Precinct 333

Precinct 333 Is Now Rhymes With Right

2005-05-01T17:13:00.000-05:00

The move is complete, and Precinct 333 is no more.

To continue to receive high quality insights on the world from this source, come vist me at Rhymes With Right -- www.rhymeswithright.mu.nu.

I look forward to your future visits to my new site.

More Chinese Persecution Of Catholics Loyal To Vatican

2005-04-28T19:37:00.000-05:00

Just when it appeared that the Red Chinese might be ever so slightly softening their line towards Vatican involvement in Chinese Catholic affairs, they turn around and make a move like this.

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Chinese Christians Persecuted – Not A Human Rights Issue For UN

2005-04-27T18:58:00.000-05:00

I’ve written about the plight of Chinese Christians who refuse to join the state controlled churches. They are subject to arrest, torture, and other forms of abuse for exercising the freedom to believe and to worship as they choose. One would think such persecution would be of interest to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Sadly, though, it is not.

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When Will The FCC Shut These Folks Down?

2005-04-27T18:57:00.000-05:00

’m a big defender of free speech, including speech that I profoundly disagree with. That said, I think these folks have crossed the line. Look at this skit from Err America’s Randi Rhodes Show, as reported by Drudge.

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Wed By Mail

2005-04-27T18:54:00.000-05:00

Some folks want a big church wedding. Others would prefer something more low key, such as getting married by a judge at the County Building. But it appears that there is even a “no frills” way of getting married that eliminates all the ceremony – a wedding at which neither party has to appear. Believe it or not, you can do that in the state of Montana – even if both of you are not physically in the state. Believe it or not, it is legal, and can be done for under $1000.

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Center For Gender Equity Doesn’t Practice It

2005-04-27T18:47:00.000-05:00

At the University of California – San Francisco, it will be "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day" on Thursday, with the program sponsored by the Center For Gender Equity. Unfortunately, the term “Gender Equity” has quite an Orwellian meaning. All you have to do is look at the scheduled program to understand that the program is being run in a manner that can only be described as “separate and unequal.”

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B.C./A.D. Or B.C.E./C.E.

2005-04-26T17:35:00.001-05:00

We got new textbooks at school last year. As I began to flip through them, I noticed that they used the traditional B.C./A.D. dating convention rather than the newer B.C.E./C.E. convention that has become more popular in recent years. Personally, I don’t have a problem with using either system, but it seems that folks on both sides of the debate are somewhat more worked up over it.

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Here’s An Irony

2005-04-26T17:35:00.000-05:00

The liberal wing of the US Supreme Court upheld the right to keep and bear arms today, against the dissents of conservative judges who sided with the Bush administration in its attempt to restrict firearms ownership. And the entire case revolved around the question of whether or not a statute should be read literally.

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Coulter Condemned

2005-04-26T17:30:00.001-05:00

I’m not an Ann Coulter fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel I should comment on this story. It shows the hypocrisy of liberal academics when it comes to conservative speakers.

The Rev. Dennis Dease, President of Minnesota’s University of St. Thomas, condemned a speech by author and columnist Ann Coulter given last week at his school.

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Does Downey Need Another Drug Test?

2005-04-26T17:30:00.000-05:00

Robert Downey, Jr. had this unusual exchange with interviewer Lorraine Kelly on the UK show This Morning.

The former Hollywood bad boy had daytime viewers choking on their cornflakes when he made the remark on ITV1 show This Morning.

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Wouldn’t This Traffic Report Have Been Fun To Hear?

2005-04-26T17:29:00.000-05:00

Some stories are just too good to ignore.

PIKESVILLE, Md. (AP) - A herd of buffalo somehow got loose and wandered around an upscale neighborhood Tuesday, disrupting traffic and alarming homeowners before officers managed to corral them in a tennis court.

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Grad Student Banned From Poetry Class Over Poem

2005-04-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

When you are in a poetry class, you are supposed to write poetry. Or at least that is what Southern Connecticut State University graduate student Edward Bolles thought when he signed up for English 202, Introduction to Poetry. But he and the professor, Kelly Ritter, had differences of opinion over the liberal political themes of poems selected by Professor Riitter, and the two developed a dislike for one anotehr. That led to Bolles to write a satirical poem about a racist white professor, loosely based upon Ritter.

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California Legislature Seeks To Overturn Will Of Voters

2005-04-25T18:59:00.000-05:00

The California Legislature is seeking to overturn the will of the people of California by considering Assembly Bill 19, “The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act,” would amend the California Family Code to make marriage a gender neutral proposition in the state. This would, of course, make homosexual marriage legal and recognized in the state of California.

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At Last – Hate Crime Charges Brought

2005-04-25T18:57:00.000-05:00

I recently commented on the refusal of New York City law enforcement officials to file hate crime charges in a racially motivated attack where the perpetrators were black and the victims were white. Well, someone higher up on the food chain finally listened to the outrage of New Yorkers and other Americans, and have upgraded the charges.

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Greeley Gets One Right

2005-04-24T15:58:00.000-05:00

I don't like the smutty novels that Father Andrew Greeley writes -- not so much because they are unbecoming of a priest, but more because they are not that good. I've been amused by his tentative efforts at science fiction, and more impressed by his scholarly works in sociology. As a teen, I was especially entranced by his study of American anti-Catholicism, and wish he would write more on the subject. He was the seminary classmate of one of my former pastors, and he cancelled speaking engagements some years ago to fly to be with some of my family's old neighbors and say the funeral mass for their teenage son when he was killed in a fall while rock-climbing. In short, I think he is a good man, even if I don't agree with him in a lot of areas. However today he writes a newspaper column that, in my mind, hits the nail squarely on the head.

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Defending Free Speech -- Even When It Is Distasteful

2005-04-24T15:56:00.000-05:00

One of the bad things about defending the First Amendment is that it sometimes means defending the right of someone to say something you find offensive. That is especially true when PC types attempt to shut down "insensitive" speech, or when someone tries to be "humourous" about a topic which is not, in the least, funny. One such current case involves the newspaper of the University of Nevada -- Las Vegas, The Rebel Yell.

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BBC Sponsors Hecklers

2005-04-24T15:53:00.000-05:00

We all know that the American broadcast networks are de facto arms of the Democrat National Committee. All one has to do is look at Memogate to confirm that reality. But when all is said and done, private businesses have every right to support whatever political philosophy they want. After all, the public can simply cut into their bottom line. A tax-supported broadcast outlet, such as the UK's BBC, needs to remain scrupulously neutral. Guess what -- they don't, and have now been caught formenting the disruption of a Conservative Party event.

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Religious Freedom -- Saudi Style

2005-04-23T20:41:00.000-05:00

In the West, Muslims practice their religion freely and with complete legal protection. This is fully in keeping witht he ideas that spring from the Enlightenment, that religious tolerance is necessary to a free society. But what of non-Muslims in Muslim countries? I think this example from Saudi Arabia says it all.

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Stewart Unrepentant

2005-04-23T19:54:00.000-05:00

I didn't think I could get any angrier than I was when I originally posted on this last night. I was wrong. The San Francisco Chronicle has run a "news story" (actually a thinly disguised advocacy piece) about Lynne Stewart, the convicted terrorist supporter who admits that she passed operational information on behalf of the blind sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. Not only did this violate federal law, it violated special administrative measures (SAM) imposed by the Justice Department to prevent the terrorist leader from continuing to direct his folowers from a federal prison.

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The Hate Speech Of Howard Dean

2005-04-23T19:53:00.000-05:00

When he became head of the Democrat National Committee, Howard Dean said he was going to change the tone of politics in America, talking about what is right with the Democrats rather than defining the Democrats as the anti-Bush party. Well, let's take a look at how he has done.

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Latin Lives!

2005-04-23T19:49:00.000-05:00

When I was about 14 or so, the chaplain at Naval Training Center -- Great Lakes, Fr. R. Conway O'Connor (may he rest in peace) got approval to offer a Saturday evening Mass in Latin. No, not the Tridentine Mass, but the current liturgy promulgated by Pope Paul VI following the Second Vatican Council. I got to serve mass, along with my brother and a couple of buddies. I was entranced by a language that I didn't understand, didn't recognize, but knew carried with it a weightiness and sense of the sacred that was missing in the regular vernacular mass that I was used to. Years later, while a seminarian, I was one of the guys who struggled to learn Latin from Sister Dorothy in the afternoons, though I soon dropped out of the class because it conflicted with choir practice. Looking back, i would have done better to drop choir.

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Muslims Threaten Swedish Preacher With Death

2005-04-22T19:43:00.000-05:00

Oh, those ever so tolerant Muslims! Their "holy" book is filled with anti-Semitism and negative comments about Christians. Their religious law calls for the death of those who dare to speak against their religion or their prophet. So it should be no surprise that well-known Swedish minister is in police protective custody following a provocative sermon.

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Convicted Terrorist Supporter Given Freedom To Travel

2005-04-22T19:14:00.000-05:00

If this does not make your blood boil, nothing will. Lynne Stewart, convicted of knowingly and intentionally giving assistance to and communicating messages for the terrorist mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, is being allowed to go on a public speaking tour!

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When Will Turks Admit To The Armenian Genocide?

2005-04-22T16:42:00.000-05:00

It has been 90 years since the Muslim Turks began their genocide of 1.5 million Christian Armenians, but the Turkish government still will not admit to that crime.

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Pre-Dynastic Necropolis Found

2005-04-22T16:41:00.000-05:00

Wouldn’t this be neat to see? A 5000-year-old tomb, the largest pre-dynastic funerary structure ever discovered, containing 7 bodies – including four who appear to have been human sacrifices.

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Frivolous Lawsuit Slapped Down

2005-04-22T16:38:00.001-05:00

Are cows happy? The California Milk Producers Advisory Board has run a series of commercials making the claim that "Great cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California." PETA filed suit in 2002, claiming that the ads were false and that cows live miserable lives, repeatedly being milked and impregnated before being killed.

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Wrong Headline Deceives Readers

2005-04-22T16:38:00.000-05:00

10th Grader Shot and Killed

There is only one conclusion to be drawn. The story must be about some school shooting.

And then you read the actual story.

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It’s Sorta Hard To Feel Any Sympathy

2005-04-22T16:35:00.000-05:00

When someone dies before their time, I tend to view that as a tragedy. But you know what, I can’t muster up a whole lot of sympathy in this case.

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Turley On The Senate Filibuster

2005-04-21T21:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I commented on Mort Kondracke’s column on the filibuster of nominees to the appellate courts. I mentioned the views of Jonathan Turley, a liberal scholar of the law and judiciary, which Kondracke himself had referenced. Well, what should appear in my local paper this morning but a column on the subject by Turley himself?

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The New York Times – Hitler’s Paper?

2005-04-21T21:01:00.000-05:00

The New York Times – the former “paper of record” for important news in the United States – has long accused Pope Pius XII of being silent in the face of the Holocaust, and of being “Hitler’s Pope”. The fact that it contradicts the evidence contained in its own pages – in one instance the paper called Pius “a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe”, and in another “a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent.” Yet recent scholarship has examined the New York Times response to the Holocaust.

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Excuse Me, Senator

2005-04-21T20:59:00.000-05:00

The Democrats keep telling us that religion based attacks on political opponents are unacceptable and run contrary to the values of the Constitution. If that is truly the case, what is Senator Ken Salazar doing making these comments?

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Let’s Hope They Soak Him For It All

2005-04-21T20:58:00.000-05:00

Imagine this – you and a group of co-workers regularly buy lottery tickets as part of a pool. The drawing is held and the guy who buys the tickets announces that he has a winning ticket – but that it isn’t one that belongs to the group, but is instead one that he bought for himself. You and the rest of the group are out of luck.

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Didn’t Ratzinger Silence Him?

2005-04-21T20:54:00.001-05:00

One of the many “crimes” for which Pope Benedict XVI is often chastised is the “silencing” of heterodox theologians. In reality, all that actually happened was that their licenses to call themselves Catholic theologians were revoked. Want proof? Here is one of the silenced theologians, Father Charles Curran, offering his critique of the new pope's election and the continued push for Catholic orthodoxy, from his tenure-secured job teaching at Southern Methodist University.

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Why Don’t They Pop?

2005-04-21T20:54:00.000-05:00

One of my buddies grew up in Ridgway, Illinois – the Popcorn Capitol. One of the questions he could never answer for me was why some kernels didn’t pop.

Well, the latest scientific research from the Popcorn Board out of Chicago gives us a potential answer.

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Email The Pope

2005-04-21T20:49:00.000-05:00

What a world we live in! The faithful (and the faithless, for that matter) are invited to write to Pope Benedict XVI at his new email address.

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Filth Or Freedom

2005-04-20T22:59:00.000-05:00

Is loving one's vagina grounds for being suspended or expelled from school? Apparently it is in Winona, Minnesota. It seems that two students at Winona High School saw The Vagina Monologues, and wore buttons to school that read "I [heart] My Vagina".

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Is The Pope Catholic?

2005-04-20T18:35:00.000-05:00

Yes – and that seems to be the problem for some folks.

The election of Benedict XVI seems to have put a quick end to the love-feast that we have witnessed in the three weeks since the illness of his beloved predecessor, Pope John Paul the Great. Having been a lightning rod for criticism as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it was inevitable the new pope would be controversial. Yet when it comes down to it, the real complaint seems to be that Pope Benedict XVI is just plain too Catholic.

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Wouldn’t A Tune-Up Have Been More Useful?

2005-04-20T18:15:00.000-05:00

I’ve had vehicles that I’ve not been pleased with, but never to quite this degree of hostility.

John McGivney had enough.

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Hey, Dems – Prove It!

2005-04-20T18:10:00.000-05:00

Columnist Mort Kondracke makes a persuasive argument in his recent column on judicial filibusters. The Democrats may have a case for trying to stop some of the Bush appellate nominees, but...

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Habemus Papam!

2005-04-19T16:59:00.000-05:00

God has given us Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new Pope Benedict XVI.

He was elected in only four ballots, which tells me that the Cardinals are pretty firmly united behind him. I also cannot help but suspect that this is the man who John Paul the Great would have chosen as his successor.

As I expected, Joseph Ratzinger did not choose to be called John Paul III. I had a funny feeling that Benedict would be the choice, and have said so repeatedly over the last few days. Many are linking him to the shy Pope Benedict XV, who tried so hard to end World War I. I think another model to consider would be Benedict XIV, who was concerned about the accommodation of Christian truth to the practices of non-Christian cultures.

I find the new pontiff’s words to the faithful inspiring and appropriate. Pope Benedict, for all his gigantic intellect, remains a humble man of deep spirituality.

"Dear brothers and sisters, after our great pope, John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple, humble worker in God's vineyard.

I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools, and I especially trust in your prayers.

In the joy of the resurrected Lord, trustful of his permanent help, we go ahead, sure that God will help, and Mary, his most beloved mother, stands on our side.

Thank you."

We shall see how this papacy will develop. Will he be a pope in the image of John Paul the Great? Or will he be something completely different?

Update: I commented on the London Times piece on Pope Benedict’s youth in Nazi Germany. His detractor’s are already making scurrilous comments about him in relation to his brief – and legally mandated – membership in the Hitler Youth and military service. The Jerusalem Post provides some excellent insight into the issue – and also the important work of this pope in his predecessor’s reconciliation with the Jewish faith.

A Non-Latin Rite Pope?

2005-04-19T11:30:00.000-05:00

NOTE: I finished this as white smoke rose over the Vatican. The election of the new Pope Benedict XVI is a great blessing to the Church, and to the world. I hope that the new pontiff will follow the path of ecumenical contact with the churches of the East, and will strive to honor the Eastern Rite Catholics and their heritage of faith.

* * *

As a kid, I first heard the term “uniate” used to describe the Maronite Christians of Lebanon. Later, I heard the term describe Ukrainian Catholics. I didn’t understand what the term meant at the time, but later study – especially during my seminary years at Mundelein – brought me to a deep appreciation of those in the Catholic Church who follow the rituals of Eastern Christianity while being in union with Rome. By extension, I also learned to appreciate the rich spiritual history of the Orthodox churches of the East. To this day, I wonder if they might serve as a bridge between the two halves of Christianity split asunder in 1054.

Joseph P. Duggan raises the same issue in a column on the possibility (however unlikely) of the election of an Eastern Rite pope. Two cardinals in the current conclave are of the Eastern Rite leaders, not Latin Rite. It is not inconceivable – though highly improbable – that one of them could appear on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, clad in white. It would be a magnificent step towards full equality and respect for the Eastern Rites within the Catholic Church, and towards reunion between the oldest extant strains of Christianity. It would also be in keeping with one of Pope John Paul the Great’s fondest desires and most precious dreams.

John Paul visited numerous countries where the Orthodox Church is dominant and spoke of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as equals, expressing hope that Christianity once again may "breathe with both lungs." He implored Orthodox Christians to forgive and set aside the schisms of the second Christian millennium and take inspiration from the first millennium, when the Churches of East and West were united. John Paul's encyclical letter Ut Unum Sint ("That All May Be One,") offered a bold invitation to all Christians for their ideas on how the papacy might be transformed to be more effective in promoting Christian unity. Even before Pope John Paul, some four decades ago, Orthodox and Catholic prelates rescinded their mutual excommunications, and the churches recognize the full validity of one another's ordinations and sacraments.

