Cubans Abandoned By Europe, Once Again

You have to really respect the Czechs for pushing in the right direction but, once again, Old Europe acquiesces to the old dictator Castro. The long suffering Cuban people deserve better, they deserve democracy. The Czechs, of course, understand that deeply.

In the showdown between Old and New Europe over Cuba, Old Europe has won - and the communist dictator in Havana, Fidel Castro, has gotten a break for at least a year.

The European Union decided yesterday not to restore diplomatic sanctions it imposed on the island in 2003, affording Mr. Castro a year of "constructive dialogue" before next reconsidering whether to ban high-level diplomats' visits to Cuba, open embassies in Havana to Cuban dissidents, and take other measures that have greatly irked Cuba's strongman.

The decision was issued at yesterday's External Relations Council meeting, a gathering of the foreign ministers of the 25 E.U. member states, in Luxembourg. It was the most recent development in a diplomatic saga that began in March 2003, when Mr. Castro rounded up and jailed 75 independent academics, journalists, and librarians, among other opponents, in what is known on the island as the "primavera negra," or "black spring."

In the aftermath of the crackdown, in June 2003, the E.U. responded with diplomatic sanctions on the island. Among other measures, the European Union suspended high-level diplomatic contact with Havana, and began inviting dissidents to celebrations of national holidays, where members of the opposition movement were afforded valuable access to representatives of the world's second largest economic power.

The Europeans' retaliation infuriated Mr. Castro, who promptly declared a "freeze" on his relations with the continent, posing difficulties for countries with economic interests on the island. That freeze thawed in January, when Spain - under the governing hand of the Socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and his foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos - pushed the E.U. to lift the sanctions for a six-month trial period.

Six months later, the E.U. has determined that even though "there was no satisfactory progress on human rights in Cuba," it remains willing "to maintain a constructive dialogue with the Cuban authorities, on a reciprocal and non-discriminatory basis ... with the aim of achieving tangible results with regard to human rights, democratization and the release of political prisoners." The E.U.'s diplomatic sanctions "remain suspended" until June 2006, when the union will next reconsider its common position.

The European Union arrived at the decision despite the fact that, last week, dissidents were urging it to reinstate the June 2003 sanctions. Several European lawmakers, too, urged a tougher line on the Castro regime in the wake of detentions of lawmakers and journalists from Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Germany during the May 20 meeting of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba, the first major successful gathering of pro-democracy activists on the island in the 46 years of Castro's reign.

The move disappointed some advocates of democracy on the island, including representatives of the Czech Republic, which has lobbied hard for tougher European measures on Mr. Castro.

E.U. policy on Cuba has been framed as a showdown between Old and New Europe, with Spain representing the former and the Czechs carrying the banner of the latter.

Spain, because of its historical and linguistic ties to Cuba, has long been deferred to by the European community on matters of Cuban policy. Scholars of Cuba have observed that because both the left and the right in Spain have historically had ideological affinities for Castro's dictatorship, this usually resulted in lax policies, with the exception of the June 2003 sanctions under Prime Minister Aznar. Under the Socialist Zapatero government, Spain has moved toward a more accommodating posture. Its ambassador to Havana, Carlos Alonso Zaldivar, "was a militant in the Spanish communist party years ago," the director of the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba, Frank Calzon, said.

Since Spain first pushed to temporarily suspend the sanctions in January, it has been resisted fiercely by the Czechs, who represent a new element in European policy-making informed by years of suffering under Soviet brutality. The Czech Republic's ambassador to America, Martin Palousy, said to The New York Sun, of Cuba: "Basically, we have a very similar experience in the past, and we believe that for a healthy state of transatlantic relations, the question of principled support for democratic fighters in countries that are still under totalitarian regimes is essential."

To that end, the Czechs have been lobbying in recent weeks for a stricter line in Europe's policy toward Havana's strongman, including international speeches by a former Czech president and dissident, Vaclav Havel. To the Czechs, replacing Castro's rule with democracy in Cuba "is a very important thing," Mr. Palousy said. "We maybe can sound like idealists, but I believe that this is a very realistic defense of our nation's interests as well."

One of the organizers of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba, Rene Gomez Manzano, agreed. Having E.U. nations open their embassies to dissidents, in particular, was "important not only for us, the opposition, but for those foreign representatives as well," he said in Spanish.

By shutting the opposition movement out of embassies, Mr. Gomez said, European diplomats would be "deprived of our perception, our analysis - this fount of information" about the state of affairs in Cuba. "What other source do they have - the government of Castro?" he asked, adding that the solidarity of democracies across the Atlantic was very important to Cuba's prodemocracy activists.

Representatives of Spain, however, maintained that they are committed to fostering democracy in Cuba but differ in the method of promoting it. The authority on Latin American policy at Spain's embassy to America, Juan Jose Rodriguez Buitrago, said, in Spanish, that the measures adopted in June 2003 "are provoking conflict with the government of Cuba. They don't help the dissident movement. They don't help anybody."

Scots Slam Samaritan's Purse

Teachers last night called for an investigation into an American evangelical movement that collects Christmas gifts from Scottish pupils and sends them to children in deprived parts of the world.
The call followed concern that the charity, Samaritan's Purse, which runs the Christmas shoe box appeal, did not encourage religious diversity or tolerance.
Teachers at the annual meeting of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) in Perth were told that the charity – which has been endorsed by Franklin Graham, the evangelical preacher – was anti-Islam.
However, a spokesman for the UK-based arm of the organisation dismissed the claims and said parcels were given to children across the world regardless of their faith.
In the past few years, more than one million parcels have been sent parcels have been sent from schools in Britain to orphans in countries such as Mozambique, Romania and Azerbaijan.
Kenny Elder, from the South Lanarkshire branch of the EIS, told delegates: "It has a very right-wing, racist view of religion. It should be investigated by the union because it has a growing presence in our schools.
"A lot of people involved in schools don't know about the views of this organisation, and I believe Samaritan's Purse does not have a place in Scotland's schools."

If they are worried about a racist view of religion, they need to start with their local mosques and fundamentalist imams. When was the last time an Islamic charity donated to Christians, Jews or Hindus? They couldn't even cough it up for their Indonesian bothers. What a distorted view of reality.

Taken from an article in The Herald.

Hello, Activists, Where Are You Now?

Where are all the women's rights groups? Why are they not out supporting this cause? Why aren't some female celebs from Follywood jetting to Tehran? Where is Amnesty International? Why isn't Michael Moore threatening to sit on Iran? Why doesn't Bruce Springsteen do a concert in Tehran sprinkled with some smart ass comments about Rafsanjani?

TEHRAN, Iran - Hundreds of women of all ages gathered yesterday at Tehran University to demand freedom and an end to gender discrimination in Iran.

Days before Iranians head to the polls Friday to cast their ballots in a national election, the protesters, who lacked official permission to demonstrate, defied police to make a historic plea for equal rights. This week's presidential election is widely expected to bring victory to a cleric and former president, hard-liner Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 70.

The women forced their way past Tehran University's main gate and badge-wearing security guards. Riot squads attempted to prevent demonstrators from entering at various points around the campus's perimeter, but were unable to stop the crowd from pouring in. The women paid no heed to either police or plainclothes officers recording the action on digital video.

"These women don't care anymore. They have had it!" one man, voicing his support of the protestors, shouted at police. "Imagine being held back for so long - what's the worst they are going to do to them? Prison? They don't care," he said.

The female demonstrators fearlessly spoke out against the regime.

