Crazy Chavez Arrests US Press

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that a woman linked to the U.S. military had been arrested while photographing a military installation, and several U.S. citizens were also arrested for taking pictures of a refinery, signs, he added, that Washington may be plotting an invasion of his country.
Chavez said that the other detained Americans were journalists caught while taking pictures of El Palito refinery, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of Caracas. They were released, Chavez said.

This guy has mad dictator disease or something. Paranoia is running rampant. Or is it that he wants, like his idol Fidel, to keep his ugly face in the news? These pathetic little attention cravers may someday get their wish. It would behoove them to remember that picture of Saddam after he was pulled from his nest.

If Sheep Could Cook Cous Cous

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald:

A Muslim sheik told followers at a public meeting in Bankstown that women who were raped had incited men's lust by dressing immodestly and only had themselves to blame.

Sydney-born Sheik Faiz Mohamad, 34, a former boxer who teaches at the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, made the comments during a lecture for more than 1000 people at Bankstown Town Hall.

The Sun-Herald has a recording of the March 18 speech in which Sheik Faiz said: "A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world . . .

"Strapless, backless, sleeveless, nothing but satanic skirts, slit skirts, translucent blouses, miniskirts, tight jeans: all this to tease man and appeal to his carnal nature."

He compared a woman dressed in such a way to a sheep. "Would you put this sheep that you adore in the middle of hungry wolves? No . . . It would be devoured. It's the same situation here. You're putting this precious girl in front of lustful, satanic eyes of hungry wolves. What is the consequence? Catastrophic devastation, sexual harassment, perversion, promiscuity."The invitation to the $15-a-head lecture stipulated modest dress and "strict male and female segregation". It was promoted as a lecture about "death" in flyers and on the website of the ICRA Youth Centre in Lidcombe, an Islamic community group which sponsored the evening.

The ICRA and Faiz's Global Islamic Youth Centre have broken away from the Lakemba Mosque, the main place of worship for Sydney's Lebanese Muslims, because, a former associate says, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali, 64, is too moderate.

Sheik Faiz also exhorted Muslim women to wear the hijab head covering as "a liberation from male scrutiny".

"It's sad to see today how young girls are being brought up," he said. "The way they dress, their hairstyles . . . layers of make-up, which they just shovel on in order to remove afterwards, tanning out in the sun, bronzed, shiny so she can shine the lustful eyes of men; extreme dieting, working out. Why? So she can get the best figure, but not for her husband."

He also condemned the soap opera Days Of Our Lives, which he said made wives negative towards their husbands, and said "premarital sex is fashionable, that manipulation, deceit, cheating, lying falsehood are all essential ways to get the man or lady of your dreams".

Sheik Faiz declined to be interviewed. No doubt, he probably had to hit the showers. And what about that sheep adoration analogy? I'll bet there are a few lambs following him going Daaad. This is a sick, sick culture. These guys need therapy, I mean a trip straight to Vienna, stat.
Think NOW or any other liberal women's group will jump on this? Not likely!

Did Dayton Kiss Off Kerry?

Does John Kerry really think he can take on the Clintons?

The rivalry between John Kerry and Hillary Rodham Clinton turned testy last week when the failed presidential candidate angrily chewed out a fellow senator for touting the former first lady as the next American president.
Kerry had ``daggers in his eyes'' when he approached Minneapolis Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) about an April 9 fund-raising dinner at which Dayton introduced Clinton as ``the next great president of the United States,'' according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
``What are you doing endorsing my 2008 presidential opponent?'' Dayton recalled Kerry as saying - a recollection denied by the Kerry camp.

The multimillionare Dayton has a reputation as a bit of a colorful figure on Capitol Hill.
He drew headlines - and considerable ridicule - last fall after closing his Senate office on Capitol Hill in the weeks before the November election, citing a vague terrorist threat against Congress.

Thanks to Boston Herald.

The Loonies are Restless

It was easy to predict!
The bleeding heart organizations are decrying the Army's findings that exonerate our generals of abusing prisoners in Iraq. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the ACLU all jumped on the "I hate America" bandwagon. But, I particularly enjoyed this quote.
The abuse has "tarred America's image in the world community," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero.
If anything has tarred America's image, it is this subversive organization that gnaws at the underpinnings of our great republic.
For ways to combat this pernicious and insidious group please go to Stop the ACLU.

Follywood Strikes Again

This got my blood pressure skyrocketing. I will never pay a dime for anything that is connected to this low life. America makes her rich and famous and then she becomes the enemy's whore.

From the NY Daily News:


Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, star of a new flick about the aftermath of 9/11, believes the United States "is responsible in some way" for the devastating terror attacks.

Gyllenhaal, 27, made the comments at the Tribeca Film Festival, where her new movie "The Great New Wonderful" - which has a plot centered on the destruction of the World Trade Center - premiered Friday.

"I think what's good about the movie is that it deals with 9/11 in such a subtle, open way that I think it allows it to be more complicated than just, 'Oh, look at these poor New Yorkers and how hard it was for them,'" Gyllenhaal told the NY1 cable channel.

"Because I think America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way and so I think the delicacy with which it's dealt allows that to sort of creep in," she added.

A lower East Side native, Gyllenhaal's new film focuses on a handful of New Yorkers coping with their pain about a year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror strike.

The 27-year-old vaulted to stardom after appearing in "Secretary" as a mousy assistant.

The film festival where Gyllenhaal spoke was launched by actor Robert De Niro in 2002 as a way to help scarred lower Manhattan rebound.

Oldsmobiles?

Below is a column by George Will in the NY POST.
Entitled The media Meltdown it is well worth reading.

April 24, 2005 -- IF you awake before dawn you probably hear a daily sound that may become as anachronistic as the clatter of horses' hooves on urban cobblestones. The sound is the slap of the morning paper on the sidewalk.

The circulation of daily U.S. newspapers is 55.2 million, down from 62.3 million in 1990. The percentages of adults who say they read a paper "yesterday" are ominous:

65 and older: 60 percent.

50-64: 52 percent

30-49: 39 percent

18-29: 23 percent

Americans 8 to 18 spend an average of 6 hours and 21 minutes a day with media of all sorts, but just 43 minutes with print media.

The combined viewership of the network evening newscasts is 28.8 million, down from 52.1 million in 1980. The median age of viewers is 60. Hence the sponsorship of news programming by Metamucil and Fixodent. Perhaps we are entering what David T.Z. Mindich, formerly of CNN, calls "a post-journalism age."

Writing in The Wilson Quarterly, in a section on "the collapse of big media," he rejects the opinion of a CBS official that "time is on our side in that as you get older, you tend to get more interested in the world around you." Mindich cites research showing that "a particular age cohort's reading habits do not change much with time."

Baby boomers who became adults in the 1970s consume less journalism than their parents did. And although in 1972 nearly half of those 18 to 22 read a newspaper every day, now less than a quarter do. In 1972 nearly three-quarters of those 34 to 37 read a paper daily; now only about a third do. This means, Mindich says, "fewer kids are growing up in households in which newspapers matter."

The young are voracious consumers of media, but not of journalism. Sixty-eight percent of children 8 to 18 have televisions in their rooms; 33 percent have computers. And if they could only have one entertainment medium, a third would choose the computer, a quarter would choose television. They carry their media around with them: 79 percent of 8-to-18-year-olds have portable CD, tape or MP3 players. Fifty-five percent have hand-held video game players. Sony's PlayStation Portable, which plays music, games and movies, sold more than 500,000 units in the first two days after its March debut.

Also writing in The Wilson Quarterly, Terry Eastland, publisher of The Weekly Standard, notes that the old media establishment "emerged at a time when Americans generally respected those in authority." When that respect began to recede, establishment media actually gained strength. But the liberal coloration of the big media provoked the emergence of such rivals as Rush Limbaugh (1988) and Fox News (1996).

Consumers of news now understand that, as Eastland says, "news is a thing made, a product, and that media with certain beliefs and values once made the news and then presented it in authoritative terms, as though beyond criticism. Thus did Walter Cronkite famously end his newscasts, 'And that's the way it is.' That way, period."