Duggan, of course, notes that one of the great changes that would necessarily be wrought by such an election would be the rethinking of mandatory clerical celibacy. While forbidden in the Latin Rite (and in the United States by a wrong-headed papal decree sought by American bishops n the nineteenth century), the Eastern Rites ordain married men as priests. It is hard to imagine that a pope from among the non-Latin Catholics would long retain the mandatory celibacy that dates back a millennium. Priests would not be able to marry, but married men could become priests. Precedent exists for this in the early history of the Church, and in the special dispensation granted to some Anglican and Lutheran converts over the last couple of decades. When one considers that the church historically has had a father and son serve as popes (in the sixth century – St. Hormisdas, the 52nd Bishop of Rome, and St. Silverius, the 58th), not to mention the married Simon Peter who is reckoned the first, this would be a return to tradition rather than a departure from it.

The election of an Eastern Rite pontiff would be a significant step for the Catholic Church, one that reaffirms its catholicity every bit as much as the election of a Polish cardinal to that office did in 1978. Duggan envisions a pope celebrating a liturgy using the vestments and rituals of the Byzantine or Syriac Church. And yet, there is nothing to stop that from happening now – and a strong argument for encouraging the practice no matter who the next pope is. After all, a pope leads a church which claims the hallmark of catholicity – universality – and as such he is called to be a shepherd to those who worship in the styles of the East every bit as much as those whose rituals are those of the West. Such actions would serve as a healing gesture of fraternal love for Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. May we live to see the day when the seeds planted four decades ago by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem, seeds tenderly watered and nurtured by Pope John Paul the Great during his papacy, bring forth a harvest of unity for the glory of the Risen Savior.

Day Two -- Morning Session -- Black Smoke In Rome

2005-04-19T04:55:00.000-05:00

Two ballots have (presumably) been taken, and black smoke has been seen over the Sistine Chapel. No pope has been elected as of this time.

Schumer Calls Filibuster Opponent “Un-American”

2005-04-18T22:38:00.000-05:00

Many of us have noticed that the Democrats have been particularly hard on people of faith during the confirmation process. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the judicial filibusters that have been going on. Over the last year or so, many have called the Democrats on what appears to be a religious test for public office. Now you can agree or disagree with that analysis and still be a person of good will, in my opinion. Unfortunately, it seems some of the Democrats no longer see it that way.

Now Senator Charles Schumer has responded to the charge with an epithet of his own. He has attacked Dr. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council with a particularly troubling charge.

The conservative group's president, Tony Perkins, "stepped over the line," Mr. Schumer said. "He said it's people of faith versus Democrats."

"That is so un-American. The founding fathers put down their plows and took up muskets to combat views like that - that one faith or one view of faith should determine what our politics should be," Mr. Schumer said on the ABC News program "This Week."

Sorry, Senator, but your party has been relentlessly hostile to Christians and other believers over the last decade or so. In the wake of the recent election, your leadership even acknowledged that the Democrat Party has lost touch with typical Americans who believe in God and go to church. Why then is it “un-American” for Dr. Perkins to note the same trend?

Sorry, Senator, you stepped over the line by telling a religious leader that he is un-American for speaking out about his view of the great issues of our day. And dare I suggest that such an attempt to silence your religious Americans with such an epithet is, in and of itself, un-American.

Black Smoke -- No Pope

2005-04-18T22:05:00.000-05:00

To no one's particular surprise, the Conclave has not elected a new pope. Black smoke was seen in Rome following the first vote taken by the cardinals. By tradition, the first vote is one in which cardinals cast votes for friends, esteemed colleagues, or a favorite son candidate from their own country or region. In 1978, for example, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla cast his first ballot votes for his beloved mentor, Polish Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, in both 1978 conclaves. Serious voting will begin tomorrow.

Black smoke streamed from the Sistine Chapel's chimney today to signal that cardinals failed to select a new pope in their first round of voting, held just hours after they began their historic task: finding a leader capable of building on John Paul II's spiritual energy while keeping modern rifts from tearing deeper into the church.

"It seems white. ... No, no, it's black!" reported Vatican Radio as the first pale wisps slipped out from the narrow pipe and then quickly darkened.

As millions around the world watched on television, at least 40,000 people waited in St. Peter's Square with all eyes on the chimney, where smoke from the burned ballots would give the first word of the conclave: white meaning a new pontiff, black showing that the secret gathering will continue Tuesday.

In the last moments of twilight, the pilgrims began to point and gasp. "What is it? White? Black?" hundreds cried out. In a few seconds — at about 8:05 p.m. — it was clear the 115 cardinals from six continents could not find the two-thirds majority needed to elect the new leader for the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics. Only one vote was scheduled for today.

Few expected a quick decision. The cardinals have a staggering range of issues to juggle. In the West, they must deal with the fallout from priest sex-abuse scandals and a chronic shortage of priests and nuns. Elsewhere, the church is facing calls for sharper activism against poverty and an easing of its ban on condoms to help combat AIDS.

The next pontiff also must maintain the global ministry of John Paul, who took 104 international trips in his 26-year papacy and is already being hailed as a saint by many faithful.

Giving The Watcher His Due

2005-04-17T20:58:00.000-05:00

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher's Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around... per the Watcher's instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

School Teaches Wrong Lesson -- Censors Students

2005-04-17T19:00:00.000-05:00

Students do not shed their rights at the schoolhouse gate, according to the Supreme Court of the United States. However, student speech which disrupts the educational process may be suppressed by administrators in the interest of preserving the mission of the school. That is why this situation in Connecticut concerns me.

Four South Windsor high school students were sent home Friday after T-shirts they wore bearing anti-gay slogans caused disturbances, students and school officials said.

The boys, who wore white T-shirts with the statement, "Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve," say their constitutional right to free speech was violated.

"We were just voicing our opinions," said Steven Vendetta, who made the T-shirts with his friends, Kyle Shinfield, David Grimaldi and another student who was not identified by the Journal Inquirer of Manchester. "We didn't tell other people to think what we're thinking. We just told them what we think."

Hold it here -- THE SHIRTS caused the disturbance? How did the articles of apparel cause a disturbance? It must have been the words on the shirts that were the problem, the message that they conveyed. But how did they cause a disruption? Obviously, they did not -- it must have been the response to the shirts.

Other students say they felt threatened by the shirts, which also quoted Bible verses pertaining to homosexuality.

"I didn't feel safe at this school today," said Diana Rosen, who is co-president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance.

You don't feel safe at school because of the words? They contained no threat. They expressed an opinion. Do you mean, Diana, that you feel unsafe when others are permitted to publicly disagree with you? How, pray tell (and I don't care if you are offended by my use of the word "pray") does the expression of an alternative religious, political, or social view make you unsafe? How do you expect to survive in American society, with its robust protection of free speech, if the expression of a contrary view reduces you to a tearful quivering mass of gelatin?

There is, of course more to the story, as this article makes clear.

Vendetta said the impetus for the T-shirts came earlier in the week, when students at the high school took part in the annual Day of Silence, a project orchestrated by the national Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network. On the Day of Silence, students across the country do not speak, as a reminder of the discrimination and harassment experienced by homosexuals.

Students at the high school also wore signs showing their support for legislation that would recognize civil unions for same-sex couples in Connecticut, Vendetta said.

Vendetta and his friends, who oppose civil unions, wanted to make their feelings known.

"We felt if they could voice their opinions for it, we could voice our opinion against it," he said. "There is another side to this debate, and we're representing it."

So, after showing respect and tolerance for the views of the pro-homosexuality/pro-civil union students, who seem to have gone through the day unmolested, they decided to exercise the same rights, and expected the same courtesy. After all, the school clearly had created something of an open forum by allowing (perhaps promoting?) the earlier event. That made what these boys did fair game -- and it should have been expected.

Instead of tolerance, what the boys got from Ms. Rosen and her fellow students was something different. What they got from the administration was a threat of censorship, and the promise of a heckler's veto.

Almost immediately, the shirts drew comment and debate from other students, Vendetta said.

"I walked down the hall, and people were either cheering me on, yelling at me, or just sneering," he said. "It was the most intense experience."

Teachers brought the situation to the attention of high school Principal John DiIorio, who said Friday that the law protects students' freedom of speech, as long as that speech doesn't disrupt the educational process.

He told the boys they could continue to wear the shirts as long as they didn't become a distraction to others.

The students returned to class. But heated arguments and altercations ensued almost immediately, with some students becoming "very emotional," said student Sam Etter.

Rosen said that when she first saw the shirts, she "almost didn't believe it." She became very upset, crying and spending most of the day in administrators' and guidance counselor's offices. She also got into several arguments, she said.

"I saw a large crowd gathered during one of our lunch waves," said senior William "B.J." Haun. "A large debate was going on. It involved a lot of people. By the end of the day, everyone was talking about it and giving their two cents."

Eventually, DiIorio called the boys into the office and told them that other students were becoming "emotionally distraught," Shinfield said. He then asked the boys to remove the shirts. They refused and were sent home.

Gee, imagine that. The shirts promoted discussion. Where I come from, that is called learning, and perhaps even citizenship. Some of the discussions became heated and may have threatened to become physical. That should have resulted in the punishment of those who were fighting, not the censorship of the message. And poor, overly-sensitive Ms. Rosen seems to have spent the day lobbying for that censorship, when she was not confronting students and actively creating the disruption. Unfortunately, the spineless Principal DiIorio gave into those who wanted to make sure that the anti-homosexual/anti-civil union message was suppressed.

When all is said and done, I have three observations.

Steven Vendetta, Kyle Shinfield, David Grimaldi and unnamed friend, while the message on your shirts may have been a bit more juvenile than I would have liked, I applaud you for being willing to voice your beliefs even in the face of an administrator who was wishy-washy about protecting your civil rights. I wish there were more like you. I hope that you and your supporters continue to press for your rights to be respected -- and demand that either you be allowed to wear your shirts or that the Gay-Straight Alliance be shut down as incompatible with the policies of the school, which forbid free and open discussion of homosexuality.

Diana Rosen, you should be ashamed of yourself. If you had any principles, you would have been out there defending the rights of your classmates to voice their beliefs, even when (especially when) you disagree. You are more than willing to make use of the First Amendment when it suits your purposes, but your actions that day showed that you are a censor and a dictator at heart. And since you are head of the group that conducted the Day of Silence, I suggest that you do not plan on holding one again. You have supplied your opponents with the weapon they need to shut you down by asserting that your fear and emotional weakness are grounds for silencing those with whom you disagree. All they have to do now is claim that your group and its message frighten and anger them. You may as well disband the group now, because you have made it impossible for your message of "tolerance" to ever be taken seriously.

Principal DiIorio, you are a failure as an educator. You had the opportunity to teach citizenship and respect. What you taught was censorship. Your actions were fundamentally wrong, and betrayed the very values your school is supposed to be teaching. At the first sign of a problem, you should have been on the PA system reminding the students of the values contained in the First Amendment, their obligation to tolerate messages with which they disagree, and the school's obligation to protect the rights of every student. You didn't. Instead you let the situation get out of control, and then silenced the victims. What you have taught is that hurt feelings and offended ideologies matter more than the US Constitution. In other words, you have undermined one of the very things your school is responsible for teaching. More to the point, you would NEVER have shut down the Day of Silence because students were angry, offended or "scared" by the message it communicated. You are simply a PC weenie who set these boys up to take a fall. You have no legitimate place in education.

Conclave Schedule

2005-04-17T18:19:00.000-05:00

As I type, we are less that 8 hours away from the beginning of the Mass for the Election of a Supreme Pontiff, which begins the Conclave for the election of a successor to Pope John Paul II. The Cardinal Electors and their staff have already taken up residence in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where they will live until they have completed their task.

The schedule for the Conclave will be as follows. All times are local time in Rome, which is GMT+2.

At 4.30 p.m. on Monday, the procession of cardinal electors will leave the Hall of Blessings for the Sistine Chapel. This ritual will be transmitted live on television.

Once in the Sistine Chapel, all the cardinal electors will swear the oath. The cardinal dean will read the formula of the oath, after which each cardinal, stating his name and placing his hand on the Gospel, will pronounce the words: 'I promise, pledge and swear.' Over these days, there has been frequent talk of the bond of secrecy concerning the election of the Pope. However, I would like to reiterate that this is just part of the oath. First of all, an oath is made to observe the prescriptions of the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis; then another oath is made that - and I quote - 'whichever of us by divine disposition is elected Roman Pontiff will commit himself faithfully to carrying out the munus Petrinum of Pastor of the Universal Church.’

After the oath, the master of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff pronounces the 'extra omnes,' and all those who do not participate in the conclave leave the Sistine Chapel. Only the master of Liturgical Celebrations and Cardinal Tomas Spidlik remain for the meditation, once that has finished they too leave the Sistine Chapel.

During the conclave, the cardinals will have the following timetable:

At 7.30 a.m., the celebration or concelebration of Mass will take place in the Domus Sanctae

Marthae. By 9 a.m., they will be in the Sistine Chapel. There they will recite the Lauds of the Liturgy of the Hours and, immediately afterwards, voting will take place according to the prescribed ritual (two votes in the morning, and two votes in the afternoon). In the afternoon, voting will begin at 4 p.m. At the end of the second vote will be Vespers.

After the two votes of the morning and the two of the afternoon respectively, the ballots and any notes the cardinals have made will be burnt in a stove located inside the Sistine Chapel.

Purely as an indication then, the smoke signals could appear at around 12 noon and at about 7 p.m. (unless the new Pope is elected either in the first vote of the morning or the first vote of the afternoon, in which case the smoke signal will be earlier). In any case it is expected that, along with the white smoke, the bells of St Peter will sound to mark a successful election.

According to Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, after three days without the selection of a new pope there will be a day taken for prayer and reflection. The voting will resume for seven ballots, then break for another such period if no new pope has been elected. This pattern will continue until a new pope is chosen. After the 33rd or 34th ballot, the Cardinal Electors may choose to reduce the margin from the initial 2/3 vote to a simple majority, or may limit themselves to only the top two candidates (or, I presume, both).

The identity and regnal name of the new pontiff will not be announced to anyone outside of the Conclave until the new pope is brought out to the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square. There will be no special notification of the press, as was done when on the death of Pope John Paul II.

Ratzinger Smear

2005-04-17T15:24:00.000-05:00

I'm not necessarily a supporter of the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as pope (I wouldn't oppose it, either), but I do object to this smear in the London Times.

THE wartime past of a leading German contender to succeed John Paul II may return to haunt him as cardinals begin voting in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to choose a new leader for 1 billion Catholics.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets — including “the enforcer”, “the panzer cardinal” and “God’s rottweiler” — is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.

Although far short of the requisite two-thirds majority of the 115 votes, this would almost certainly give Ratzinger, 78 yesterday, an early lead in the voting. Liberals have yet to settle on a rival candidate who could come close to his tally.

Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzinger’s past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit.

Although there is no suggestion that he was involved in any atrocities, his service may be contrasted by opponents with the attitude of John Paul II, who took part in anti-Nazi theatre performances in his native Poland and in 1986 became the first pope to visit Rome’s synagogue.

“John Paul was hugely appreciated for what he did for and with the Jewish people,” said Lord Janner, head of the Holocaust Education Trust, who is due to attend ceremonies today to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

“If they were to appoint someone who was on the other side in the war, he would start at a disadvantage, although it wouldn’t mean in the long run he wouldn’t be equally understanding of the concerns of the Jewish world.”

Now hold on for just a minute. The Ratzinger family was anti-Nazi, but the 14-year-old Josef Ratzinger was required by a 1941 law to be a member of the Hitler Youth until he could get an exemption because of his seminary studies -- all school children were. And yes, he served in an anti-aircraft battery, but he was drafted into that service at a time when the German Army was taking 15 & 16-year-olds and putting them on the front lines. Those who refused to serve were shot. Ratzinger himself deserted when he became aware of the slaughter of the Jews in the death camps, and was briefly held as in Allied POW camp.

You cannot make a Nazi or a war criminal out of a guy who was only six when Hitler came to power in 1933. It seems quite unreasonable to complain that a 16-year-old lacked the courage to place himself in mortal danger in the midst of the horrors that existed in wartime Nazi Germany. What is this really about?

It is about Ratzinger's theology, of course. He is one of the more conservative, orthodox wing of the College of Cardinals, and was the Pope's close associate and doctrinal point-man during much of John Paul II's pontificate. The two had been friends and colleagues since the Second Vatican Council, when they first met and worked together. Today they are frightened by the prospect of the man they have reviled for over two decades being mentioned prominently as a possible pope. And that is why some would do anything to keep him out of the Shoes of the Fisherman, even defame him and raise the spectre of Hitler and the Holocaust to tar a good and holy man.

His condemnations are legion — of women priests, married priests, dissident theologians and homosexuals, whom he has declared to be suffering from an “objective disorder”.

He upset many Jews with a statement in 1987 that Jewish history and scripture reach fulfillment only in Christ — a position denounced by critics as “theological anti-semitism”. He made more enemies among other religions in 2000, when he signed a document, Dominus Jesus, in which he argued: “Only in the Catholic church is there eternal salvation”.

In other words, his detractors are gravely concerned that Ratzinger is the one thing they cannot tolerate -- a believing Catholic, loyal to the historic teachings of the Catholic Church, and cut from the same cloth as the Pope he worked with for nearly a quarter century.

By this time next week there will almost certainly be a new pope. And soon thereafter, I expect we will begin to hear the true story of what happened in the Conclave. The question is -- will it be a story of Ratzinger's ascent to the Chair of Saint peter, or of the making of some other pope, probably with his support?

Cardinal Accused

2005-04-16T19:32:00.000-05:00

I am unsure of what to make of this story. It paints Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in a very bad light, but will it have an effect on his electability? More to the point, was the accusation a political move made precisely in order to prevent him from being a serious candidate? After all, up to now he has been widely mentioned as a papabile -- a possible pope.