One carried a large sign lettered in English that read "Constitution NO, Women's Rights YES." Others held placards bearing male and female gender symbols connected with an equal sign. Leaders chanted Persian poems that celebrated the station of women in society through megaphones. Many recited slogans demanding the release of political prisoners and held signs with the names of the incarcerated.

Some women crossed their faces with their fists to depict voiceless women as a list of demands were read.

The gathering was mainly peaceful, but police struggled to keep passersby from gawking. Empty city busses were parked to stop people across the street from catching glimpses of the women speaking out for their freedom.

As protesters began to leave the grounds, a security van followed them along with more riot police. Some women tore up campaign posters in frustration as they neared Enghelab Square, blocks away from Tehran University.

Through the van's speakers, police announced that those who had vandalized the posters would be "taken care of." Across the square, security forces moved in to make arrests.

Some were arrested, but the number could not be confirmed.

Protesters promised to press on and plan to hold another demonstration Thursday.

From The New York Sun.

Terrorists Told To Not Break The Law

How can you expect to deal with these terrorists as if they were civilized human beings? They never keep an agreement so what is the point of negotiation? The only thing they understand is violence, in fact they have a love affair with it.


Palestinian Authority (PA) foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa declared on PA television, "The dismantling of armed organizations is not on the table because weapons are legal as long as the occupation exists. Possession of weapons is a strategic issue as long as there is occupation." Al-Kidwa, a nephew of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat, added that terrorists' should not use their weapons to break the law.

Several hours earlier, more than 40 terrorists attacked the PA headquarters in Gaza, where the Hamas terror organization has emerged as a rival authority. Shooting stopped after three hours, and no injuries were reported.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon responded Saturday night saying that there will be no advancement in talks with the PA if it does not disarm terrorists.

Saturday's announcement is an about-face from the American road map plan that calls for the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure. It also comes several hours after Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz consulted with another PA minister on coordinating the planned forced evacuation of Jews from Gaza this summer. Mofaz spoke Friday with PA interior minister Nasser Yousef, the same man who decided that terrorists involved in a terror attack should be freed from prison.

Two of the seven Islamic Jihad terrorists who were involved in the February suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub were freed Thursday from a Jericho jail. The Islamic Jihad demands the others be released. The attack, which killed five Israelis, occurred shortly after the Sharm el-Sheikh summit agreement that committed the PA to disarm terrorists in return for Israel withdrawing military forces from five large Arab cities.

The terrorists remaining behind PA bars are from Kalkilya, the next city where Israel is slated to surrender all control.

Mofaz, who repeatedly has said that the PA is not making enough effort to fight terrorism, nevertheless is continuing to speak with the PA about Israel's turning over to the Arabs complete control of Kalkilya, which borders Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv, and is the gateway to many large Jewish communities in Samaria.

Coming Soon To A Court Near You

I love the part about "we have no problem with the Catholic Church". These activist groups have problems with everyone who doesn't agree with them, equating disagreement with bigotry. If you don't celebrate their fervor to participate in the unnatural, you must be a bigiot. Well since they spend their days in the dumpsters of life, no wonder they come up with rubbish.

Churches that oppose same-sex marriage legislation have good reason to fear for their charitable status, a leading gay-rights advocate is warning.

"If you are at the public trough, if you are collecting taxpayers' money, you should be following taxpayers' laws. And that means adhering to the Charter," says Kevin Bourassa, who in 2001 married Joe Varnell in one of Canada's first gay weddings, and is behind www.equalmarriage.ca.

"We have no problem with the Catholic Church or any other faith group promoting bigotry," he said. "We have a problem with the Canadian government funding that bigotry."

Several Liberal backbenchers have been pressuring Prime Minister Paul Martin to amend the controversial gay-marriage bill, which is now before the House, to protect the tax status of churches that refuse to perform such marriages.

Under current rules, donations to religious groups are tax-privileged as long as the church refrains from partisan political activity.

"They can't connect their views with any political candidate," said Peter Broder, the director of regulatory affairs at Imagine Canada, an umbrella organization for charities and non-profit groups.

But the role of the Catholic Church in public debate is legitimate and legal, according to Bede Hubbard, the associate secretary general of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Right from the very beginning, the representatives of the government have called on Canadians to express their opinions," he said. "And certainly, Canadian churches are among Canadian citizens."

Even if the churches are in compliance with tax laws --with or without an amendment to the marriage bill -- they could still be subject to a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But this is unlikely to succeed, Mr. Broder said.

"It's hard to see how that would happen," he said. "For example, I'm not aware of any religious group having been challenged on their refusal to marry divorced people."

Churches rely heavily on their charitable status to encourage more frequent and more generous donations, according to Janet Epp Buckingham, the director of law and public policy for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

"The loss the charitable tax status would really affect the ability of these ministries to carry out their functions," she said. "That includes a lot of things that are beneficial to society, like homeless ministries, outreach to the poor, and international development."

As a result, the Evangelical Fellowship favours an amendment to the bill guaranteeing that charitable status will not be challenged-- even though the group opposes the bill as a whole.

"If they're going to redefine marriage anyway, we would like to see these kinds of amendments in the bill," Ms. Buckingham said.

Bonnie Greene, a retired United Church official who specialized in tax issues, said the charitable status of churches is not under any immediate threat.

However, the regulations governing charities are greatly in need of updating, she said.

"In Canadian law, the definition of charitable activity is over 400 years old, based on a legal case in England," Ms. Greene said. "This is not good for democracy in Canada."

From Canada.com.

Canada's Court Decides, So Should We

The lesson for Americans is beware government-run health care that the democrats are so insistent on blessing us with. Imagine having to struggle for a year to get the right to pay for your own medical treatment. It's closer than you think.
Keeping the Kerrys and Clintons of this world out of power is key to preserving not just our way of life but perhaps our very lives themselves. Of course, John and Hillary would never have to wait for an operation because they're too important to the left's dismantling of America project.

Canada's Supreme Court yesterday struck down a Quebec law that banned private insurance for services covered under Medicare, a landmark decision that could affect the country's universal health-care system.

A year ago, supporters of Canada's government-run health care monopoly stood aghast as a Quebec doctor named Jacques Chaoulli and a hip-surgery patient named George Zeliotis presented the Supreme Court of Canada with an original argument. Medicare's waiting lists have become so dangerously long, they asserted, that legally banning people from paying for their own health care or purchasing private insurance violates the Charter of Rights' guarantee of life, liberty and security of the person. The justices responded with questions that implied some sympathy to the notion that patients should be able to select between private and public care.

The Chaoulli/Zeliotis arguments make eminent sense. Canada is alone in the world, save for the communist states of Cuba and North Korea, in punitively preventing its citizens from paying for core medical services through private insurance if they so choose. The price of maintaining such dubious company is that an untold number of Canadians die each year as a consequence of not receiving timely treatment, and many more suffer unnecessarily.

Information from The New York Sun and Canada.com.

Fox Blames His Failings On US, Again

Vicente is refusing, as always, to take responsibility for the chaos and anarchy of his pathetic excuse of a government. If American's didn't take drugs we wouldn't have drug lords. Ok, and if we didn't have cars there wouldn't be hijackings and if we didn't have this ridiculously successful economy and free society there wouldn't be any illegal aliens. Fox is a player of the blame game, constantly pointing fingers but never at himself.

Mourners honored Friday a border police chief gunned down just hours after taking over the post, while President Vicente Fox's spokesman said the United States shares some responsibility for the problem of border violence.