When, after the misreported Tet offensive of 1968 (a U.S. military victory described as a crushing defeat), Cronkite declared Vietnam a "stalemate," he spoke, as Mindich says, to "a captive audience." Nearly 80 percent of television sets in use at the dinner hour were tuned to one of the three network newscasts, and Cronkite had the largest share.

If that had been the broadcast marketplace in 2004, John Kerry would be president: The three networks reported the Swift boat veterans attacks on Kerry only after coverage of the attacks by cable news and talk radio forced Kerry to respond. The networks were very interested in charges pertaining to a Vietnam-era story about George W. Bush's alleged dereliction of National Guard duties — until bloggers, another manifestation of new, small and nimble media, shredded it.

The fragmentation of the media market by technology is especially dramatic in radio. Just a blink ago the widespread lament was that a few providers, such as Clear Channel with 1,200 U.S. stations, were producing homogenized programming for a single mass market. Suddenly there is satellite radio. XM's more than 150 channels include Fungus ("punk/hardcore/ska"), Squizz ("hard alternative") and NASCAR2 ("in-race driver audio"). Sirius' more than 120 channels include one that is all Elvis, 24/7.

The future of the big media that the young have abandoned is not certain. But do you remember when an automobile manufacturer, desperately seeking young customers, plaintively promised that its cars were "not your father's Oldsmobile"? Do you remember Oldsmobiles?

To Life

Passover commences tonight at sundown. May I wish a blessed Holy Day to all of the Jewish faith.
L'Chayim! (To Life).

Briefly, the holiday's name Pesach meaning passing over or protection in Hebrew, is taken from the direction given, by God, to Moses. To free the Israelites from Egypt, God planned to kill the first born of both man and beast. To protect themselves, the Israelites were instructed to mark their homes with lamb's blood so that God would pass over them. (Exodus 12:23).

Obviously, this also has great significance to Christians. Washed in the blood of the lamb, death will pass over us. He is risen!

We Have Ways of Making You Walk

First the pope and now this. What is this preoccupation with anything remotely connected to Germany. Soon we won't be able to send our kids to camp because someone might be offended. No more German chocolate cake and what exactly does kindergarten mean? Who ordered the sauerkraut, do you have relatives in Argentina? Check out what happened to this lady in Australia...and oh yeah, let me see their papers!

The Hobart Anzac Day committee says there are alternatives to german shepherd dogs participating in the march on Monday.

Annette Batchelor wanted to march wearing her grandparents' medals, with her two shepherds to honour dog handlers and their animals.

But she was rejected on the grounds the breed was used to patrol prisoner-of-war camps and some former POWs or people from other cultures may be offended.

The president of the Hobart Anzac Day Committee, Mike Priest, says instead Ms Batchelor is marching with her dogs in the Glenorchy parade.

"The committee's made a decision, there's nothing I can do about that.

"But if she likes to contact me after this parade in Hobart, I'm sure we can work out a banner that would be appropriate with recognising the dogs and that could be paraded."

From ABC

I also encourage you to read this woman's own words at U.S. Wardogs Assoc.

Margo Lucero, Dunce of Denver

And she continues to have a job, why???

From the Denver Post:

An edited version of the Pledge of Allegiance has raised a controversy at Everitt Middle School in Wheat Ridge.

Eighth-grade counselor Margo Lucero, filling in for absent principal Kathleen Norton, changed a portion of the Pledge from "one nation under God" to "one nation under your belief system," while on the public- address system Wednesday morning.

"She said, 'Yes, I said that because I believe that there should be separation between church and school. I believe that everybody should have their own beliefs and that we shouldn't have to say, 'under God.'

Everyone needs something to believe in, Margo, I believe you shouldn't be allowed near children, never mind allowed to teach them.

Why would we allow someone who can't follow rules to teach our children. If she disagrees with something there are appropriate forums in which to express yourself. She chose not to do that either out of rebellion or stupidity. Either one is an inappropriate role model for students. Then we wonder what's wrong with our school system. Clue #1. Margo Lucero.

You, Sir, Are a Son of an Immigrant!

Ok, I know it happened in England, but how long before we get a stupid ruling like this here? Can anyone say, "Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals"? How about the Supremes quoting this as precedent? It could happen!

Using the word "immigrant" can justify treating an assault as racially aggravated, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.
The court decided that a judge should not have thrown out a charge of racially aggravated assault against a woman who attacked a GP after referring to him as "an immigrant doctor".

Under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, an offence is racially aggravated if the offender demonstrates hostility based on the victim's membership of a racial group. Judge Breen decided at Luton Crown Court in January that the word "immigrant" did not meet this definition. But three appeal judges said yesterday he should have left the matter to the jury. The case was referred to the Court of Appeal on a point of law by the Attorney General.

The court heard that the defendant, Mrs D, took her three-year-old son to a surgery because he had a rash. Dr Hair Newal said she should come back if the symptoms developed. When Mrs D demanded a diagnosis, he suggested she find another doctor.

She replied: "I can't find another doctor. All the good doctors are taken up by asylum seekers and I am left with an immigrant doctor."

Thanks again to the telegraph.

Sudan's Close Friend and Faithful Partner

The following article on China's interest in the Sudan and its support of an abomination of a government should indicate that we are on a collision course with this communist nation. North Korea and Iran pale in comparison to the enormous threat posed by China. The battle for resources is on and I'm afraid China is winning. Please read the article below.

A metallic maze of chimneys, pipes and vents glitters on the horizon in the desert outside Khartoum, dominating the landscape for miles around. This new oil refinery is the jewel in the crown of Sudan's military regime. It forms the vital artery of a thriving oil industry that poured £1 billion into government coffers last year.

Without this windfall gain - likely to be far larger this year - President Omar al-Bashir could not maintain his military machine, let alone wage war against rebels in the western region of Darfur. Nor could he hope to withstand the international pressure that his bloody campaign in Darfur has brought upon him.

Moreover, the oil that started to flow as recently as 1999 has given President Bashir an indispensable international ally.

Almost unnoticed by the outside world, China has become the key player in Sudan's oil industry.

Beijing has invested £8 billion in Sudanese oil through the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), a state-owned monolith. The cost of Khartoum's new refinery alone was about £350 million.

Freshly painted billboards in Khartoum carry pictures of smiling Chinese oil workers and the slogan: "CNPC - Your close friend and faithful partner". But this faithful friend is secretive about its stake in Africa's largest country. China's embassy in Khartoum and its commercial office declined to talk about oil.

A CNPC spokesman said: "We are a shareholder in a number of operating companies here. We conduct our operations through them. If you want to learn more, you must contact the mines and energy ministry."

Yet CNPC's annual report discloses that about half of all its overseas oil comes from Sudan. It deployed 10,000 Chinese workers to build a 900-mile pipeline, linking Heglig oilfield in Kordofan province with Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

The company's report trumpets this achievement as its "first long-distance crude pipeline constructed and operated abroad".

In fact, China shamelessly curried favour with Mr Bashir by speeding up this mammoth project so it could be finished in June 1999 - the tenth anniversary of the coup that brought him to power.

China is now dependent on Sudan for seven per cent of all its oil imports. Hence Beijing has gone to great efforts to shield Mr Bashir.

Last September, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1564, threatening Sudan with oil sanctions unless it curbed the violence in Darfur. But China immediately rendered this meaningless by pledging to veto any bid to impose an embargo.

Critics accuse China of being Sudan's chief international protector.

"It's very clear that's what is happening," said Georgette Gagnon, the deputy director of the Africa desk at Human Rights Watch.

"China is now the largest foreign investor in Sudan so it has an economic interest in ensuring that the Sudanese government is not penalised too harshly. It has been opposed to sanctions from day one."

Beijing needs Sudan because its appetite for oil is insatiable.

China's economic boom means that oil consumption is forecast to grow by at least 10 per cent every year for the foreseeable future. If so, China's domestic reserves will be depleted in the next two decades.

