U.S. to veto a vote for a ceasefire. Global TV networks would air images of "indiscriminate carnage" and "wanton destruction" in Iranian cities, while marches in Washington and dozens of other cities would feature Hollywood celebrities and others calling for impeachment.

At this point, the Iranian strategy/fantasy would expect the U.S. media and Congress to revolt against President Bush and his "pre-emptive" strategy — obliging Bush to accept a U.N.-brokered cease-fire and withdraw his forces, and the Americans to leave Iraq and Afghanistan.

The victory would bring the Islamic Republic new domestic legitimacy, allowing it proceed to crush its internal opponents as "enemies of the nation and of Islam." It could also speed up its nuclear-weapons and long-range missile programs without being harassed by Washington.

At the next stage of what Ahmadinejad sees as "a clash of civilizations," Iran would become "the core power" of a new "Islamic pole" in a multipolar system with China, the European Union and Latin America (under the leadership of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez) emerging as other "poles."

The Islamic Republic would then be free to proceed to address what Khamenei has described as its "greatest historic task": the destruction of Israel.

I would add Mugabe in Africa to that "multipolar system".

A worst case scenario? Michael Ledeen has been pondering Iran<

The mullahs are altogether capable of deciding that events are now running strongly in their favor, and that they should strike directly at the United States. They look at us, and they see a deeply divided nation, a president who talked a lot about bringing democratic revolution to Iran and then did nothing to support it, a military that is clearly fighting in Iraq alone, and counting the days until we can say "it’s up to the Iraqis now," and — again based on what they see in our popular press — a country that has no stomach for a prolonged campaign against the remaining terror masters in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Osama bin Laden came to similar conclusions, and ordered the events of 9/11. Why should the Iranians — who have been major supporters of the terror network ever since the 1979 revolution — not do the same?

and asks,

Our main enemy, the single greatest engine in support of the terror war against us, whether Sunni or Shiite, jihadi, or secular, Arab or British or Italian or Spaniard, is Iran. There is no escape from this fact. The only questions are how long it will take us to face it, how effective we will be when we finally decide to act, and how terrible the price will be for our long delay.

As Ledeen said, "The sham nuclear negotiations were in large part a way of avoiding what should be the central issue: Iran’s central role in the terror war against the West".

India Votes with US on Iran

Update Via HIspalibertas, Canada: Iran Violates Human Rights

(technorati tags Iran Terrorism)

Possible Princeton Township taxpayers' revolt?
Last Wednesday the Town Topics carried an ad that read,

Group Formed to Champion Taxpayers
A new group simply named the Princeton Taxpayers Association has been formed as an advocate for resident homeowners of Princeton Township who fear they will be financially driven from this community. Long term residents Jim McKinnon of Edgerstoune Road and Sheldon Leitner of Stony Brook Lane have joined to organize the group.
With property taxes up more than 50% in the past five years and projected to double again in another six or seven, we believe it is time for taxpayers to organize so that they have imput into the process and hold elected officials accountable for making the most prudent use of available resources.
The rapid uncontrolled rise in Property Taxes is an issue which should concern eveybody in town. More and more long term residents are being forced to sell. One long time Ewing Street resident noted sadly that many neighbors had already sold and moved and they were afraid they would have to follow them; then asked, "but where?" Also, for a growing number of residents the effect is multiplied as property taxes are no longer a deductible expense for Federal Income Tax purposes as they become ensnared by the Alternative Minimum Tax.
We are already seeing the effects. Has anybody noticed all the "For Sale" signs around town? Some say that this is people cashing in on the real estate boom but, the only ways [sic] to benefit is either to leave the area or trade down. Does this benefit the community? It certainly changes the demographics.
In California and Massachusetts, voters took the property tax punch bowl away from the politicians. In Massachusetts limiting both the total amount communities can levy by property taxes, including for schools, as a percentage of assessed value as well as year to year increases to 2 1/2% without going to the voters for approval.
The group desires to work with Township Committee and the School Board with the goal of limiting future spending and tax increases to the rate of inflation. The group is non-partisan and welcomes all who wish to participate.
The group may be contacted by email: princetontaxpayearsassn@yahoo.com or by phone at 609-921-3732.

A friend just emailed saying there's going to be a meeting Thursday, September 29 at the Hun School, 7:30 p.m.

Adopt a Sniper auction on Ebay
George Galloway Adopts a Sniper

All proceeds from this auction will buy much needed supplies for American snipers in Iraq. You receive the autographed book. A letter of thanks from Adopt-a-Sniper for the donation in your name.

Wait, that’s not all.