Air Jars For Air Heads

If ever you think mankind is capable of hope without supernatural intervention, be reminded of people such as these, and despair.

An enterprising celebrity spotter is offering fans the chance to buy a jar of fresh air allegedly breathed by stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

"Be the first to own this jar of Celebrity air, which may contain air molecules that came in direct contact with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt!!," read the seller's announcement on online auctioneer eBay.

Some 53 bidders had pushed the price of the jar to $US15,099 ($19,500) after it went on sale with a starting bid of just $US9.99.

As proof of its provenance, bidders are offered 13 pictures of the celebrity air being scooped up as Pitt and Jolie sashayed down the red carpet at Tuesday's premiere of their new film Mr and Mrs Smith.

"We are not guaranteeing this air sample contains air molecules that came in contact with any celebrity epidermal layer or respiratory system, but the sample was captured in proximity of the celebrities and air molecules that did come in direct contact," the seller said on eBay.

Selling celebrity memorabilia online has become a major industry in recent years, but most of the items offered for sale are somewhat more substantial than jars of air.

From The Sydney Morning herald.

Refreshing Reason From Arabia

A female voice of reason resounds from the Middle East. She is a Saudi writer, Nadine Al-Baydar and this aricle of hers is unbelievably refreshing.

“The blood and money of the non-believer is a legitimate target. Some people talk of pious Muslims and describe them as extremists, Islamic separatists, or terrorists. Such talk is an insult to the Muslim faith.”

My brother repeated the above sentences in an attempt to memorize them. Then he said, “How could murder and theft be crimes, yet at the same time be taught in our school’s curriculum?”

I tried to explain to him that we are going through a stage of educational reform, and that it will not be long before expressions such as these are taken out of the curriculum. He asked why, if the study program is to be reformed, must he waste years memorizing its contents?

A few days later, my brother’s teacher asked the class to write a paper on what they think of the curriculum, and my brother pointed out the above-mentioned phrases. The teacher mocked his paper and discarded it, while he paid attention to and praised other papers that discussed the schoolbook’s spelling and grammatical errors. My brother then said to me: “Apparently you didn’t understand that what was actually intended was a linguistic reform!”

On another day, my brother came back from school with a different idea. “Our teacher assures us that America is the enemy and that we have to hate and boycott it,” he said.

I gazed at the walls of his room and asked him: “You want to boycott America like your teacher told you to?” He bobbed his head up and down in agreement. So I said: “Then take down all these posters of famous wrestlers and rock stars, stop wearing your American-style clothes, quit watching their movies, toss out your personal computer, change your Western-inspired haircut, and replace your way of living that is so taken by the American culture with something else…

He immediately interrupted me: “Come on, sis, I was only joking!”

It is not just my brother who is only joking, but it is all Arab peoples who have a bland sense of humor when they declare their hatred for America and their decision to be free of Western culture. That is because there isn’t an Arab or Muslim person who can survive without the products of American culture. And how could they, when Arab nations are to this day nations of consumers and not producers, nations who do nothing to encourage their citizens to be creative, and nations who never created the right environment for innovation.

These are nations whose citizens’ thoughts are filled with a naive pride in the glories of an ancient past. A past that has been written and rewritten in countless books, and made and remade into dozens of historical movies and TV dramas filled with bloody battles that are endlessly repeated, bombarding the sight and hearing of the Arab citizen from cradle to the grave.

These are nations whose vast imagination has woven stories (due to either stupidity or the lack of brains altogether) of an American Zionist conspiracy that aims to destroy their nonexistent power. This is similar to their imaginary amounts of wealth that the West allegedly desires to seize through the colonization of their region. But they have a deep faith that their power will one day be restored to its old, ancient glory, and that they will return to exercise the global role that America is playing today.

Countless thoughts and dreams have wasted precious Arab time, while the realistic Western citizen has been busy implementing feasible plans that contribute to the improvement of his society and to adding the latest theories, discoveries and inventions to the library of world knowledge.

A quick comparison between the products of Arab cinema - with rare exceptions - and their Western counterparts which take into full account that discerning minds will be watching, is enough to reflect the truth of our Arab reality versus the Western reality that we despise.

If we did some research to find out the number of places for entertainment in the Arab world, we would find that it is many orders of magnitude larger than the number of factories or places of learning. The Arab citizen is a hardcore entertainment junky whose brain leans toward intellectual and scientific stagnation. If you were to look for the majority of Arabs in any tourist country, you would only find them sitting in cafes, watching each other and boasting to one another. Some might be found quenching their thirst at the local pub, before returning to the homeland to put on an impersonation of a pious hermit, and start preaching from their holier-than-thou pulpits.

As long as the Arab individual has not yet achieved a level of knowledge and sophistication that would enable him to be selective of what he receives from the outside world, he then is in need of a guide who can steer him in this age of globalization and the blurring of identities, before the waves of civilization throw him on the beach of backwardness, where he would be lost and isolated; or even become extinct.

But you don’t need to cross the seas or spend thousands of Dinars [Saudi currency] to reach the safe harbor of civilization. Civilization is coming to you; it is in your grasp. You can hang on to it and be saved. You can change, free of charge, into a refined human being who deserves to be called “international.” Gone is the age of colonization: The age of globalization is here. This is the truth that the Arabs still reject, insisting on the same old imaginary conspiracy of a Western plan to eradicate Islam.

Did the Arabs lift a finger to help the people of Kosovo when they were suffering from Serbian persecution? They gathered a few donations, but it was America who saved Kosovo. The Arabs did nothing to aid the women of Afghanistan when they were forbidden an education, and when the Afghani people were robbed of the chance for a normal life. America had to come in and rid the region of the backward Taliban regime.

The fear that the Arabs had for the prestige of their governments was more important to them than the injustices that the Iraqis were living under. Not one Arab government condemned the Halabja massacre and the Iraqi loss of life. It was America, and only America, who toppled Saddam’s regime, while the Arabs stood by denouncing the American intervention in Iraq.

Since the inception of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and the emergence of some Islamist countries, we see the Arab women’s conditions gradually deteriorating. The Arab feminist movement was nothing more than theoretical conferences for leading Arab women, where they posed for the cameras and discussed their childhood problems.

Saying that America is targeting the Arabs is a weak and untrue statement: We saw how the U.S. Secretary of State stressed that democracy in Russia had many problems, when she was visiting there a few months ago. It is also well known that the United States had supported the Georgian opposition against the dictatorship there. During the annual session of the Organization of American States this year, Condoleezza Rice emphasized the fragility of democracy in Venezuela and other countries in Latin America.

Many Arabs and Muslims view America as evil. They curse America and hurl insults at it. Some even bomb it and terrorize it. But America doesn’t have the time to curse back; it is too busy finishing the job it came to do in the Middle East.

From Watching America.

And The Horse You Rode In On

I understand the guy's frustration. This should be the recording you get when you call the US government.

London: Customers who rang the helpline of one of Britain's biggest cable television companies were shocked to be told to "f--- off".

But Ashley Gibbins, who recorded the tirade in revenge for being put on hold for an hour, walked free from court this week after magistrates decided that the message, although offensive, did not reach the "grossly offensive" standard for prosecution.

Mr Gibbins discovered by chance that he could change the recorded message on NTL's customer service line. The polite request to hold was changed to: "Hello, you're through to NTL customer services. We don't give a f--- about you, basically, and we are not going to handle any of your complaints. Just f--- off and leave us alone."