Just days before Roman Catholic cardinals select a new pope, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against an Argentine mentioned as a possible contender, accusing him of involvement in the 1976 kidnappings of two priests.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio's spokesman today called the allegation "old slander."

The complaint filed in a Buenos Aires court Friday by human rights lawyer Marcelo Parrilli accused Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, of involvement in the kidnappings of two Jesuit priests by the military dictatorship, according to the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarin. The complaint does not specify Bergoglio's alleged involvement.

The priests were released after five months.

"This is old slander," the Rev. Guillermo Marco, Bergoglio's spokesman, told The Associated Press in Rome. "This is the week of slander."

Under Argentine law, an accusation can be filed with a very low threshold of evidence. The court later decides whether there is cause to investigate and file charges.

The Italian newspaper Corriere dell Sera called the accusations "an infamy fueled by Bergoglio's enemies," saying Saturday that far from participating in the kidnappings, the cardinal helped win the priests' freedom. It did not detail its sources.

The accusations against Bergoglio, 68, in the kidnappings of priests Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics are not new, being detailed in a recently published book by Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky.

Marco called Verbitsky "a gentleman of dubious fame who is advertising himself to sell a book," saying the journalist was "taking advantage of this moment."

So, do we have a man who cooperated in the kidnapping of a couple of priests under his authority? Or do we have an author who is seeking to sell his book by making the most of a sensational charge in it?

And will it make any difference for the humble Cardinal who is considered a bright light among Latin American contenders for the papacy?%

Black Perps, White Victims -- No Hate Crime

2005-04-16T10:26:00.000-05:00

LaShawn Barber writes about this little atrocity from New York.

Imagine your kids playing basketball on a court at a playground. Suddenly, another group of kids appears and demands that your children leave. Since your kids are not done with there game -- and were there first, -- they refuse. Now they haven't done anything unreasonable, have they?

The new arrivals leave in a huff -- and come back with about 30 kids, shouting racial slurs and engage in a physical assault upon your children. Certainly there is a crime -- and given the language used during the assault, it must be a hate crime, right?

Wrong -- not if the children who are brutally beaten are white and the little thugs are black.

Invoking the name “Martin Luther King” and screaming “Black Power!” a gang of up to 30 black teens attacked four white girls in Marine Park in what police are saying is not a bias crime.

The March 30 attack was a hot topic at state Senator Marty Golden’s recent public safety forum.

According to witnesses and parents of the victims, four young girls from St. Edmund’s had the day off from school due to Easter recess. They were playing basketball during dismissal from nearby Marine Park Junior High School, when several Marine Park students demanded to use the court.

After adults intervened and asked them to wait their turn, the teens left - but returned in a pack of up to 30, both boys and girls, and stormed into the park.

Witnesses say the attackers were all black and called their victims “white crackers” during the bloody melee, which raged for almost 20 minutes.

“This is not being looked at as a bias crime,” NYPD Deputy Inspector Kevin McGinn said at the meeting.

Well why the hell not, Deputy Inspector McGinn? You have an unprovoked act of violence, prima facie evidence of racial animus, possible evidence of religious bias, and a violent attack by a mob on four little girls. What more do you need? Isn't an assault serious enough to cause the hospitalization of two victims by a mob shouting racial epithets sufficient to file such charges? Would their being beaten to death have been sufficient?

I mean, let's consider what happened in this vicious attack by a group of feral children (who have much more in common with a pack of wild dogs than the great civil rights leader whose name they invoked) attempting to maim or kill four little white girls who thought they had the right to play basketball on a public court in a public park.

“When I pulled my car up to the park, I witnessed a pandemonium I’ve never seen in my life,” said Debbie, a mother of one victim who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

Her daughter ran to the car, screaming, “They’re going to kill us,” Debbie recalled. My daughter was so scared and kids were running around like crazy.

Pursued by dozens of teens, some of the girls were “literally running into traffic to save their lives,” she said.

One girl made it as far as a nearby house, but was dragged by her hair back into the playground by a “wolf pack of children,” Debbie said.

The St. Edmund girls were bleeding and beaten to the point where they had cuts, scrapes, footprints and dirt all over them - and the attackers surrounded her car and started pounding on the windows as Debbie tried to herd the terrified children into her vehicle.

It seems to me that the reason the police and DA won't call this a bias crime is that the victims don't have a high enough melanin content to be subject to equal protection of the laws. You and I both know that we would be seeing a hate-crime prosecution if this were an attack by 30 white kids on a couple of little black girls. We'd have Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the New Black Panther Party out in the street crying "No Justice -- No Peace!" We would probably still be reading about riots if you failed to file hate-crime charges if the victims were black and the perps were white.

Al Sharpton got a state investigation into the fake assault on Tawana Brawley. The LA riots provoked a federal prosecution of the cops who beat Rodney King. Where are the state and federal investigations and prosecutions here, of a hate crime perpetrated against white children -- and the failure of the legal system in New York City to treat this crime with the seriousness it deserves.

Marriage May Mean Jail For Border Patrol Agent

2005-04-16T10:14:00.000-05:00

Immigration Enforcement Agent Ramon M. Sanchez Jr. makes his living by enforcing our nation's immigration laws. Unfortunately, he fell in love with a border jumper. Rather than do his job, he married her while fully aware of her immigration status.

Now Sanchez is facing jail for violating the vry laws he swore to uphold.

Immigration Enforcement Agent Ramon M. Sanchez Jr., 41, was charged Tuesday with harboring an illegal alien. Sanchez married the woman, Flor Liliana Velasco Barrera, on Feb. 25 of this year. But as early as last November he knew she was a Mexican citizen who was not authorized to live or work in the United States, even though she had been in the country for the past four years, authorities said.

Sanchez, whose work involves transporting detainees and doing other support services for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, was arrested Monday and could face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, said a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Dude -- what were you thinking? You knew her immigration status, and you didn't report it. Not only that, you helped her stay here illegally. Were you not aware that both actions were crimes? Or did you, in your arrogance, think the law didn't apply to you?

Santorum Makes The Case For Bush Judges

2005-04-16T10:04:00.000-05:00

Senator Rick Santorum, who would be a hero of mine even if we had not graduated five years apart from the same high school (and had many of the same teachers), makes a great argument for ending the filibuster of Bush appeals court judges backed by a majority of the Senate.

Frankly, the records of two of these judges is sufficient to show that the "extremist judges outside the mainstream" argument fails miserably.

It has been almost four years since President Bush nominated Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Since then the Senate has held two hearings, conducted many days of floor debate, analyzed Owen's judicial opinions down to the last comma and attempted four times to invoke cloture so that debate could finally be concluded and the Senate could take an up-or-down vote on her nomination.

Not only has Owen withstood this intensive examination, she has shown time and again that the American Bar Association got it right when it unanimously awarded her its highest possible rating. She was also reelected with 84 percent of the vote in 2000 and had the endorsement of every newspaper in Texas. Owen has earned the support of a clear majority of senators.

She is not alone. This July will mark almost two years since the president nominated Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Brown started life as the daughter of a sharecropper in the segregated South and through hard work and determination became the first African American woman to serve on California's highest court. In 2002 she was called upon by her colleagues to write the majority opinion more often than any other member of the California Supreme Court. She was retained with 76 percent of the vote in her last election. In short, Brown has shown herself to be unquestionably trustworthy, highly intelligent and well within the mainstream, and she has earned the enthusiastic support of a majority of the U.S. Senate.

There is no legitimate basis for calling either of these women unfit for the federal bench. Allowing a minority to block their confirmation is nothing short of tyranny. As the support they have received shows, neither one of them is unqualified or outside the mainstream -- unless the overwhelming majority of voters in both California and Texas are outside of that mainstream as well.

Iraqi Tet Offensive

2005-04-16T09:37:00.000-05:00

One of the enduring truths learned by enemies of America during Vietnam is this: Americans can be convinced they are losing if the enemy engages in a series of spectacular attacks, even if the Americans win. That's what happened during the Tet Offensive in 1968. The Viet Cong and NVA attacked, the Americans and South Vietnamese decisively defeated them, and North Vietnam won a PR victory.

The same thing is going on in Iraq, according to writer Austin Bay.

On April 2 and again on April 4, the terror gang led by al-Qaida's Iraq commander, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, launched "military-style attacks" on the Abu Ghraib prison complex in Baghdad. In the April 4 assault, U.S. forces took 44 casualties (most of them minor wounds). The terrorist gang, however, took 50 casualties, out of a force estimated at 60 gunmen.

On April 11, the gang attacked a Marine compound at Husaybah near the Syrian border. As I write, terrorist casualties are unconfirmed, but the assault flopped.

While bomb attacks on unarmed Iraqi civilians continue (particularly against Shiites), public opinion now matters in Iraq, and the thugs' public slaughters have killed too many Iraqi innocents. January's election dramatically lifted public morale and changed the media focus — suddenly, democracy looks possible, and an Arab Muslim democracy is al-Qaida's worst nightmare.

Hence the "Tet gamble." Bombs haven't cowed the Iraqi people — but perhaps the American people will lose heart and buckle if al-Qaida concocts a military surprise.

U.S. forces, however, are "hard targets" — unlike civilians standing in line to vote, U.S. troops shoot back. Since 9/11, al-Qaida has never won a military engagement at the platoon level (30 men) or higher. Coalition forward operating bases are heavily fortified.

Unfortunately for the American military, the press at home and the pro-terrorist Left are ready to paint every unsuccessful attack by the terrorists as an unmitigated failure of the US military. The terrorists do not have to win -- the ;eft-wing media and left-wing ideologues consider every assault on Americans (and innocent Iraqi citizens) to be a victory for the enemy by virtue of the fact that they still have the capability to make the attack. Under their logic, terrorist Eric Rudolph's cowardly bombing of abortion clinics was a victory for those of us opposed to abortion (it wasn't, as it betrayed our principles).

Looking at the bright side, we have the ability to defeat the terrorists in a war of attrition. The ultimate question is if the American and Iraqi peoples have the will.

Who Says Canada Is A Free Country?

2005-04-16T08:43:00.000-05:00

This case proves once more how far Canada has strayed from the values and practices that characterize a western-style democracy. Is the day coming that we have to liberate her people from a government as oppressive as that of Saddam Hussein's was?

Calgary's police chief Jack Beaton has used a rare legal tactic to seize a computer from a private home that was believed to have been used to operate a website critical to Beaton and his senior managers.

Beaton obtained a civil court order this month to enter the home of a civilian police employee and seize the computer.

A sweeping gag order issued at the same time prevents anyone from talking about the case or reading documents related to it, which have been sealed.

So, let's consider the basic outline here.

A website criticizes government agency and its high officials.

The courts order the site taken down and the equipment used to engage in that free speech confiscated.

All comment on it is stifled by a gag order against the allegedly corrupt officials (who want the charges to go away) and the folks making the charges.

And local elected officials, for whom the police chief works, applaud the move.

However, Ald. Craig Burrows, who sits on the police commission, says Beaton acted properly.

"I think any time you go after the morale of a service or the morale of a city that takes pride in its service, the chief has a right to act," Burrows said.

"I'm afraid we live in a culture today where you can say anything you want about people, as negative as it is, and you don't think you can be held accountable. I think our chief is just basically ensuring that, moving forward, if you're going to say something that's going to affect the reputation of the service and officers, you have to have evidence to support that claim."

So, if you are going to make critical remarks, the government can shut you down, preventing you from presenting that evidence to the public. That effectively means that there is no right in Canada to criticize the government if the officials involved do not like the criticism.

Now you may wonder what sort of accusations were made on the website.

Messages on the site said it spoke for officers who had suffered under Beaton's "corrupt" administration.

It stated: "We are the police, the communications officers, the administration staff and other police service members and employees that either have been the victims of tyranny, politics, harassment, bullying, racism, constructive termination, etc., or we know someone who has."

Last fall, Beaton was quoted in the Calgary Herald as "vowing to take every measure necessary to get those behind the website."

He has also called the site "mean-spirited" and "in poor taste."

Four current or former police officers, who agreed to talk to the CBC about their concerns as long as their names weren't used, said promotions on the force are based on who you know, and that racist and sexist behaviour is tolerated.

Sounds to me like this was clearly raising issues of public concern about problems in a government agency. You know, the sort of things that citizens should be aware of and permitted to discuss freely in a democratic society. The failure of Canadian law to protect such a basic right is simply one more piece of evidence that our neighbor to the north has ceased to share fundamental values with the United States. When a public official is allowed to remain in office after making a public statement that he will "get" those who dare to criticize how he does his job by using the full police power of the government to suppress those criticisms, it is clear that the protection of fundamental rights no longer exists. What you have in such a case is an authoritarian system that feigns respect for civil liberties.

I'm curious -- where are all the liberals running websites that claim the Bush administration is oppressive and urging folks to flee to Canada? Why are they not speaking out against this atrocity?

Anyone Find This Obscene?

2005-04-16T08:36:00.000-05:00

First the courts rule that Terri Schiavo could be starved to death despite no clear evidence of her personal wishes on the matter -- just the assertion of the person who stood to gain the most by her death.

Now we have this case, in which a court is allowing the government to overrule the clear intent of an enemy of the United States.

A Cuban exile on a monthlong hunger strike protesting his detention as a suspected spy was in a hospital's inmate ward Friday after a judge cleared the way for U.S. officials to have a feeding tube inserted in him.

Juan Emilio Aboy was being held at Jackson Memorial Hospital's inmate ward, hospital spokeswoman Lorraine Nelson said Friday.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Paul Huck agreed with another judge's order to ``involuntarily administer nutrients'' to Aboy though a stomach or intravenous tube, and to restrain him if he attempts to remove it.

``Mr. Aboy is now completing his fourth week without eating. The decision to not eat was his choice. A court order was issued allowing the U.S. Public Health Service to take any necessary precautions in the interest of his health,'' said Nina Pruneda, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Miami.

So what we have here is a precedent that says you can kill the sick, but must intervene to stop a voluntary death.

Who says this country hasn't lost its way?

Preparations For Change

2005-04-16T08:23:00.000-05:00

For some time now, I have been preparing to make some changes in my site.

I'll be changing the site name, the site address, the appearance of the page, the software being used, and even the handle I post under.

Why?

1) Blogger drives me nuts at times. They do a good job, but it runs so slow, and crashes often.

2) You never know -- I may not be the precinct chair in this precinct forever.

3) It's time for a change, and I'm nearly ready to make the move.

I'll tell you more later, when the move is ready.

Border Jumpers Skip Deportation Hearing

2005-04-15T23:30:00.000-05:00

Why would we think anything else would happen? They already took a dump on our nation's immigration laws once -- why would they change now?

Eleven illegal aliens who were released by federal authorities after a traffic stop in Fairfax County on Sunday did not show up for immigration proceedings yesterday.

"None of them came back, and I think that the fact that these aliens failed to appear showed the challenges of immigration enforcement," said Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Mr. Van Pelt said about 30 percent of illegal aliens who are ordered to appear for immigration proceedings fail to show up. Of those who do appear, about 85 percent become fugitives if a judge orders them to be deported.

"We know full well that the honor system doesn't work and it doesn't make our job any easier when we're trying to focus on violent criminal aliens and trying to thwart terrorism," he said.

THEN WHY THE HELL DO YOU USE IT? You know that many won't show and many others will skip out if they lose their case. You know they are not here legally. Don't release them -- hold them until the hearing and then load them onto a bus or plane and get them to the other side of the border.

Pontification On Possible Popes

2005-04-15T22:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry, folks, I couldn't help myself there. Some titles are just too obvious to resist.

I came across a couple of great articles on the upcoming conclave, and another on the history of the current selection process that I think might interest folks.

1) Conclave History. Where did we get this process of selecting popes? At one time, the people of Rome selected their new bishop (remember -- besides being the head of the entire Catholic Church, the pope is first and foremost the local bishop of the city of Rome) by public acclamation. That is how Peter's successor, Linus, was selected. The selection of a new pope by the cardinals was an innovation of the 11th century. Even as late as 1903, the article points out, the papacy was a political plum, and the selection of a new pontiff was as much a matter of international politics as it was of religion.

And, of course, there have been scandals and outrageous acts by popes and papal candidates. The Middle Ages and Renaissance were particularly notorious for odd goings on.

Nineteen elections lasted more than a month and several dragged on for many months, even years. Other successions descended into violence.

Consider the reign of Pope Sergius III in the 10th century.

His faction seized the papacy through armed force, and he had his imprisoned predecessor, Pope Leo V, strangled to death.

Chroniclers of the age claimed that Sergius had a son with a 15-year-old girl - who was later elected Pope John XII by the nobles who had backed Sergius. John himself became a notorious debaucher who was deposed, struck back and deposed his successor, and supposedly died while in bed with a married woman.

Then there was Alexander VI, who won the papacy just before the Protestant Reformation by bribing cardinals and promising lucrative jobs. His subsequent reign was ``marked by nepotism, greed and unbridled sensuality,'' the Rev. Richard McBrien writes in ``Lives of the Popes.''

Thanks to Alexander, the cardinals who elected his successor included his illegitimate son, appointed a cardinal at age 18, and the brother of one of the pope's mistresses.

Perhaps the most bizarre succession involved the ``cadaver synod'' of 897.

So much did Pope Stephen VI hate his deceased predecessor, Pope Formosus, that Stephen had his minions dig up Formosus' corpse. The new pope then held a mock trial for the old one, stripped the corpse of its vestments, cut off the two fingers that bestowed papal blessings and threw the body into the Tiber.

The over-the-top display did Stephen no good. His enemies rebelled, imprisoned him and strangled him to death.

And we cannot forget the period of French control of the papacy at Avignon, nor the multiple popes and anti-popes of the Great Schism.