Mr. Galloway receives an itemized thank you letter acknowledging his generous fundraising effort and support of what hopefully amounts to a few well-aimed shells to the head of a suicide bomber who would have taken 20 Iraqi children with him.

You also get a framed copy of that letter.

I wonder if Hitchens thought this one up.

I give it an "F" for fake
I first saw this at Cake Eater Chronicle the other day. Here's a related article.

If you look at Leda and the Swan, Leonardo's only other known nude, and compare it to the painting above, the babe in the painting above looks like a Leonardoesque face photoshopped on top of a Playboy chick's post-implant-and-liposuction-body.

Will it end up at the Getty? Maybe not since Frel's gone.

I wonder what Thomas Hoving has to say.

Carnival #19
Hosted by Tata, who reminds us,

today is Gold Star Mother's Day, when we honor women who have lost children to military service. Light a candle for all those who can never again look into their babies' eyes. It's truly the least we can do for people who have sacrificed more than we can imagine.

Hugo's idea of democracy: kiss your property rights good-bye
Via Hispalibertas,Chávez: Al que no quiera colaborar le quitaremos todo (Chávez: We'll take everything away from anyone that doesn't want to cooperate)

Caracas.- El presidente Hugo Chávez afirmó que "el que no quiera colaborar le aplicaremos la ley y le quitaremos todo", en referencia a las expropiaciones de tierras y empresas que se han ejecutado en las últimas semanas.
Recomendó que "si existe alguna duda en la cadena titulativa no debe comprar esas tierras, si hay algún vacío legal en la cadena usted pierde el derecho de propiedad sobre ella y sobre todo aquí en Venezuela".
El Presidente de la República reiteró que son bienvenidos los propietarios que deseen trabajar la riqueza de la tierra con el Gobierno.
Asimismo, aseguró que en las instrucciones que ha dado para expropiar tierras ha insistido en el respeto a la dignidad de todas las personas involucradas. "El Gobierno no desea hacerle daño a nadie", ratificó.
El Jefe de Estado dijo a los propietarios de tierras que "si tiene 20 mil hectáreas, tiene una vivienda, animales; no quiero quitarle nada. Aún cuando no tenga derecho a la propiedad estamos dispuestos a legalizar una parte".
Agregó que "la otra parte es para los pobres que no tienen a donde caerse muertos, que se pongan a producir esas tierras. Pero el que no quiera colaborar le aplicaremos la ley y le quitaremos todo", dijo.
(my translation:)
Presidente Hugo Chávez asserted that "We'll apply the law to whoever doesn't want to cooperate, and we'll take everything away from him", referring to the land and business appropriations taking place during the past weeks.

He stated that "if there's any doubt in the title chain you should not purchase those lands, if there's a legal vaccum in the chain you lose the right to that property, especially here in Venezuela".

The President of the Republic restated that he welcomes landowners who wish to work the riches of the land with the Government.

At the same time, he insisted that his instructions for land expropriations respect the dignity of everyone involved. "the Government doesn't wish to harm anyone".

The Head of State told landowners that "if one has 20,000 hectares, has a house, livestock, I don't want to take anything away from you. Even when you don't have a right to that property, we're willing to legalize part of it"

He added that "the other part is for the poor who have nothing, so they can make that land produce. But whoever doesn't want to colaborate, we'll use the law and take everything away from them".

Hugo sounds just like his pal, Robert Mugabe, doesn't he?

(technorati tags Venezuela property rights)

Hijab Barbie

hi·jab ( P ) Pronunciation Key (h-jäb) n.
1. The headscarf worn by Muslim women, sometimes including a veil that covers the face except for the eyes.
2. The institution of protection of women in some Islamic societies through veiling or seclusion.

Via ¡No Pasarán!,


Don't miss the brainwashing component,

"My friends and I loved Barbie more than anything," she said. "But maybe it's good that girls have Fulla now. If the girls put scarves on their dolls when they're young, it might make it easier when their time comes. Sometimes it is difficult for girls to put on the hijab. They feel it is the end of childhood." "Fulla shows girls that the hijab is a normal part of a woman's life," Ms. Ghayeh continued. She gestured behind her, at a pair of excited little girls examining a rack of Fulla-branded Frisbees and pool toys. "Now the girls only want Fulla."

And that's exactly why I'll keep my Puerto Rican Barbie, and my Ralph Lauren Barbie, thanks.

My nieces are too old for it, but the Kate Spade Barbie has the right image, too.

Update: Took me a while, but I found this Melanie Phillips post, and realted article, Islamic headgear is not essential

This headgear was invented in the early 1970s by Mussa Sadr, an Iranian mullah who had won the leadership of the Lebanese Shiite community.

