Bush And Bush On Bush

President Bush, left, and Steve Bridges, a comedian and President Bush look alike, speak during the White House Correspondents' Association's 92nd annual awards dinner, Saturday, April 29, 2006, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

It was Dubya, Dubya-2 at the correspondents' fete and the Bush's took the comedy day leaving professional comic Stephen Clobert swinging in a moonbat quagmire.

This from CNN-IBN -

Comic touch brings Bush's mind to fore
CNN-IBN - Posted Sunday April 30, 2006 at 22:58
Updated Sunday , April 30, 2006 at 23:03

Washington: US President George W. Bush was at his witty best in his interaction with the media on Saturday.

He appeared on stage with his impersonator, Steve Bridges. Bridges made fun of Bush's habit of mispronouncing words. But Bush was a good sport and played along.

It was twice the fun for members of the White House Correspondents' Association and guests when President Bush and his sound-alike sidekick poked fun at the President and fellow politicians.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I feel chipper tonight. I survived the White House shake-up," the President said on Saturday night.

But impersonator Steve Bridges stole many of the best lines. Vice-President Dick Cheney and his hunting accident were targets of his humour on a couple of occasions.

"Speaking of suspects, where is the great white hunter?" Bridges said, later adding, "He shot the only trial lawyer in the country who supports me."

Bush continued a tradition begun by President Coolidge in attending the correspondents' dinner.

He invited Bridges to play his double. The President talked to the press in polite, friendly terms. Bridges told them what the President was really thinking.

Bridges opened like this, "The media really ticks me off -- the way they try to embarrass me by not editing what I say. Well let's things going, or I'll never get to bed."

"I'm absolutely delighted to be here, as is (wife) Laura," Bush replied.

"She's hot," Bridges quipped.

And then after a pause Bridges (Dubya-2) added, with eyebrows raised and in a G.W. Bush drawn out Tex-Mex accent, "Muy caliente!"

The featured entertainer was Stephen Colbert, whose Comedy Central show "The Colbert Report" often lampoons the Washington establishment.

"I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq," Colbert said in a typical zinger.

The two made their views on non-proliferation known, of course peppered with some Bushisms.

And this was my favorite Dubya, Dubya-2 bit -

"Let's give this a try. We must enhance non-compliance protocols sanctioned not only at IAEA formal sessions, but through intersessional contacts," said Steve Bridges.

Bush repeated: "We must enhance non-compliance protocols sanctioned not only at EIEIO formal sessions, but through intersexual conduct."
Link Here>>

This was one of the most entertaining moments that our President has participated in given the fact his approval rating at this moment is at 32%-34% depending on who is doing the reporting. He stood up and delivered while in hostile territory.

The Near Miss Of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, is shown here in a video originally posted on Tuesday. He accused the West and the United States of waging a “crusader” war against Islam but said Muslim holy warriors were standing firm. The image was provided via the IntelCenter, a private contractor working for intelligence agencies. — AP Photo / via IntelCenter

If one reads only the newspapers or follows events via television news, it becomes impossible to get information about how the war on terror is proceeding along.

The new government in Iraq is beginning to take hold and the pressure on al-Qaida is being turned up by our special forces. A special forces update highlights the events of its activities over the last couple of weeks (ht: Michelle Malkin).

Excerpts from the Marine Corps Times -

SpecOps unit nearly nabs Zarqawi
By Sean D. Naylor - Times staff writer - April 28, 2006

Just nine days before al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi released his latest video, a special operations raid killed five of his men, captured five others and apparently came within a couple of city blocks of nabbing Zarqawi himself.

Then, the day Zarqawi’s video debuted, special ops forces killed 12 more of his troops in a second raid in the same town.

The raids in Yusufiyah, 20 miles southwest of Baghdad in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, were the latest battles in a small, vicious war being waged largely in the shadows of the wider counterinsurgency effort.

It is a war fought by a secretive organization called Task Force 145, made up of some of the most elite U.S. troops, including Delta Force and SEAL Team 6. They have one goal: hunting down Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man, and destroying his al-Qaida in Iraq organization.

Zarqawi’s escape in Yusufiyah was not the first time special ops troops have nearly had him. In early 2005, they came so close they could see the Jordanian’s panicked face as he fled.
--
Among items recovered from the safe house, the special operations source said, was a video showing Zarqawi at various times in “black pajamas with New Balance running shoes on.”

The source said the video seized in Yusufiyah was the same one released April 25.

One section of the video shows Zarqawi firing an M249 squad automatic weapon outside, and another depicts him sitting inside next to an M4 assault rifle.

In the video, Zarqawi mocks President Bush, and makes clear his fierce opposition to attempts to establish democracy in Iraq.

Produced by al-Qaida in Iraq’s “Media Committee,” the video reflects “Zarqawi’s number one thing … the information campaign,” said the special ops source.

But on the same day that video was released, “coalition forces” killed 12 other fighters at another Yusufiyah safe house “associated with foreign terrorists,” according to Central Command.

The special operations source confirmed that this was another TF 145 raid. The news release said “multiple intelligence sources” led troops to the safe house. As they approached, a man ran out brandishing what Central Command described as “a shoulder-fired rocket,” which he was attempting to launch when the operators shot and killed him.
--
A war within the war

The job of hunting Zarqawi and rolling up his al-Qaida in Iraq network falls to Task Force 145, which is made up of the most elite U.S. and British special operations forces, and whose headquarters is in Balad.

The U.S. forces are drawn from units under Joint Special Operations Command at Pope Air Force Base, N.C. These include the military’s two “direct action” special mission units — the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, known as Delta Force, and the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, sometimes known by its cover name, Naval Special Warfare Development Group; the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and 75th Ranger Regiment; and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron.

After Saddam Hussein’s fall, the first order of business for the JSOC forces was capturing or killing the 55 individuals on the “deck of cards” that depicted the regime’s senior officials. Delta’s C Squadron was at the heart of the task force that captured Saddam in December 2003.

The emergence of Zarqawi and his al-Qaida in Iraq group as a major threat to Iraq’s stability then gave JSOC a new priority. As the war in Iraq has ground on, and with Zarqawi still on the loose, the JSOC force in Iraq has grown steadily and undergone several name changes. TF 121 and TF 626 were two previous incarnations.
--
Bigger than Osama

TF 145’s war with Zarqawi has become a higher priority for JSOC than capturing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, presumed to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province along the border with Afghanistan.

“Iraq is the main effort” for JSOC, the special operations source said, adding that JSOC’s presence in Afghanistan is much smaller than it is in Iraq — a reflection of the threat Zarqawi poses to U.S. efforts in Iraq.

“Who’s the biggest threat right now?” the source said. “In military terms, bin Laden has been neutralized. He’s not going anywhere. He can’t really move. His communications are shallow. … Zarqawi is a bigger threat.”
--
So close, and yet …

The burgeoning size of the JSOC commitment to Iraq speaks to the challenge posed by Zarqawi, who elicits grudging respect from special operations personnel for the risks he takes leading from the front.

“You’ve got to respect your enemy,” said a special operations source. “He’s an out-front commander. He’s using all the elements to fight us.”

But Zarqawi’s command style and his determination to take the same risks as his fighters have almost led to his capture on several occasions, with perhaps his closest brush with JSOC coming Feb. 20, 2005.