So the quest for overseas oil is one of Beijing's central goals. On Thursday China signed a "strategic partnership" with Nigeria, a major oil exporter, and has oil interests in at least three other African countries.

In its scramble for Africa, China portrays itself as a more benign partner than the colonial powers and the modern-day multinational companies.

President Hu Jintao told an Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta yesterday: "In pursuit of world peace and common development, China will always stand by, and work through thick and thin, with developing countries." America has already snapped-up the world's largest reserves. Saudi Arabia and Iraq - with 370 billion barrels between them, 45 per cent of the world's total - are effectively closed to China.

Sudan, by contrast, is a no-go area for western oil companies. American investment was officially banned in 1997 and European multinationals steer clear of the avalanche of protest that would accompany any dealings with Mr al-Bashir's regime. China, however, has no such scruples.

So far, Sudan has only 563 million barrels of proven reserves, but the energy ministry estimates that at least five billion barrels lie beneath its deserts.

Sudan's few independent voices say this has brought disastrous consequences. "The crisis in Sudan is being fuelled by the issue of oil," said William Ezekiel, editor of the Khartoum Monitor. "The government is ready to ally with Satan if it can protect its own interests."

Thanks telegraph.

Vatican Spanks Spain

Spain wants to follow Holland in tiptoeing through the tulips.

Spain presented the papacy of Benedict XVI with its first big challenge yesterday when the Vatican and the Socialist government of the Roman Catholic country traded blows in a heated row over its plan to legalise homosexual marriage.

The dispute erupted after the government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero drove a bill through the Cortes on Thursday that will allow homosexuals to marry and adopt children.

The Vatican hit back yesterday by advising Spanish Catholic civil servants to refuse to officiate at homosexual wedding ceremonies, even if it meant risking losing their jobs.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, said the legislation was iniquitous.

"A law as profoundly iniquitous as this one is not an obligation, it cannot be an obligation. One cannot say that a law is right simply because it is law,'' he told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. Cardinal Trujillo said that municipal officials asked to perform homosexual marriage ceremonies should object on grounds of conscience.

"I am talking of every profession linked to implementation of the law,'' he said.

India, Where the Rubber Meets Many Things

Who thought of doing this and why?

NEW DELHI -- Only a quarter of condoms made in India are used for sex, most of the others are used to make saris, toys and bathroom slippers, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The condoms are valuable to manufacturers because of the lubricant on them. Sari weavers place the condoms on their thread spools and the lubricant on the prophylactics is rubbed off on the thread, making it move faster through their sewing machines, The Economic Times newspaper quoted an Indian industry official as saying.

Sari makers also turn the condom's inside out, place them on their fingers and use the high-quality lubricant to polish gold and silver threads used in the traditional Indian women's outfits.

India manufactures more than 1 billion condoms annually to check population growth and curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Thanks timesunion.

Kyrsten Sinema "Watching" Our Borders

GOP Bloggers posted the following:

Arizona State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has charged the U.S. Border Patrol with having a double standard when it comes to prosecuting individuals who cross the U.S. border with Mexico illegally. During a visit this week to the Mexico-U.S. border, the ABC Radio Networks syndicated talker and Fox News personality stepped over a fence into Mexico and moments later stepped back over into the U.S. Sinema charges that action means Hannity broke U.S. law by reentering the U.S. illegally and that although the Border Patrol saw Hannity's action agents took no steps against him or made any attempt to arrest him. Hannity was in Arizona this week to highlight the crisis of illegal immigration between the U.S. and Mexico. Shows the utter hypocrisy and the willingness to use any club which comes to hand so typical of leftwing tactics these days. In the end, I can't imagine there being much result from this other than a yet firmer conviction on the right that the left has become alarmingly stupid.

Well said, and here's a little info on this left wing nut case.

A former Green Party member, Sinema sought the legislative seat in 2002 as an independent. Now a registered Democrat, she's been visible for several years because of her involvement on a variety of issues, including abortion rights and protesting the war in Iraq.

"My political stance has never changed," Sinema said of her decision to join the Democratic Party. "The party's platform is right in line with my beliefs."

Kyrsten has been a school social worker for seven years, working with children and families in Phoenix's Sunnyslope community. She currently operates a Family Resource Center at Shaw Butte Elementary School, with a focus on community development, adult and community education, advocacy for undocumented families, and writing and administering grants. She earned her M.S.W. from ASU's School of Social Work. In addition to her career as a school social worker, Kyrsten is active at the local and state levels as a progressive political activist. In the 2000 election cycle, she worked as the campaign manager for a Clean Elections candidate for the State House of Representatives. She was the state media contact for Ralph Nader's 2000 Presidential Bid, and has ran for Phoenix City Council and the Arizona House of Representatives. She is a member of many organizations fighting for social justice, including ACLU, NOW, Planned Parenthood, League of Women Voters, Sierra Club, AZ Women's Political Caucus, Arizona Citizen's Action, Independent Progressive Politics Network, and the AZ Alliance for Peaceful Justice.

What a resume for leading looney of Arizona.

Obstruction Zone Ahead

It would seem the dems have much to worry about.

Democrats in the House are blocking the Ethics Committee so they can protect their own, Speaker Dennis Hastert told Sean Hannity.

"There's a reason that they don't want to go to the ethics process and as long as they can keep someone dangling out there like they have with Tom DeLay, they take great glee in that," the Illinois Republican said.

The following update was on CNN.

Three sources close to House GOP leaders said the Democrats being targeted include Pelosi, of California, Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania.

Pelosi was fined by the Federal Election Commission in November 2002 for improperly operating two political action committees.

McDermott has been the subject of a long-running court case triggered by a 1998 eavesdropping incident involving Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The Washington Times reported House documents show a 2001 trip Tubbs Jones took to Puerto Rico was improperly paid for by lobbyists. A spokeswomen for Tubbs Jones denied the charge and blamed the documentation on "human error."

Republicans say charges against Kanjorski date to 1998, when the 11-term congressman helped two Pennsylvania-based companies owned and run by his four nephews and daughter by earmarking more than $9 million in federal contracts and grants for the two firms.

Kanjorski insisted he has not profited personally from those deals. The companies, Cornerstone Technologies and Pennsylvania Micronics, research water-jet technology.

Kanjorski's controversial ties to the companies nearly resulted in House GOP leaders filing ethics charges against him in 2002.

Benedict XVI Logs In

Like Pope John Paul II before him, Pope Benedict XVI has an e-mail address.


Contact him yourself at benedictxvi@vatican.va.

Kofi is Brewing

The fat lady may not have sung, Kofi, but I hear her footsteps approaching the stage.

Two senior investigators examining the Iraqi oil-for-food programme have resigned, complaining that their findings on the United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan were toned down.

The resignations left the UN-appointed inquiry into the conduct of the $64 billion (£35 billion) programme in disarray. Not only did it reveal serious dissent within the independent inquiry, but it will also fuel angry criticism from Washington over the conduct of the investigation, led by the former United States Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

Nile Gardiner, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a critic of the UN, said yesterday: "If Mr Volcker's own top investigator no longer has confidence in the handling of the inquiry, then the Volcker commission no longer has an ounce of credibility."

One of Mr Volcker's fellow commissioners, Mark Pieth, a Swiss criminologist, acknowledged that two American members of staff had departed.

Mr Pieth agreed that they had been frustrated. "You follow a trail and you want to see people pick it up," he said of the two investigators. Mr Pieth explained that while last month's report on the dealings of Mr Annan and his son Kojo "told the story" that investigators had unearthed, the three man committee had "made different conclusions than they [the investigators] would have".

The investigators had not been censored, he said. The two had become "personally very involved" in the investigation. The two staff members were understood to be Robert Paton, a lawyer and former Federal Bureau of Investigation officer, and Miranda Duncan, a member of the Rockefeller family. Mr Paton was the senior investigative counsel in charge of the inquiry into allegations of impropriety against the two Annans. Ms Duncan worked on his team.