In an interview in 1975 in Beirut, Sadr told this writer that the hijab he had invented was inspired by the headgear of Lebanese Catholic nuns, itself inspired by that of Christian women in classical Western paintings.
. . .
Sadr's idea was that, by wearing the headgear, Shiite women would be clearly marked out, and thus spared sexual harassment, and rape, by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian gunmen who at the time controlled southern Lebanon.

Now, imagine the outrage if a Catholic Archbishop (now, or thirty-five years ago) had declared that all women should dress like nuns, or else be subjected to sexual harassment and rape.

(technorati tag Barbie)

. . . by the company they keep

As Kathy calls him, Blacques Jacques Chirac.

Update Left-wing Monsters: Arafat

Despair is never an option: Elie Wiesel at Princeton University
Last nightElie Wiesel gave a lecture at Princeton University as part of the Public Lecture Series.

I arrived by 7PM and there were people already waiting in the auditorium. Two friends joined me a couple of minutes later, but by 7:20 the place was nearly full.

Mr. Wiesel arrived promptly at 8PM with Princeton University president Shirley Tilghman. She gave a rather prolonged (5 minutes) introduction, and stated that Mr. Wiesel had spoken against the introduction of intelligent design to be taught along the theory of evolution in Kansas schools, which brought applause from the audience. Finally Mr. Wiesel came to the podium.

He has a wonderful, enthralling, soft-spoken manner and I’ll try my best to do justice to his moving and compelling words by writing down as much as I could. The theme of his lecture was hope.

Mr. Wiesel started by saying that the enemy remains vigilant and sometimes imaginative, and context permits evil by reducing human beings to numbers, and asked, “What can one do when one lives at this time with memory? To forget, impossible. To remember too much, dangerous”. He doesn’t refer to the Holocaust by name, instead, as the events: “The events defy language, defy everything we know because the enemy succeeded in pushing beyond the limit of language”. At that moment he was rudely interrupted by someone in the balcony yelling “louder”, to which he politely smiled and explained he couldn’t speak louder, and that “it’s the story of my life, I speak but I’m not being heard”.

In the 1970s he taught courses at City College, and sometimes students were so stunned they couldn’t leave. Once a student went to his office after class and began sobbing. The student’s father had lost his wife and children at the camps, his mother her husband and children at the camps, and they met at a DP camp. The student explained that he was born from that marriage, and after sobbing for over 10 minutes said, “when they look at me they don’t see me”.

“What do you do with those memories?”, asked EW.

“A choice is always there. After that you can live a hedonistic life and no one would have had a right to criticize”. Instead, he chose not to, “because I suffered I don’t want anyone to suffer”, and chose to work through human rights, education, and philanthropy. There were 400 teens in Buchenwald when it was liberated by the Americans in 1945, and all of them did, too, trying to teach by example how to build on ruins.

He told us he was asked to speak about hope regarding contemporary events. “Where is hope when you see the world hasn’t learned much?” In 1945 he became very optimistic, “I said, there will never be people fighting one another”, and would not have believed that children starving, being killed, later on; he also thought anti-Semitism died in Auschwitz. “Every minute somewhere a child dies of violence, hunger, or disease. How can we accept without protest? Where is hope in all that?”

On December 31, 1999, the world-wide celebrations said good-bye to the 20th century, it was gone, “good riddance, with its two totalitarian ideologies and two world wars, gone. But after that, Bosnia and Darfur; human nature hasn’t changed. If our talks had been received as testimony, I’m convinced it would have changed humanity”.

“We have to fight again and again one fanaticism. Do I have to tell you the dangers of fanaticism? Fanaticism is the enemy of culture, education, and science.” EW used as an example Stalin’s chief scientist, Lysenko, and since Stalin said so, all communist scientists across the world repeated what Lysenko said. “How can culture live when fanaticism dominates the stage and the mind?”

“Fanaticism created the new weapon – terror”.
In his book on Palestine he explained how initially the enemy were the British. “At the end of the 19th century, the terrorism was very nice, nihilistic”. In Petersburg, before it became Leningrad, terrorists decided to kill the Tsar, but on the scheduled day he had his children along and “then the terrorists wouldn’t kill children – today’s terrorists kill children. Some refer to terrorists as Kamikaze [note: for instance, the French media], but the Kamikaze were military who chose military targets, not now. On suicide terrorism, what can you do? In order to kill more people, they die. There is no reason to have hope but I can’t do that”.

“Where is hope?”
The first part of the 20th century was awful, the second part, better; there was the end of communism and apartheid, and neocolonialism and imperialism would disappear. Despair is never an option”.