Using intelligence derived in part by an Arab-American soldier in TF 145, the task force obtained a time frame for when Zarqawi was due to travel down a stretch of highway along the Tigris River.

This allowed a task force of Rangers and Delta operators to set up an elaborate ambush. But according to special operations sources familiar with the event, Zarqawi was late.

The U.S. troops were preparing to leave when his vehicle came into view. He and his driver blew through a Delta roadblock before nearing a Ranger checkpoint. The Ranger M240B machine-gunner had Zarqawi in his sights and requested permission to fire, but the lieutenant in charge of the checkpoint did not give the OK because he did not have “positive ID” of the vehicle’s occupants, a TF 145 source said.
--
Beyond Zarqawi, bin Laden and Zawahiri, there are other targets that JSOC could hit, if it had the authority and resources, the special ops source said.

The U.S. knows of “high-tier” al-Qaida personnel in multiple European countries, he said. They’re around the world ... The point is, does the U.S. have the resolve … to go conduct a unilateral operation to get these folks?”

Asked if anyone in JSOC was doing this now, he said, “Not really.”

Part of the reason: Special mission units are already stretched by the mission in Iraq.

“There’s no one left,” he said.
Read All>>

Dateline, 20/20, 60 minutes, and etc. all could be doing special reports on our effort from the "front". The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and etc. all could be writing special front page stories about our effort on the "front". Neither journalistic outlet does ... WHY?

Thanks to the military for getting the job of reporting done as well ... The total job and nothing less.

Sad Story Of Steve Howe

Left-hander Steve Howe was suspended from baseball for drug abuse seven times over a career that spanned 17 years. Photo Credit: Getty Images

In another day, I pass the hallmark of being clean and sober for 14 years.

Steve Howe was a phenomenon as a pitcher, a great team player, and a good friend to those who knew him. Addiction robs the greatness in all of us. Every human being has the potential in them to have a story of continued struggle that Steve Howe had.

I post this item as an example and in homage to the powerful horror of addiction and how brutal it can be. Addiction is an equal opportunity destroyer and it harms anyone who is or knows and cares for anyone who is addicted. Addiction casts a large net.

Excerpts from AP via Sports Illustrated -

Steve Howe killed in truck accident
Posted: Friday April 28, 2006 6:58PM; Updated: Friday April 28, 2006 10:27PM

NEW YORK (AP) -- Steve Howe, the relief pitcher whose promising career was derailed by cocaine and alcohol abuse, died Friday when his pickup truck rolled over in Coachella, Calif. He was 48.

Howe was killed at 5:55 a.m. PDT about 130 miles east of Los Angeles, said Dalyn Backes of the Riverside County coroner's office. He had been in Arizona on business and was driving back home to Valencia, Calif., business partner Judy Welp said.

Toxicology tests had not yet been performed.

The hard-throwing lefty was the 1980 NL Rookie of the Year with Los Angeles, closed out the Dodgers' 1981 World Series championship and was an All-Star the next year.

But for all of his success on the field, Howe was constantly troubled by addictions -- he was suspended seven times and became a symbol of the rampant cocaine problem that plagued baseball in the 1980s.

During the 1992 season, he became the first baseball player to be banned for life because of drugs. An arbitrator reinstated him after the season.

In recent years, he owned an energy drink company in Arizona.
--
Two days after the Yankees let him go in 1996, Howe was arrested at a Delta Airlines terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport when a loaded .357 Magnum was detected inside his suitcase. He later pleaded guilty to gun possession and was placed on three years' probation and given 150 hours of community service.

Chicago White Sox coach Tim Raines played with Howe in that final year.

"You always get second chances -- third and fourth sometimes. And people really believed in him and that he'd eventually kick the problem. Unfortunately, it didn't happen for him," he said.

Howe tried a comeback in 1997 with Sioux Falls of the independent Northern League and retired after injuring his forearm. That August, he was critically injured in a motorcycle accident in Montana and charged with drunken driving; those charges were later dropped when prosecutors decided his blood test was improperly obtained.
--
Howe was suspended for the 1984 season by commissioner Bowie Kuhn for cocaine use. Howe was out of the majors in 1986 after a relapse the previous August with Minnesota.

Texas released him before the 1988 season because of an alcohol problem, and he did not pitch again in the big leagues until 1991.

"Howsie had some issues everybody knew about," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said in San Francisco. "Everybody who hasn't played with him didn't know what kind of teammate he was. What you hear about Steve is the drug stuff. ... He was kind of the captain of the bullpen out there."
--
Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow played against Howe in the NL West.

"When I heard it today, I thought 'What a life this guy had,"' Krukow said, his eyes red. "So many tragic things happened to him in a young 48 years. Maybe he's at peace. He was the nicest guy in the world but he had some demons, unfortunately."
--
Howe was 7-9 with 17 saves in 1980, pitching in 59 games as a major part of the Dodgers' bullpen. He played for Los Angeles through the 1983 season.

"He had a lot of talent and his heart was in the right place," former teammate Steve Sax said. "He meant well. He had a lot of opportunities. He just had a lot of problems that he couldn't solve."
--
Howe was survived by his wife, Cindy, daughter Chelsi and son Brian.
Read All>>

Prayers for those who suffer from addiction, may a higher power find them now.

The Los Angeles Times Renders Verdict On The Many Faces Of Michael Hiltzik

Image Credit: yale.edu

This has been a difficult time for the editors and managers over at the LA Times.

What do you do when one of your Pulitzer Prize winning staff columnists commits a fraud of persona in order to bolster the positions he stakes out in the pursuit of establishing credibility in a New Media medium?

Here are two reactions to The LA Times action toward Michael Hiltzik's violation of the paper's code of ethics:

This from Captian's Quarters -

April 28, 2006
Hiltzik Loses Column Over Sock Puppetry

Last week, Patterico's Pontifications discovered that Los Angeles Times columnist and blogger Michael Hiltzik had created multiple personas for comments on Patterico's blog as well as Hiltzik's own. When Patterico posted the evidence of the phony personas, Hiltzik's newspaper suspended his blog while it investigated the behavior of its Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. Now the Times has announced that Hiltzik will lose his column for his violation of their ethics policy, although he will remain as a reporter with the paper:

(From the paper's website:)

The Times is discontinuing Michael Hiltzik’s Golden State column, which ran in the Business section, because the columnist violated the newspaper’s ethics guidelines. This follows the suspension last week of his blog on latimes.com,which also has been discontinued. Hiltzik has acknowledged using pseudonyms to post a single comment on his blog on latimes.com and multiple comments elsewhere on the Web that dealt with his column and other issues involving the newspaper.

Hiltzik did not commit any ethical violations in his newspaper column, and an internal inquiry found no inaccurate reporting in his postings in his blog or on the Web. But employing pseudonyms constitutes deception and violatesa central tenet of The Times’ ethics guidelines: Staff members must notmisrepresent themselves and must not conceal their affiliation with The Times. This rule applies equally to the newspaper and the Web world.

Over the past few days, some analysts have used this episode to portraythe Web as a new frontier for newspapers, saying that it raises fresh andcompelling ethical questions. Times editors don’t see it that way. The Web makesit easier to conceal one’s identity, and the tone of exchanges is often harsh. But the Web doesn’t change the rules for Times journalists.