From The Sydney Morning Herald.

Out Damned Spot

The question is, does Michael Moore have enough fat to clean the Clinton's dirty laundry?

A bar of soap reportedly made from fat pumped from Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has gone on display.

Artist Gianni Motti claims he made the soap made from fat from Berlusconi's liposuction operation.

It is part of an art exhibition in Basel, Switzerland, where anyone wishing to wash their hands with Berlusconi can buy it for £10,000.

The artist who put the soap on display, Gianni Motti, 47, claims to have acquired the fat from an employee of an elite plastic surgery clinic in Lugano in Switzerland.

Motti said: "Berlusconi had face lifting and liposuction operations in a clinic in Lugano, where I have good connections that provided me with some of the fat. It was jelly-like and it stunk horribly, like butter gone off or old chip pan oil."

According to Motti, the artwork called Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) expresses opposition to corruption and mafia structures in Italy, as well as his personal opinion of Berlusconi's policies.

He said: "I came up with the idea because soap is made of pig fat, and I thought how much more appropriate it would be if people washed their hands using a piece of Berlusconi."

From Ananova.

How Dare You Quote Us

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Back Door Dice Game

We have a huge problem here. If detention equals deterrence, then why isn't the shortage of holding space being addressed? Why does the government continue to roll dice when it comes to protecting our nation?


WASHINGTON -- Border Patrol agents arrested nearly 100,000 non-Mexicans illegally crossing into the United States through Mexico over the past eight months and let the vast majority of them go free on bail or their own recognizance, immigration officials told a U.S. Senate panel Tuesday.

About 70 percent of so-called non-Mexican illegal immigrants captured along the southern border of the United States are released on their own recognizance to appear at a future deportation hearing, Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Few ever show up.

The rise in non-Mexican illegal immigrants captured while crossing the Mexican border has been of increasing concern to lawmakers since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Many view the trend with alarm, seeing a potential back door for terrorists.

"Those of us who represent states along the border have long been concerned with the potential for terrorists to smuggle themselves across the border," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Increasingly, illegal immigrants "come from countries all over the world, most of the time flying to Mexico and then sneaking into the country on foot," he said. "We do not know if they intend to simply find work or engage in acts of terror."

Because many of the arrested non-Mexicans come from nations, such as Brazil, where they are not required to have a visa to fly into Mexico, they can't be easily sent back to their countries.

Aguilar said the dearth of detention beds -- there are only about 20,000 -- is a prime reason for the rise in the number of non-Mexican illegals released on bail or just their written promise to appear for hearings. Last year about 47 percent were released just on their own recognizance, he said.

"Definitely, detention would in fact equal deterrence," he said.

From L.A. Daily News

Achtung, Sex Here

Discreet? How can a drive through whorehouse be discreet? Oh well, it makes it easy for the teams to score. Ouch!


A German city is rushing to install drive-in wooden "sex garages" in time for next year's soccer World Cup.

Dortmund, one of 12 cities to host World Cup matches, is anxious to keep prostitutes and their clients off the streets by providing them with discreet places to do business, Reuters reports.

Experts estimate as many as 40,000 prostitutes may travel to Germany to offer their services to fans during the tournament.

Dortmund plans to arrange the Dutch-designed huts in an area with condom machines and a snack bar.

From The Sydney Morning Herald.

Border Patrol Will Do Its Job

These groups crack me up. What they really want is secure ingress for lawbreakers. If someone is in trouble they will be happy to see a border patrol agent, any port in a storm.

TUCSON, Ariz. - Humanitarian groups setting up emergency camps in the desert to try to save some of the illegal immigrants who die trying to cross the border said Thursday that Border Patrol surveillance will hinder their efforts.

Churches and humanitarian groups have set up camps dubbed "Arks of the Covenant" - one in Arizona and one in northern Sonora, Mexico - to provide food, water and medical help to immigrants who otherwise might die in the desert's summer heat.

From The Tribune.

But the Rev. John Fife of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson said stricter Border Patrol surveillance will stop immigrants from seeking help because many immigrants will not enter a camp if they see a Border Patrol agent parked nearby.

The Border Patrol has increased patrols and agents recently, especially in California and Texas, making Arizona the busiest point along the Mexican border for illegal crossers.

Michael Nicley, who took over as interim chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson sector last August, said he has told officials that "there are no free zones in the Tucson sector. There is not an avenue of ingress where Border Patrol agents do not patrol."

He added that he had "no interest in keeping them from providing humanitarian aid. Quite the contrary."

He said people who need help "time and time again" seek out Border Patrol agents and the presence of an agent within shouting distance is the quickest way to get an immigrant emergency medical care.

ACLU Protests Park

Of course our friends at the ACLU are involved again. What they really would like is to only name things after atheists.


Harris County Commissioners Court today approved a proposal by Commissioner Steve Radack to name a new county park John Paul's Landing in honor of the late pope.

The 865-acre park on Katy Hockley Cutoff in northwest Harris County park will feature a lake of up to 500 acres and will be designed for boating, fishing, bird-watching and hiking.

"I want to make a spectacular park out there," said Radack, commissioner of Precinct 3.

County Judge Robert Eckels and Commissioners Radack, Jerry Eversole and Sylvia Garcia voted to name the park for the pope. Commissioner El Franco Lee abstained.

"I'm a Catholic," Lee said. "It's not in the spirit of what the pope was about."

Radack, also a Roman Catholic, said he wants to name the park after John Paul II because he greatly admired the late pontiff.

"I think the pope would be proud of this park," he said.

Gipson Arnold, president of the Houston Atheists Society, spoke against the proposal. "I'm opposed to the constancy of the pushiness of government-sponsored religion in our society," he said.

On Monday, an American Civil Liberties Union official questioned whether a park built with taxpayer money should be named after a religious leader.

"I would not want to name some park the Dalai Lama Park because some people might not be Buddhists," said Randall Kallinen, president of the ACLU Houston chapter. "It is insensitive to other religions."

The park will be built on former rice fields that cost Precinct 3 more than $1 million, Radack said. It will be northeast of Paul B. Rushing Park, a softball complex, and include no sports fields.

Precinct 3 will get whatever approvals or permits are required by state and federal agencies, Radack said, and planning will be coordinated with the Harris County Flood Control District.

The land is on a major flyway for migratory birds. The park will be designed to keep the land suitable for birds and other wildlife, Radack said.

The lake, he said, might be about 10 feet deep in the deepest areas and look more like marshy wetlands in others.

"A lot of the water would be pumped up from wells," he said. "I hope to start on some of (the work) this summer."

Radack said he has named two other Precinct 3 parks after Catholic clergy the Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza Park on Eldridge Parkway, honoring the now-archbishop of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, and the Monsignor Bill Pickard Park in Sharpstown, a joint city-county park that the county named after a local pastor.

No Precinct 3 parks have been named after rabbis, Protestant ministers or other non-Catholic clergy.

Eckels said the naming is appropriate because John Paul II had "a significant impact on the community. He wasn't simply a leader of the church, but a leader of the world."

Martin Cominsky, the Houston-based regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, agreed with the premise but suggested parks also might be named for non-Catholic clergy.

"We have no objection to parks being named after great leaders, and Pope John Paul II was a great leader," he said. "We hope the commissioner will include people of all faiths when he names parks that are for all of us. You want to create an environment that is inclusive of all people of our county."

The park wouldn't be the first public U.S. park named after John Paul.