“A sense of responsibility is needed: humans treating humans as fellow creatures, responsibility with and for one another. Will it all help? I don’t know”

“Learning is important. Whatever the answer will be to the essential questions, education is a major component”. EW recalled how horrified he was to find out that the members of the commandos in the Ukraine that killed (machine gunned) 1.5 million men, women, and children had college degrees, since he always thought education is a shield and an educated person can not do certain things: “I believe in education, culture, and humanity”, and asked, “Did it mean it that it was human to be inhuman?”

“I would like you to thing of what you can do. Whatever happens to one community happens to all communities. Once you know that, possibilities open to you. The solitude of the victim is part of his or her tragedy, abandoned by God and betrayed by his (fellow) creatures of creation”.

When he came to America he was very proud, then he learned of the past, and how a ship of more than 1,000 refugees were turned back by FDR. That was his first disillusionment. “I’ve asked every president, why didn’t the allies bomb the railways (to the concentration camps)? No answer. I believe that I can only attain my humanity through my Jewishness but that should also be true for Catholics and others in their faiths”.

“On 9/11 generosity was shown by the simple inhabitants of the city; tsunamis, New Orleans, the American people have shown generosity to the world”.

EW sees his moral philosophy as a quest for ethical values: “because of this I say to you that despite all the reasons I had to give up, I don’t; to leave God, I don’t”.

He concluded by stating, “There is more to celebrate than to denigrate”.

Questions from the audience:
1. Could you give us a situation that gives you hope?
“When I see any youngster I have no right to despair.
Peace is not a good given by God to human beings, it’s a gift we give one another, same as hope. Only another human being can move you to despair, but only another human being can bring you out of despair”.

2. A student asked for a #1 concrete example n helping that a student can do.
“Organize a petition to the President of the USA to do what he can do morally to help the victims in Darfur. When a person needs, we must give that person an open hand”.

3. Should medical schools teach ethics?
“Ethics should be a part of any education because we must live in an ethical society”.

4. What would be the best way out of Iraq?
“We must bring the international community to commit, Europeans to bring democracy, and must stop that bloodshed.” EW’s glad Saddam’s gone. Now the Iraqis should be sovereign people, but we shouldn’t do things alone. Loneliness is good for poets but not for statement.”

5. What does Israel mean to you?
EW’s totally committed to Israel’s security and survival. He knew when he lived in his little hometown the geography of Jerusalem better than his own hometown’s. “There is hope now”. Three days before the Six Days’ War. Sharon wrote an article titled, I don’t want to survive Israel; after Rabin and Oslo EW felt it was possible, now Sharon recognized the necessity for two states. “It takes a person of the right to implement the policy of the left”. He also explained that while he’s committed to Israel’s survival it doesn’t mean he hates the other side.

6.How did EW keep his faith at the time he was in the [concentration] camps?
EW explained that he came from a very religious background, and chose to stay as such after the camps; a crisis of faith came later. Now it’s different because he has a son that has a son, and he doesn’t want to be the last to maintain traditions. How he managed it while in the camps? While he was inside his father [who died in a concentration camp] got up earlier than the others and would go stand outside to say the blessings. They didn’t have to, it wasn’t safe, but they did it, and if he’d say it then, how can he not say it now? And he mentioned Samuel Becket’s phrase “in desperation”.

7. What does EW think of intelligent design in education and the relationship between intelligent design and fanaticsm?
EW explained that Kansas wanted to teach only ID. EW studies the Bible every day. Fanaticsm can be dangerous, since even Descartes didn’t publish a book for fear fo the Inquisition. EW’s for the opening of the mind.

8. Asked about the importance of religion and faith, and combating anti-Semitism in universities, and intolerance.
EW says universities should not be intolerant, and he prefers respect to tolerance, always by example. Maimonides said that the teacher should respect the student as well. EW also sees respect as a code of conduct; what you must do, do it.

9. What does EW think of the terminology used in the faith based community and how it’s used in politics
EW doesn’t like to mix politics and religion.

The 10th question was asked by a very verbose man who brought up the Holocaust, the Germans, Gulf Wars One and Two, the Crusades, genocide, and massacres, finally asking, what’s to prevent this from happening if the conditions were right?
EW started by stating he doesn’t believe in collective guilt. Only the guilty are guilty.
America’s past is not very clean, with the history of the American Indians and the black community. In 1956 he traveled coast to coast by car with some friends and saw racism at work in the South, shocked to see it was the law of the land. He had never felt shame as a Jew but he felt shame as a white. "But here in America we changed; the law is no longer racist. . . It is possible to do what we do personally.
Memory will save us from repetition.
As long as we remember there can be no other catastrophe as the one we spoke about".