The report on the Annans was released last month. It found that Mr Annan had failed to ensure a rigorous inquiry after it emerged that his son was continuing to be paid by a firm called Cotecna, which had a multi-million pound UN contract to monitor oil-for-food shipments. It catalogued the longstanding relationship between a senior Cotecna employee, Michael Wilson, and the Annans and said that Mr Annan had asked Mr Wilson to get his son a job.

It also revealed that Mr Annan had lunch with his son and a French-Lebanese businessman called Pierre Mouselli. The younger Mr Annan and Mr Mouselli had earlier met a senior Iraqi diplomat in the hope of securing work connected to the oil-for-food programme, the report related.

The report also said that Kojo Annan had "intentionally deceived" his father, found that he was "not forthcoming" to the inquiry on secret payments from Cotecna, that he had "failed to cooperate fully" with the inquiry and that he has "refused to answer questions" about records he "belatedly" made available.

Kojo Annan was also found to have "actively participated in efforts by Cotecna to conceal the true nature of its continuing relationship with him". Within hours of the report being released, Kofi Annan said its findings amounted to an exoneration. But Mr Pieth and another commissioner, Justice Richard Goldstone, said that they did not.

Thanks to the Telegraph.

Lefty Loonies to Attack Arizona

From azcentral:

Human rights advocates plan a series of boycotts and blockages from the Valley to the U.S.-Mexico border to protest legislation moving through the Arizona legislature and the Minuteman Project.

Activists from Riverside, Calif., plan to block the border between Douglas and Agua Prieta, Sonora, on May 1 to protest the Minuteman Project, a civilian border patrol that started in April in southeastern Arizona.

Despite objections from the mayors of the cities of Douglas and Agua Prieta, protest organizer Armando Navarro said he plans to bring 50 to 100 protesters to the border to call attention to the anti-immigrant sentiment growing in Arizona and across the country. The blockade is planned for "several hours," he said, at the port of entry on the Mexican side of the border.

Also May 1, activists plan to meet in Phoenix to organize a boycott of Arizona Cardinals football games to show opposition to anti-undocumented immigrant legislation moving through the state Legislature. The Cardinals are scheduled to play a football game in Mexico, and organizers plan to pressure the Mexican government to pick a team from another, more immigrant-friendly state, said Phoenix-based organizer Salvador Reza.

I wonder if the ACLU will be back to watch these guys or maybe they got so stoned while they were here they're still stumbling around in the desert.

The Minuteman Project was peaceful, let's see what happens with this bunch.

I say we give these California kooks a special Arizona welcome and treat them to a sample of the sentiment they're so interested in protesting.

Arizona Decides for Self-Defense

I love Arizona. After living in New York and California it is a breath of fresh air in more ways than one. God bless Arizona.

This in from WorldNetDaily:

The Army reservist who was jailed for holding seven illegal aliens at gunpoint until Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff's deputies arrived will not be prosecuted as the action was determined to be a legal citizen's arrest.

County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced his decision today that Sgt. Patrick Haab did not commit a crime. He had been charged with seven counts of aggravated assault.

"This is a unique case with a very unique set of circumstances, and after a full analysis of the issues involved and the applicable law, prosecution is not appropriate," said Thomas.

Haab said he was acting in self-defense.

Arizona law conveys the legal right to make a citizen's arrest if a felony is being committed in the citizen's presence or a felony has been committed and the citizen has reasonable grounds to be believe the subject has committed it.

Thomas pointed out that one of the individuals arrested by Haab, has been charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office with engaging in human smuggling. The other six engaged in felony conduct by conspiring with the alleged "coyote."

The Mexican aliens gave differing accounts of the April 10 incident. While all seven said they were held at gunpoint and ordered facedown to the ground, their stories about what happened earlier conflict.

"They seem to be all over the place," said David Cantor, defense attorney for Haab, who is stationed Kalamazoo, Mich.

Some said Haab, who served two tours in Iraq, took the keys from the Chevy Suburban in which they were sitting, while others said another man Haab summoned took the keys.

One of the immigrants said a second man, whom authorities are still trying to find, pointed a gun Haab gave him at the group.

Haab was released from jail Thursday night on $10,000 cash bond.

Haab told authorities that he drew a pistol to stop a group of men from rushing him at an Interstate 8 rest stop. The men later were determined to be illegal aliens from Mexico.

Haab is from New Paris, Ind., and is assigned to the Army's 415th Civil Affairs Battalion from Kalamazoo, Mich. He currently lives in the Phoenix area suburb of Mesa.

Thomas pointed out that the force used to make a citizen's arrest must be reasonable under the circumstances. The illegal aliens were running and had access to a vehicle, he said. Haab's use of a firearm was determined to be in accordance with applicable Arizona law.

"This is not a green light to intimidate, threaten or detain anyone merely suspected of being in this country illegally," said Thomas. "Mere presence in the U.S. illegally is a crime, but not in itself a felony, so other factors must be present in order to justify a citizen's arrest. In this case, the other factor was the human smuggling."

Senator Kerry at Work

Fresh from the NY Daily News:

John Kerry(D-Mass.) and Byron Dorgan(D-N.D.) bring you a sinister amendment to do what Kerry likes to do...cover up questionable activity. Dorgan is another piece of work, with no real career in the private sector, he has fed at the public trough his whole life. An infamous pork barreler Dorgan also voted against eliminating the marriage penalty.

Here's the article.

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats are quietly trying to kill a 10-year legal probe that implicates several senior Clinton administration appointees for obstruction of justice, the Daily News has learned.

The Democrats, saying that the $21 million investigation by Independent Counsel David Barrett should have ended long ago, succeeded in attaching an amendment to a spending bill Tuesday to cut off his funding by June 1.

But two sources close to the investigation said that if the legislation becomes law, it will thwart Barrett from making public a final report that names senior officials in the Clinton Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service who allegedly buried a tax fraud case involving former cabinet member Henry Cisneros.

"It's about obstruction of justice," said one of the sources. "People are willing to take drastic actions to kill this report."

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who introduced the amendment with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), said last week that the disgraced HUD secretary paid a $10,000 fine in 1999 for lying to the FBI and that then-President Bill Clinton pardoned Cisneros, so the probe "should have ended years ago."

Barrett's probe began in 1995 by looking into allegations that Cisneros, who was Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, lied to the FBI about payments to his mistress. It expanded years ago into a broader obstruction case involving alleged tax fraud, according to the sources.

The report will allege that Justice Department officials snuffed out a tax case against Cisneros and that the IRS sometimes audited Clinton critics without good cause.

Barrett's investigation was wrapped up two years ago, and his 400-page final report was submitted to a three-judge panel last August, said two sources.

Because those named in the report have until the end of June to refute Barrett's findings, Kerry and Dorgan's amendment would prevent its release.

Wave Good-bye

There are far more huge waves out there than we thought there were. the following is from the National Geographic News.

Known as rogue, or freak, waves, these giants seem to spring up from the ocean floor. They are so large that they can overwhelm and sink even the sturdiest ships.

Now researchers have started using satellites to try to identify and track these unruly waves. And the results have been surprising. While rogue waves were once thought to be the stuff of sailing legend, satellite photos found ten huge waves welling up one three-week period.

During the last two decades, more than 200 supertankers—ships over 200 meters (656 feet) long—have sunk beneath the waves. Rogue waves are thought to be the cause for many of these disasters, perhaps by flooding the main hold of these giant container ships.

This is a new disaster film waiting to happen...a modernized Poseidon Adventure. Wait and See!

Connecticut OKs Civil Unions

From CNN.

About an hour after the state Senate sent her the legislation, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed into law a bill that will afford same-sex couples in Connecticut many of the rights and privileges of married couples.

"The vote we cast today will reverberate around the country and it will send a wave of hope to many people, to thousands of people across the country," said Sen. Andrew McDonald, who is gay.

The state House passed the measure last week but amended it to define marriage under Connecticut law as between one man and one woman. The Senate approved the amended bill Wednesday 26-8. The law takes effect October 1.

"I have said all along that I believe in no discrimination of any kind, and I think that this bill accomplishes that, while at the same time preserving the traditional language that a marriage is between a man and a woman," Rell said.