In 1980, the Massachusetts Legislature named a 65-acre, ocean-front park in Boston the Pope John Paul II Park, said Joe O'Keefe, spokesman for the Massachusetts Office of Environmental Affairs. The naming was in honor of the pope's visit to Boston the year before.

One of Dallas' city parks is named after a cleric: the Bishop Flores Park.

San Antonio has at least two public sites named after clerics the Father Albert Benavides Park and the Father Roman Community Center.

From the Houston Chronicle.

Hillary, ACLU and Socialism

I thought it might be interesting to step in the time machine and go back to the 1970's when the Black Panther trials were taking place. A young Hillary Clinton was busy making sure that there would be a law school student always present at the Panther trial to watch for perceived abuses by the prosecutors and report them to the ACLU. The relationship between Hillary and this organization is old and dear to her heart. Their agenda is Socialism, do not be deceived.

"I am for socialism,"ACLU founder Roger Baldwin wrote in 1936. " I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."

Help stop the goal of the ACLU.

Go to the portal at Protest The ACLU , click where it says "sign up now", and fill out a simple form.Thank you!

ACLU Attacks Senate Security Revisions

Here we go again. Republicans and Democrats (the Democrats somewhat reluctantly) agree on steps to improve national security. Who doesn't like it? One guess before you scroll down. The ACLU ? Good answer. Survey says 100%. Once again, these subversives seek to undermine the national will. For more information go to Stop The ACLU.

The FBI would get expanded powers to subpoena records without the approval of a judge or grand jury in terrorism investigations under Patriot Act revisions approved Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Some senators who voted 11-4 to move the bill forward said they would push for limits on the new powers the measure would grant to law enforcement agencies.

"This bill must be amended on the floor to protect national security while protecting Constitutional rights," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.

Ranking Democrat Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., supported the bill overall but said he would push for limits that would allow such administrative subpoenas "only if immediacy dictates."

Rockefeller and other committee members, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also are concerned that the bill would grant powers to federal law enforcement agencies that could be used in criminal inquiries rather than intelligence-gathering ones.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the bill places new checks and balances on the powers it would grant, such as new procedures that would allow people to challenge such administrative orders. He called the Patriot Act "a vital tool in the war on terror" and lauded the Democrats who voted for it in spite of misgivings.

Portions of the Patriot Act — signed into law six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks — are set to expire at the end of 2005. The bill would renew and expand the act.

The bill also must be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Feinstein and other Democrats planned to again offer amendments.

Overall, Rockefeller said, the committee gave a nod to most of the Patriot Act in its first few years fighting the nation's new enemies.

"We concluded that these tools have helped keep America safe ... and should be made permanent," Rockefeller said in a statement.

Still, civil libertarians panned the bill and the closed-door meetings in which it was written.

"When lawmakers seek to rewrite our Fourth Amendment rights, they should at least have the gumption to do so in public," said Lisa Graves, the ACLU's senior counsel for legislative strategy. "Americans have a reasonable expectation that their federal government will not gather records about their health, their wealth and the transactions of their daily life without probable cause of a crime and without a court order."

From NewsMax.

Dean Drones On

Dean is the perfect leader of the donks. His discordant cries and screams perfectly mimic the bray of the jackass.

How long will it be before Hillary has him eliminated or does he in someway fit into her Whitehouse strategy?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean on Wednesday defended his recent harsh criticism of Republicans, including his observation that they are "pretty much a white, Christian party."

Dean noted that he, too, is a white Christian. But he said the GOP is too narrow in its scope and the Democratic Party is far more diverse.

Dean told a forum of journalists and minority leaders Monday that Republicans are "not very friendly to different kinds of people, they are a pretty monolithic party ... it's pretty much a white, Christian party."

Challenged on that during the NBC interview, Dean said "unfortunately, by and large it is. And they have the agenda of the conservative Christians."

"This is a diversion from the issues that really matter: Social Security, and adequate job opportunity, strong public schools, a strong defense," Dean said.

Asked about it on the "Fox & Friends" show, GOP Party Chairman Ken Mehlman joked that "a lot of folks who attended my Bar Mitzvah would be surprised" he heads a Christian party.

"We gotta get ourselves beyond this point where when we disagree about politics, we call the other guy names," he said.

The former Vermont governor also recently raised eyebrows when he told a group of progressives that Republicans "never made an honest living in their lives," a comment he was forced to explain a day later. The one-time presidential candidate also said that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who has not been accused of any crime, ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence.

They're Here Because We Allow It

This story is serious enough, but what really bothers me are the two other men arrested on immigration violations. We have so totally failed to tighten things up in this country that maniacs like this are running around loose. I am at a loss as to why there is not a greater outcry in this nation about the failure of our government to secure our borders.
Will it take a strike against a hospital or shopping center to wake this county up?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Federal authorities arrested a father and son after the younger man allegedly acknowledged that he attended an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan to learn "how to kill Americans," according to published reports.

Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, 47, were arrested over the weekend on charges of lying to federal agents, FBI agent John Cauthen confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday night.

Hamid Hayat recently returned to California from Pakistan. After first denying any link to terrorist camps, Hayat reportedly told agents that he attended al-Qaida camps in 2003 and 2004.

"Hamid advised that he specifically requested to come to the United States to carry out his jihadi mission," according to the affidavit. "Potential targets for attack would include hospitals and large food stores."

FBI agents raided the Hayat home on Tuesday, family members told the Times. They seized videocassettes, photographs, fax machines, prayer books and other items.

Two other men, Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan, were being held on immigration violations after meeting separately with Umer Hayat on Saturday, the Bee reported. All four men live in Lodi, about 40 miles south of Sacramento.

Crazy Killer Broke No Regulations

This is what happens when we make things too difficult for our law enforcement. In this bizarre world of liberalism no one felt there was enough cause to warrant detaining this guy longer than two hours. God help us, we are in a world of hurt, thanks to the myopic mewlings of the advocates of anarchy, the left.

BOSTON (AP) -- On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States.

The following day, a gruesome scene was discovered in Despres' hometown of Minto, New Brunswick: The decapitated body of a 74-year-old country musician named Frederick Fulton was found on Fulton's kitchen floor. His head was in a pillowcase under a kitchen table. His common-law wife was discovered stabbed to death in a bedroom.

At a time when the United States is tightening its borders, how could a man toting what appeared to be a bloody chain saw be allowed into the country?

Bill Anthony, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the Canada-born Despres could not be detained because he is a naturalized U.S. citizen and was not wanted on any criminal charges on the day in question.

Anthony said Despres was questioned for two hours before he was released. During that time, he said, customs agents employed "every conceivable method" to check for warrants or see if Despres had broken any laws in trying to re-enter the country.

"Nobody asked us to detain him," Anthony said. "Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up. ... We are governed by laws and regulations, and he did not violate any regulations."

Anthony conceded it "sounds stupid" that a man wielding what appeared to be a bloody chain saw could not be detained. But he added: "Our people don't have a crime lab up there. They can't look at a chain saw and decide if it's blood or rust or red paint."

Jimmy Speaks Out And I don't Care

Carter needs to go build some houses and keep his mouth shut about world politics. If anyone should be held incommunicado it's him.

ATLANTA (AP) -- Former President Carter on Tuesday called for the United States to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison to demonstrate its commitment to human rights.

"The U.S. continues to suffer terrible embarrassment and a blow to our reputation ... because of reports concerning abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo," Carter said after a two-day human rights conference at his Atlanta center.