11. Does he see any parallels between the Nazis and Bush?
“No, absolutely not.
It is totally dishonest to say so, not real, and not true.
Absolutely not”

EW ended by telling us about a just man who decided to do things for others, and went to the most sinful of cities. He put up posters that said, “remember you’re responsible for one another”, He started shouting. Years later he was still at it, and a child asked him if it was useless. The man explained that “at first I thought that if I shouted long enough I’d change them. Now I don’t want them to change me”.

The Daily Princetonian has an article, and here's another report on the lecture. Update the guy from the Packet must have gone to a different lecture.

(technorati tags Elie Wiesel)
Also posted at Blogger News Network

Oprah at the Onion
Oprah Stuns Audience With Free Man Giveaway

CHICAGO—The season premiere of The Oprah Winfrey Show unleashed a surprise for viewers Monday, when host Winfrey presented her studio audience with an unexpected gift: eligible men.
. . .
Harpo Productions, Winfrey's production company, assured the winners that their prizes are guaranteed to "be into [them]" through 2010, and agreed to pay all local and state taxes relating to the men, as well. However, federal income tax and expenses such as meals, movie tickets, motel stays, teddy bears, plush slippers, and commitment rings will not be covered.

And the funniest thing is, if she could, she would.

Two interesting articles from Maria
Maria, dear friend and TBHB Deputy Researcher exrtraordinaire, sent two articles,
Seven lessons for post-Katrina compassion

First, listen to and learn from the real poverty experts, those who have fought their way out of it.

Read about the other six.

John Stossel rips into Dammable pork

For other good reads don't miss The Cotillion, also at Fistful of Fortnights.

Susette Kelo speaks out
Eminent domain up close

As I sat there in the U.S. Supreme Court back in February and listened to the justices hear my case, I was so disappointed their very first question and first concern was for the power of government rather than the rights of citizens.

In many ways, my neighbors and I are the victims of legislators, lawyers and judges who believe it is somehow a sign of intelligence to make language that clearly means one thing mean something exactly the opposite: "Public use" now means private use; judges don't judge but instead let legislators decide whether they're violating the Constitution. There is nothing intelligent about misusing language in this way to take away people's homes and their rights.

What is happening to me should not happen to anyone else. Congress and state legislatures need to send a message to local governments that this kind of abuse of power not only won't be funded, it won't be tolerated.

Special interests -- developers and governments that benefit from this use of power --are working to convince the public there is no problem, but I am living proof there is.

This battle against eminent domain abuse may have started as a way for me to save my little salmon-pink cottage, but it has rightfully grown in something much larger -- the fight to restore the American Dream and the sacredness and security of each of our homes.

Property rights are the keystone of democracy. What New London is doing harms all of us, while Eminent Domain Rolls On. As blogcritics.com puts it, (emphasis mine)

The right to own property and to hold that property without interference from others or from government is one of the fundamental rights of the free society for which we fought in the Revolutionary War. In fact, it is seen by many as the most fundamental of our basic rights of life, liberty and property. It transcends even the Constitution. The author of our modern concept of government and law, John Locke said "Government has no other end than the preservation of property." The government of New London is failing in this most basic and essential responsibility of government. Government should protect and preserve the rights of citizens, not be a willing partner in sacrificing their most basic rights on the altar of commercial greed. No government official who could be party to this kind of literally criminal abuse of power should be allowed to hold office and should face the full wrath of not only voters, but of criminal prosecution. The mayor, the city manager and the seven members of the City Council are all criminals under the most basic principles on which our republic was founded and ought to be treated as such.

Incidentally, even though an eviction order from last week has been rescinded, Ms Kelo still has to pay rent on her house:

Seven homeowners in New London, Conn., who narrowly lost a court battle to save their homes from condemnation say the city is still demanding as much as $300,000 in "use and occupancy" fees dating to the November 2000 condemnation order.
They say the demands are being made even though an eviction order from last week has been rescinded. It had been issued by the semi-public New London Development Corp. and had told the homeowners to move out in the next 30 to 90 days and pay $600 a month in rent while they continue to occupy the premises.
An attorney for NLDC, which wants to demolish the homes to make room for private development, had told the homeowners' attorney last year that the city, for which NLDC has acted as an agent, expects to collect the occupancy fees.
"We know your clients did not expect to live in city-owned property for free, or rent out the property and pocket the profits ... for three-and-a-half years and counting ... if they ultimately lose the case," the corporation wrote then.