After serving a suspension, Hiltzik will be reassigned.

The message the Times wants to send with this action doesn't appear very clear to me. Why go through all the hassle to kill his blog and his column, suspend him, and then have his work still appear in their newspaper? Cancelling his blog acknowledges that he has shot his credibility in this arena, and the suspension serves as a financial penalty for embarrassing his newspaper. But canceling his column demonstrates a lack of faith in Hiltzik's credibility as a columnist -- which must then also apply to his work as a reporter. The Times has kneecapped Hiltzik for any other assignment at the Times.

The Times had the right principles in mind when they addressed this situation; they held Hiltzik accountable for his sad and pathetic attempts to invent people who would agree with him. Either they went overboard in their attack on his print work, or they should have fired him outright, and to do the latter would have been completely dishonest. The true punishment for Hiltzik's foolishness is the knowledge that he made himself into a joke. The Times couldn't leave it at that and turned him into a tragedy instead.

And excerpts from Hugh Hewitt -

The Los Angeles Times Suspends Hiltzik, Discontinues His Column and Blog
by Hugh Hewitt - April 28, 2006 04:42 PM PST

Isn't it at least a little ironic that the Times releases this information on a Friday afternoon, traditional burial ground of bad news-- in an obvious effort to have the story pass with as little attention as possible? So much for transparency.

Michael Hiltzik is just one of hundreds of examples of ideologicially blinkered agenda journalists at the Times. He just got caught.

The Times concludes "an internal inquiry found no inaccurate reporting."
Yeah. Right. Very believable. Hiltzik may become an invisible presence at the paper, the Pulitzer Prize winner at the copy desk, or he may quit, but he'll no doubt haunt message boards.

But the culture at the Times that produced him quite obviously stays the same.

An Idea Who's Time Has Come, Or ...

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., discusses a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report on the response to hurricane Katrina during a news conference on Capitol Hill, Thursday, April 27, 2006. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Dennis Cook

... More Moving Of Chairs On The Titanic!

Excerpts from AP story via CBS News -

Katrina Report Rips the White House Anew
Apr 27, 11:01 PM (ET)
By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate inquiry into the government's Hurricane Katrina failures ripped the Bush administration anew Thursday and urged the scrapping of the nation's disaster response agency. But with a new hurricane season just weeks away, senators conceded that few if any of their proposals could become reality in time.
--
It said the Homeland Security Department either misunderstood federal disaster plans or refused to follow them. And it said New Orleans for years had neglected to prepare for large-scale emergencies.

"The suffering that continued in the days and weeks after the storm passed did not happen in a vacuum; instead, it continued longer that it should have because of - and was in some cases exacerbated by - the failure of government at all levels to plan, prepare for and respond aggressively to the storm," concluded the report.

It was titled "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared," sober words for the future.
--
The senators concluded that only by abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency - which Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called a "bumbling bureaucracy" - and replacing it with a stronger authority could the government best respond to future catastrophes.
--
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said FEMA needs to be stripped out of the larger department and restored as an independent Cabinet-level agency. "That's how it was done in the past and it worked as we hoped," said Lautenberg, a member of the Senate panel.

But Robert Latham, director of Mississippi's emergency response efforts, said lingering funding and manpower problems should be addressed before such a drastic step is taken.

"Changing the name of something doesn't fix a problem, other than maybe fixes a perception," Latham said. "Maybe FEMA has taken such a bashing that the name recognition itself will be hard to overcome."
Read All>>

One may notice that the truth (highlighted) is stronger than the Senate's intent and the title of this Main Stream Media (AP) report piece.

Why don't we just repair the chairs? First responders (local governments) need to step up and take on the first level responsibilities.

The End Of Commercial Aviation Era In So. Cal.

Boeing assembly mechanic Norman Wade works on a Boeing 717 in Long Beach, Calif. Photo Credit: AP

From Burbank, to Glendale, to Inglewood, and Long Beach, Southern California aviation sees the passing of a major era in comercial aviation. The former McDonnell-Douglas Corporation aircraft company has produced will and deliver its last commercial aircraft next month, leaving only the C-17 Tanker aircraft contract with the military to fulfill.

Excerpts from AP via The Washington Times -

Californian aviation comes in for a landing
By Gary Gentile - ASSOCIATED PRESS - April 27, 2006

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- The last Boeing 717 has left the factory.

The slender airliner, trailed by dozens of the workers who built it, was rolled out before dawn last week and towed across a boulevard to Long Beach Airport.

Its delivery to AirTran Airways next month will mark the end of seven decades of commercial airplane production in Southern California.
--
"More aviation history has been made in Southern California than in any other place in the world," said Bill Schoneberger, author of "California Wings," a history of aviation in the state.

"But we've evolved. The aeronautics industry has moved from an airplane business into a systems business," he said.
--
Today's workers build satellites, helicopters and unmanned surveillance drones while developing rockets and military jets that are made elsewhere.

Southern California aviation history dates to the early 1900s and features pioneers such as Howard Hughes, Jack Northrop and Donald Douglas, whose Douglas Aircraft built the DC-1 in 1933, one of the first commercial passenger planes made.

The region featured weather that accommodated year-round flying, drawing companies that produced bombers and fighter planes during World War II. Later came jetliners such as the DC-8, DC-9, DC-10, MD-80, MD-90, MD-11 and L-1011 TriStar and space vehicles that included the Apollo capsule and space shuttle. Boeing acquired the Long Beach plant in August 1997 when it bought McDonnell-Douglas Corp.
Read All>> (free subscription)

Suspend The Tax On Gas NOW!

Oil prices in downtown Los Angeles. Photo Credit: AP

It is first, time to laugh, and then cry.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) calls for the "breakup" of oil companies.

Our political leaders never see the easy answer when it is right there in their direct power to seize the day.

This observation from the Washington Post -

Going a Short Way to Make a Point
By Dana Milbank -Thursday, April 27, 2006; Page A02

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Gas prices have gone above $3 a gallon again, and that means it's time for another round of congressional finger-pointing.

"Since George Bush and Dick Cheney took over as president and vice president, gas prices have doubled!" charged Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), standing at an Exxon station on Capitol Hill where regular unleaded hit $3.10. "They are too cozy with the oil industry."

She then hopped in a waiting Chrysler LHS (18 mpg) -- even though her Senate office was only a block away.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) used a Hyundai Elantra to take the one-block journey to and from the gas-station news conference. He posed in front of the fuel prices and gave them a thumbs-down. "Get tough on big oil!" he demanded of the Bush administration.

By comparison, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) was a model of conservation. She told a staffer idling in a Jetta to leave without her, then ducked into a sushi restaurant for lunch before making the journey back to work.

At about the same time, House Republicans were meeting in the Capitol for their weekly caucus (Topic A: gas). The House driveway was jammed with cars, many idling, including eight Chevrolet Suburbans (14 mpg).

America may be addicted to oil, as President Bush puts it. But America is in the denial phase of this addiction -- as evidenced by the behavior of its lawmakers. They have proposed all kinds of solutions to high gas prices: taxes on oil companies, domestic oil drilling and releasing petroleum reserves. But they ignore the obvious: that Americans drive too much in too-big cars.