Vermont is the only other state to allow civil unions. Massachusetts allows gay couples to marry. But those changes came about after same-sex couples won court battles.

Last summer, seven same-sex couples sued in Connecticut after being denied marriage licenses; the case has not been resolved.

Roman Catholics and other activists plan a big rally Sunday in opposition to the bill.

Marie Hilliard, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, said the civil union proposal "got more legs than we ever hoped it would get." About 44 percent of the state's 3 million residents are Roman Catholic.

Brian Brown, head of the Family Institute of Connecticut, said his group intends to keep the issue squarely before the public.

"Our mission will be to let every person know in the state of Connecticut which lawmakers voted to redefine marriage, and which lawmakers voted to protect marriage," he said.

Anne Stanback, executive director of Loves Makes a Family, said her group would probably begin talking to lawmakers about gay marriage -- though she acknowledged it's not likely the issue will be taken up next session.

"As important as the rights are, this is not yet equality," she said.

Equality, by whose definition? Gays have the right to get married now, they just can't marry each other.

Keeping Holey

Thanks timesunion.

WEST SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- A woman who was fired by Costco in 2001 for refusing to remove her eyebrow ring has accused the company of religious discrimination, saying she is a member of the Church of Body Modification.

Kimberly M. Cloutier said she wears her eyebrow ring as a sign of faith. She has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider hearing the case.

The church, established in 1999, counts about 1,000 members who participate in practices such as piercing and tattooing, according to a December ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a trial judge's finding in Costco's favor.

Lynn A. Kappelman, a lawyer for Costco, declined to comment. The company has argued that Cloutier's beliefs are political or social instead of religious.

Cloutier's lawyer, Michael O. Shea, filed a petition Monday asking the Supreme Court consider hearing the case.

If the court hears this and she wins that should be the spark that ignites the country.

Alright Arnold

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is stirring up an angry debate with his suggestion to close the border between California and Mexico.He spoke at a newspaper publisher's convention in San Francisco Tuesday.He offered what's being characterized as a controversial opinion on immigration reform. "Close the borders between California and all across Mexico. I think it's unfair to have all those people coming across," he said.Some are calling Schwarzenegger's stand a 180-degree turn from more positive comments he has made in the past.

Now if we could just get Bush straight on this we might get somewhere.

More Minuteman Project News

From The Press-Enterprise.

A prominent Latina joined the Minuteman Project of volunteer border watchers, a movement that immigrant-rights activists have repeatedly condemned as racist.

She is Lupe Moreno, a self-described Mexican immigrant-smuggler's daughter and first-generation U.S. citizen who has built her Orange County Republican Party political resume on her opposition to illegal immigration.

Moreno, 47, of Santa Ana, took her place alongside a group of Minutemen volunteers to watch the border near Palominas, Ariz., early this month. It was windy, dusty and cold, but she said it was important for her to sit in a lawn chair 10 feet from a hole in the wire border fence, watching for illegal entrants.

"I never got to see one close up," said Moreno, who works as an office specialist for Orange County. "I see more where I work."

Moreno, who favors deporting and withholding government services from undocumented residents, holds views that are at odds with most California Latinos and Inland area residents. Most consider the economy, jobs, gas prices and education to be more important issues than illegal immigration, according to a statewide survey of the Public Policy Institute of California.

"The Latinos have very different attitudes toward undocumented immigrants than other groups in the state," said Mark Baldassare, director of research, in a phone interview. "Generally they are much more sympathetic to the plight and experiences of undocumented immigrants."

To Moreno, illegal immigration is the underlying cause of Californians' economic distress and problems in schools.

"I think people are not paying attention," she said. "We're just being overwhelmed."

Really Fast Food Causes Nose Bleed

LONDON -- A British motorist, driving home from work with his car window wound down, had his nose broken by a flying frozen sausage, an official said Monday.

The 46-year-old man was driving near his home in South Woodham Ferrers, Essex, east of London, when the sausage came through the window and hit him on the nose, a spokesman for the Essex Ambulance Service said on condition of anonymity.

"The man said he was making his way home after work and had the window down because it was such a nice afternoon," the ambulance spokesman said.

"He said he saw a car coming the other way and felt a searing pain in his nose.

"His nose was undoubtedly fractured and he had lost quite a lot of blood.

"It must have been an incredibly lucky, or unlucky, shot to get the sausage through a moving car window. I have never seen or heard of anything like this before."

Essex police said they were investigating the incident.

Thanks timesunion!

Habemus Papam

Our new pope is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

We Have a Pope

Standby, a pope has been elected!

Mayor Mumbles Menino Gets Gas-Guzzler

This from the Boston Herald:
As soaring fuel prices cause palpitations at the pumps, Mayor Thomas M. Menino is sitting pretty in his taxpayer-funded, gas-guzzling SUV, rejecting an eco-friendly hybrid vehicle because it's too small.
With gas prices hovering near record highs - a gallon of regular unleaded averages $2.17 in Boston - that means $60 for each fill-up of the 28-gallon tank in Menino's Ford Expedition. And at 14 miles per gallon, the fill-ups come often.
What's more, the mayor - who recently called environmental policy a top priority and even named a new Cabinet member to handle it - could be driving a fuel-efficient hybrid.
Officials confirmed yesterday the mayor could have chosen the hybrid Ford Escape SUV under the city's executive lease program.
But they said the hybrid wasn't big enough to accommodate staff members, a security detail and the equipment that must travel with the mayor at all times, including life-saving equipment needed to respond to emergencies.
``We looked into the Escape,'' said security chief Lt. Dan Linskey. ``It's significantly smaller.''
In February, Menino created a new city environmental post to ``help lead our city and its natural resources to a clean and healthy future.''
But Jim Kliesch, of watchdog group American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, said the mayor could have made a greener SUV choice.
``Regardless of the vehicle class you are shopping for, there are greener models in every class,'' said Kliesch, pointing out the Toyota Sequoia, GMC Yukon, and Chevy Tahoe all have far better ``Green Scores.''

Duplicitous democrat strikes again. This is just like our Hollywood friends, who are oh so concerned about the environment, until it means relinquishing the jets and limos.

Border Patrol Blames ACLU

From WorldNetDaily:
The largest local union of Border Patrol agents in the country has declared its support for the Minuteman Project in Arizona, while at the same time slamming both the American Civil Liberties Union and President Bush.

According to its website, the U.S. Border Patrol Local 2544, which covers the Tucson sector of the agency, the volunteers involved in the border-monitoring Minuteman Project have been nothing but supportive.

"We want to make it clear – because we've had a lot of questions about this – we have not had one single complaint from a rank-and-file agent in this sector about the Minutemen," says a statement on the site. "Every report we've received indicates these people are very supportive of the rank-and-file agents; they're courteous. Many of them are retired firefighters, cops, and other professionals, and they're not causing us any problems whatsoever."

The group blames the ACLU for setting off ground sensors in the area of the Minutemen activities:

"Reports of [Minutemen] causing 'ground sensors' to go off are exaggerated because most of those are being set off by the ACLU sneaking around trying to find the Minutemen doing something wrong."

So as usual the ACLU was screwing things up for others.

Good Luck, Abbas

Thanks to the Irish Examiner:

Armed Palestinian militants shut down a government building in the West Bank yesterday.
They threatened to kill members of the Palestinian parliament, demanding the Palestinian Authority provides jobs to former prisoners and to relatives of people killed in fighting.

The violent threats were the latest in a series of incidents of lawlessness in the Palestinian territories, and illustrated the challenge Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas faces as he tries to restore order and maintain a fragile truce with Israel.
In the West Bank city of Jenin, about 40 militants gathered in the main intersection, firing into the air as several hundred sympathisers encouraged them. The armed men were led by Zakariye Zubeydi, the head of Jenin’s branch of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades - a militant group linked to Abbas’ Fatah movement.

Mr Zubeydi told the crowd he was ready to march on the offices of local parliamentarians. “In half an hour, if we find any of them in their offices there will be blood and then our only language will be the bullet,” he said.