The modern papacy, freed of the temporal concerns that existed when the popes ruled the Papal States, is now much more a spiritual and moral force in the world. The unification of Italy may have been one of the best things that ever happened to the successors of St. Peter, and they now only needed to be concerned with running the Church.

2) The Importance Of Papal Language Skills. I'd have to say that John Paul II made the ability to speak in multiple languages critical for a successful papacy. He was multilingual, and even if his Italian was week in 1978 (or even a quarter century later), his ability to communicate with the people of Italy was important. Let's be honest -- if your entire country is located in downtown Rome and you are the city's bishop, you need to speak Italian.

'Pope John Paul's ability to speak other languages allowed him to make better contacts with world leaders such as Fidel Castro and [Augusto] Pinochet," said Marco Politi, coauthor of ''His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time."

''The ability to speak another language could make the next pope more effective."

The pope's biographers say that in addition to Polish, John Paul could converse in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin.

But beyond that, English and Spanish are the two major languages of the faithful. Being unable to communicate in those two languages (or at least one of them, initially) will weaken the new pope. And since John Paul II made international travel an important part of the papacy, that linguistic ability is very important. As I remember from Denver, the fact that the pope, not a translator, was speaking to us was very important to the young people there. We understood him, and he understood us.

Will linguistic ability help propel some candidate to the papacy? Probably not -- but it might be a factor for some, such as Cardinals Ivan Dias of India, Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, and Francis Arinze of Nigeria. They speak English, French, and Italian, as well as other languages.

3) A Black Pope? Personally, I don't see why not. While some are downplaying the possibility (perhaps as a means of safeguarding the candidacy of Cardinal Arinze or one of the other Africans), I don't know that it would be as big a handicap as some suggest. Africa is the growing Church today. Whereas a century ago the Irish and Americans were sending missionary priests to Africa to preach the Gospel, the opposite is happening today. Many dioceses have African priests working in them to help with the priest shortage. My seminary had 200 students, and about 15 of them came from Uganda, Tanzania, and Nigeria (I've heard about Cardinal Arinze for years) -- some of whom were here to stay, not to go home.

And Cardinal Arinze himself would be a good candidate. At age 72, he is young enough to be pope for a decade or so, but not so young as to stay a quarter century. And there is the fact that he has spent so much time working in the Vatican that he is practically a Roman.

The leading African candidate is Cardinal Francis Arinze, a 72-year-old Nigerian who has worked at the Vatican for more than 20 years, mostly as the pope's point man for Islamic relations.

While he is not the only African candidate, his combination of Vatican knowledge, theological conservatism, pastoral experience and deep spirituality makes him the favourite.

I would not be surprised to see a black hand bestowing the next papal blessing, though I will not be so bold as to make that a definitive prediction. It's just that the election of Cardinal Arinze would make a lot of sense, as the above quote indicates.

Enough for now. Pray for the holy Spirit to guide the Cardinals, an for the Cardinals to be open to the Spirit.

This Evidence Makes Crime Easy To Solve

2005-04-15T22:14:00.000-05:00

I mean, this would have been one heck of an identifying feature – and the source of plenty of DNA evidence.

A woman bit off the tongue of her alleged rapist and then gave it to police as evidence, Free State police said on Friday.

Captain Veronica Ntepe said the 32-year-old woman from Mahlatswetsa, near Excelsior, was woken up on Thursday night when a man broke into her bedroom at around 11pm.

While allegedly raping the woman, the man forced his tongue into her mouth.

"This was the gravest mistake he made. The woman bit (off) the front part of his tongue," Ntepe said. The man immediately ran away.

The woman called the police and handed over the piece of tongue.

Police put out an alert for a man with a piece of his tongue missing.

A suspect was arrested on Friday afternoon.

Police have sent the tongue to the forensic science laboratory in Pretoria to test whether it belonged to the arrested man.

The 23-year-old man, from Mahlatswetsa, will face charges of rape and house-breaking in the Excelsior magistrate's court on Monday.

Too bad she couldn't have done more significan damage.

Am I The Only One Not Troubled?

2005-04-14T16:36:00.000-05:00

I hope not, and I suspect not.

We were told that lethal injection was humane and painless. Fine, I thought at the time, if that would deal with the issue of "humane treatment" for those squeamish about the administration of the appropriate penalty for some crimes, that is fine. Now it turns out that this method of execution may not be quite as painless as it was billed. I find myself singularly unmoved with compassion towards the condemned.

As many as four of every 10 prisoners put to death in the United States might receive inadequate anesthesia, causing them to remain conscious and experience blistering pain during a lethal injection.

Researchers in Florida and Virginia drew this conclusion after reviewing levels of anesthetic in the blood of 49 inmates after they were executed.

"I approached this as a physician," said the study's lead author, Dr. Leonidas Koniaris, chairman of surgical oncology at the University of Miami. "We were asking: Is there a possibility of awareness during an execution? Is there a large degree of pain and suffering associated with it? And I think the answer we found is yes."

Of the inmates studied in a report published by the British journal The Lancet, 43 percent had concentrations of anesthetic in their blood — as measured by medical examiners during autopsies — that would indicate consciousness rather than sedation during an execution.

Koniaris, who says he does not oppose the death penalty, thinks the study warrants a moratorium on executions until a publicly appointed panel can review whether some inmates remain conscious during lethal injection.

"If that's the case, as a society we need to step back and ask whether we want to torture these people or not," he said.

And I have to be honest – I don’t give a rat’s ass if they feel pain or not. I had no moral qualms about the gas chamber or the electric chair, and wouldn’t mind if the hangman’s noose or the firing squad were reintroduced. Hell, I would have no moral qualms about coating pedophiles and rapists with honey and staking them out over fire ant hills. While I’m not a native Texan, I have to agree with those who hold to the philosophy that “some folks just need killin’.” Generally speaking, though, I’m open to discussion about the method. And I am willing to discuss alternatives to the death penalty --life without parole beling the minimum.

But frankly, I have to disagree with the editorial from the Lancet that is quoted in the story.

The implications of an ineffective anesthetic are, in the words of a Lancet editorial accompanying the article, troubling: "It would be a cruel way to die: awake, paralyzed, unable to move, to breathe, while potassium burned through your veins."

And I should be morally outraged because…?

I mean, it’s not like these folks gave a whole lot of concern for the mental and physical anguish they inflicted upon their victims. You know, the raped and killed little girl after being abducted from her bed. The adolescent boy killed after being sodomized by a couple of NAMBLA members. The wife beaten to death by her abusive husband. The family murdered by robbers looking for a couple of bucks. I guess I don’t have any more compassion for the killers than they did for their victims. Let them feel the utter helplessness and pain that they were more than willing to allow another human being to experience.

And then there is this gem from one of the study’s authors.

"It's now up to the corrections systems to show that, at the time of death, inmates are asleep. We should accept no less when we're killing people."

I disagree.

We should accept nothing less than their being fully conscious.

Let them feel every last bit of society's outrage and retribution for their crimes.

Let them be aware of their punishment.

And let them understand, in their last moments, what their victims may have felt.

Sanity In Oregon

2005-04-14T16:30:00.000-05:00

The Oregon Supreme Court left the issue of homosexual marriage right where it belongs today – in the hands of the people and their elected representatives.

The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday nullified nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year ago by Portland's Multnomah County, saying a county cannot go against state matrimonial law.

"Oregon law currently places the regulation of marriage exclusively within the province of the state's legislative power," the high court said in its unanimous ruling.

The court said state law bans gay marriage. It also noted that Oregon voters approved a constitutional amendment last November that even more explicitly prohibits the practice.

Kevin Neely, spokesman for the state attorney general's office, said the court left the big issue — civil unions for gay couples — for another day. "I suspect the issue will be resolved by either legislation or by additional litigation," he said.

Legislators had been waiting for the court's ruling for guidance. On Wednesday, Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski said he will push for a law allowing gay couples to form civil unions that would give them many of the rights and privileges of marriage.

The governor and legislature will consider civil union legislation. Whether that is the appropriate course of action is, of course, subject to debate, given the solid rejection of homosexual marriage by Oregon voters in November. It strikes me that they should tread very slowly in that area, because the overwhelming majority of Oregonians expressed a position that seems to oppose granting legal status to homosexual relationships. Given the difficultrts have imposed an unwelcome solution on a sharply divided public, I think the Oregon Supreme Court acted wisely, and I hope the legislature and governor act in a manner which respects the policy preferences of the people of the state -- who are, ultimately, the sovereign power to which they must defer.

Animal Rights Morons Sprayed

2005-04-14T16:27:00.000-05:00

I love it when someone finds a non-violent way to rid themselves of folks who are out to impose their whacked-out values on the rest of us.

A trio of protesters with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals didn't find the welcome mat out when they stopped at a KFC in Brownsville on Wednesday. The sprinkler system was on for them, though.

John Olivo, the manager of the fast-food chicken restaurant, turned the system on full blast to soak the curbside protesters. And a man who eats beef followed them around with his stepchildren and a microphone.

The PETA protesters, including one in a chicken suit, are participating in PETA's campaign to get KFC to pressure slaughter houses to use more humane methods to kill chickens.

"They already hit me in McAllen," Olivo said in a story in Thursday's editions of The Brownsville Herald. "I was already waiting for them here in Brownsville."

"You're not going to win. Not in Brownsville," David Ingersoll, of Los Fresnos, shouted through his microphone at the protesters at a busy intersection. His stepchildren passed out anti-PETA pamphlets to stopped drivers.

"I'm waiting for someone to throw a cabrito head at them so they know what part of the country they are in," Ingersoll said, referring to the goat meat that's used in some Mexican dishes.

Good for you, Mr. Olivo!

School Disses Marine Graduates

2005-04-13T20:46:00.000-05:00

Some folks are just plain ashamed of patriotism. That seems to be the case with administrators at Warren Township High School in Gurnee, Illinois. They are denying two early graduates permission to wear their Marine dress blues when they receive their diploma at the district's Memorial Day weekend graduation.

Brenten Kostner, 19, and John Shymanik, 17, graduated early in December to become Marines. They hope to attend the graduation ceremony wearing their dress-blue uniforms during a 10-day leave from boot camp.

However, the Marines’ mothers said they’ve been told by school officials their sons must wear Warren-issued caps and gowns like everyone else during the May 28 graduation event at Northwestern University.

Kostner’s mother, Julie Hamil, said Warren District 121’s position doesn’t make sense. She said the young men are against covering themselves with the caps and gowns because they want their peers to see their pride in becoming successful graduates as Marines.

“I’m shocked,” Hamil said. “Do you only show your patriotism when something bad happens?”

Hamil appealed to the District 121 board Monday night. Outgoing school board President Mari Carlson directed administrators to re-examine their stance on the uniforms.

“These are special times we live in,” Carlson said.

Nearly 350 students and teachers at Warren signed a petition Monday requesting Kostner and Shymanik be allowed to wear the dress uniforms. Kostner’s sisters, Sherri and Audrey Hamil, circulated the petition.

Here's hoping that a little bit of common sense prevails here.

Contact the district and the school to comment.

Disruptive Conduct Or Discrimination?

2005-04-13T19:55:00.000-05:00

James Herndon, a student at Pacific High School in the San Bernardino City Unified School District, has been suspended for wearing lipstick and eye makeup to school. The school claims that his makeup is distracting, while James has trotted out the usual array of liberal claims of sexism, religious discrimination and violation of freedom of expression.

In what is shaping as a battle between conformity and self-expression, Pacific High School has suspended a ninth-grade boy for wearing lipstick and eye makeup.
Officials are calling it a violation of school policy, which they seemed unable to find in writing.

James Herndon, 16, repeating his second year at the school, and his mother, Valerie Wallace, say James has been wearing black lipstick and red eye makeup the entire time he has been enrolled at Pacific. He also wears his hair in a dyed-red mohawk with the sides shaved. But that was not cited as part of the reason for the five-day suspension, which was imposed Monday.

The youth said the makeup expresses religious beliefs he shares with his mother, a Wiccan priestess in the neopagan religion based on northern European beliefs in the supernatural.

James also said the suspension is sex discrimination and violates his constitutional right to free expression.

Now before you think that the school is simply being unreasonable in its demands for conformity, please be aware that this is how James has been going to school.

And lest you think James understands he occupies a different place in the pecking order at school that the faculty and staff do, look at this comment.

"If I can't wear makeup,' James said, "then the girls or the staff can't wear makeup either.'

Uh, wrong, James. You are a student. A different standard of conduct and different set of rules apply to the staff than applies to the students. It is not up to YOU to make that declaration. Of course given your mother’s clear lack of respect for the school’s authority over matters of school disruptions and safety issues, not to mention her failure to prepare her child to operate in a society with certain social norms.

When James returns to school Monday, he will wear the makeup with his mother's blessing. "My son shouldn't change the way he is.

"After my divorce from his father, he became very depressed, and wearing the makeup makes him feel good,' she said, adding that the boy's psychologist and psychiatrist encourage him to express himself.

I’m hoping to hear that this kid is suspended again if he shows up in the same attire. His appearance constitutes a distraction in the classroom and a potential safety hazard on campus.

You may wonder about the latter point, but I can explain. As a teacher, I need to be able to determine at a glance whether or not someone at my school of 2300 students belongs there or not. I’m able to quickly tick through a number of dress code issues that help me narrow the field – things that include a ban on male facial hair and earrings, and visible piercings on any student. If someone is wearing a hat or bandana, they get confronted, too. There is also the school ID on a chain, but those are often not visible because of coats, sweaters, or the angle from which a kid is seen. A kid who showed up dressed as James is in the picture would be quickly hustled into an administrator’s office to be dealt with as a flagrant violator of the dress code or an unauthorized presence on campus. It is part of why we have so little violence on our campus, especially compared to some neighboring schools with similar demographics.

Now the ACLU is backing this kid and his so-called parent. I’m betting they lose. That appearance is so distracting that it would be a source of disruption in class. The law they cite is intended to protect gender-benders from being harassed, not permit kids to wear clown makeup.

And if mom doesn’t like the policy, might I suggest that she homeschool?

I’ve Lost Respect For A Man I’ve Admired

2005-04-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

I won’t go into the bigger story here, one about a guy who detained seven border jumpers at gunpoint. Given that he was correct in his assessment, I don’t believe he should be charged with anything.

But I have lost respect for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose actions to make jail less appealing made me a big fan. His take on the situation?

"Being illegal is not a serious crime. You can't go to jail for being an illegal alien. . . . You can only be deported."

Joe, that attitude is precisely why we have a problem with border jumping. Law enforcement doesn’t see it as a problem – and as a result doesn’t treat it like a problem. That means that little action is taken by law enforcement at every level to stop border jumping, detain and hold border jumpers, and deport border jumpers. The result is a flood of criminal aliens who walk among us with impunity, consuming taxpayer-financed resources far beyond their contribution to society.

I hope you have a strong opponent next election, Joe – you are clearly not a part of the solution, but are instead part of the problem.

Where Is The Liberal, Media Outrage?

2005-04-13T19:47:00.000-05:00

Last week we were treated to Left-wing shouts of “Scandal!” when it was disclosed that Tom DeLay’s wife and daughter were paid for work by his campaign and a PAC with he founded. Those of us who defended the family were said to be ethically-challenged partisans who were circling the wagon.

So today, as the lone declared (as opposed to effective) Socialist in the House of Representatives is disclosed to have had the same arrangement for his wife and daughter, I’ll say it again – there is nothing wrong, legally or morally, for having family members on the payroll of the campaign or affiliated PACs.

Rep. Bernard Sanders used campaign donations to pay his wife and stepdaughter more than $150,000 for campaign-related work since 2000, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Jane O'Meara Sanders, his wife, received $91,020 between 2002 and 2004 for "consultation" and for negotiating the purchase of television and radio time-slots for Sanders' advertisements, according to records and interviews.

Approximately $61,000 of that was "pass through" money that was used to pay media outlets for advertising time, Jane O'Meara Sanders said in an interview. The rest, about $30,000, she kept as payment for her services, she said.

Carina Driscoll, daughter to Jane O'Meara Sanders and stepdaughter to the lawmaker, earned $65,002 in "wages" between 2000 and 2004, campaign records show.

Driscoll, a former state legislator, served as Rep. Sanders' campaign manager in 2000, his fund-raiser and office manager in 2003 and his database manager in 2004, according to Jeff Weaver, Sanders' chief of staff.

"Both of them are regarded as people who are knowledgable about Vermont politics," Weaver said Tuesday. "They earned every penny they got."

The practice is legal if there are actual campaign/political services rendered. That is the case with DeLay, and that is the case with Sanders. While the amounts vary, that is irrelevant. The fact is that there is nothing wrong with the practice at all – unless you want to apply the nebulous and ill-defined “appearance of impropriety” standard, which says it is an issue if somebody wants to make it one, but you can never know for sure if it is unless they do.

Like it or not, the family members of politicians often go into campaign/politcs related businesses. They are going to make money in the field, as is their right as American citizens. That goes for the Right and the Left. Deal with it.

Texans Betrayed

2005-04-12T23:11:00.000-05:00

The people have been calling for appraisal caps to stop runaway property taxes (which in many jurisdictions are annually raised the full legal 10% across the board without regard to market conditions) that are running Texans out of their homes. City and county politicians have been opposed to the caps, because the annual 10% increase lets them spend more money without raising taxes.

Today the ~~rat basterds~~ politicians won.

AUSTIN — A measure meant to save Texans billions in property taxes by limiting appraisal increases died before debate even began on the House floor today.

It was a stinging defeat for Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who has pushed for appraisal caps for more than a year.

"I'm disappointed in the vote. I don't mind saying that," Perry said. "This is not going to go away."

Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston, has been trying for weeks to gather the 100 votes needed to pass his constitutional amendment to halve the amount appraisals can grow each year. Currently, tax appraisals can grow as much as 10 percent annually.

"It's a sad day for the taxpayers of the state of Texas," Bohac said.

Perry vowed to keep up a public campaign to limit what he calls property appraisal "creep." He championed a bill set to be debated Wednesday that will reduce the cap on property tax revenue increases in cities and counties.

Proponents of appraisal caps said they would safeguard property-tax reductions that are part of the school finance plans in the House and Senate. Bohac's measure had support from the Republican leadership, including House Speaker Tom Craddick, who said today he supported appraisal caps.

"We need to take the burden of unfair taxation off the homeowners' shoulders," said Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio.

Let me explain this to you. there is a thing in finance circles that is called the "rule of 72" It shows the rate at which the value of an item will double. All you do is divide 72 by the rate of increase to determine the number of years that it takes for the asset to double in value. At 10%, that means that the taxable value of homes doubles in 7.2 years -- meaning, for example, a house bought at $100,000 today will be appraised at $200,000 in 2012 -- and at $400,000 by 2020. And that aso means that the taxes increase at the same rate -- today's $2500 property tax bill is a $5000 tax bill in 2012 and $10,000 in 2020. Given the rate at which my pay increases in my district (traditionally 3% each year), my salary will not have doubled in that time -- it will take until 2029 to do so. By that time the value of the hypothetical house will have increased in value to nearly $500,000, with a tax bill of about $15,000 each year -- and that does not include the mortgage payment.

Now to be fair, the argument by the county and local politicians makes sense on the surface. They argue that the lower rate of increase will not give hem a sufficent cash flow to provide services to the public. Apparently a 3-5% increase in the budget each year (about what the average Texan seens in their paycheck each year) is not enough. What they overlook is that they do have the option of making cuts or -- in an act of candor which frightens politicians -- going to the voters for a rate increase.

Fortunately, there is still hope for some tax relief.

House lawmakers Wednesday will debate a plan by Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, to cap at 3 percent the amount of growth in tax revenue cities and counties can take in each year. Local voters could elect to reverse the increase. The measure needs only 76 votes to pass the House.

Isett said his "truth in taxation" bill is a better way to provide tax relief.

"Lower taxes drive economic activity," Isett said. "That happens every time, everywhere it's tried."

A similar revenue cap measure by Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, is awaiting a vote by a Senate committee. Another appraisal cap measure, authored by Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, that would limit property value growth to 5 percent but allow cities and counties to opt out is pending in the Senate. Janek said he is not sure whether to proceed with his bill after today's action.

Perry remained resolved to get the tax relief he has promised.

"We're going to live to fight again," he said.

Yes, but whatever relief we get could be eaten up by higher appraisals, or overturned by simple majority vote. As it was, a minority (65 "Representatives") managed to thwart the will of the majority of 85 members of the House.

Texans -- here are the culprits who do not believe you should be permitted to vote on an Amendment to the Texas Constitution that will allow you to be able to afford to stay in your home.

Allen, R.; Alonzo; Anchia; Bailey; Blake; Burnam; Campbell; Casteel; Castro; Chavez; Chisum; Coleman; Cook, B.; Crownover; Davis, Y.; Delisi; Deshotel; Driver; Dukes; Dunnam; Edwards; Eiland; Escobar; Farabee; Flores; Frost; Geren; Giddings; Gonzales; Gonzalez Toureilles; Griggs; Guillen; Haggerty; Hardcastle; Harper-Brown; Hartnett; Hill; Hodge; Hopson; Hunter; Jones, D.; Jones, J.; Keel; King, T.; Kuempel; Laney; Luna; Madden; Martinez; Martinez Fischer; McCall; Menendez; Moreno, P.; Morrison; Mowery; Naishtat; Noriega, M.; Oliveira; Orr; Peña; Pickett; Quintanilla; Raymond; Ritter; Rodriguez; Smith, T.; Smithee; Solis; Solomons; Swinford; Thompson; Truitt; Turner; Uresti; Veasey; Villarreal; West.

Remember that during the primaries in March, 2006, and during the general election in November, 2006. They must be defeated.

Racist Commies

2005-04-12T22:55:00.000-05:00

Apparently American liberals are not the only folks on the Left who cannot stand the advancement based on merit of a conservative woman of color. It looks like Communists in Red China also dislike her, and they reviled her with racist and sexist insults on the closely monitored and regulated Chinese Internet following Rice's recent visit to China.

"She looks like an orangutan, and talks rubbish; send us a beautiful woman next time," stated one contributor to Sina.com.

"This black woman is not welcome!!!" stated another.

"She looks absolutely like a witch!" said a third.

Sounds like the sort of comments you would find on Demcratic Underground or other websites run by the "tolerant non-racist Left".

What other racist comments about the Secretary of State have been allowed to remain unmolested by the Yellow Menace? This is just a sample of the comments collected by one Chinese dissident about Dr. Rice.

"Black devil"; "black pig"; "black whore"; "black female dog"; "You're not even as good as a black devil, a real waste of a life"; "Her brain is blacker than her skin"; "Really ugly"; "The ugliest woman in the world".

You know, I wonder if these folks got their comments from the Democrats who tried to stop Condoleezza Rice's confirmation. After all, they are in character with what was said by the Senators and their surrogates.

"Santo Subito" -- Sainthood Now!

2005-04-12T22:28:00.000-05:00

The chant was heard at Pope John Paul II's funeral last week -- "Santo! Santo!" Cardinal Ratzinger's homily hinted that he believed the pope not to be in Purgatory (as traditional Catholic teaching suggest may be the fate of most believers for a time) but already among the heavenly host. And then there were the signs that read "Santo Subito".

Calls for sainthood began almost immediately after the pope died on April 2 and reached a peak at his funeral on Friday, when mourners in St. Peter's Square held banners saying, "Santo Subito," or "Saint at Once," and chanted, "Santo, Santo." Reports of miraculous cures through his intervention poured in.

Several Italian newspapers reported that the Vatican had quietly been collecting messages from people attesting to healings attributed to him.

Luigi Accattoli, one of the most respected Vatican reporters, wrote in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera that a petition had already been circulated among the cardinals seeking signatures for a fast-track canonization process for John Paul. The usual process involves years of careful investigation, and it sometimes takes centuries for the final declaration.

Several cardinals confirmed that the idea of rapid canonization was discussed the day after the pope's funeral at their daily meeting.

If John Paul is canonized, he will be only the fourth pope to be so honored in 900 years.

That the cardinals are already discussing the possibility of a speedy canonization is intriguing. The waiting period for the process to start is five years, but it can be waived. And one cardinal even talks of being healed by the intervention of John Paul several years ago.

Cardinal Francesco Marchesano evoked the idea of miraculous healing. He said that when he had been in the hospital for an operation on his carotid artery and lost his voice, John Paul caressed his throat and said: "The Lord will give back your voice. You will see. I will say a prayer for you.'" Cardinal Camillo Ruini spoke of "the certainty of his new, mysterious and luminous presence."

Some argue that this speedy move for canonization, or at least beatification, is intended to cement the Pope's conservative policies into place by making them inseperable from the holy man himself.

While there may be some cynics around who are doing that, I don't believe that to be the case. What I see instead is a return to an older tradition, one under which the faithful themselves had a role to play in the process of declaring sainthood. Consider Thomas a Becket, martyred by English knights loyal to King Henry II. Shortly after his death, the people themselves had made his tomb a place of pilgrimage and devotion. The faithful declared him to be a saint, and he was so recognized by the Church within three years. Please note -- it was the sense of the faithful that came first, not the public affirmation by the institution. The outpouring of grief and love and prayer we have seen may be the sign that the faithful have recognized something that the institutional church needs to acknowledge.

Stamp Of Disapproval

2005-04-12T22:05:00.000-05:00

My personal definition of art is pretty broad. But I think this has crossed the line.

Apparently, the Secret Service is concerned about it, too.

Organizers of a politically charged art exhibit at Columbia College's Glass Curtain Gallery thought their show might draw controversy.

But they didn't expect two U.S. Secret Service agents would be among the show's first visitors.

The agents turned up Thursday evening, just before the public opening of "Axis of Evil, the Secret History of Sin," and took pictures of some of the art pieces -- including "Patriot Act," showing President Bush on a mock 37-cent stamp with a revolver pointed at his head.

The agents asked what the artists meant by their work and wanted museum director CarolAnn Brown to turn over the names and phone numbers of all the artists. They wanted to hear from the exhibit's curator, Michael Hernandez deLuna, within 24 hours, she said.

That particular work looks like a threat to me. It is obligatory on the Secret Service to check it out. And before the leftists complain -- remember that there were events at a couple of gun clubs shut down in the 1990s because the targets depicted Bill &/or Hillary. Anything that even looks like a potential threat must be investigated.

What other "art" would you find at this exhibit?

The Columbia exhibit features 47 artists from 11 countries and depicts powerful religious and political leaders worldwide on mock postage stamps. One, called "Citizen John Ashcroft," shows Ashcroft's face fashioned from images of naked bodies at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Another piece -- "I saw it in a movie starring Steven Segal" -- shows a series of images of an airplane nearing, then crashing into the Sears Tower, and ends with the Chicago skyline without the skyscraper.

In other words, it is some stuff that is simply sick and disgusting. While I recognize that such "protest art" falls within First Amendment protection (though perhaps not the Bush stamp -- threats against the president are illegal), that does not mean I have to approve of it or its message. Furthermore, I wish the college had the integrity to disassociate itself from a show that includes both the Bush stamp and the 9/11 style attack on Chicago. After all, the school also has a First Amendment right to not associate its good name with the exhibit.

And I am appalled, but not surprised, at the Left-wing fear-mongering of the exhibit organizer.

Hernandez said any government involvement could come close to trampling First Amendment rights.

"It frightens me ... as an artist and curator. Now we're being watched," Hernandez said. "It's a new world. It's a Big Brother world. I think it's frightening for any artist who wants to do edgy art."

Hernandez said he hopes the public sees the exhibit as a whole -- and not just about one man or even one country. Some works Hernandez thought would be more controversial challenge Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church. Others look at Nazi Germany and the killing fields in Cambodia.

This frightens him -- I wonder if it frightens him as much as the fake stamps he sent through the mail in the fall of 2001 frightened the postal workers who handled them. The design was of a black skull and crossbones with the word "Anthrax" on it -- during the height of the anthrax scare.

Where would you find this "artwork"? Columbia College's Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash, Chicago. Here's hoping there is some serious protest -- and financial ramifications for the college.

Papabile-palooza – Possible Papal Long-Shots

2005-04-12T20:09:00.000-05:00

Papal elections are few and far between. They come suddenly and are over quickly – at least in the modern era. Historically, most of the participants have been unknowns, but the advent of the internet and other mass media have made it possible for the faithful and the curious to gather information and to speculate about the likely next pope. The possibility of another non-Italian – not to mention a non-European – makes the speculation that much more exciting.

Who are the candidates? Well, it is a bit hard to tell, since the cardinals are no longer talking. That said, there are a lot of names being mentioned, a diverse list of papabile. And while there are certainly some leading candidates, there are also some papal long-shots being mentioned.

If an African is to be the next pontiff, then Francis Cardianal Arinze of Nigeria is still the leading candidatre. That said, in recent days the name Cardinal Wilfred Napier of South Africa has been mentioned.

Are relations with Islam important going to be crucial in the conclave? If so, there are candidates who have experience in that area.

At a time when the Vatican is trying to broaden its dialogue with Islam, Julius Riyadi Darmaatmadja, 70, of Indonesia, is distinctive as one of the few cardinals from a predominantly Muslim country. Ivan Dias, 68, the archbishop of Bombay, India, also comes from a populous country with relatively few Catholics, though much of his career has been spent as a Vatican diplomat, serving in Africa, South Korea and Albania.

And of course, the Latin Americans are being mentioned prominently. One of those, as I mentioned the other day, is the Archbishop of Havana.

There are a raft of contenders - some front-runners, some long-shots - to be the first Latin American pope. The region's dark horses include Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, the archbishop of Havana, who helped organize the first papal visit to Communist Cuba in 1998 and negotiated modest openings with a government that was once officially atheist.

Ortega, 68, his risen far from humble origins as a sugar worker's son. He is fluent in French and a skilled pianist, cutting an elegant and generally nonconfrontational figure in Cuban society.

And we have all, of course, heard about the front-running Italian, Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi , but there are other cardinals to be considered as well.

Italy supplies at least three front-running candidates, but also several in the next rung, including Cardinals Ennio Antonelli of Florence, Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, and Severino Poletto of Turin.

Bertone, 70, occasionally provides radio play-by-play of his favorite soccer team, Juventus; a few weeks ago he made headlines worldwide by urging a boycott of the best-selling book "The Da Vinci Code," which he said distorts the origins of Christianity.

Antonelli, 68, is viewed a cheerful man of the people, a relative moderate on most of the issues facing the Vatican. Poletto, 72, is custodian of the Shroud of Turin.

There are even a couple of French cardinals mentioned as papabile, though their ages make it unlikely that they would become the first French pope since the Avignon period. One is even younger than John Paul II was in 1978, while the other is 78.

Two French cardinals are sometimes mentioned: Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, who is only 55 and known as an advocate for immigrants' rights, and retired Paris Archbishop Jean-Marie Lustiger, 78, a confidant of John Paul's, a Jewish convert - and a skeptic about lists of front-runners.

"All the names that have surfaced have been invented by journalists," he said last week. "What happens is that most of the time, those who get it are completely unexpected."

In the end, I think Cardinal Lustiger has it partially right. In handicapping the conclave like a political convention or a horserace, it is very possible that almost none of us have heard the name of the next pope – which is exactly what happened twice in 1978, a year that saw the burial and election of two popes.

Feingold To Divorce – Friends And Analysts Lament End Of Presidential Bid

2005-04-12T20:04:00.000-05:00

I think this explains one more way in which Democrats are simply out of touch with the bulk of the American populace. Senator Russ Feingold and his wife of 14 years are about to divorce – and rather than offer sympathy, Democrats are much more concerned with the political implications.

Sen. Russ Feingold and his wife, Mary, stunned the political world in announcing Monday that they would end their 14-year marriage.

The news came in a 31-word statement from Russ Feingold's office, indicating the two "were separating amicably, and intend to remain very good friends."

Feingold, 52, a Democrat, is a Harvard-educated lawyer elected in November to his third term.

Mary Feingold, 47, is a writer working under the auspices of her firm, Write Now Business Communications, according to the senator's most recent annual financial disclosure.

A divorce would be the second for both. Each has two adult children from a first marriage.

Feingold had begun to test the waters for a presidential run in 2008, and the news led one political expert and longtime friend to speculate that any hopes for the nomination three years hence were dashed.

"This is the end of his presidential hopes, at least for 2008," said the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato, an expert in presidential campaigns.

"The Democratic Party is much more tolerant of things, but a twice-divorced single man would have very little chance of being elected president. That is not something that would appeal to any red state."

Two weeks ago, the Feingolds traveled to Alabama. The public portion of the trip ran March 28-30. Mary Feingold was very visible as the Feingolds were received and entertained by local officials, Democrats and supporters.

Hold on, folks. Most of us in the red states wouldn’t have a problem with voting for the right divorced man --like Ronald Reagan leaps to mind. We might not be happy about the divorce (and who should be), but that would not be a deciding factor.

No, the problem Feingold would have in the red states is his liberal record and his opposition to free speech – precisely the same problem John McCain will have if he decides to run. I could not see supporting either of them for that reason.

Frankly, I’m sad for both Feingolds. Divorce is a sad and (all too often) ugly thing. I am sorry that the couple is splitting up. My only concern about Feingold being twice divorced would not concern the morality of divorce per se, but rather with the possibility (hinted at in the article) that Russ Feingold has a history of putting his political career ahead of those he is closest to. That comes down to a question regarding his priorities in life, and whether he would place Russ Feingold or the United States first in a hypothetical Feingold Administration.

Regardless of all that, I wish the couple well, come what may. – and hope that things stay amicable between them, or even that some healing can take place which saves this marriage.

Border Jumpers, Human Smugglers Captured – Cause Auto Wrecks

2005-04-12T20:00:00.000-05:00

I’m glad to hear that these folks were caught, but would like to urge Arizona drivers to KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE FREAKIN’ ROAD!

Drivers gawking at a group of 15 handcuffed illegal entrant suspects along the side of Interstate 10 on Monday morning caused three car crashes that shut down travel for about an hour near Downtown.

The rubbernecking mishaps happened after several U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made a high-risk traffic stop on westbound I-10 near the Miracle Mile exit, just before 10 a.m., said Officer James Oien, an Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman.

While not often initiated in such a visible location, high-risk stops are made when agents or officers suspect there is a potential for violence, Oien said.

"They were being extremely cautious," he said. "If you've got some felons going down the interstate and the only place you can stop them is Grant Road, you do what you gotta do."

The federal agents are part of an anti-smuggling team and had tracked and stopped a stolen pickup truck carrying a group of suspected illegal entrants, said Russell Ahr, an ICE spokesman in Phoenix.

One of the men was separated from the others at the scene, but Ahr didn't have more details about whether he was a suspected people-smuggler or whether charges were pressed.

The incident is still under investigation, he said.

After agents and officers handcuffed the suspected illegal entrants, the group sat on a dirt shoulder in the sun. They had been riding in the cab of the silver pickup while others were hidden under a piece of plywood that covered the bed.

Besides the people who were detained, about a dozen law enforcement vehicles were on the scene with their lights flashing, drawing the attention of morning motorists.