Carter said the United States needs to make sure no detainees are held incommunicado and that all are told the charges against them.

It's Raining Cats and Dogs and Frogs

If this is followed by a plague of lice, I'd make sure there were no Jews being prevented from emigrating.

Traffic came to a halt and locals fled inside after thousands of frogs fell from the sky onto a Serbian village.

Residents in Odzaci told local daily Blic they thought the world was coming to an end.

Aleksandar Ciric said: "I saw all these small frogs just start raining down. There were thousands of them."

Another villager, Caja Jovanovic, added: "This huge 'cloud' seemed to come out of nowhere and its shape and colour looked very strange.

"We were all wondering what it was when suddenly frogs started to fall from the sky. I thought maybe a plane carrying frogs had exploded in midair."

But climatology expert Slavisa Ignjatovic said there was a simple scientific explanation for the incident.

He said: "A whirlwind has sucked up the frogs from a lake, the sea or some other body of water somewhere else and carried them along to Odzaci where they have fallen to the ground. It is a recognised scientific phenomenon."

From Ananova.

Deep Throat, Deep Pockets

All I have to say about Felt is this. I'm glad that the truth about the Nixon regime was exposed. I never liked Nixon, I felt he was an embarassment to the Republican Party. Anyone who was unable to see the man's glaring character flaws was either deliberately blind or stupid.
That said, it's a shame he was brought down by a man every bit as smarmy as himself. I would have preferred Felt had been a man of ideals, as many were who rose to the occasion at that time. This, however, is a self opportunist who seems unfortunately to have passed that gene on to his progeny.
Men like Nixon, Felt and others are the bane of America, men who act, not for the noblest of reasons, but for the basest, self-aggrandizement.


The daughter of a former FBI agent revealed as Deep Throat told a California newspaper that her aging father deserved to let go of his long-held secret but conceded that money played a part in the family's decision to go public.

Joan Felt, 61, has lived with her father in a two-story home near California's wine country for the past 13 years. She told the newspaper there were many reasons her family wanted to reveal his role, but added "I won't deny that to make money is one of them."

From NewsMax.

Kahn And Schultz Alleged to Walk Erect

This shows you who we're dealing with at Amnesty International. They have no proof and also no self-control. So desperate are they to play up any failing by America that they will resort to libeling her even though there is no evidence to substantiate their claims.

In bombastic rhetoric, they speak of an "archipelago" of prisons and "architects" of "systematic torture" when in fact there is no reason to believe such exaggerations. When called on to prove such claims they retreat to the vague but meaningless description of "similar in character, if not in size". Such charges means that Absurdity International must prove the US has numerous forced labor prison camps where enormous numbers of prisoners have died.
Without proof, these cretins should not even be given air time.


The head of Amnesty International's American branch yesterday acknowledged that he "doesn't know for sure" what is going on at Guantanamo Bay prison, although Amnesty International's secretary-general has called the terrorist prison run at a U.S. military base in Cuba a "gulag."
However, William F. Schulz defended the description made last week by Irene Khan, saying on "Fox News Sunday" yesterday that America's "archipelago of prisons throughout the world" are "similar in character, if not in size" to the Soviet gulags, where millions of political prisoners were killed.

"I don't believe [the charges] are irresponsible," said Mr. Schulz, the executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. "I've told you the ways in which I think that [there are] analogies between the Soviet prison system and the United States."
Pressed to cite concrete evidence that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales are the "architects" of "systematic torture" at the prison, Mr. Schulz could produce none.
"We don't know for sure what all is happening at Guantanamo and our whole point is that the United States ought to allow independent human rights organizations to investigate," Mr. Schulz said, adding that Amnesty International was careful to use the word "alleged" when accusing high-level Bush administration officials.

From The Washington Times.

Remains of Chirac's Ancestor Discovered?

Very strange, these Europeans and they think we're an odd bunch. Well, we are but that's not the point.

A bone found on a British beach has sparked renewed interest in one of the country's most curious myths - that a monkey washed ashore during the Napoleonic Wars was executed by suspicious locals for being a French spy.

Police in Hartlepool, on the north-east coast of England, confirmed that the 15 cm bone found on a beach last month was not human but came instead from a monkey or gorilla.

The discovery has intrigued locals, given the town's curious folklore from the Anglo-French Napoleonic conflict, which lasted from 1793 to 1815.

According to popular legend, a monkey dressed in a French uniform was washed ashore at Hartlepool and tried by local magistrates on suspicion of being a French spy.

Because it did not answer questions they presumed the animal was guilty, and it was hanged from a lamppost.

Although the tale's authenticity is unknown, Hartlepool's football team has long used a man dressed in a monkey suit - dubbed "H'Angus" - as its mascot.

For the rest, see The Sydney Morning Herald.

Are You Feeling Lucky, Repairman?

Someone should make certain she takes her medication or at the very least has a backup television.

NEW PORT RICHEY - The Best Buy repairman had come several times to fix the woman's television. But still on Friday he could not get it to work.

So, officials say, the woman pulled out a .38-caliber handgun loaded with hollow-point rounds and told him: "You're not leaving until the TV is fixed."

Marlene Anne Bagnall, 44, of 1523 Davenport Drive was later arrested on charges of aggravated assault and false imprisonment.

Bagnall's husband told a sheriff's deputy she was diagnosed with a mental disorder for which she takes medication. She left the county jail early Saturday on $10,000 bail.

Bagnall told a deputy that she became enraged when the repairman, 58-year-old John Meyer, could not fix the television. She said she retrieved the gun from the glove box of her car in the garage, walked back into the living room and pulled the gun out of its case, a sheriff's report said. She denied pointing it at the man.

The repairman escaped unhurt after he got a Best Buy clerk on the phone to promise Bagnall a new television. She seemed pleased and allowed him to leave, he told a deputy. Afterward, he called the Sheriff's Office.

"John advised in his 30 years in retail he has never experienced such a thing and is glad to be okay," the deputy reported.

From the St. Petersburg Times.

Border Violence Grows Worse

Outmanned and outgunned the Mexican police have no control of their own side of the border. How then, are they going to provide security against terrorists? It's time to use our military. Why is our government sitting on its hands?

U.S.-MEXICO BORDER – The dead include university students, assembly-plant workers, farm hands, businessmen, journalists, money couriers, drug gang henchmen and dozens of police officers.

At least 550 people have lost their lives in drug-related executions in Mexico so far this year – with 300 of those killings in the six Mexican states bordering the U.S. All are thought to be linked to organized crime, according to a review of press accounts by The Dallas Morning News.

Among the latest: A police commander assassinated in Nuevo Laredo early Thursday. Enrique Cardenas Saldaña was gunned down in front of his 9-year-old daughter. He was the sixth police officer – and the fourth commander – killed in the border city this year.

"The recent rise in drug-related killings is extremely disturbing," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. "I think it's clear we have a real problem on our hands that needs to be dealt with."

The killings have rattled residents on both sides of the border. A State Department warning about travel in the region is in effect through the end of July. And the rising death toll is shaking many Mexicans' faith in their government's ability to stop the violence brought on by drug gangs caught in a bloody turf battle.

"It's a war," said human rights activist Mauro Cruz, who compared his country's anti-drug fight to America's conflict in Iraq. "Kidnappings, murders and disappearances are the order of the day."

Mexican Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca told reporters last week that the execution total had reached 550 this year. But accounts indicate the number could be higher. El Universal newspaper says it has documented 545 such murders just since February. And the Mexican Editorial Organization, which owns 62 newspapers, last week put the number at 800 – about 37 per week.