Later, two Aqsa gunmen, under orders from Zubeidi, confiscated the keys of the building housing lawmakers’ offices and shut it down, said Iyad Nassab, the building’s office manager. Mr Nassab said he sent everyone home before the gunmen arrived, and that the building was empty.

The militants demanded jobs for themselves, for Palestinians recently released from Israeli prisons and for relatives of those killed during the nearly five-year-old intefadeh, or uprising.

Last month, Mr Abbas launched a programme designed to provide jobs for hundreds of gunmen and militants on the run from the Israeli authorities. It offers security and government jobs to militants, with the best positions given to those who have spent the most time in jail or on the run from the military.

Hundreds of gunmen have already signed on to programme, which calls on the recruits to accept the rule of law and the gradual disarming of gunmen.

The initiative is the most significant step taken so far by Mr Abbas to rein in militants and is geared mostly to gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

Al Aqsa gunmen have been responsible for much of the lawlessness in the West Bank and Gaza. Last week, a group of Aqsa militants rampaged through the streets of Ramallah, trashing restaurants and firing on Mr Abbas’ headquarters, prompting the new leader to fire his West Bank security chief and announce an overhaul of the ineffective and often warring Palestinian security forces.

The Palestinian economy remains in shambles. The Palestinian Authority - one of the biggest employers in the West Bank and Gaza - suffers from a large budget shortfall, and Israel has barred most Palestinian labourers from entering the country to work.

It's really amazing how the Palestinian's can't figure things out. Their economy is messed up partly because they can't work in Israel, due to the fact that they keep sending suicide bombers along with laborers. They want their own state but will resolve most conflicts by shootings, bombings or self destructive rampages and the most violent reap the most benefits. Interesting way of doing business. Oh well, I guess they feel it's worked well for them so far.

Great, Great Granny Get Your Gun

A heartwarming story of an ordinary senior citizen defending herself.

Jacksonville, Fla.:
A 64-year-old great, great grandmother behind the counter at a Westside convenience store knew what to do when an masked robber came in Thursday afternoon and fired two shots: she grabbed her gun and shot back.

"It scared the hell out of me. It really did," Janet Grammar said. "He shot twice at the back, past behind my head and he was getting ready to shoot me in my head. I had a gun under the counter, and I pulled it out and shot him in the chest."Grammer told investigators she was pretty sure she hit him twice, and police found a blood trail and a gun in the Apple Gate Food Store. The suspect managed to run from the scene, prompting an intense search that included a helicopter and K-9 units and caused a brief lockdown of Wesconnett Elementary School, just across the street. The search was cancelled when the suspect showed up less than an hour later at the emergency room of Orange Park Medical Center, police said. The suspect, who police have not named, was stabilized and flown by air ambulance to Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center.

Cuban Conditions Cited by Canadian Columnist

Here's a good column byBob MacDonald in The Toronto Sun:

Last Thursday the United Nations Human Rights Commission passed a resolution hitting the lack of human rights in dictator Fidel Castro's Communist paradise of Cuba.

It asked Cuba to allow UN special envoy, French magistrate Christine Chanet, to visit and investigate first hand human-rights infractions against its own people.

Castro has repeatedly refused to allow a UN envoy to enter his police state.

Despite this, Chanet's latest report condemned Cuba's flagrant flouting of human rights.

She noted the cases of 61 Cuban human rights advocates that Castro sentenced to up to 28 years in closed trials two years ago. At present, there are more than 300 political prisoners rotting in jails.

The 61 were part of 75 who dared to ask the regime finally to hold free elections and permit free speech -- and were branded American "agents." They were "dangerous" types like poets, librarians, doctors and independent journalists. Only 14 have been released -- mostly for failing health.

It was the sixth successive year in which the 53-state UN commission passed a resolution condemning the lack of human rights -- free speech, free elections, freedom of assembly, a free media, etc.

"The Cuban government has failed to take the steps that would guarantee its own people the most basic human rights," said U.S. delegation member Lino Piedra.

"Instead they have persisted in imposing a totalitarian state that deprives the people of the right of expressing dissent without incurring a decades-long prison sentence," he said.

As usual, the Cuban delegate blasted the resolution as "a sick obsession of successive U.S. administrations."

By the way, Castro still refuses to allow the International Red Cross to enter his "socialist paradise" to inspect conditions. For instance, prisoners were killed in two recent prison riots, but the news has been suppressed by the regime.

'SUBHUMAN CONDITIONS'

"There is much discontent in the prisons, above all in the high security ones, due to the subhuman conditions and bad food," said Elizardo Sanchez, Cuban human rights advocate.

I mention these developments because Canada has had a long love affair with the romantic side of Fidel, his convenient martyr Che Guevara and their revolution.

Canadian governments -- mostly Liberal -- have always kept diplomatic and trade relations and sent aid. Especially tourists and dollars.

Many tourists have returned time and again, impressed with the cheap, all-inclusive packages. And others have even tried to help the hard-pressed Cuban people, who try to live on a $15-a-month government payment.

One Canadian who has been doing just that for the past seven years is Toronto-area resident Don Bilodeau. He went as a tourist, married a Cuban nurse, and has been doing yeoman service for years bringing much-needed aid worth millions . He's spent an estimated $100,000 of his own money.

He and his cohorts have brought in medical supplies such as badly needed medicines, vitamins, wheelchairs, doctors' and nurses' "scrubs," crutches, walkers, canes, etc. Plus items like bicycles, baseball equipment, soccer balls and basketballs.

"But the one thing I have always insisted is that I be present when the items are handed over to the Cuban people. I don't want it ending up in the black market," he said last week.

And there's the rub. Despite his best efforts, he's had numerous run-ins with Cuban immigration authorities -- but especially customs officials who fined him and grabbed the much-needed supplies.

Bilodeau recounted several instances where Cuban customs officials promised he'd be present when his supplies were being unloaded -- and then failed to notify him.

Earlier this month he had an ugly experience in which he felt doublecrossed when he was fined for overweight on the supplies he was carrying. He had enough and came home with the Cuban airline holding his passport on the flight.

His opinion: "If Canada stopped supporting such an evil, crooked government, the country would collapse. People would be free and they would be the richest country in the Caribbean."

I'm not sure if Canada carries such weight, but our decades of Castro-backing governments have certainly helped to keep him in power.

Poseidon Pummels Cruise Ship

Catch this whole story in the NY Daily News:
Sounds like a mini Poseidon adventure.

A "freak wave" more than 70 feet high slammed a luxury cruise ship steaming for New York yesterday, flooding cabins, injuring passengers and forcing the liner to stop for emergency repairs.

The Norwegian Dawn, an opulent ocean liner almost 1,000 feet long, limped into Charleston, S.C., yesterday afternoon after it hit vicious seas in an overnight storm off Florida - then was creamed by the rogue wave after dawn.

"[My room] was destroyed by stuff getting thrown all over the place," passenger James Fraley, of Keansburg, N.J., told NBC News before embarking on the 12-hour drive home because he didn't want to set foot on the ship again.

"It was pure chaos."

The ship, which sailed from New York last Sunday with 2,500 passengers, had been due back today.

It weathered most of a wild storm that featured gale-force winds and choppy seas. But then the vessel, longer than three football fields, was suddenly smacked by the "freak wave," said Norwegian Cruise Line spokeswoman Susan Robison. It broke a pair of windows and flooded 62 cabins, she said.

"The sea had actually calmed down when the wave seemed to come out of thin air at daybreak," Robison said. "Our captain, who has 20 years on the job, said he never saw anything like it."

The tidal wave wrecked windows on the ninth and 10th floors and wreaked havoc below decks, destroying furniture, the onboard theater, and a store that sold expensive gifts.

It also injured four passengers and terrified scores more, many of whom lost belongings and were being flown back to New York early this morning.

All passengers would be given a partial refund, a credit for a future trip and access to the ship's open bar, Robison said.

I would hope so!

Castro and the Party Faithful

Gisela Garcia Rivera, Cuban ambassador to Jamaica opines about Human Rights Commission. Here comes the commie party line propaganda. Check the whole thing out in the Jamaica Observer.