Traffic backed up for several miles and, in less than an hour, two landscaping trucks and a motor home rear-ended cars in three separate crashes. The two trucks spun sideways and blocked the westbound lanes of I-10 near the Grant Road exit, Oien said.

Two of the rear-end crashes involved injuries that were not life-threatening, Oien said. No one was injured in the third incident. None of the drivers' names was released.

"The causes of the accidents were people not paying attention to what they were doing and paying attention to what the cops were doing," Oien said.

DPS officers established a detour so traffic could be diverted to city streets for about an hour until the crashes could be investigated and cleaned up, he said.

Motorists should concentrate on their own driving and traffic around them to avoid accidents, Oien said.

"Try to resist the rubbernecking or gawking at the scene and pay attention," he said.

What more needs be said?

Reefer Madness?

2005-04-11T23:12:00.000-05:00

I don't think there is anyone of my generation who has not seen the classic propaganda film, Reefer Madness. By the time I saw it in the 1970s, the four decade old film was viewed as a comedy piece -- and subjected to treatment not unlike what you would later see on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Marijuana, we were assured, never did anyone any harm. Pot was, according to everyone, harmless.

Today there is even a musical version of the old cult-classic. This story leads me to ask -- was the film necessarily all that far off? A newly published scientific study shows that one of every four people has a gene that, when activated by adolescent marijuana use, triggers schizophrenia and similar disorders at five times the normal rate.

The study, led by Avshalom Caspi and Terrie Moffitt, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, offers the best explanation yet for the way that cannabis has a devastating psychiatric impact on some users but leaves most unharmed. Scientists had suspected that genetic factors were responsible for this divide, but a gene had not been pinpointed.

The findings, to be published in Biological Psychiatry, also reinforce a growing consensus that nature and nurture are not mutually exclusive forces but combine to affect behaviour and health. The King’s team has previously identified genes that raise the risk of depression or aggression, but only in conjunction with environmental influences.

Mental health campaigners said that the results vindicated their concerns about the decision last year to downgrade cannabis to a Class C drug, which means that possession is no longer an arrestable offence.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said that it was becoming clear that cannabis placed millions of users at risk of lasting mental illness. About fifteen million Britons have tried cannabis, and between two million and five million are regular users, according to the Home Office British Crime Survey. The research suggests that a quarter could be at risk.

The evidence will be considered by a review of the drug’s classification announced last month by the Home Secretary. It may be possible to develop a test for genetic susceptibility to cannabis. “If we were able genetically to identify the vulnerable individuals in advance, we would be able to save thousands of minds, if not lives,” Ms Wallace said.

Dr Caspi, however, rejected the idea of screening based on the COMT gene. “Such a test would be wrong more often than it is right. Cannabis has many other adverse effects, especially on developing teenagers, on respiratory health and possibly on cognitive function. Effects may be pronounced among a genetically vulnerable group but that doesn’t mean we should encourage others not genetically vulnerable to use cannabis.”

The King’s team tracked 803 men and women born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1972 and 1973, who were enrolled at birth in a research project. Each was interviewed at 13, 15 and 18 about cannabis use, tested to determine which type of COMT genes they had inherited, and followed up at 26 for signs of mental illness.

COMT was chosen as it is known to play a part in the production of dopamine, a brain-signalling chemical that is abnormal in schizophrenia. It comes in two variants, known as valine or methionine, and every person has two copies, one from each parent.

So dudes, put away the bongs, roach-clips, rolling papers and hash pipes -- the next hit could fry your brain.

De-Bugging The Conclave

2005-04-11T20:03:00.000-05:00

In 1978, at the time of the two previous conclaves, I was fascinated by the need to sweep the area for bugging devices before the College of Cardinals convened. It is an even more serious matter now.

VATICAN CITY -- Computer hackers, electronic bugs and supersensitive microphones threaten to pierce the Vatican's thick walls next week when cardinals gather in the Sistine Chapel to name a papal successor.

Spying has gotten a lot more sophisticated since John Paul II was elected in 1978, but the Vatican seems confident it can protect the centuries-old tradition of secrecy that surrounds the gathering.

"It's not as if it's the first conclave we've handled," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Vatican security refused to discuss the details of any anti-bugging measures to be used during the conclave. But Giuseppe Mazzullo, a private detective and retired Rome policeman whose former unit worked closely with the Vatican in the past, said the Holy See will reinforce its own experts with Italian police and private security contractors.

"The security is very strict," Mazzullo said. "For people to steal information, it's very, very difficult, if not impossible."

Thousands of reporters will be watching as the 115 cardinals gather in the Sistine Chapel on April 18. Hackers and government informants may also be monitoring the conclave.

The temptations to spy will be immense. The papal election will likely see keen competition, notably between reformers and conservatives. It is also expected to witness a strong push for the first non-European pope.

Revelations of the proceedings could prove embarrassing to the Vatican. For instance, sensitive discussions on a papal candidate's stand on relations with Muslims or Jews, recognizing China rather than Taiwan or views on contraception would be sought after by governments or the press.

Just when you might have been willing to look at the conclave as a religious event rather than a political one, the reality of technology intrudes.

Oh, and the penalty for breaking the secrecy of the conclave during the event? Excommunication, which may be lifted only by the new pope himself.

Bill Clinton Slurs Gay GOP Consultant

2005-04-11T19:49:00.000-05:00

First he has the audacity to go on about John Paul II's "mixed legacy" because the pontiff failed to adopt the liberal line of sex. Now he dares to read the soul of one of Hillary's political opponents, GOP political consultant Arthur Finkelstein, and directs a left-wing slur at him.

"Actually I was sort of sad when I read it," he said. "That fellow who used to work for Pataki is doing it. I mean, they give you two stories. One is that he went to Massachusetts and married his longtime male partner and then he comes back here and announces this. I thought, one of two things. Either this guy believes his party is not serious and is totally Macchiavellian in its position, or you know, as David Brock said in his great book 'Blinded by the Right,' there's some sort of self-loathing or something. I was more sad for him."

It might surprise you to know, Bill, that political consultants sometimes work for candidates with whom they disagree on an issue. I don't judge Finkelstein negatively for this. And as for your citation of a book by admitted serial-liar David Brock, who one must either believe lied for years while writing as a conservative or is currently lying in his career as a liberal attack dog, why don't you find a credible source.

Actually, Bill, there is an analysis I would like for you to do. I would be quite interested in your analysis of the self-loathing of a serial adulterer and accused rapist who professes to be a feminist. Know anyone like that, sir?

No Freedom For Patriotic Teen

2005-04-11T17:33:00.000-05:00

They are after her again, even after she took them to court!

The saga continues for a 13-year-old Mont Pleasant Middle School student who is suing school officials for the right to wear a handmade red, white and blue necklace to class.

Raven Furbert was a typical student before she received a string-it-yourself bead kit for Christmas.

Now, the girl who filed the civil rights violation claim in U.S. District Court in February has drawn national attention as she fights administrators who say paraphernalia featuring gang-oriented colors is prohibited. At least 50 Web sites have been dedicated to her.

Furbert said she wears the necklace in honor of soldiers serving overseas, including an uncle and three other relatives.

Friday, the case again boiled over when Furbert's mother, Katie Grzywna, was called to school after her daughter was threatened with in-school suspension if she didn't remove the beads.

Simply outrageous and patently unconstitutional. It is a clear point of law -- students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate! When will the administrators take seriously the fact that Tinker v. Des Moines has been settled law for over 35 years? Heck, a federal court here in Houston held that an anti-gang policy did not trump the right of teens to wear a rosary around their necks, so I don't see how this one can stand, either.

And I have to wonder -- does this latest violation of young Raven's rights rise to a level that the administrators will be held responsible in their personal capacity, and not just on the school district's insurance policy?

Rangel Tries To Hijack Jesus And The Pope

2005-04-11T17:29:00.000-05:00

Anyone catch this MSNBC exchange on Thursday?

MATTHEWS: I mean, Charlie, Jesus didn‘t hang around with the swells, the rich people.

RANGEL: Well, he said the rich are going straight to hell.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Well, he did not.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: He said it is harder to get through a needle‘s...

(CROSSTALK)

RANGEL: No. But the deal with St. Matthews and all these people are trying to get into heaven. And he said, hey, when I was hungry, you didn‘t feed me. I was thirsty. I was naked. I was sick. You didn‘t do all these—he‘s talking about food stamps, Social Security.

MATTHEWS: Right.

RANGEL: He‘s talking about taking care of those who haven‘t got. So, when it comes to moral value, my Republican friends can decide which side the pope was on.

Uh, excuse me, I don’t find the New Deal and Great Society anywhere in the Bible – Old Testament or New. I wonder if “Charlie Cardinal Rangel” would care to provide us with chapter and verse citations for Jesus’ endorsement of these programs. And while I agree with his general point that the late pope did preach a Gospel-based message of concern and compassion for the poor, that does not necessarily mean that failure to embrace the leftist social platform of the Democrats is sinful. There are many ways to help the poor, sick, and outcast – ever hear of personal charity, Charlie? I realize that means that you don’t get to appropriate the money and direct it be spent for abortion and birth control (things that John Paul II certainly opposed), but that is how society dealt with such issues for some time before Roosevelt.

And by the way, I think Peter King and Mark Foley made an excellent point on Rangel’s attempt to turn the death and burial of the pope into a political opportunity for his party.

KING: Yes, I think we can certainly debate these in another setting.

To me, I am very confident that my beliefs reflect the pope‘s, but I‘m not saying Charlie‘s don‘t. I mean, I think, as a Catholic, I try to bring my faith and my religion to views I hold. I may end up on a different side than Charlie. I believe that mine are more close than he does, but that‘s really what our country is about.
But I think, on certain lasting principles, the pope stood out. And the pope did speak out, and rather than have these debates tonight. But there are different levels of what is dogma, what is prudential judgment, what‘s informed judgment. And we can have those debates another time.

I just think what he did tell all of us was that, if you are going to make a decision, make sure it does have a moral basis for it and be secure in your own conscience.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Mark, you want to get in on this?

FOLEY: Well, I can‘t believe we‘re talking Social Security in front of the Vatican.

Indeed – I can’t believe it, either. And certainly not the night before the Pope's funeral.

Follow The Byrd Rules

2005-04-11T17:27:00.000-05:00

Senator Robert Byrd (KKK-Dogpatch) claims that changing rules and invoking parliamentary procedure to end filibusters violates near sacred Senate precedents. Unfortunately for Byrd, history proves him a liar. On at least four different occasions between 1977 and 1987, the Senate invoked parliamentary techniques similar to those proposed by supporters of the “nuclear/constitutional option” to cut off debate and bring about a vote on a measure supported by a partisan majority over the objections of the minority engaged in a filibuster.

Oh, and the member who instigated and orchestrated the end of debate in these four cases was none other than Byrd himself.

In 1977, Byrd cut off a filibuster led by two members of his own party, Sens. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) and James Abourezk (D-S.D.), on a proposal to deregulate natural gas prices. He initiated a maneuver empowering the chair to disqualify amendments under certain circumstances. He then used his recognition rights to foreclose the possibility of appeal. Byrd created a precedent that enabled him to break the filibuster and used it with stunning force.

Two years later, Byrd again manipulated the Senate rules by establishing a precedent to curb the practice of adding legislative amendments to appropriation bills. Byrd's victim that time was Sen. William Armstrong (R-Colo.), who had offered an amendment to raise a cap on military pay. In 1980, Byrd was back at it, changing Senate procedures to prevent a filibuster on a motion to consider the nomination of Robert E. White as ambassador to El Salvador. Republican Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) was the target of Byrd's third tactic. His point of order against Byrd's maneuver was sustained by the chairman, but Byrd prevailed on a party-line 54-38 appeal.

Byrd's fourth change of Senate procedure came in 1987 against Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), who was attempting to prevent a vote on a defense authorization bill. Byrd rolled over the GOP's delaying tactics by imposing new precedents through a slew of simple majority votes that ran almost entirely along party lines.

Byrd, who recently trumpeted "the Senate was never intended to be a majoritarian body," made the Senate just that on four occasions when it suited his ends.

The column also points out that a number of senators, in 1995, argued against allowing filibusters to prevent the will of the majority from being carried out in the Senate – even on legislation. The majoritarian reformers included currently serving Democrats Ted Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Barbara Boxer of California, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

In short, the Senate Democrats are engaged in political hypocrisy of the most naked kind. It’s time for Republicans to break the judicial filibuster by using the Byrd precedent.

Here’s Your Sign

2005-04-11T17:24:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else out there find these signs appalling and more than a little bit unnerving?

Caltrans posted several of these signs along San Diego freeways beginning in 1990, when the city was a funnel for undocumented immigrants headed north. The signs were intended to warn drivers they might encounter people frantically darting across lanes of traffic as they tried to evade border security.

Dozens of immigrants were struck and killed from the mid-1980s to early 1990s, some in front of horrified family members, as stunned drivers failed to stop in time.
Now I understand the desire to make sure that there are not traffic deaths, but I find these signs a bit unnerving. Wouldn’t it be better if we made sure that these people were not crossing our borders (not to mention our highways) in the first place? Or are my priorities out of whack?

Apparently someone agrees with me – the signs are slowly coming down via attrition. But in the meantime, the image has become an iconic symbol in California’s pop culture and tourist trade. Its multiple uses (and abuses) show a wonderful creativity on the part of artists and entrepreneurs.

Washington Times On Leftist Assaults On Speech

2005-04-11T17:18:00.000-05:00

I think this sums the matter up nicely, putting the recent rash of attacks on conservative speakers in a larger context.

The media should highlight these cases not as the jokes they are perhaps intended to be, but as unacceptable perversions of the First Amendment. So far, however, the mainstream media has failed to do so. It also gave scant attention to last year's election-oriented violence directed almost solely against Republicans. Perpetrators shot at Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters and attacked volunteers and destroyed campaign offices across the country, to cite a few examples. But news organizations such as the New York Times instead provided a platform to those making dubious charges of voter intimidation committed by the Republicans.

Violence, of course, should be intolerable no matter who is on the receiving end, and must be rejected by people of goodwill, whatever their political ideology. It is ironic that college campuses -- which typically style themselves as bastions of free speech and tolerance -- are increasingly the scene of intolerant, thuggish behavior. These days it is being directed at folks who don't subscribe to the prevailing liberal orthodoxies.

And if these attacks do not stop, perhaps the time will arrive where conservative speakers need to give their talks armed -- and ready to act in self-defense against their attackers.

Bell Offers Good Idea, Partisan Rhetoric -- Chronicle Crosses Ethical Line

2005-04-10T13:09:00.000-05:00

Chris Bell, a defeated Democrat Congressman, makes a good point about congressional redistricting. It should be non-partisan, and should be designed to produce competetive elections where possible, not the one-sided affairs that currently exist in most districts.

Bell lays out his plan as follows.

We cannot achieve this unless Republicans and Democrats work together. And therein lies the problem. It would be difficult to overstate the stultifying effect that partisanship has on the work of Congress. Coming from Houston city politics, where I had worked with members of both parties, Congress was a horrible shock.

Neither party finds an electoral advantage in compromise because the district lines are drawn to favor a candidate supported by hard-core, partisan apparatchiks. What we have in Washington is the parliamentary equivalent of World War I trench warfare, with combatants so afraid of dying in no-man's land that they never leave the safety of their trenches.

If we want to force Congress out of their trenches and onto common ground, we need to make them more vulnerable to general election returns than to intraparty fratricide. Politicians who place a higher value on party loyalty than on ethics will never fight for ethics. They need to listen to November's voices rather than March's partisans.

He is right here. Most districts in the Houston area are designed in such a way as to give one party or the other a decided advantage. While this is true, for example, of Tom Delay's district (where I live), the same is also true of Sheila Jackson-Lee's district just to the nort of it. There was a definite political strategy in drawing these districts -- making sure that the party that gets nearly 60% of votes in congressional races also gets about the same percentage of the seats (unlike the court-imposed 2001 plan it replaced -- and the 1991 Democrat gerrymander it was based upon -- under which 57% of the Congressional vote earned the GOP 43% of the Congressional seats). Remapping software produces bizarre configurations that frustrate the will of the people in most states. So i agree, something has to be done.

There are just two problems wit this piece. They are the incredibly partisan (and intensely personal) attacks on Tom DeLay found in the piece, and the decision by the Houston Chronicle to run it at all.

Bell blames delay, with good reason, for the loss of his seat. Bell was targetted, along with virtually every other white Democrat in Texas, for defeat. This was done by following the mandate of civil rights laws that no redistricting plan can reduce minority representation. The GOP intentionally drew a map that increased minority-dominated districts, resulting in Bell's defeat by a black Democrat in the primary (I guess that black voters qualify as "March partisans" for Bell). Bell's retaliatory ethics complaint (which he lauds as a public service as an introduction to this commentary) was dismissed by the Ethics Committee as so lacking in merit that an ethics filing against Bell would have been appropriate if he were not so close to leaving Congress. Bell may be right on the issue of redistricting, but this partisan hack-job on DeLay will make his proposal too easy to ignore.

The Chronicle's decision to run this piece is also troubling. Bell is an all-but-declared candidate for Governor. In the commentary, he takes a pretty direct shot at his likely opponent, incumbent Governor Rick Perry. That is imply dirty pool. You do not give a candidate a platform in this manner and then allow him to carry on about his major campaign issue. Especially troubling, the paper provides the internet address to Bell's exploratory committee website, and even hyperlinks it from the online edition. This amounts to making the piece into an unpaid political ad. Given the difficulty that local and state Republicans have getting their pieces into the Chronicle, this presents loads of ethical problems in my eyes.