"The number of deaths is extraordinary," said Victor Clark, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in the border city of Tijuana. "It's chilling."

Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the Mexican government's point man in the battle against organized crime, said the Fox administration has made progress. But unless the government keeps up the pressure, traffickers will "flourish and rule our country," he told reporters in Mexico City this weekend.

More than 46,000 people have been arrested over the last five years, he said, including 15 cartel leaders, 43 financiers, 70 under bosses, 256 hit men and 166 corrupt officials who worked for the drug gangs.

And U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza told a crowd in Monterrey in May that "drug cartels...are destroying the economic and social fabric of our communities."

"If that violence – whether prison riots in Matamoros or gangland-style shootings right here in Monterrey – is not controlled, it will badly undermine both investment and tourism."

Read the rest at the Dallas Morning News.

John Kerry Reads the Word, Again

During an interview with the Boston Globe, John Kerry made the following telling statement.

Asked about the impact of religion, he said that he reread the New Testament since the election to make sure ''I didn't miss anything" and recalled that on the campaign trail ''I gave a very strong speech about values and how you measure these things."

Kerry has not missed "anything", he's missed everything. The very fact that he thinks you can glean all you need to by one or two readings of the New Testament shows the man's woeful ignorance. His statement about giving a strong speech on how you measure things indicates his enormous ego.
Those who take the Word seriously will tell you every reading of scripture brings a new depth of undertsanding. Of course, that kind of reading involves prayer, meditation and humility in order for God to work in our hearts and minds.
It would be helpful not just for Mr. Kerry but for us all to spend some quality time with the entire bible. The Old and New Testaments are inextricably woven and great lessons abound in both.
As Micah, the prophet, said, "And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8)

John Kerry, Clueless As Can Be

This article in NewsMax gives another glimpse of the antics and tantrums of the FAILED candidates of the left. No one, except the most radical, have given any credence to this Downing Street Memo but Kerry, desperate to replace Al Gore as the head democratic dunce, is donning the fool's mantle.

Failed presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that he intends to confront Congress with a document touted by critics of President Bush as evidence that he committed impeachable crimes by falsifying evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"When I go back [to Washington] on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," Kerry said, referring to the Downing Street Memo in an interview with Massachusetts' Standard Times newspaper.

"I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home," the top Democrat added.

The British memo, however, contains no quotes from either Bush or Blair, and is notably slim on evidence implicating Bush in a WMD cover-up. Though largely ignored in the U.S. outside of rabid anti-Bush Web sites like MichaelMoore.com, the Downing Street Memo won Sen. Kerry's endorsement in the Standard Times interview: It's amazing to me," the top Democrat said, "the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."

What's not being missed on the internet, is that we still don't have full disclosure of Kerry's military records. That's amazing to me.

Absurdity International Loves Other Liars

In its efforts to unseat the ACLU from first place as the most insidious America hating organization of all time, Amnesty International USA has been busy these last few weeks. What I love the most about this article in The Washington Times is where they call themselves nonpartisan and independent of any political ideology. Liars supporting liars.


The top leadership of Amnesty International USA, which unleashed a blistering attack last week on the Bush administration's handling of war detainees, contributed the maximum $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Federal Election Commission records show that William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty USA, contributed $2,000 to Mr. Kerry's campaign last year. Mr. Schulz also has contributed $1,000 to the 2006 campaign of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.

Also, Joe W. "Chip" Pitts III, board chairman of Amnesty International USA, gave the maximum $2,000 allowed by federal law to John Kerry for President. Mr. Pitts is a lawyer and entrepreneur who advises the American Civil Liberties Union.

Amnesty International describes itself as nonpartisan. Disclosure of the leadership's political leanings came yesterday as the Bush administration continued to lash out at the human rights group for remarks last week by Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general.
Mrs. Khan compared the U.S. detention center at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where more than 500 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members are held, to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's "gulag" prison system.
At the same time, Mr. Schulz issued a statement calling Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top administration officials "architects of torture." Mr. Schulz suggested that other countries could file war-crime charges against the top officials and arrest them.
Since Sunday, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Vice President Dick Cheney; and President Bush have accused Amnesty International of irresponsible criticism.
Yesterday, it was Mr. Rumsfeld's turn.
"No force in the world has done more to liberate people that they have never met than the men and women of the United States military," Mr. Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon press conference. "That's why the recent allegation that the U.S. military is running a gulag at Guantanamo Bay is so reprehensible. Most would define a gulag as where the Soviet Union kept millions in forced labor concentration camps. ... To compare the United States and Guantanamo Bay to such atrocities cannot be excused."

Amnesty International's Web site states it is "independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion. It does not support or oppose any government."

The Acronym of Infamy, The ACLU

Does the name Abdurahman Alamoudi ring a bell ? He was a friend and sometime consultant on Islamic affairs to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Before he began to work for the Clinton State Department in 1997 as a "goodwill ambassador" to Muslim countries, he told the Islamic Association of Palestine in Chicago on December 29, 1996:
"I think if we are outside this country, we can say oh, Allah, destroy America, but once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it. There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way. We have other means to do it. You can be violent anywhere else but in America."
Alamoudi, who was the executive director of the American Muslim Council, had repeated high-level contacts with the Clinton White House in late 1995 and early 1996. On November 9, 1995 he met with President Clinton and Vice President Gore at a meeting with 23 Muslim leaders at the White House. On February 8, 1996, Mrs. Clinton wrote a newspaper column based on talking points provided by Alamoudi. And on February 20, 1996, Mrs. Clinton had Alamoudi's group draw up the Muslim guest list for a White House reception marking the end of the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, the first time such an event had ever been held at the White House.
Alamoudi helped develop "Religious Expression in Public School" with the ACLU which holds the copyright. Launched by Clinton in 1995, these "Presidential Guidelines" greatly impact public schools today. Nadine Strossen, President of the ACLU, refers to these guidelines as the authority to support the ACLU’s lawsuits restricting Christmas celebrations and removing Nativity scenes from public schools.
School districts are pressured to utilize Clinton’s guidelines which he sold to America as "issued by 35 religious groups," failing to disclose they include many civil rights groups and are all described by the ACLU as committed to separation of church and state.

Additionally, Clinton went beyond the ACLU copyright guidelines and added: "Students generally do not have a Federal right to be excused from lessons that may be inconsistent with their religious beliefs or practices."
This, of course, impinges on our freedom of religion.

At the end of his term, Clinton addressed Muslim leaders with a Ramadan message containing quotes from our children's textbooks today. "As America's six-million-member Muslim community grows in numbers and prominence, Americans of every religious tradition are learning more about the origins and meaning of Islam. That on "the Night of Power," the Angel Gabriel appeared to the Prophet Muhammad and revealed to him the first verses of the Koran. That the Koran declares that Ramadan was the month Allah's words were sent down, and so should be spent in fasting." -Bill Clinton
Today, Christmas and Nativity scenes are outlawed while Clinton's nominee, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton, approved "Islam: A Simulation" where children learn to "become Muslim, recite the Quran, fast for Ramadan and pray to Allah including this prayer: "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of Creation, The Compassionate, the Merciful, King of Judgment-day! You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help, Guide us to the straight path."
Remember this Clinton appointed judge also ruled that a woman's right to have an abortion is paramount, and that it is 'irrelevant' whether the unborn child suffers pain in the process of partial birth abortion. The double-standard is appalling, but one has only to look at our public school guidelines and who wrote them, the ACLU, to discover how our nation finds itself in the state it's in today.
Alamodi has been sentenced to 23 years in jail on charges related to his activities in the United States and abroad with nations and organizations that have ties to terrorism. He pleaded guilty to three federal offenses: one count of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which imposes terrorism-related sanctions prohibiting unlicensed travel to and commerce with Libya; one count of false statements made in his application for naturalization; and a tax offense involving a long-term scheme to conceal from the IRS his financial transactions with Libya and his foreign bank accounts and to omit material information from the tax returns filed by his charities.
But he can take satisfaction in the fact that a court in California has given the green light to schools following ACLU’s religion-in-the-classroom guidelines, which he helped to formulate. Hasn't the American Civil Liberties Union lectured us that religious instruction in school violates what it describes as “separation of church and state”? It must depend on which religion is involved.