More at Volokh's

(technorati tag Kelo)

Hugo gets himself a gold mine . . . or two
From the official Venezuelan government news agency, Chavez revokes every mining concession and shows concern for ecology

The President has confirmed to supporters who came to greet him on his return that he has decided to create a National Mining Company that will function via cooperatives and a national effort technologically and humanly to rationalize the exploitation of riches in Guayana.

(Guayana is a region south of the Orinoco river). Crystallex shares slashed as Chavez announces planned gold mine belongs to Venezuela.

Hugo's on an acquisition binge,Venezuela Chavez Backs Government Takeover Of Food Co Assets, having recently seized the old Heinz factory

Foreign investors are fleeing. So are many Venezuelans.

Meanwhile, Hugo's giving away fuel to the Nicaraguan sandinistas (link in Spanish).

Update Babalu has A tale of doctors in two countries

(technorati Cubazuela" Hugo Chavez)

TBHB is now an Amazon Associate
as you can see from the books listed on the sidebar. Considering how much I've spent at Amazon, I figured it was time I joined the associates program (and if you're in a kind mood, please add to the tip jar, too.) I'll be posting a Amazon Associates link to each of my book reviews. The items on "Fausta's bookshelf" on the sidebar are books I've read recently and recommend -- I'm planning on listing nine books and a CD on a rotating basis.

This week I'll be reading The Legacy of Jihad. Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims edited by Andrew G. Bostom. From Bruce Thorton's review at Victor Davis Hanson's website:

Bostom continues his own introductory essay with a survey of Islamic conquest and the accompanying massacres, raids, kidnapping, ethnic cleansing, devastation, and enslavement that marked the advance of Islam from Spain to Southeast Asia. Given how obsessive we are over the European enslavement of Africans, it’s eye-opening to read about the extent of Islamic slave-trading: an estimated 17 million Africans, over one-and-a-half times the estimated 10 million purchased by Europeans, were acquired and then forced-march across the Sahara to their masters’ territories, thousands dying along the way, their bones littering the desert sands. This trade continued for centuries after Europe and America had ended the slave trade: slavery wasn’t formally abolished in Saudi Arabia until 1962, and continues in Sudan and Mauritania today. And let’s not forget the millions of Europeans kidnapped and sold into slavery by Muslim pirates in the Mediterranean, or the African men cruelly castrated to provide eunuchs for harems and government service, or the Balkan Christian boys, perhaps as many as one million, taken from their parents, forcibly converted, and made to serve the Ottoman regime.

Finally, Bostom concludes his overview with a series of excerpts from European and Muslim historians on the nature of jihad, and with the proclamations of modern jihadists and terrorists from around the globe whose interpretations of jihad are consistent with those of the historians. Particularly significant, given the distortions surrounding the Arab world’s assaults on Israel, are the comments arising out of a conference of Muslim scholars and jurists held in 1968 after the humiliating Arab defeat in the Six Day War: “Repeated declarations,” Bostom summarizes, “expounded the classical Islamic doctrine of jihad war, focusing its bellicose energy on the destruction of Israel.” Lest you distrust Bostom’s interpretation, he quotes liberally from the proceedings. Here is Abdullah Ghoshah, Chief Judge in Jordan: “’Jihad is legislated in order to be one of the means of propagating Islam. Consequently Non-Muslims ought to embrace Islam either willingly . . . or unwillingly through fight and Jihad. . . . War is the basis of the relationship between Muslims and their opponents.’” Likewise the Mufti of Lebanon specifically characterized the struggle to destroy Israel as a jihad: “’We do not think this decree [Allah’s regarding Palestine] absolves any Muslim or Arab from Jihad (Holy War) which has now become a duty incumbent upon the Arabs and Muslims to liberate the land, preserve honor, retaliate for [lost] dignity, [and] restore the Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] . . . from the hands of Zionism.’” Notice that not a word is said about the frustrated nationalist aspirations of the Palestinian people.

Please note this is not my idea of bedside reading. It is, however, a most enlightening work on the history of Islam expansion.

Love that Lt. Gen. Russel Honore
for coming up with a great comeback: You are stuck on stupid. Political Teen has the video.

(hat tip: Commoner Sense)

Talk about being stuck on stupid, Just read Wolf Blitzer's interview with Ted Turner

I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There's really no reason for them to cheat or do anything to violate this very forward agreement.

Beyond fisking, that statement.

Clinton's legacy
Rubber company hopes Clinton condom will sell

A rubber company in China has begun marketing condoms under the brand names Clinton and Lewinsky, apparently seeking to exploit the White House affair that led to the impeachment of the former American president.

The Bad Hair Blog could not contact the junior senator for New York for comment.