With regard to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, I must agree that "human rights are not the patrimony of selected nations". But I must say how amazed I was to find that the United States agreed with that! Are we talking about the same commission that has failed to even raise a discussion on human rights violations in developed countries? Ask the African Americans in the prisons of the United States!

Is it the same commission that has not been able to review or even to discuss serious human rights violations by US authorities both in Guantanamo Bay and in the Abu Ghraib prison and others in occupied Iraq? The impunity of the powerful! Shame!

Recently, a statement "Let us stop a new manoeuvre against Cuba" was signed by more than 4000 well-known and highly recognised intellectuals and artistes worldwide, including famous personalities from the United States, requesting the countries represented in the commission not to allow themselves to be used to legitimise the Bush Administration's anti-Cuban aggressiveness.

Gee, I wonder who those famous personalities might be? Well, surprise, surprise, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover and Ramsey Clark an unholy treasonous trinity if ever there was one!

Lost Literature Regained

From the Drudge Report:

Thousands of previously illegible manuscripts containing work by some of the greats of classical literature are being read for the first time using technology which experts believe will unlock the secrets of the ancient world.

Among treasures already discovered by a team from Oxford University are previously unseen writings by classical giants including Sophocles, Euripides and Hesiod. Invisible under ordinary light, the faded ink comes clearly into view when placed under infra-red light, using techniques developed from satellite imaging.

The Oxford documents form part of the great papyrus hoard salvaged from an ancient rubbish dump in the Graeco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus more than a century ago. The thousands of remaining documents, which will be analysed over the next decade, are expected to include works by Ovid and Aeschylus, plus a series of Christian gospels which have been lost for up to 2,000 years.

Cochise County and the Special Use Permit

Here's the Sierra Vista Herald account of the Bible School squabble.

BISBEE - Cochise County officials contend the head of the Miracle Valley Bible complex is operating guest lodging without a special-use permit.

If true, the Rev. Melvin Harter faces up to $750 a day in fines.

Harter said he and the county Planning and Zoning Department have not been able to reach an agreement. He believes no permit is required.

The brouhaha has been simmering since February. It came to a boil April 8 when Jim Vlahovich, in his position as the county's zoning inspector, sent Harter a three-page letter informing the church leader that he was in violation of county ordinances.

The issue spilled over Friday when e-mails questioned Vlahovich's motives, implying he was trying to stop Minuteman Project volunteers from having a place to stay while they patrolled the U.S.-Mexico border.

Vlahovich and Cochise County Board Chairman Pat Call say that is not true.

Even Harter distanced himself from the allegations.

Vlahovich, who also is the director of the county Planning and Zoning Department, said Harter was informed in late February that he would need a special-use permit if he was going to allow the volunteers to camp or stay at the Bible college.

Since the listing of the county's proposed actions against Harter, Vlahovich has received a number of hate e-mails. One called the Marine veteran a communist. "I guess it is because of my (last) name," he said.

Another writer told him to get out of the country, and yet another hoped he would be killed by an illegal immigrant.

Most contained derogatory language, but what concerns Vlahovich is that someone from out-of-state called his home wanting to talk with him.

An e-mail sent to the Herald/Review encouraged people to write the planning and zoning director.

"Please contact James E. Vlahovich and share your displeasure with this unacceptable action against Americans (Minuteman Project volunteers) exercising their First Amendment rights and the rights of the property owners to do with their property as they please."

Vlahovich said the people he has been able to talk with over the phone come around and understand what the county is doing. He said they end up not seeing it as anti-Minuteman program.

Call said he spoke with Jim Gilchrist, a co-organizer of the Minuteman Project, on Friday about the situation. He said Gilchrist disavowed any action by his supporters.

Gilchrist could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Call said Minuteman Project participants have not done anything wrong and have behaved well.

As for Vlahovich doing his job, Call said the planning and zoning director is correct in addressing problems caused by Harter and his refusal to have a permit to operate guest lodging.

Vlahovich said there were discussions with church representative three times in March, two verbally and one through a letter.

Harter said he was working on obtaining permits, but he was told by Vlahovich, "I was not going to get one."

The minister said there was no reason to continue the process and throw away money, even if it was $30 for the processing fee.

Vlahovich said he never told Harter he would stop a permit because he does not have that authority. Harter was told it was too late for the permit processing to take place because of the need for the Planning and Zoning Commission to review the application to have it approved to be in place when the volunteers showed up to live at the college campus near Palominas, he said.

In the past, the planning staff have recommended approval for permits sought by Harter, such as a day-care center and charter school, which the commission approved, Vlahovich said.

Vlahovich said Harter does not recognize that most of the activities on the church property are no longer grandfathered, which means changes have to be approved according to county ordinances. This, he said, includes allowing property to be used for guest lodging, as is this case to support the Minuteman Project volunteers.

In his April 8 letter to the church leader, Vlahovich noted the planning staff met with him on March 8, by letter on March 17 and by phone on March 30 to inform Harter that the RV park at the college and dormitories on the property could not be used as guest lodging without a special-use permit.

At one time, Vlahovich's letter noted Harter suggested he "might hold a revival for the Minuteman while they were staying in your dormitories, RVs and in tents pitched on the property."

If a revival was to be held, it would require a temporary-use permit, which could only last a week during a three-month period, the letter stated.

The letter stated the minister advertised lodging at the church complex through a Minuteman Project Web site.

"You are providing accommodations for overnight or short-term lodging and are in fact charging for these services per your previous statements and attached advertisement," the April 8 letter stated.

Another problem with allowing the Bible campus to be used for a large number of people is sanitation, Vlahovich said during a telephone interview. The subject was not addressed in the letter.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has looked at the area and agency officials have expressed concerns about an inadequate sanitation system, he said.

Because of the purported violations, Vlahovich contends Harter could be fined up to $750 a day.

No fines have been collected, and that can only be done after a due process, including a hearing, Vlahovich said.

Harter said he faces the problem that the county believes the Bible college is not a church.

He will be responding the planning department's allegations through an attorney, while he works on seeking permits.

The minister said he believes the county is wrong about using the dormitories as guest lodging in light that a portion of a girl's facility is his home, "my parsonage."

Call said the main problem is Harter believes he is above rules that every county resident faces.

"He continues to flagrantly violate them," he said.

Harter cannot be given special consideration that is not given any other county resident, Call said.

"He just has a disregard for the rules," he said.

How interesting...the timing of all this is simply coincidental.

Vlahovich versus Bible College

This from The Blue State Conservatives.
I urge everyone to contact Vlahovich and the supervisors, the agenda here is obvious.

I have received word via E-Mail from Sandra Miller that The Miracle Valley Bible College in Hereford, Arizona has just been fined $750 per day by James E. Vlahovich (Director, Cochise County Planning Department) for offering and providing housing/camping facilities to volunteers of The Minuteman Project. I am sure this will break soon on more familiar news sites, as MMP Director Jim Gilchrist will surely be discussing this in press interviews today.

There is very little information available currently as to the grounds used by Vlahovich to levy the fine. That will surely come available throughout the day and I will update as I am able. Regardless of the technical merits (if any) for the fine, let there be little doubt that the intention is to punish those who support the Minuteman Project by any means available. (Vlahovich...wasn't that the name of the Soviet Political Officer aboard the Soviet submarine in "The Hunt for Red October"?)

From Miller's E-Mail:

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

MMP Director Jim Gilchrist has been informed that James E. Vlahovich, Director, Cochise County Planning Department has levied a fine of $750.00 per day on the The Miracle Valley Bible College in Hereford, Arizona for housing the MinuteMan Project.
Russ Dove XXX-XXX-XXXX will update his website http://TiANews.com as new information avails itself.

...

Please do two things:

1) Please contact James E. Vlahovich and share your fury with this arbitrary action against Americans exercising their First Amendment rights and the rights of Property Owners to do with their property as they please.

2) Send this message to everyone you know!