Senators were debating a war spending bill yesterday, but the subject invariably turned to gas prices. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) engaged his deputy, Dick Durbin (Ill.), in a riveting colloquy. "Is the senator aware that the L.A. Times headline reads today, 'Bush's Proposals Viewed as a Drop in the Bucket'?"

"I'm aware of that," Durbin replied.

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) responded with an economics lesson. "Oil is worth what people pay for it," he argued.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) sounded the alarms. "We are one accident or one terrorist attack away from oil at $100 a barrel!"

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) made a plea for conservation. "We have to move quickly to increase our fuel efficiency," she urged.

But not too quickly. After lunchtime votes, senators emerged from the Capitol for the drive across the street to their offices.

Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) hopped in a GMC Yukon (14 mpg). Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) climbed aboard a Nissan Pathfinder (15). Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) stepped into an eight-cylinder Ford Explorer (14). Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) disappeared into a Lincoln Town Car (17). Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) met up with an idling Chrysler minivan (18).
Next came Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), greeted by a Ford Explorer XLT. On the Senate floor Tuesday, Menendez had complained that Bush "remains opposed to higher fuel-efficiency standards."

Also waiting: three Suburbans, a Nissan Armada V8, two Cadillacs and a Lexus. The greenest senator was Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who was picked up by his hybrid Toyota Prius (60 mpg), at quadruple the fuel efficiency of his Indiana counterpart Evan Bayh (D), who was met by a Dodge Durango V8 (14).

As a political matter, Democrats clearly sense that they have the advantage on the high gas prices, judging from the number of speeches and news conferences. "The cost of Republican corruption when it comes to energy is hitting home very clearly for America's middle class," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) exulted yesterday morning.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) introduced an amendment to repeal oil-company tax breaks and distribute $500 tax rebates to consumers. It was quickly ruled out of order.

But Republicans were clearly feeling defensive. "We passed an energy bill last year, last July," House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.) pleaded at a morning news conference. "It changes CAFE [corporate average fuel economy] standards. It changes some of the things that we can do -- I'm sorry, changes not the CAFE standards, but changes some of the supply issues, boutique fuels, all these things."

Only Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), who can speak freely because he is retiring, was willing to note the disconnect between rhetoric and action. "People say, understandably, 'Solve our energy problems right now, but don't make us do anything differently,' " he said on the Senate floor.

If the politics of gasoline favor Democrats at the moment, the insincerity is universal. A surreptitious look at the cars in the senators-only spots inside and outside the Senate office buildings found an Escort and a Sentra (super-rich Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl's spot had a Chevy Lumina), but far more Jaguars, Cadillacs and Lexuses and a fleet of SUVs made by Ford, Honda, BMW and Lexus.

A sampling of senators' and staff cars parked along Delaware Avenue NE found that those displaying Democratic campaign bumper stickers had a somewhat higher average fuel economy (23 mpg) than those displaying GOP stickers (18 mpg). A fuel-efficiency rating could not be found for the 1970s-era Volkswagen "Thing" owned by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.).

Maybe, lawmakers are starting to learn. When GOP senators had a lunch Tuesday a couple of blocks from the Capitol, many took cars. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) emerged from the lunch looking for his ride when he spied The Washington Post's Shailagh Murray. Reconsidering, he set out on foot. "I need the exercise," he reasoned.
Link Here>>

Did you know that the taxes on each gallon of gasoline are greater than the profit received at each level in the petroleum process chain - More than the oil company that finds and processes the oil, more than the distributors that store and move the oil to the gas stations, and more than the gas station itself when they take your money that fills your tank.

The entity that profits the most from high gas prices is the only entity that does nothing to provide the fuel for our cars - and can do the most about cutting the cost of fuel to each of us by suspending the tax on fuel - The U.S. Government (those folks that Dana Milbank observes in the above piece).

Maybe, we all should call for the breakup of the Congress.

Increase In Fuel Costs Alters Food Choices: Study

With the increase in fuel costs hitting our family budgets, our choices for how and where we choose to get our food will change noticeably an ACNielson study finds.

Here in the U.S., Take-Out will be the first to go.

Excerpts from AC Neilson study via Progerssive Grocer -

U.S. Consumers Cut Take-out as Belts Tighten: ACNielsen Study

APRIL 26, 2006 -- NEW YORK -- When the going gets tough, Americans stop going for take-out, according to a new survey conducted by ACNielsen.

The aversion to take-out as belts tighten is apparently a distinctly American phenomenon, according to the world's leading market research and information company, which studied consumer patterns worldwide. In the United States, unlike most markets surveyed, consumers cited cutting down on take-out meals as their most popular cost-cutting method. Just over half of all respondents (57 percent) worldwide claimed they would cut down on out-of-home entertainment, and spend less on new clothes (53 percent) to stay within their budgets, with nearly half (48 percent) also saying they would delay upgrading technology to tighten their belts.
--
Across the five regions surveyed, consumer priorities varied, most notably in North America. While out-of-home entertainment was the first thing consumers would cut down on in Latin America (61 percent), Asia Pacific (58 percent) and Europe (54 percent), in North America, the first thing to go for 70 percent of Canadians and 66 percent of Americans would be the take-out meals, ahead of out-of-home entertainment, which ranked second. Moreover, North Americans cited 'trying to save on gas and electricity' as their third preferred cost-saving measure.
--
ACNielsen pointed to two findings of particular interest to U.S. food retailers and manufacturers of consumer packaged goods business. First, when asked if they would switch to cheaper grocery brands, 42 percent identified it as a cost saving strategy. Not surprisingly with the rising power of hard-discount retailers in Europe, European consumers scored the highest in this area (France 57 percent, Portugal 52 percent, Austria & the Netherlands 51 percent); but the U.S. just missed cracking the top 10, and was well above the global average of 35 percent. Second, the U.S. was the clear leader in identifying the use of coupons as a cost-saving strategy at 46 percent, far ahead of the global average of 19 percent.
Read All>>

Drug Use Hits Another Target In TV Pilot

Image Credit: Google Images

In just a few days, at the end of this month as a matter of fact, I will have quit the use of alcohol and tobacco in my life. The "birthday" will be my 14th and, coincidentally, happens just before the Rodney King verdict riots, so the timing is pretty easy to remember.

Addiction is a pretty ugly monster and an equal opportunity horror.

Excerpts from the New York Post, Page Six -

'WING' FOLLOW HAS DRUG TWIST
Page Six - By Richard Johnson, With Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson

April 26, 2006 -- SUPERSTAR scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin is following the adage "Write what you know" for his new NBC series, and borrowing from his own personal history with drugs.

In the pilot for "Studio 60," an award-winning TV writer (played by Bradley Whitford of "The West Wing") loses the chance to direct his first movie when he tests positive for cocaine. That disqualifies him for the job because the studio wouldn't be able to get insurance with him at the helm, according to a copy of the script that's turned up on the Internet.

While that story might not directly parallel Sorkin's own, he is no stranger to the consequences of drug abuse. Sorkin, 45, was arrested in April 2001 at Burbank Airport after cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms (and, reportedly, a crack pipe) were found in his carry-on luggage.

He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to drug treatment, which he had also undergone previously in 1995, to kick a crack habit.