(hat tip to Maria, TBHB's deputy resercher)

(technorati tag Bill Clinton)

Guest Blogger: CAUSA's Kenny Sinkovitz writes about The Faces of “Free Education”
(Note from Fausta: Last April I had the pleasure of interviewing Kenny Sinkovitz, co-founder of the local chapter of the Cuban American Undergraduate Student Association (CAUSA). Today Kenny honors us with a post of how CAUSA contributed to the release of Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina, who was imprisoned for calling for autonomy of all Universities in Cuba. My heartfelt thanks to Kenny)
The Faces of “Free Education”
By Kenny SinkovitzHave you ever heard that Cuba has an excellent, accommodating educational system because it is free, and wonder what exactly “free education” entails, how it is practiced, and what fundamental principles it embodies? A distinction must first be made. “Free education” oftentimes takes on different meanings that can both imply a sense of “freedom.” Tuition-free schooling, for example, concedes the freedom to receive education without the obligation to pay – the state provides coverage. Meanwhile, the right to educate oneself without bound and to be educated without restriction from resources such as literature, media, and internet equally fall under the notion of “free education.” These two distinctive concepts have raised many questions regarding Cuba’s claim to “free education” in its institutions of higher learning – especially when understood in the context of the most recent detainment of “prisoner of conscience,” Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina.

Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina and his partner and brother, Nestor, a former “prisoner of conscience” are active leaders of a growing Cuban youth movement within the island vying for autonomous universities. By autonomous, they mean free and independent from the talons of the controlling and dogmatic communist regime. The program, sponsored by Lobaina and his brother, is called “Universidades sin fronteras,” (Universities without boundaries) and has appealed to Castro’s regime to permit university students the fundamental rights to assemble and associate on campus without limitation, to exchange freely ideas and opinions on any subject matter, and to have access to free and uncensored press. After Cuba’s universities became state-run starting in 1961, students, like citizens, lost these rights, and are now rallying behind Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina’s program to return the universities to the students. Cuban students do not have the freedom to create student organizations without the strict consent of the socialist government, for example, and cannot read censored material under the threat of civil disobedience and anti-revolutionary conduct. The state mandates what students can and cannot know, free of charge.

Lobaina’s brother reported to watchdog human-rights groups that his brother was resisting his unjust incarceration on September 7 by undergoing a prolonged hunger strike. He had then been moved to an undisclosed location on the island with his life hanging in the balance. Cuban university students who sympathize with Lobaina were not free to demonstrate against the state’s actions or rally support on behalf of Lobaina’s life because their “free education” did not permit them to do so. Cuban watch-dog groups and youth associations for educational reform in Cuba like “Raices de Esperanza” (Roots of Hope) and El Comité Internacional de Jóvenes por la Democracia en Cuba (International Youth Committee for Democracy in Cuba) took up the humanitarian cause because they sympathized with the plight of Lobaina and the university students of Cuba.

Thanks, in part, to the efforts of Princeton CAUSA (Cuban-American Undergraduate Association) and other national and international youth groups advocating “Education without boundaries,” in Cuba, Castro’s government released Lobaina from his arbitrary incarceration. An international “Fast Day” was in the making and ready to be launched Tuesday. Letters were sent by the hundreds to Cuban embassies all over the world admonishing the regime to free its most prominent proponent of educational reform. Shirts bearing the image of the peaceful and progressive Cuban youth leader were designed, and press conferences were held by youth activists in many Latin American and European countries. Seemingly overnight, a tragedy was averted and a success story instead prevailed.

Lobaina’s release from prison, only a week after his arrest gives credence to the power, passion, and conviction of the growing international youth network outside of the island, aspiring for recognition of human rights and educational reform in Cuba. The quick mobilization and response to Lobaina’s detention by groups such as “Raices de Esperanza” and “El Comité Internacional de Jóvenes por la Democracia en Cuba” raised enough eyebrows to sufficiently concern the communist regime, and proves that the voices and actions of Cuban sympathizers outside of the island are being heard and making a difference.

The free education afforded to those students working outside of the island, for the benefit of Cuban youth within, provides them with the opportunity to associate and mobilize with one another and to demonstrate their opinions and beliefs in a peaceful and civil manner. Sympathizers can research vast sources of press and media to decide for themselves if a cause is just and worth voicing their well-informed opinions. The “free education” of those advocates of “Universidades sin fronteras” outside of the island has been heard, and they now want the Cuban youth within the island to voice their own views and opinions on their respective campuses.