Director, James E. Vlahovich, Director
Cochise County Planning Department
pnz@co.cochise.az.us
Phone (520)432-9240 Fax (520)432-9278
1415 Melody Lane, Building E; Bisbee, Arizona 85603

Also contact the Cochise County Board of Supervisors:
Pat Call, Chairman pcall@co.cochise.az.us Phone (520)432-9200 Fax (520)432-5016
Paul Newsman pnewman@co.cochise.az.us Phone (520)432-9200 Fax (520)432-5016
Richard Roddis Searle rsearle@co.cochise.az.us Phone (520)432-9200 Fax (520)432-5016

Birds of a Feather

Here's a marriage made in hell. His queerness and the butchers from planned parenthood. If you want to know what's wrong with America, just read this.Don't forget this "bishop" left a wife and two children to be with his homosexual lover.

(AgapePress) - Homosexual Episcopal bishop Vicki Gene Robinson was the keynote speaker at an "interfaith prayer breakfast" on Friday morning sponsored by the nation's largest abortion provider. The New Hampshire bishop used the opportunity to praise Planned Parenthood for its efforts -- and to go on the attack against America.
The prayer breakfast is part of Planned Parenthood's annual conference, which is being held in Washington, DC. Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop, told the organization's staff and supporters they have reason to be proud of what they do.

"Long before the 'religious right' was objecting to abortions, Planned Parenthood was objecting to the violence against women when butchers were performing all the abortions here in America," Robinson said. "Yours is amazing history -- and I hope you are as proud as you should be."

He also stated that America treats everyone wrong -- except straight white men. "I am so grateful for this experience of being gay. It has taught me so much," the bishop said. "It's my little window into what it must be like to be a woman, to be a person in a wheelchair, to be a person of color."

Robinson said that is why homosexuals and abortion advocates must unite and fight to bring about what he calls a "holy change" in the nation. The two movements, he said, will always be linked together as they battle to bring about that change.

Prior to the breakfast, Planned Parenthood chaplain Dr. Ignacio Castuera had described Robinson as an "inspiring religious leader and a compelling moral and ethical force in the struggle for reproductive rights, human rights, and sexual equality." Robinson's work in the areas of mentoring and "healthy sexuality," he added, has "shaped generations of believers who share his progressive spiritual values."

Not long ago, I blogged about this weirdo here.

Don't Know Why, I Can't Help but Lie

Oh those zany Times reporters, they just can't help making stuff up even when they change papers. But, I'm sure, as cBS would say, it may not be factual but it's accurate.

A Boston Globe freelance writer who was axed this week for fabricating part of a story had worked for a decade as a New York Times reporter.
Barbara Stewart worked as a reporter on the Times' metro desk between October 1994 and May of last year, Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis confirmed last night.
Stewart was dropped by the Globe as a freelancer this week after she was caught making up part of a story about seal culling off the coast of Canada.
The Times last night would not say whether a probe was under way into Stewart's work there.
The Times would not give any reason why Stewart left.
Among her more noteworthy assignments at the Times were a number of the paper's ``Portraits of Grief'' vignettes about 9/11 victims.
The veracity of its journalism is a sensitive topic at the Times - badly burned by the Jayson Blair scandal two years ago. A rash of fabrications and plagiarisms by Blair plunged the venerable institution into one of the deepest crises in its history.
Editors Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd left the paper, and the Times instituted a ``public editor'' to maintain standards.
Stewart, in a story that appeared on Page 8 of the Globe on Wednesday, gave an apparent eyewitness account of this year's seal cull. She described how ``the ice and water turned red'' as ``hunters on about 300 boats converged on ice floes, shooting harp seal cubs by the hundreds.''
The account, however, was fabricated. The cull didn't happen that day. It was postponed due to bad weather.

He said Stewart has since told the Globe: ``I don't know why I did this. I've never done anything like this before.''

Stop me before I lie again. Thanks Boston Herald.

Go, Granny, Go

I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did. Thanks timesunion.

LONDON -- A grandmother stopped an intruder from entering her home by lobbing a heavy garden gnome at him, police said Friday. Jean Collop was woken early on Tuesday morning by the sound of an intruder on the roof of her home in Wadebridge, southwest England.

"I grabbed the first thing that came to hand -- one of my garden gnomes -- and hurled it at him, and hit him," she recalled.

"He lay there and I began to scream. I went back into the kitchen and found a rolling pin in case he came down. I didn't want to break another gnome."

A neighbor alerted police who arrived shortly afterward and arrested the intruder.

He added: "Our usual advice would be not to get involved, but to contact the police straight away," said a spokesman for the Devon and Cornwall Police.

"We do appreciate that in the heat of the moment people react to that situation, and if it results in a happy outcome that's great."
I'd call it a happy outcome!

Castro Mad at Mexico

Mexico City: The [Mexican] secretary of state has described as “irresponsible” declarations made by Cuban Foreign Minister, Felipe Perez Roque, who charged Mexico on Thursday with voting with the United States against Havana at the U.N. Human Rights Commission, in exchange for U.S. backing for a Mexican candidate, Luis Ernesto Derbez, to be secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS).

The [Mexican] Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Allan Nahum Kaim, said, "to say that there was an exchange of votes is irresponsible and absolutely lacks any credibility. He insisted that Mexico had supported resolution by virtue of its content and in line with the commitment of the government of President Vicente Fox to the universal respect for human rights.

As a courtesy between colleagues, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said that he had warned his Cuban counterpart last Thursday, of Mexico’s position with respect to the [human rights] vote in Geneva, Nahum Kaim said.

Of the 53 countries that sit in the Human Rights Commission, 21 voted in favor of resolution against Cuba, among those Mexico, 17 voted against and 15 abstained.

Some off those voting against were Bahrain, Burkina Faso, China, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Togo, Zimbabwe and the Ukraine. Interesting list, I especially like that Cuba gets to vote on itself and it's so comforting to know that Sudan and Saudi Arabia are watching over human rights.

Here are some of the countries voting for: United States, Armenia, Austria, Australia, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, the Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, the Republic of Korea, Sweden and the UK.

These countries abstained Argentina, Bhutan, Brazil, Eritrea, Gabon, Nepal, Paraguay, Uganda, Mauritania, and Sri Lanka.

What would we do without the UN? Let's find out!

Time Out for Mandy

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- State Sen. Mandy Dawson was reprimanded and stripped of a key committee assignment today for an "unlawful" solicitation of money from lobbyists to help pay for an overseas trip for her and a friend.
In addition to the formal reprimand, the Fort Lauderdale Democrat was removed from the body's Ethic and Elections Committee.

Wow, that will put the fear of God in the rest of those naughty politicians. Here they go protecting their own again. Why isn't this woman drummed out? It isn't like this is the first time she's ever been caught doing something illegal. It's the time out philosophy vs. the woodshed, and it ain't workin'.

Mea Culpa and What it Means

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. -- A man whose lawsuit describes him as a habitual drunk is suing the Boynton Beach bar that served him before he was charged with drunken driving.Brian Licitra, 27, claims the Banana Boat Restaurant and Lounge was negligent for serving him when the staff knew he was a drunkard.Licitra injured himself and restaurant employees in a crash last June. Licitra's lawyer said his client had been fired by the Banana Boat for his drinking problem.

There should be a law against personal irresponsibility and it should carry major penalties. It's people like this that cause us all to pay higher prices because they are too stupid to know you should only climb the ladder on the side with steps. They are the reason I have to see signs warning me that a stop sign is coming.
I believe we should start having commercials showing vehicles on two wheels that say "Attempt this at home" and notes on cans of compressed air that encourage various orifice insertions. For those stupid enough to do it, we're well rid of them. It would probably reduce the liberal looney squad by 50% and keep the rest of us greatly entertained.

Chirac Plays Anti-American Card

A "non" vote to the European Constitution would weaken the EU and benefit the United States, warned French President Jacques Chirac. Chirac said that France and Europe would, in the future, face other super powers such as the United States, China, Russia and even Brazil and the rest of Latin America.

Get used to it Jacques, soon you won't even be able to push the Ivory Coast around.

The French will vote May 29 in a national referendum if they should support the European constiturion. For the moment, the "non" appears to have a slight edge.