In 2003, Sorkin stunned the cast of "The West Wing" - the series he created and which won four Emmys for Best Drama Series - when he suddenly quit.
--
And recently, more light was shed on Sorkin's partying past when a former call girl, Dimitra Ekmektsis, claimed in her memoir that Sorkin was a regular customer between 1990 and 1992 and often smoked pot and crack in his sessions with her.
Read All>>

At MAXINE, we pray that this horror no longer is a part of Aaron Sorkin's present future other than for the cathartic process of sobriety.

We, who have had to go through the process of breaking an addiction, any addiction, are reminded that this issue is never to far away in our lives. May we all know GOD now.

One Day At A Time

PETA And The 3% Solution

Image Credit: Outback Steakhouse, Inc.

When does a shareholder try to hurt the fortunes of a company in the name of making a minority point? When the shareholder is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

In strategy that would make sense, and would be generally be applauded for its ingeniousness, if a large number of like minded individuals believed the same way, PETA has been purchasing shares of target companies so that they can make a point at shareholder meetings.

The latest episode of a targeted grandstanding came today at the Outback Steakhouse, Inc. shareholders meeting. Outback originally tried to block PETA from placing a resolution on the agenda with the Securities and Exchange Commission but the SEC ruled in favor of letting PETA its say.

The problem comes with the vote of this resolution and how little response the response has to be in order to keep the point of view alive.

Excerpts from the Tampa Bay Business Journal -

PETA takes chicken killing to Outback
Tampa Bay Business Journal - 2:41 PM EDT Tuesday
by Larry Halstead

Outback Steakhouse Inc. had a showdown with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals at its annual shareholders meeting, held Tuesday at the A La Carte Pavilion in Tampa.

PETA, which owns 80 shares of Outback (NYSE: OSI), wants the company's suppliers to begin moving toward using a method called controlled-atmosphere killing by which the chickens are put to sleep. The process is already being used in approximately one-fourth of the European slaughterhouses, said Matt Prescott, spokesman for PETA.

"We're asking for a feasibility study now, not immediate implementation," Prescott said.

Prescott read a statement at the meeting asking Outback to consider PETA's resolution on controlled-atmosphere killing.
--
Shareholders voted on the resolution through proxy statements in advance and at the meeting. It received approximately 3.5 percent of the vote, Prescott told the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

When a resolution loses, yet receives at least 3 percent of the vote, a shareholder can resubmit the same resolution for vote at next year's meeting. PETA plans to resubmit the resolution at next year's meeting, Prescott said.

PETA submitted similar resolutions at Kroger, KFC and Hormel, and more than 3 percent voted in favor at all three companies, Prescott said.

In order to propose issues for vote at annual meetings, shareholders must own at least $2,000 of the company's stock, Prescott said. PETA buys shares in companies that deal with animals in their course of business.

"Our real goal here is that the shareholders care about animal rights and that the company moves toward that goal," Prescott said.
Read All>>

3.5% hardly deserves the title of "shareholders".

With only 3.5% representation of a point of view to be brought up time and time again, is grandstanding pure and simple as MAXINE sees it ... and this is an issue (the method of the killing of chickens purchased from a resource) brought up at a STEAKHOUSE operation.

I suppose they are just "Chicken" to take on the main menu items.

Have tests been run on the chemicals used to put these chickens to "sleep" to ascertain if the residual traces of the chemicals left in the chicken tissue are safe for humans to consume? Just asking! We are, after all, feeding humans here.

This effort by PETA at the Outback shareholders meeting gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Curbside Take-Away"!

Michael Yon - In The Poppy Fields, Not Kansas

The Sleeping Poppy: Papaver Somniferum. Now I know we’re not in Kansas. People come and go so quickly around here. Photo Credit: Michael Yon

Reporting directly from Afghanistan, Michael Yon continues on his latest journey into the warzone to write the truth as to what is going on - on the ground outside of Kabul.

Excerpts from Michael Yon: Online Magazine -

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006
Desert of Death
Dasht-e-Margo“Desert of Death”
Lashkar Gah to Camp Bastion

As our bags were loaded into the Land Cruiser for the journey toward Dasht-e-Margo, the Desert of Death, a man wearing a bomb closes in. Before striking off, we again visit the PRT in Lashkar Gah, where Steve huddles with some Afghan employees. An entire British Army unit has defected, he said, with their weapons and equipment. The Afghans grow quiet, until Steve says, “And they joined the Taliban.”

After talking with some friendly British soldiers we start the drive into a mostly desolate stretch through scattered villages. Steve needs to get to Camp Bastion where he has about $12 million in current construction contracts, and where his crews are just finishing the new base camps for the British Army.

Business and politics don’t count for much when a brainwashed man wearing a bomb is trying to make some westerners into Humpty Dumpty’s. The human-bomb-delivery-system was lurking close by, and ready to begin tracking a target. To me, suicide bombers are cheap laser-guided-precision-munitions, without the lasers.

Often when an attack is imminent, shops will close and children will vanish from the streets, and such was the case today. Driving away from the PRT down rough unpaved road toward the Desert of Death, a breakdown, flat tire, or a minor accident could be fatal, exposing us to bandits, Taliban or even Al Qaeda, not to mention that man who was packing lots of explosives. He was parked, according to a British soldier, in a red Toyota just near the PRT. The soldier said the man got out of the Toyota just as some Dyncorp contractors came by, and he walked over to the armored SUV and BOOM!
--
In many villages there was enough water to grow vast amounts of poppy. I was scanning for ambushes when Steve said, “A lot of times they’ll set up road blocks wearing police or Army uniforms.”

“But that’s not fair.” I chuckled, “That’s cheating.”

Steve laughed, “Sure is Mister. Sure is.”

In fact, hundreds of Taliban would soon mass on the route ahead resulting in a massive firefight that ended with more than 40 killed.

Steve believes it’s safer to travel overland through desert shortcuts where foreigners rarely venture; the various species of bad guys, he says, do not expect crazy foreigners to rocket through, and by the time we get close enough that they might notice, hopefully we are gone.
--
Some days earlier I’d read a confidential report saying that 80% of some arable parts of Helmand are growing poppy, but the “good” news is that other areas of Helmand are only 30% under poppy. On average, the report indicated that well over 70% of the cropland in Helmand is yielding poppy. Next week, during harvest, the plants will be dripping and oozing opium. From Afghanistan, it seems obvious why our allies in Europe are concerned even while the U.S. draws down forces here.

No doubt some of the heroin also will land in America. A crop this bountiful is bound to flood the market. The reason most often cited for the Americans’ essential-acquiescence over the poppy is that we do not want to alienate farmers in our search for terrorists, although we contend that opium money funds the terrorists. Some of our European friends see this as, well - they have some choice words. Of those I am willing to convey in writing, the kindest and most diplomatic is that, “You Americans are making a pact with the Devil.” As much as I usually enjoy arguing with Europeans about Americans, there is no fun in it when they are right.”
--
The vineyard (above) will not generate positive cash flow for about 3 years, and will not make a profit for perhaps 5-6 years, whereas the poppy fields around it turn profits in months. In the long term, the farmer with the vineyard likely can earn greater profits for less work - and not risk the wrath of an eradication team. But in the short term, where eradication is practically non-existent, the opium is sweet and grapes are sour.
--
There is practically no competition for heroin. What Florida is to the citrus tree, Afghanistan is to Papaver somniferum.
--
Government offices in some Helmand districts are closing under Taliban pressure. The countryside we saw was obviously not administered by western forces, and did not appear to be controlled by anyone other than, perhaps, the Taliban and the bandits.
--
Peering out the car window, knowing that bandits or Taliban might be upon us in a flash, I had no idea that a major, very deadly firefight was brewing nearby.
--
The poppy fields of Afghanistan bring us back to Kansas where, once upon a time when everything was black and white, Dorothy imagines a place where there is no trouble, a place very far away, and she starts singing
“S o m e W h e r e O v e r t h e R a i n b o w .”
--
We say goodbye to the men who will shortly take to the fields, and we strike out again down Highway 1, away from the Desert of Death, passing by where the trucks were attacked, by the nomads again, through the poppy fields, back to Lashkar Gah, where another suicide attack is unfolding.
Read All, Really!>>

Compelling. If you can support his efforts, please do so at the bottom of the article/post at his site.