(Hat Tip: blogHOUSTON)

Texas Republicans Continue To Grow

2005-04-10T12:22:00.000-05:00

My liberal friend keep telling me about the groundswell of opposition to the GOP here in Texas, and about how strong their party is. Tell me, then, why is this trend continuing unabated?

Chambers County has joined other fast-growing suburban counties where Republicans are no longer swimming against the tide to win a county office.

In fact, Republican contenders for Chambers County offices, which officials said started as a small "wave" in the late '90s, turned into a tidal wave within the past month as four more longtime Democratic officeholders defected to the other side.

The four are among the county's more powerful elected officials: the county judge, district clerk, county attorney and county treasurer.

They are responding to an influx of conservative families from the Houston area to new subdivisions in the county, a trend that has also been experienced in Montgomery, Fort Bend and Waller counties.

A majority of those who migrate to the suburban counties for cheaper housing, safer neighborhoods and better schools tend to be predominantly white conservatives, said Richard Murray, director of the University of Houston's Center for Political Policy.

You Texas Democrats keep on telling yourself how strong you are. We in the GOP will continue to control federal, state, and local offices because we have THE PEOPLE on our side.

Hillary Says There Are Robots In Congress

2005-04-10T11:20:00.000-05:00

Hillary Clinton, the woman who thrilled Americans with her spine-tingling tale of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" that forced her husband to have sex with an employee half his age in the Oval Office while conducting government business and then lying about it to the American people and to in a judicial proceeding while under oath, has a new yarn for us. Leaving tales of conspiracy, intrigue and sex behind, she has now turned to the field of science fiction.

Science fiction?

You read that right -- science fiction.

She lambasted Republican members of Congress as "extras in the movie 'I Robot' " who "mindlessly rubberstamp the agenda of this administration" and want to do "little more than fund the military and build some highways."

Sorry, Hillary, you'll have to do beter than that. The robots in the awful mauling of the Asimov classic simply were not convincing. If'm thinking you would do better convincing Americans that Congressional Republicans are more like these guys.

But then what do I know? You are already being proclaimed

"the next great president of the United States."

Filmed Search Cause For Tossed Conviction

2005-04-10T10:21:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of the Bill of Rights. That includes applying those protections it embodies to those charged with and/or convicted of crimes. But I think this interpretation goes a bit far. Tell me if you agree.

The Indiana Court of Appeals has thrown out a man's cocaine conviction because his strip-search was filmed by a camera crew for the Oxygen Network.

In its ruling, the appeals court found that the filming of Andra Thompson's strip-search was "unprofessional and unreasonable."

"Where should the media line be drawn?" Judge Edward Najam wrote in the ruling issued Thursday. "We think the line should be drawn here. ... We will not sanction such conduct, which demeans the suspect and degrades the entire legal process."

Thompson, 26, of Indianapolis, was convicted of cocaine possession and sentenced to six years in prison in May 2004 after his arrest by Indianapolis police.

When he showed up during a June 2003 sting at a motel to sell cocaine, officers took him into a bathroom and searched him, finding cocaine stuffed between his buttocks.

The search was filmed, with police permission, for an Oxygen Network show called "Women and the Badge." One of the arresting officers was a woman.

At one point, the camera zoomed in on Thompson's naked posterior for several seconds while he was bent over in handcuffs with his pants pulled down.

Now here are my thoughts on the matter.

1) This sort of search would be standard procedure for a drug bust of this kind. Probable cause existed to conduct the search. The filming does not undermine those facts.

2) If anything, the filming of the search PROVES that the search was properly conducted and the evidence was properly obtained.

3) If Thompson's due process rights were violated by the filming (which I would dispute), does the exclusion of the properly seized evidence constitute a proper remedy? I think not. And if the evidence is validly seized in the course of a valid search, on what basis is the conviction overturned?

4) Assuming the filming was improper, overturning the conviction is not the proper remedy. The proper course of action would be a civil suit, seeking damages for invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress.

This is a bad decision, one which imposes an entirely new and (at the time of the arrest) completely unknowable standard on police conduct. Worse yet, it opens the door to a whole new area for criminals to challenge their convictions -- not based upon their guilt or innocence, but instead upon the basis that they were embarrassed by the arresting officers.

The Royal Wedding

2005-04-09T19:42:00.000-05:00

What can I say about the wedding of the Prince of Wales and the newly-minted Duchess of Cornwall -- they used all the fairy dust up on Prince Charles' 1981 wedding to Princess Diana.

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall - the former Camilla Parker Bowles - knelt before the Archbishop of Canterbury for a blessing of their union Saturday, after a modest civil ceremony that sealed a love affair ignited at a polo match more than 30 years ago and blamed by many for poisoning his marriage to Britain's beloved Princess Diana.

Beneath the towering Gothic arches of St. George's Chapel at ancient Windsor Castle, the royals nervously pledged their undying love and confessed "manifest sins and wickedness" - a phrase from the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer - under the solemn gaze of Archbishop Rowan Williams.

After enduring years of criticism and even ridicule, Charles and Camilla's shared affection appeared to finally to have won them a measure of acceptance from the British public. It remains to be seen, however, whether the bride will ever be known as Queen Camilla.

I guess I don't see the reason for the charade of holding two ceremonies. After all, the Anglican Church exists as a separate entity because Henry VIII wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon so he could marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn. Why should the divorces in this case present an obstacle for the Church of England -- which Charles will one day head as King of England -- today?

The tacky moment of the day has to be watching all the royals scurry on to rented buses for the ride to the reception. It was enough to make one wonder if they were holding it at some local hotel rather than on premisies at Windsor Castle. But like I said, they used all the fairy dust in 1981, so rather than a Royal Coach and a caravan of limos, we got that sad spectacle.

And I will never forget one pricelss moment after the blessing ceremony was over. One of the royal watchers providing commentary for CNN said it was the triumph of middle-aged love. My wife nearly choked to death on her soda as she blurted out "Middle-aged love? OH MY GOD! Look at them -- they're nearly sixty. Someone at the palace must have paid her off."

The whole thing made me thankful for the Revolutionary War.

Thoughts On The Papal Election of 2005

2005-04-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

Pope John Paul the Great, the Pilgrim Pope, was buried yesterday. The world now awaits two things sure to come -- the late pontiff's elevation to sainthood and the election of his successor.

Canonization will take years, but the conclave is only nine days away, on April 18. The Vatican has imposed a "gag order" on the cardinals, so we won't be hearing from the princes of the church until sometime after April 20. That doesn't mean that they will not be talking among themselves, though, and some unofficial collations will likely exist by next Monday. I've offered some viewpoints on candidates, but feel there is still more to be said.

1) The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Los Angeles Times offers these statistics on the breakdown of the College of Cardinals by region, compared to the 1978 conclaves that elected John Paul I and, less than two months later, John Paul II.

Region	1978%	2005%
Europe	50	50
Latin America	17	18
North America	11	12
Africa	10	9
Asia	7	9
Oceania	4	2

As you can see, then, not much has changed in that superficial balance of power.

2) The more things stay the same, the more they change. The same statistics quoted above show a different picture if you do the country breakdown.

Country	1978	2005
Italy	25	20
United States	9	11
France	7	5
Brazil	6	4
Germany	5	6
Spain	4	6
Mexico	1	4

Those European cardinals are much more spread out. As these totals show, the largest delegations have a smaller percentage of the total number of electors. That will make it difficult for the Italians to get the papacy back, and more likely that the new pope will not be a European.

3) When the conclave starts on Monday, April 18, expect it to be done by Friday -- and possibly as early as Wednesday.

Year	Days	Ballots	Elected
1903	4	7	Pius X
1914	3	10	Benedict XV
1922	4	14	Pius XI
1939	2	3	Pius XII
1958	4	11	John XXIII
1963	3	6	Paul VI
1978	2	4	John Paul I
1978	3	8	John Paul II

We've been watching this pope slowly die for the last several years. The question of succession has been on the minds of these cardinals during all this time. All but three (one of whom, Cardinal Sin of Manila, is on kidney dialysis and unlikely to attend the conclave) were appointed by John Paul II, and most share his views on doctrinal matters. The issue here, other than nationality/ethnicity/region, is likely to be how much the next pope will intervene in the affairs of the local church vs. how much freedom will local bishops have in running their dioceses.

4) How long a papacy do these cardinals think the next pope should have? I cannot predict that. If they look for a transitional pope, I still lean towards their selection of Cardinal Ratzinger, whose major task will be dealing with those tasks the late pope left undone during the last years of his infirmity. While I doubt that a young pope is on the agenda, I could easily see Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, 60, Archbishop of Vienna, Austria as the next pope if the cardinals move that direction. If a pontificate of about a decade is sought, I suspect that we will see a cardinal around age 70 (2/3 of the voting cardinals are 70 or older) elected -- perhaps the 68-year-old Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, an Argentinian of Italian heritage who would also become the first Jesuit to hold the papacy. In him we would get the simple holiness of John Paul I (he lives in a small apartment rather than the episcopal residence, cooks for himself and takes the bus to work daily) and the conservative theological and intellectual brilliance that marked John Paul II.

5) An African pope? Speculation will continue to swirl around Francis Cardinal Arinze, but the African cardinals have downplayed that speculation.

"Psychologically and spiritually, the West is still not ready for a black pope," Cardinal Bernard Agre told reporters in his native Ivory Coast.

As an American, I am inclined to disagree with that point of view -- but it may well be that this is true of the 50% of the College of Cardinals who are from Europe. Many of the cardinals can remember when Africa was mission territory and its bishops were European, and it may be that we need another generation to move past such an archaic viewpoint. If that proves to be the case, expect the Africans to vote with the Latin Americans -- though given Arinze's many years of curial experience in Rome, it could well be that the Italians and the rest of the Europeans would embrace him as one of their own.

6) We could also see another pope emerge from an oppressed church. Some speculation has revolved around Jaime Lucas Cardinal Ortega y Alamino of Havana, Cuba. At 68, he is the right age. Being from Cuba, he certainly falls in an important bloc of cardinals. He was imprisoned by Castro in the 1960s, and is an outspoken human rights advocate. What a message to send to the oppressed church in Cuba, China, and Vietnam, as well as in the Muslim world.

Some may find these words sacrilegious. After all, this isn't a political game, but a process directed by the Holy Spirit. But I do not intend to discount that fact -- after all, the Holy Spirit works though the Cardinal Electors, and influences their hearts and minds. I am simply engaging in speculation on how that process may play out.

Marriage = Career Suicide?

2005-04-09T10:59:00.000-05:00

Most Republicans have no particular problem with homosexuals. That may shock a lot of people, given that the standard media approach to stories on the issue of the GOP and homosexuality is to interview the folks on the more extreme edge of the religious right on the issue, rather than Dick Cheney. That is why it is no surprise that there are any number of "out" conservative/libertarian Republicans who are active in the party. Arthur J. Finkelstein has been one of those for years.

On the othe hand, most members of the GOP do oppose same sex marriage -- especially if it is imposed by courts over the vocal objections of the overwhelming majority of Americans. It is an issue that the GOP has and will run on, and upon which it has and will win. And that is why a personal decision by Finkelstein may constitute career suicide.

Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts.

Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by trying to demonize them as liberal, said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.

"I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners," he said.

He declined further comment on the wedding, which was in December.

Some of Mr. Finkelstein's associates said they were startled to learn that this prominent American conservative had married a man, given his history with the party, especially at a time when many Republican leaders, including President Bush, have campaigned against same-sex marriage and proposed amending the Constitution to ban it. Mr. Finkelstein has been allied over the years with Republicans who have fiercely opposed gay rights measures, including former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and has been the subject of attacks by gay rights activists who have accused him of hypocrisy. He was identified as gay in a Boston Magazine article in 1996.

Now I respect the right of Finkelstein and his partner to have whatever sort of personal relationship they choose to have, though I do not believe that this legitimately extends to marriage (which waas illegitimately imposed upon the people of Massachusetts by an activist court which misinterpreted a document partially written by John Adams). You would find that this is the position held by most Republicans, though not by those coming out of the ultra-libertarian wing of the party. We might personally and socially acknowledge the fact of the relationship, but reject the notion that we should be legally compelled to do more than that. Given that about 7-in-10 Americans oppose same sexx marriage, I would be willing to speculate that this is the position of roughly half the American public.

But that is not my main point. My question is this -- what happens to Finkelstein's career at this point? Does he still have a career as a GOP political consultant? I'm frankly not sure.

Among the libertarian, non-social conservative wing of the party, I'm sure he does. But given the "hot-button" nature of the gay marriage issue (which even a large number of Democrats oppose), will candidates in competitive districts and/or facing primary challenges be willing to take the risk of hiring Finkelstein? After all, we've seen candidates damaged by a bad choice in the past, if they hire a consultant whose previous work involves a controversial candidate or issue. While I respect Finkelstein's personal motives and would be willing to "agree to disagree" on that issue, I know I would never hire him for a congressional race for precisely because it would make me vulnerable in the district in which I live -- not that I plan on taking on Tom Delay any time soon. I doubt his expertise would outweigh the damage his Massachusetts marriage could (not necessarily would) cause.

By the way, I am curious about one thing. Finkelstein and his partner marriaed in December. There is just one quote attributed to him in this article. Was this marriage revealed by choice, or was it a case of outing by activists like Mike Rogers and John Aravosis (though I am NOT accusing either of having done so in this case)?

DeLay Backs DHS Office At Ellington

2005-04-09T10:40:00.000-05:00

In a move that is good for his district, good for Houston, good for Texas, and good for the country as a whole, House Majority Leader Tom Delay has endorsed placing one of nine regional offices of the Department of Homeland Security at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas.

"In my efforts to support Ellington, I want to make sure that everything is being done to increase its value to our homeland security mission while enhancing its ability to protect the Texas Gulf Coast region," DeLay said in a letter to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff this week.

He told Chertoff that a DHS regional office at Ellington would complement the services already there, including the 147th Fighter Wing of the Texas Air National Guard, Coast Guard Air Station Houston and the Texas Army National Guard.

Adding the DHS to the mix, the congressman said, would "ensure our region's assets, including NASA, the refineries, the Port of Houston and other critical industries in the area, are sufficiently protected."

DeLay's request is the latest addition to a growing mix of considerations and decisions that are shaping the future of the historic field that opened in 1917.

The Defense Department recently announced an agreement to relocate 2,300 military reservists to Ellington from land near Texas Medical Center that the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center wants for expansion.

Why Ellington?

The basic infrastructure is there. The capital expenditures involved would be proportionately lower.
Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States, located in a distinct region of the country. It makes sense to locate there, just as it does to place regional offices in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
The Port of Houston (especially when one throws in the nearby Port of Galveston and Port of Texas City) is a major international commercial hub, especially for the petrochemical industry. Protecting our energy resources is vital. Ellington Field is located withing 15 minutes by car of virtually any of the port or chemical facilities along the Houston Ship Channel.
Johnson Space Center is less than five miles away from Ellington Field, and some of the facilities related to the space program are at (or border on) Ellington Field.
Houston's close proximity to the southern border.

Love DeLay or hate DeLay (and I have mixed emotions about him), placing a regional office at Ellington just makes sense.

Best Buy Refuses Legal Tender -- Cops Arrest Customer

2005-04-08T20:11:00.000-05:00

I don't shop at Best Buy. The place is too crowded, the clerks are rude, the prices are high, and they usually don't have the merchandise as advertised. I remember buying a computer there some years ago, and I won't go there again. Their advertised prices are always some gimmick. And now I come to understand that they don't always want to accept US currency.

It seems that Mike Bolesta bought his son a CD player for his car. Despite assurances, it didn't fit in the dashboard, and so they picked another one. Upon getting their refund (the second CD player was less expensive), Bolesta was told that installation fees would be waived because of the initial error on the part of Best Buy employees. Then came the phone call.

"But then, the next day, I get a call at home. They're telling me, 'If you don't come in and pay the installation fee, we're calling the police.' Jeez, where did we go from them admitting a mistake to suddenly calling the police? So I say, 'Fine, I'll be in tomorrow.' But, overnight, I'm starting to steam a little. It's not the money -- it's the threat. So I thought, I'll count out a few $2 bills."

He has lots and lots of them.

With his Capital City Student Tours, he arranges class trips for school kids around the country traveling to large East Coast cities, including Baltimore. He's been doing this for the last 18 years. He makes all the arrangements: hotels, meals, entertainment. And it's part of his schtick that, when Bolesta hands out meal money to students, he does it in $2 bills, which he picks up from his regular bank, Sun Trust.

"The kids don't see that many $2 bills, so they think this is the greatest thing in the world," Bolesta says. "They don't want to spend 'em. They want to save 'em. I've been doing this since I started the company. So I'm thinking, 'I'll stage my little comic protest. I'll pay the $114 with $2 bills.'"

At Best Buy, they may have perceived the protest -- but did not sense the comic aspect of 57 $2 bills.

"I'm just here to pay the bill," Bolesta says he told a cashier. "She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money. Like she's doing me a favor."

He remembers the cashier marking each bill with a pen. Then other store personnel began to gather, a few of them asking, "Are these real?"

"Of course they are," Bolesta said. "They're legal tender."

A Best Buy manager refused comment last week. But, according to a Baltimore County police arrest report, suspicions were roused when an employee noticed some smearing of ink. So the cops were called in. One officer noticed the bills ran in sequential order.

"I told them, 'I'm a tour operator. I've got thousands of these bills. I get them from my bank. You got a problem, call the bank,'" Bolesta says. "I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, he's standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.'

Now I'll concede, you don't see many $2.00 bills today unless you frequent the two-dollar window down at the track. One would have hoped, though, that the manager would have known that the things were real. And surely the cops could have confirmed the legitimacy of the bills without having "cuffed and stuffed" Bolesta and then subjected him to the degradation of being hauled down to the police station. Couldn't they have just taken him back to the store security office and placed a call to the Secret Service from there?