It is hard to decide what individual item you may despise the most about the ACLU because their support of nefarious causes knows no bounds. I find their incredibly subversive networking through judges, legislators and an occasional president to be so repugnant and opposed to liberty that I perceive them as the biggest threat to the American way of life that the majority of us love.

If you feel the same way, make yourself heard today.

Go to Stop the ACLU.

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Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night, only steps slightly higher than 20cm, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Canada's post office is threatening to stop mail deliveries to a woman in Ottawa because her doorstep is 10 centimetres too high.

Christine Charbonneau said when she went to check her mail last Friday she found a Canada Post employee measuring her doorstep. He told her it was 30cm high - 10cm more than the maximum limit specified by building regulations.

"I said it was ridiculous to say that the step is too high ... Nobody else has complained," she told the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.

Thanks to The Sydney Morning Herald.

Lord of the Lies, Bill Clinton

That prince of prevarication, master of mendaciousness, here he is for your continued entertainment, trained by the father of lies himself, William Jefferson Clinton.

President Bill Clinton told NBC's Brian Williams tonight charges brought against him by the House of Representatives were false, contradicting a plea bargain deal he made with Independent Counsel Robert Ray that he admit he gave false testimony under oath to a federal grand jury.

"I was acquitted," he told Williams. "And ... the charges that the House sent to the Senate were false. So I did a bad thing. I made a bad personal mistake. I paid a big price for it. But I was acquitted because the charges were false."

The articles of impeachment passed by the House in 1998 included the accusation that he lied under oath. Yet, Clinton admitted Jan. 19, 2001, as part of his deal with Ray, he had lied under oath while testifying about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

"I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely," he said in a written statement. "But I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish that goal and that certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false.

From WorldNetDaily.

Judge Spends Too Much Time on the Couch

With this kind of logic he should be able to get a job on the 9th Circuit.

An Argentine judge has lost his job because a court found him guilty of being lazy.

Judge Nestor Narizano was found guilty after it was discovered that he was attending a psychology university during the time he was supposed to be working.

Mr Narizano told Terra Noticias Populares: "I was fired because I read two hours of Freud each day."

"I only did this to understand better the mind of the criminals, this is not fair and it is a stain in the whole Argentine justice."

Mr Narizano started to be investigated after his former secretary alerted the police about his psychology course.

From Ananova.

Rehabilitation by Satan

Why should we accommodate these practices in prison? These are not religions, they are psychological aberrations that should be accommodated by the prison psychiatrist. Witchcraft, satanism and racial separatism are going to play a vital role in rehabilitation? Please! Some of the lunatics in this case are wearing black robes, and I don't mean the witches and satanists.

The Supreme Court sided with a witch, a Satanist and a racial separatist Tuesday, upholding a federal law requiring state prisons to accommodate the religious affiliations of inmates.

The court's unanimous ruling addressed a narrow issue: whether the law as written is an unconstitutional government promotion of religion. It is not, justices decided, leaving the door open to future legal challenges on other grounds.

"Religion plays a vital role in rehabilitation," said Derek Gaubatz, director of litigation for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a religious liberty law firm that represents inmates.

The law "does not elevate accommodation of religious observances over an institution's need to maintain order and safety," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said from the bench in announcing the decision.

Elizabeth Cooke, a clinical law professor at Ohio State University who represented inmates in the court case, said they will press ahead with accommodation requests, including a five-point star for the witch, called a Wiccan, and hammer charms for prisoners who are members of Asatru and worship old Norse deities.

The racial separatist is an ordained minister of the Christian Identity Church.

"Inmates who practice non-mainstream religions have suffered," Cooke said.

From the SFGate.

Absurdity International

I'm glad Bush and Cheney are responding to the charges from this confederacy of cretins. Amnesty International should be embedded in Cuba, China, Zimbabwe, North Korea and the Sudan to mention a few. They should be living there and publishing their reports about what is transpiring in those great governments of the people. After they have solved those human rights and personal freedoms issues then perhaps we will entertain suggestions from them. Until you've fixed the worst, don't complain about the best.

President Bush yesterday called a report by Amnesty International "absurd" for its charge that the United States is mistreating terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying accusations were being made by "people who hate America."

Mr. Bush's harsh criticism follows that of Vice President Dick Cheney, who said on Monday that he is offended by the accusations -- splashed in the news after Newsweek retracted a report that U.S. military members had flushed a holy Koran down a toilet at the base.
"For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously," Mr. Cheney said.

From The Washington Times.

Radical Dispositions In Education

I strongly encourage you to read this entire article at The New York Sun.

Our education system is in peril. It is being attacked from within and without. We must protect the minority of conservatives in it and drive the liberal extremes out of it. This article is a frightening reminder that subversion is alive and well.

Brooklyn College's School of Education has begun to base evaluations of aspiring teachers in part on their commitment to social justice, raising fears that the college is screening students for their political views.

The School of Education at the CUNY campus initiated last fall a new method of judging teacher candidates based on their "dispositions," a vogue in teacher training across the country that focuses on evaluating teachers' values, apart from their classroom performance.

Critics of the assessment policy warned that aspiring teachers are being judged on how closely their political views are aligned with their instructor's. Ultimately, they said, teacher candidates could be ousted from the School of Education if they are found to have the wrong dispositions.

Brooklyn College's School of Education, which is the only academic unit at the college with the status of school, is among dozens of education schools across the country that incorporate the notion of "social justice" in their guiding principles. At Brooklyn, "social justice" is one of the four main principles in its conceptual framework. The school's conceptual framework states that it develops in its students "a deeper understanding of the quest for social justice." In its explanation of that mission, the school states: "We educate teacher candidates and other school personnel about issues of social injustice such as institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism."

n an e-mail to the Sun, a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute in Virginia, Robert Holland, said: "The tight link between the accreditors and the multiculturalists indicates that social justice is being defined by those who despise the very ideal of an American common culture - considering it irredeemably racist, sexist, homophobic, etc."

Iranians Smuggled In Through Mexico

Is anyone shocked? How much longer must we wait for the government to do something?

A smuggling ring specializing in bringing Iranians into the U.S. over the Mexico border has been broken up in an FBI sting operation.

A 39-year-old Iranian with permanent legal residency status who is suspected of having smuggled 60 other Iranians into the U.S. was arrested Thursday in Mesa, Ariz., according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

At his arraignment yesterday, Zeayadali Malhamdary, who owns a tailoring business, pleaded not guilty. He faces a detention hearing tomorrow.

Federal prosecutors say Malhamdary had previously smuggled about 60 Iranians into the United States.

Article at WorldNetDaily.