Enforcement Of Law Means Enforcement

Image Cerdit: The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps Fence Project

When is an illegal immigrant crackdown more like the response to a natural disaster than the enforcement of laws? When the Department of Homeland Security (through its sub-agency ICE, this time) responds ineffectively to a situation that requires FOLLOWTHROUGH, that's when!

Last week, ICE (the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement department) rounded up almost 1,200 illegal immigrants and seven current or former managers at a Netherlands-based firm that hired them. They were arrested, and most were released on a "notice to appear".

This action has no follow-through. Where does this government think these released individuals are going to go? They all are proven lawbreakers and immediate action is required.

Excerpted opinion from the New York Post -

A 'CRACKDOWN' THAT WASN'T
DUBYA'S IMMIGRATION ARRESTS
By JOHN O'SULLIVAN

April 25, 2006 -- IT happened last Wednesday, and it was nicely timed.

One week later - about now, in fact - the U.S. Senate was scheduled to reconvene to discuss an immigration bill. The bill proposes to amnesty most of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and to admit millions more legally as guest-workers. The controversial measure is strongly promoted by the White House and both party leaderships in the Senate - but opposed by most Republican congressmen and a large majority of voters.

Something was needed to break the log-jam of opposition.

And last Wednesday federal agents "swooped" on plants in 26 states belonging to IFCO, a U.S. subsidiary of a Dutch firm supplying wood pallets and plastic containers to industry, and arrested 1,187 illegal immigrant workers. Seven former and current IFCO managers were also charged with employing illegal aliens. The next day, Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff held a press conference to stress that such tough enforcement of immigration law, internally as well as at the border, would now be the rule.

Having established its willingness to crack down on illegality, the administration's political machine crossed its fingers and hoped that this display would now help passage of the "Not an Amnesty" law.

All this was not only timely; it was powerfully symbolic. What it symbolized, however, was not the tough enforcement of immigration law but its colander-like leaky ineffectiveness.

For even before Chertoff had spoken (but not before blogger Michelle Malkin had predicted it), four-fifths of the illegals arrested had been . . . released.
--
I recently suggested - wrongly - that there had been little or no enforcement of employer sanctions since the passage of the 1986 amnesty law; that, once an illegal reached a major city such as Los Angeles, Phoenix or Chicago, he was safe from official interest and could work unmolested. That was not quite accurate. The Clinton administration in fact managed some (albeit patchy) "internal" enforcement of employer sanctions. For instance, the period 1995-1997 saw 10,000 to 18,000 worksite arrests of illegals a year. Some 1,000 employers were served notices of fines for employing them.

Under the Bush administration, however, worksite arrests fell to 159 in 2004 - with the princely total of three notices of intent to fine served on employers. Thus, worksite arrests under President Bush have fallen from Clintonian levels by something like 97 per cent - even though 9/11 occurred in the meantime.

In this dramatic relaxation of internal enforcement is the explanation of the rapidly rising estimate of immigrants living and working illegally in the United States - up by more than a million in just the last year. For if people know that they are likely to be safe from enforcement once they escape the border area and reach L.A. or Chicago, then they'll keep trying even if they were caught and returned to their country of origin any number of times.

Porous borders are not only the cause of uncontrolled immigration; they are its result. You cannot control the borders, however many patrols you hire or fences you build, if you grant an effective pardon to anyone who gets a hundred miles inland. It's as simple as that.
--
If the law were enforced more uniformly - rather than with the current 159 worksite raids and three employer fines - then the number of people deported would rise substantially even if (as last week) only one-fifth of those detained were eventually sent back over the border. It would send a message to those considering illegal entry that they could no longer depend on legal immunity and secure employment once inside America. Those illegals already here, finding their opportunities drying up, would have an incentive to return home legally even if only to increase their chances of legal immigration later.

These changes would occur gradually, allowing businesses to adapt to the tighter labor market. And the border would, seemingly by magic, become less porous as interior law enforcement reduced the incentive to cross it.

This is called "the attrition strategy" by Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies. It is far more practical than the either an amnesty or a guest-worker program. And it requires neither legislation nor official game-playing to implement it.

By contrast, every time the unpopular Bush-Senate "compromise" bill meets an obstacle, Karl Rove will have to pick up a telephone and utter the famous line from "Casablanca": Round up the usual suspects.
Read All>>

This "attrition strategy" sounds like a good step but first we need to show that we are serious about attaining respect for our immigration laws and our border.

PUT UP THE FENCE ... deport found illegals ... deeply fine companies hiring known illegals.

Pepsi vs Coke - Who Has More Lead?

Photo Credit: Pepsi-Town.com

It is kind of a trick question. The lead is contained in the printing of the labels applied to the bottles and PEPSI has just settled a lawsuit.

Excerpts from the Los Angeles Times -

Pepsi Agrees to Get the Lead Out of Labels
L.A. and the state sued because bottles from Mexican plants contain the substance and some businesses sell them in Southern California.
By Patrick McGreevy, Times Staff Writer - April 22, 2006

Settling a lawsuit by the city of Los Angeles and the state, PepsiCo Inc. has agreed to eliminate labels containing lead on bottled soft drinks imported from Mexico and will pay a $1-million civil penalty, officials announced Friday.

The lawsuit alleged that the soft-drink maker violated Proposition 65 by failing to warn consumers that the labels contained lead.

"This is a landmark result which will protect the health of our children and make our communities safer," City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said at a City Hall news conference. "Pepsi is here with us today doing the responsible thing."
--
Under the settlement, filed in court Friday, PepsiCo will begin phasing out labels containing lead and will remove existing soda bottled in Mexico from shelves in California.

In addition to the $1-million civil penalty, the company could face an additional $4.25 million in penalties if it fails to phase out 95% of the labels with lead within 10 years.

PepsiCo also will pay $500,000 to a fund for monitoring whether Mexican Pepsi bottles are coming into California and to other programs on lead abatement in food.

The firm also will pay $750,000 to reimburse investigative and attorney costs, Delgadillo said.
--
The CocaCola Co. issued a statement saying it "is already — and voluntarily — doing what this settlement requires Pepsi to do in the future, at a cost to the CocaCola system in excess of $25 million."