Nope, I won't be going to best buy. Employees don't know the merchandise. Customer service is a joke. And now this absurdity.

And I'll admit right now, I wouldn't have been as kind when I got the phone call to come and pay. I would have suggested they pound sand -- and if I'd gone, I wouldn't have brought 57 $2.00 bills.

I would have stuffed my pockets with 114 Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea coins.

Let Him Serve!

2005-04-08T19:49:00.000-05:00

I've always thought "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was a silly policy. Frankly, I thought the whole ban on homosexuals in the military was a bad idea before DADT was put in place. Quite simply, it deprives the military of good men and women who are ready, willing, and able to serve -- like this guy.

Sgt. Robert Stout, 23, says he has not encountered trouble from fellow soldiers and would like to stay if not for the policy that permits gay men and women to serve only if they keep their sexual orientation a secret.

"I know a ton of gay men that would be more than willing to stay in the Army if they could just be open," Stout said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But if we have to stay here and hide our lives all the time, it's just not worth it."

Stout, of Utica, Ohio, was awarded the Purple Heart after a grenade sent pieces of shrapnel into his arm, face and legs while he was operating a machine gun on an armored Humvee last May.

He is believed to be the first gay soldier wounded in Iraq to publicly discuss his sexuality, said Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

"We can't keep hiding the fact that there's gay people in the military and they aren't causing any harm," said Stout, who says he is openly gay among most of his 26-member platoon, which is part of the 9th Engineer Battalion based in Schweinfurt, Germany.

Stout, who served in Iraq for more than a year as a combat engineer, said by acknowledging he is gay, he could be jailed and probably will be discharged before his scheduled release date of May 31.

Let's look at this objectively. Here is a man who has shown himself more than adequate to the task of serving. Wounded in the line of duty, Stout certainly qualifies as a hero and a patriot in my book. I think the harm of discharging him is certainly more significant than the harm of keeping him -- and I believe that is the case with most homosexuals in the military.

Robert Stout is ready, willing, and able to serve. Let him.

Sounds Like the School Handled This Just Right

2005-04-08T18:59:00.000-05:00

I wonder if the kids wore their shirts to class, and how the school dealt with that if they did.

What began as an anti-gay rally at a Rohnert Park high school today soon turned into an exercise in free speech when a group of students with a different viewpoint came out to challenge protesters.

April 13th is set aside by some to honor the gay and lesbian community nationwide, but a number of students Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park don't think that's right.

In a protest organized by the group Gay Marriage No and the school's Conservative Club and its student president and founder, Tim Beuler, about a dozen students from the school wore anti-gay sweat shirts and waved anti-gay signs as trucks drove around town emblazoned anti-gay slogans.

The gathering took place across the street from the school as protestors gave up their lunch hour to send their message to other students and people driving by. Other students from the school who support the April 13th “Day of Silence” observance weren’t quiet about letting the anti-gay protestors know they didn’t support their views.

Though things got a little tense as both sides loudly voiced their beliefs, district superintendent Michael Watenpaugh recognized the need to protect freedom of speech for all students. “It's a delicate situation.We need to preserve the rights of the students and we need to make sure that learning continues in the classroom."
Because the protest was not on school grounds, the school did not organize or try to break up the event. However, administrators did contact the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety, which had officers on hand to make sure the protest did not turn violent.

For what it is worth, I don't necessarily support the actions of these kids. It sounds to me, though, like these kids were condemning homosexuals as well as homosexuality. Ihave to say that I disagree with that point of view.

I don't believe that homosexual orientation is sinful, though I believe homosexual sexual activity is (a very distinct difference). And while I oppose same sex marriage, I do not support Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And while I support making sure that schools are a safe place for students regardless of sexual preference, I oppose presenting homosexuality as just one more option to be celebrated while suppressing other points of view as anti-social.

Sounds Good To Me

2005-04-08T18:55:00.000-05:00

After all, they are freely choosing how to direct their own cash. That is precisely what we on the right have always said they should do.

They're rich, they're outraged, and they're not going to take it anymore -- their tax refund, that is.

A Boston-based group that wants to close the nation's "wealth gap" announced on Wednesday that its members have agreed to turn down their share of "tax cuts for the wealthy" by signing a "Responsible Tax Pledge."

Individuals who have taken the pledge this year are due an average estimated 2004 tax break of $20,000, the group Responsible Wealth said.

Responsible Wealth (a project of United for a Fair Economy) is calling on rich Americans to "redirect their federal tax breaks -- by giving their "unwanted and unneeded 'windfall'" to grassroots organizations that are working for "fairer" taxes.

Those groups include Responsible Wealth; and the Fund for Tax Fairness at the Tides Foundation - the foundation frequently mentioned during the 2004 presidential campaign because it is supported by charitable donations from Teresa Heinz Kerry.

I’d just like to know – how many Senators and Congressmen who opposed the Bush tax cuts are kicking their money into the pot? You know, putting their money where their mealy mouths are.

I bet not many.

After all -- it's their money, not ours.

Dumb Stunt Leads To Minuteman Investigation

2005-04-08T18:52:00.000-05:00

On one hand, this is almost funny, a little bit of twisted gallows humor about the job the Minutemen are doing since the Border Patrol cannot or will not do it. On the other hand, I fear that it may be used to discredit an honorable movement doing good work.

Cochise County officials said they are investigating two Minuteman volunteers after an illegal entrant complained Wednesday to authorities that he was held against his will.

One of the men paid the illegal entrant $20 and gave him a T-shirt to hold up while he filmed the encounter. The T-shirt read: "Bryan Barton Caught an Illegal Alien and all I got was this T-shirt," said Carol Capas, spokeswoman for the Cochise County Sheriff's Department.

The border-jumper (what is this “entrant” garbage) was then turned over to the Border patrol, unharmed.

Barton, who is seeking the GOP nomination for a congressional seat in San Diego, denies any wrongdoing, as does the other man being investigated. They deny detaining the border-jumper against his will.

And of course, the Open Border activists who put the rights of immigration criminals above the rights of American citizens and the security of the United states are making the most of the situation.

"This shows what we've been saying all along," said Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network.

"It was nothing but a media sham to mislead the public," she said. "Clearly they misrepresented the situation. They misrepresented themselves."

No, they didn’t, as over 200 border-jumpers detained based upon the reports of the Minutemen proves. What this situation really demonstrates is that, given enough beer and enough time, even otherwise mature, responsible men will engage in antics reminiscent of a fraternity house.

Oh, and by the way, Ms. Allen -- the investigation showed that the Minutemen did nothing to the border-jumping invader that he was not willing to participate in for twenty bucks.

You Knew It Had To Happen

2005-04-07T22:45:00.000-05:00

When Andrea Yates murdered her children just a few miles from my home, my wife and I wondered how long it would be until Russell Yates started looking for another woman to breed a few more. We raised the same question again when he divorced her a couple of months back.

Well, guess what – he now says he is ready to “move on” and start a new family.

"I'm kind of in a phase where ... I'm through, I think, a lot of the healing and at a point where I'm starting to look more to the future," Russell Yates told the newspaper.

Yates, who has a new assignment with NASA as project manager for development of a sensor to detect damage on the space shuttle, talks of earning a master's degree in software engineering.

He's dating, though he declined to give details. He said he might eventually remarry and have more children.

"I have the freedom now," he said. "I'd like to do that someday and possibly have a family again. ... But I'm not 20. I'm 40. So I have to reassess where I'm at, what I have to offer."

No word on who the the object of his affection is.

What sort of sick woman would even consider marrying this guy?

Other than Andrea, of course.

One More Assault

2005-04-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

Well, another conservative speaker has been pied.

A conservative activist who criticizes what he calls the leftist domination of college campuses was struck with a pie Wednesday night at Butler University.

David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, had just started a lecture at Butler when he was hit.

Horowitz's supporters followed the assailants out of the hall, and confronted them with what a witness called "pushing and shoving." However, the attackers got away.

"There's a wave of violence on college campuses, committed by what I'd call fascists opposing conservatives," Horowitz said. "It's one step from that to injury."

Well, David, you have them labeled exactly right. I hope your version of the story is correct, and that three of the four punks were arrested.

The perps need to be prosecuted and expelled.

Mexican Invaders Hinder US Military Training And Readiness

2005-04-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

Well, one more reason to seal the borders. The border-jumping invaders coming into this country with the approval and assistance of the Mexican government are putting our own troops in danger.

Virtually every Marine squadron headed to Iraq or Afghanistan receives combat training at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, which for nearly 40 miles touches the US-Mexico border in the southwestern corner of Arizona. The Border Patrol's focus in recent years on tightening the border in the eastern part of the state, where volunteer citizens this month have established their own observation posts, has pushed more undocumented immigrants westward.

Since July 2004, the training range has been shut down more than 500 times because of immigrants spotted on the range, causing a loss of more than 1,100 training hours, said Colonel James J. Cooney, the base's commanding officer.

''That's equivalent to almost 46 days of training. We're getting overrun here," he said in an interview. ''Any moment we take away from a Marine's experience base could cost him his life in combat."

Cooney said Marines intercepted more than 1,500 undocumented immigrants on the training range last year and, in the first three months of this year, more than 1,100. Base personnel detain the immigrants and call in Border Patrol agents to pick them up.

''I have to use Marines that aren't trained in that to do that, which puts me at a liability," said Cooney, a Boston College graduate. ''It's completely counterproductive to our whole training operation."

There has also been the issue of humanitarian concern. The border-jumpers might get hurt.

Another big concern, he said, is the potential danger to undocumented immigrants: ''We just don't want them to come here, because we're firing lasers, we're shooting machine guns, we're shooting 209-millimeter cannons, and we're dropping practice bombs, and we don't want to hurt anyone."

Last summer a Marine pilot dropped a practice bomb on a target and seconds later, a few feet away, a small group of illegal immigrants scrambled from underneath a bush and ran down the range. The near miss was caught on a training tape that Cooney has reviewed.

And the problem is not just confined to the Marines at this one base. It also hurts training at Army and Air Force bases near the border. Immigrants simply wander into – or are directed by smugglers into -- firing ranges where live ammunition and bombs are in use.

Two other bases in Arizona, one the Army's and another the Air Force's, have experienced similar problems.

At the Army Yuma Proving Ground, near the Marine Corps Air Station but about 30 miles north of the border, an increasing number of undocumented immigrants have invaded military space and disrupted training.

''The smugglers just drive them up the highway and dump them off, and these illegal immigrants stumble right onto our testing range," said Chuck Wullenjohn, spokesman for the Army base.
As one of the largest military installations in the Western world, the Army Yuma Proving Ground is constantly conducting tests for ground forces on artillery and ammunition, including tank rounds, mines, mortars, and helicopter guns.

''Having anyone on this range that doesn't belong here is extremely dangerous," said Wullenjohn. ''The illegal immigrant issue is becoming a bigger problem all the time."
The Air Force said it has had to interrupt exercises with F-16 pilots after undocumented immigrants were spotted on a bombing range east of Gila Bend, north of the border.

''In 2004 we suspended range operations 55 times for a net loss of 122 hours," said Jim Uken, director of the 56th Fighter Wing range management office.

We simply cannot and should not endanger the training and readiness of our men and women in uniform – not to mention our national security – in the name of protecting those who violate our borders and our laws. Maybe the solution is simple – don’t stop the training exercises. We’ve all seen the humorous signs that read “Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be prosecuted”. Perhaps the time has come to post those around these training ranges in both English and Spanish, and then act accordingly.

If that sounds harsh, so be it.

Better a dead criminal than a dead soldier.

We Can’t Let The Cops Ask About Crimes, Can We?

2005-04-07T19:25:00.006-05:00

Police officers are in the business of tracking down and arresting criminals. Unfortunately, the Open Borders crowd has succeeded in getting a lot of locales to forbid making inquiries about immigration status. That results in absurdities like this one from the Left Coast.

Central American community leaders on Wednesday demanded to meet with Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton to discuss proposed guidelines allowing police to make limited immigration inquiries about convicted felons they suspect reentered the U.S. illegally.

Under Special Order 40, adopted in 1979 to encourage illegal immigrants to report crime, LAPD officers are prevented from inquiring about a person's residency status.

However, Bratton plans to issue a clarification stating that officers can check on felons, mostly violent gang members, who were deported only to return illegally.

More than half a dozen of the community activists said clarifying the police's relationship with federal immigration officials could discourage immigrant witnesses or victims from turning to authorities to help fight crime.

Discourage ALL immigrant witnesses or victims, or discourage border-jumping witnesses and victims from reporting crimes? Well, we all know the answer there. Allowing the police to question someone about immigration crimes would discourage immigration criminals from turning to the police. Could you imagine preventing cops from asking drug dealers about drug sales because it might keep them from reporting robberies when someone steals their drug money?

The activists said they wanted to hear from Bratton himself about the specific policy language as well as safeguards to prevent police from "casting a wider net" to target illegal immigrants.

"The Los Angeles Police Department should deal with crime," added Isabel Cardenas, a longtime Salvadoran American community organizer. "Immigration should be totally separate. The change could give way to abuse."

Ms. Cardenas, this is about the police dealing with crimes. You may not have realized it, but it is a violation of the law for the border-jumpers you are trying to protect to even be in this country without the proper legal documents. By definition, seeking their removal is dealing with a crime. If you want that law change, you need to lobby your Senators and Congressmen to decriminalize illegal immigration and throw open the borders of the country to every Tomas, Rico, and Geraldo who can swim the Rio Grande or sneak across the desert.

Assistant Chief George Gascon said Wednesday that Bratton was willing to meet with the group, not only to discuss the clarification but also to spell out the reasons behind it.

"The policy is very clear," Gascon said. "The clarification has to do with people who were convicted of a felony, deported from this country and have reentered illegally, and we become of aware of it. It's very narrowly focused."

Police say some officers are confused about how to approach previously deported criminals — most with ties to violent international street gangs — with multiple misdemeanor or felony convictions.

Yeah, that’s right, these activists are afraid of the possible arrest and re-deportation of convicted violent felons, especially narco-terrorists. They don’t care about the crime – they care about getting more of their people into the country. They are, in effect, the fifth column of the Mexican invasion force.

Oh, No!

2005-04-07T18:41:00.000-05:00

Right after I call for an end to Daylight Savings Time, along comes this atrocity.

If Congress passes an energy bill, Americans may see more daylight-saving time.

Lawmakers crafting energy legislation approved an amendment Wednesday to extend daylight-saving time by two months, having it start on the last Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in November.

"Extending daylight-saving time makes sense, especially with skyrocketing energy costs," said Rep. Fred Upton (news, bio, voting record), R-Mich., who along with Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., co-sponsored the measure.

The amendment was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that is putting together major parts of energy legislation likely to come up for a vote in the full House in the coming weeks.

"The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use," said Markey, who cited Transportation Department estimates that showed the two-month extension would save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day.

The country uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day.

I don’t see why it will have that effect – last time I checked, we would continue to have 24 hour days with the same day/night cycle. As I pointed out, the effect of DST on me is making me drive to school in the morning in the dark instead of daylight. Darkness at the start of the day rather than at the end. The savings are truly miniscule.

An Act Of Kindness -- Remembered 60 Years Later

2005-04-06T17:15:00.000-05:00

This story by Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune is moving and beautiful, a story of kindness and compassion that arose out of the ashes of the Holocaust and the Second World War. It is also a family story, about his mother-in-law’s experience after surviving the Nazi horrors.

That it also serves as a moving tribute to the young man involved on the occasion of his passing makes it that much more beautiful. I could not help but weep as I read this story of the meeting between a young Jewish girl and a Polish seminarian.

During the summer of 1942, two women in Krakow, Poland, were denounced as Jews, taken to the city's prison, held there for a few months and then sent to the Belzec extermination camp, where, in October, they were killed in primitive Nazi gas chambers by carbon monoxide from diesel engines.

Their names were Frimeta Gelband and Salomea Zierer; they were sisters. As it happens, Frimeta was my wife's grandmother. Salomea, known as "Salla," had two daughters, one of whom survived the war and one of whom did not.

The elder of these daughters was Edith Zierer. In January 1945, at 13, she emerged from a Nazi labor camp in Czestochowa, Poland, a waif on the verge of death. Separated from her family, unaware that her mother had been killed by the Germans, she could scarcely walk.

But walk she did, to a train station, where she climbed onto a coal wagon. The train moved slowly, the wind cut through her. When the cold became too much to bear, she got off the train at a village called Jendzejuw. In a corner of the station, she sat. Nobody looked at her, a girl in the striped and numbered uniform of a prisoner, late in a terrible war. Unable to move, Edith waited.

Death was approaching, but a young man approached first, "very good looking," as she recalled, and vigorous. He wore a long robe and appeared to the girl to be a priest. "Why are you here?" he asked. "What are you doing?"

Edith said she was trying to get to Krakow to find her parents.

The man disappeared. He came back with a cup of tea. Edith drank. He said he could help her get to Krakow. Again, the mysterious benefactor went away, returning with bread and cheese.

They talked about the advancing Soviet army. Edith said she believed her parents and younger sister, Judith, were alive.

"Try to stand," the man said. Edith tried - and failed. The man carried her to another village, where he put her in the cattle car of a train bound for Krakow. Another family was there. The man got in beside Edith, covered her with his cloak, and set about making a small fire.

His name, he told Edith, was Karol Wojtyla.

I urge you to read the rest. It so clearly shows that Karol Wojtyla was truly every bit the man of kindness, decency, and holiness that we would all come to know as Pope John Paul II.