Co-founder and President of CAUSA, Chris Gueits, says that this issue touches every student at Princeton University who has ever taken advantages of the educational freedoms bestowed to American students, such as reading without restriction, joining independent student groups, and demonstrating in public (e.g. Frist Filibuster). “Universidades sin Fronteras” transcends politics and dives right to the most core values of “free” education. Education can be “free of charge,” but to be truly free, education must allow its pupils to be the authors of their own future. Who can argue with that?

(Again, my thanks to Kenny for his excellent report.
Fausta)
(technorati tags Cuba Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina)

More on the ficticious Operacion Balboa
V Crisis added an article by Ernesto Villegas Poljak of Quinto Día magazine, where Villegas states that Operación Balboa was a simulation exercise presented to officers that participated in a military course given by Spain's Superior School of the Armed Forces.

I'll translate the article later today and post it tomorrow if time allows.

Simon Wiesenthal has died
Bloomberg News:

Wiesenthal also played a central role in tracking down Karl Silberbauer, the Nazi officer who arrested Anne Frank, the German Jewish teenager who wrote a diary while hiding in an Amsterdam apartment. Silberbauer, who was a police officer in Austria at the time of his arrest, corroborated Frank's story, helping to discredit claims that ``The Diary of Anne Frank'' was a forgery.

His legacy lives on.

Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, and N. Z. Bear have an excellent idea
Here's how I propose to save $63,815,000,000 $63,819,300,000*

I'd like to have the USA cut its subsidy to the UN by $500 million per year. There is precedent for this: in 1993, President Clinton reduced the USA's contribution to the UN budget from 25% to 20% of the UN budget. Additionally, I propose reducing the USA's contribution to other UN projects, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, by $100 million, say, by roughly 25%.
Then cancel the proposed $1.2 billion loan for the UN refurbishing and new building project in Manhattan.

Yes, there'd be an international outcry. Isn't there one already?

For additional savings, I refer you to this proposal

Cato Institute scholars Steve Slivinski and Chris Edwards have the offsets that the majority leader is looking for. They have compiled $62 billion in spending cuts that would offset Katrina relief in the short-term and create savings to reduce the federal deficit over the long-term.

Here's how they'd save $62,000,000,000:

Proposed Budget Cuts to Offset Katrina Spending
Annual savings in billions
Program	Savings	Rationale
Farm subsidies: cut in half	$10.6	Wasteful and have negative environmental and trade effects
NASA: cut in half	$7.9	NASA is obsolete with the arrival of private manned space flight
Energy research and subsidies	$6.2	Private sector responsibility
Subsidies to airports	$5.8	Airports should be privatized as in dozens of major foreign cities
Community development grants	$5.4	Projects such as parking lots and sidewalks are a local responsibility
USAID (foreign aid)	$4.7	Duplicates Bush Millennium Challenge Corporation foreign aid agency
Army Corps of Engineers	$4.6	Civilian activities should be privatized or devolved to the states
Homeland security grants	$4.2	Homeland security grants to states have been mired in scandal
Foreign economic aid	$2.7	Foreign economic aid does not work
Rural subsidies	$2.5	Wasteful and unfair to urban taxpayers
Bureau of Indian Affairs	$2.4	BIA is scandal-plagued. Tribes earn $19 billion annually from gambling
Davis-Bacon Act: repeal	$2.0	Repeal Davis-Bacon and the Service Contract Act to cut federal costs
Air traffic control	$1.6	"Privatize air traffic control as in Canada and Britain"
Trade adjustment assistance	$1.0	Unneeded giveaway that is in addition to unemployment insurance
Amtrak	$0.4	Privatize the rail system
Total	$62
Source: Chris Edwards and Stephen Slivinski, Cato Institute, based on Budget of the U.S. Government, FY2006.

Additionally, maybe the US should reconsider foreign aid status to nations with space programs, for instance, China and Russia (if they can afford a space program, they should be able to afford more mundane things), but I leave that open for now.

As far as NJ goes, I guarantee you Mr. Snitch! is right when he says, "Don't expect financial heroics from Jersey". A good start would be to stop replenishing the eroding beaches, and stopping the flood insurance to shorefront homes. A visitor to the NZ Bear site estimates a $15,000,000/yr savings on the beach program alone.

Add it all up, it comes to $63,815,000,000.

*Update Make that $63,819,300,000

$335,000 for cranberry/blueberry disease and breeding in New Jersey. According to USDA testimony, "the estimated completion date for the original objectives was 1995. Those objectives have not been met." USDA ironically added, "The last agency evaluation of this project occurred in April 2004. The evaluation concluded that the effort has been highly productive…." Since 1985, $4.3 million has been spent on this research.

Enough spent on cranberries.

(technorati tag porkbusters)