The firm said all of its bottles made in Mexico are lead-free.
Read All>> (free registration)

20th Highjacker Trial Goes To Jury

This artist's rendering shows court appointed physician Dr. Raymond Patterson, center, being questioned by U.S. Attorney David Novak, right, as Zacarias Moussaoui, left, and U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema listen in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., Thursday, April 20, 2006. Patterson was called by the prosecution as a rebuttal witness to the defenses psychiatric experts who say that Moussaoui is mentally ill. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Dana Verkouteren

This from AP via Yahoo! News -

Jury Takes Up Moussaoui's Fate
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer - 1 hour, 18 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Zacarias Moussaoui's fate was placed Monday afternoon in the hands of a jury that will decide whether he is executed for his part in the deaths of Sept. 11, 2001.

Jurors opened deliberations at 2:26 p.m. EDT, after final pleadings from the prosecution to "put an end to his hatred and venom" by opting for execution, and from the defense to spare him the martyr's death he seeks and send him to prison for life instead.

The jury decided in 15 hours of deliberations over four days earlier this month that Moussaoui, 37, the only man charged in this country in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was responsible for deaths that day even though he was in jail. That qualified him for the death penalty. The question now before jurors is whether he deserves it.
Read All>>

This story was posted because the watercolor art was compelling.

Oh yeah, Maxine believes that he's goin' down ... to bad it won't be as fast as Flight 93!

UPDATE: This from Reuters -

Moussaoui gets life in jail
By Deborah Charles 40 minutes ago (5-3-2006, 1:40 pm PST)

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in a U.S. court in connection with September 11, should spend his life in prison instead of being executed for his role in the hijacked airliner attacks, a jury decided on Wednesday.
"America you lost!" Moussaoui shouted as he left the courtroom after hearing the verdict. He clapped his hands and yelled, "I won!"

The 37-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent will be formally sentenced on Thursday.
The verdict was read by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema at the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from the Pentagon, the site of one of the 2001 attacks. It was read simultaneously before television cameras outside the courthouse by spokesman Edward Adams.

At the White House, President George W. Bush hailed the sentencing of the man he said "openly rejoiced" at the deaths on September 11 and said "evil" had been vanquished.
"The end of this trial represents the end of this case, but not an end to the fight against terror," Bush said. "...And we can be confident. Our cause is right, and the outcome is certain: Justice will be served. Evil will not have the final say."
Read All>>

Well, we can still hope for a Jeffrey Dahmer type of outcome, otherwise we all can look forward to about 30+ years of having to hear his name.

This from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -

Dahmer served his time at the Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage, Wisconsin. On 28th November, 1994, fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, a double murderer, beat Dahmer and another inmate, Jesse Anderson, to death with a bench-press bar from the prison's weight room. All three were on work detail cleaning a bathroom in the guards' quarters at the time (Because of this incident, American maximum security prisons no longer have a free-weight room). Scarver stated that he was the "son of God" and was acting out his "Father's" commands to kill Dahmer and the other inmate during cleaning duties.

CIA Leaker Was Clinton Appointee & More

Photo Credit: floppingaces.net

A senior Clinton Administration figure (appointed June 16, 1998) became a "mole" in the CIA and illegally leaked classified material to a Washington Post reporter in order to embarrass the Bush Administration. This is as astonishing as it is troubling. You can not make this stuff up.

CIA leaker was a contributor to the Democrats - The New York Times article on the CIA leak case mentions that the leaker, one Mary O. McCarthy, gave $2,000 to Kerry (which, by the way, is the maximum amount she could give). This in light of the fact that she grossly underplays her political involvement. Look it up.

More links put together at Free Republic.

The Lewis 'Scooter' Libbey defense team must be toasting the out of control Dems and the tainted Pulitzer Prize winning MSM right about now.

UPDATE, 4-24-2006, 6:13 AM: The defense of McCarthy has begun in the MSM. This morning on MSNBC's Don Imus program, Andrea Mitchell speculated clearly that the reporter (Dana Priest) had developed the story from many resources.

Further, that the reporter had earned her Pulitzer in that Mary McCarthy was only one of many resources and that Dana Priest probably contacted Mary McCarthy for confirmation of information developed through these other resources - ("THUD!" - the sound of a jaw hitting the floor in un-speculative disbelief).

WHAT? Thank you Andrea Mitchell. Maybe, she should read the above links?

This quote from the American Digest -

Dana Priest: "Well, actually, the media is not breaking the law by publishing classified information. That's still a safeguard we have in the law. The person/s who turn it over are breaking the law, technically. But the courts and the body politic have always looked at this as the cost of democracy and that is one huge reason why reporters have not be pursued previously." -- National Security and Intelligence

Schumacher Takes 2006 San Marino GP

Lap 25 and the leading players in the San Marino Grand Prix have made their first pit stops. The order is Michael Schumacher leading Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, with Felipe Massa and Juan Pablo Montoya running close together in fourth and fifth. Photo Credit: UpdateSport.Com

Former 1999 FedEx Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), and IRL's 2000 Indianapolis 500 champion, Juan Pablo Montoya, posts a podium finish by finishing third for Team McLaren Mercedes.

This from the Official Formula 1 Website -

Schumacher hangs on to victory
23 April 2006

By the end of the San Marino Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso must have been thoroughly sick of staring at the back of Michael Schumacher’s car.

For much of the second half of the race the pair were separated by barely half a second. But however much the Spanish world champion wanted to find a way past, Schumacher’s dogged defence of his position proved impregnable. And by the closing stages of the race, it was clear that Alonso had settled for second place and the eight points that go with it.

Juan Pablo Montoya claimed the third step of the podium for McLaren - but the team will have been demoralised by a relative lack of pace that prevented their drivers from getting on terms with Alonso and Schumacher. Felipe Massa ended the race in fourth place with the second Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen was fifth and Mark Webber deserves mention for a strong drive to sixth in the Williams.
Read All>>

This from Reuters -

UPDATE 1-Schumacher a winner again for Ferrari
Sun Apr 23, 2006 3:09 PM BST
By Alan Baldwin

IMOLA, Italy, April 23 (Reuters) - Michael Schumacher won the San Marino Grand Prix for his and Ferrari's first victory of the Formula One season on Sunday.

It was the seven-times world champion's 85th career success, and seventh at Ferrari's home circuit, but he was harried all the way by Renault's world champion Fernando Alonso.

In a repeat of last year's nose-to-tail thriller only in reverse order, with that race won by Alonso with Schumacher failing to find a way past, the German held on to win by 2.0 seconds.

Schumacher's last victory was at the six-car U.S. Grand Prix last June, a race that turned into a fiasco when all the Michelin teams pulled out before the start.

His last real win was the Japanese Grand Prix in October 2004, a season he dominated with 13 victories.

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya was third for McLaren, ahead of Brazilian Felipe Massa for Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen in another McLaren.

Australian Mark Webber was sixth for Williams, with Briton Jenson Button seventh for Honda and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella taking the last point for Renault.

Alonso, winner of two of the season's first three races, extended his championship lead by one point to 15 with Schumacher moving up to second overall.

The Spaniard has 36 points, Schumacher 21 and McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen 18. Renault lead the constructors' standings with 51 points to McLaren's 33 and Ferrari's 30.
Read All>>

Record F1 Qualifying Mark Set In Imola, Italy

Ayrton Senna ponders what might have been after dropping out of the Canadian Grand Prix, June 2nd 1991. Photo Credit: Artemis Images - ©Steve Mohlenkamp (ht: wikipedia.org)

On Saturday afternoon, Michael Schumacher broke a near sacred pole qualifying position record held by racing legend Ayrton Senna by marking his 66th pole starting position while qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix race to be run today. Incidentally, Senna's last pole position (#65) was achieved and career ending crash came at this very same racing circuit on May 1, 1994.

This from the Official Formula 1 Website -

Michael Schumacher and Ferrari gave their fans what they wanted in qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola this afternoon, taking pole position and thus breaking the record he held jointly with the late Ayrton Senna.

However, the final 20-minute shootout was a close-run thing with Jenson Button putting his Honda on the front row close to the end of the session.

On the lap that Schumacher stopped the clocks in 1m 22.795s, Button banged in a 1m 22.988s to push aside team mate Rubens Barrichello.

The Brazilian subsequently lapped his RA106 in 1m 23.242s to take third place away from Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.

The younger Brazilian had an off-course moment exiting the Variante Alta chicane, but made amends with 1m 23.702s.
Read All>>

Japan Makes A Great Tune-Up For May's INDY 500

Helio Castroneves climbs fence in win at Japan’s Twin Ring Motegi racetrack – Photo Credit: Ron McQueeney, IRL

At Honda's home track, Castroneves and Penske make a strong statement of readiness for a record matching run at Indianapolis next month.

With this season’s second win in a row, Helio Castroneves showed that he is ready to be counted among the rare club of drivers that can lay claim to winning the Indianapolis 500 open-wheel automobile race three times, with a win in the 500 this May. He currently leads in the 2006 season race points and has shown the consistency by winning two of the three races run this season.

Excerpts from Indycar.com -

Saturday, April 22, 2006
Castroneves wins second consecutive race, adds to points lead
By Dave Lewandowski - indycar.com

MOTEGI, Japan – Helio Castroneves showed his powerful hand in practice sessions at Twin Ring Motegi. When the stakes were higher in the fourth Indy Japan 300, he took the pot.

Oh, there were plenty of others in the game – including runner-up Dan Wheldon and third-place finisher Tony Kanaan, who both acknowledged they didn’t have enough to catch Castroneves near the end of the 200-lap race on the 1.5-mile egg-shaped oval.

They really didn’t have any answers from the midpoint onward. How dominating was Castroneves, who climbed the fence for the second consecutive race? Well, here are a few examples:

● He led 184 laps.
● His fastest race lap was 190 (199.910 mph; 27.3723 seconds).
● His second-fastest lap was 180 (199.847 mph).
--
"What a team, what a team,” said Castroneves, who was whisked with champagne bottle in hand from Victory Circle to team owner Roger Penske’s plane for the flight to Phoenix to catch the Team Penske cars in the NASCAR Nextel Cup race the same day (the International Date Line is a wonderful thing heading east).

It was Castroneves’ fourth IndyCar Series victory from the pole and ninth overall (eight on ovals).
Read All>>

Global Warming Is Less Alarming, Scientists Say

Photo Credit: NASA

It is OK to feel better about the prospects about our planet on this coming observance of Earth Day 2006. It turns out that our Earth is not warming as fast as all of the alarmists, who are able to grab media attention, say it is warming.

A study released by scientists, using data, organic evidence (tree rings), and computer models, tells us that we should not buy in to the scare tactics used by opportunists who are trying to profit economically or politically from the potential of a dramatic rise in the Earth's temperature.

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Scientists cool outlook on global warming
By Jennifer Harper - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - April 21, 2006

Global warming may not be as dramatic as some scientists have predicted.

Using temperature readings from the past 100 years, 1,000 computer simulations and the evidence left in ancient tree rings, Duke University scientists announced yesterday that "the magnitude of future global warming will likely fall well short of current highest predictions."
Supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, the Duke researchers noted that some observational studies predicted that the Earth's temperature could rise as much as 16 degrees in this century because of an increase in carbon dioxide or other so-called greenhouse gases.

The Duke estimates show the chances that the planet's temperature will rise even by 11 degrees is only 5 percent, which falls in line with previous, less-alarming predictions that meteorologists made almost three decades ago.
--
The topic of global warming, meanwhile, will be framed dramatically in "An Inconvenient Truth," a 94-minute documentary featuring former Vice President Al Gore, who has deemed rising temperatures "a planetary emergency." The Hollywood production will be released to theaters in May and is billed by producer Davis Guggenheim as "the most terrifying film you will ever see."

The production also recommends that viewers take "political action." On Tuesday, Mr. Gore paid Roy Neel, a longtime Democratic adviser, $40,000 to help him create a public outreach program on global warming, the New York Daily News reported.

The American Spectator and columnist Jonah Goldberg have accused Mr. Gore of "green" scaremongering.
Read All>> (subscription)

MAXINE says .. It's OK to enjoy the day, on Earth Day!

#2 Responds To #1 E85 FlexFuel Ground Swell

"SWITCHGRASS" - Release Name, El Reno - Scientific Name, Bouteloua curtipendula - Common Name, sideoats grama - This is only one of many switchgrass varieties - Photo Credit: USDA

Toyota, the world's #2 automaker, has begun discussions to consider offering E85 capable cars. General Motors, the world's #1 automaker, has offered E85 FlexFuel cars since 1999 and has the most extensive line of automobile form factors that are able to make use of this fuel alternative.

Ford and Chrysler have models available and ready for the market, but Chrysler currently only offers its E85 car in its fleet sales division.

Toyota may be able to offer an E85 car in the marketplace by 2008. Toyota is currently deeply committed to its electric/gas hybrid technology powered automobiles that use electric motors to assist a petrol gas powered engine to achieve greater fuel economy.

The main problem with a hybrid technology approach, given the current geo-political problems that surround the cost and availability of oil, is that it still requires and consumes a greater amount of petrol based fuel than an E85 powered vehicle would require and consume.

The main problem with E85 is distribution. Once distribution is established, the problem will be production with the key structure being local, in-country resources. America does not need to purchase ethanol from foreign resources so that we then become dependent on other countries for our fuel needs (the problem we now have with our petrol fuel needs).

Excerpts from the Daily Breeze -

Report: Toyota plans on ethanol
U.S. sales of alternative-fuel vehicles from the Japanese company would start by 2008, financial newspaper says.
By Muhammed El-Hasan - Daily Breeze

Toyota Motor Corp. will announce in a few months its plans for vehicles powered by ethanol, a company spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Financial Times reported Wednesday that the Japanese automaker plans to sell ethanol- powered vehicles in the United States by 2008, citing an unnamed company executive.

Cindy Knight, a spokeswoman for Toyota's North American sales and marketing arm in Torrance, said she could not confirm the Financial Times report. Knight did say that the company was studying the technology.

"Toyota is looking at a range of alternatives for cleaner, more fuel-efficient vehicles. And ethanol is one of many," Knight said. "It's something that we are looking at doing. But we haven't made an official decision on what vehicles we'll offer it in and when. That decision will come in the next few months."
--
California has only four stations that sell E85, and not all of them are open to the public, Barthmus said. GM is pushing to make E85 available more broadly, including in California. GM ran TV ads during Super Bowl XL and the Winter Olympics to promote ethanol with the slogan "Live Green Go Yellow."

E85 may be scarce in California, but much of the gasoline the state's residents use already has ethanol, spokeswoman Carolin Keith said.

ExxonMobil's Torrance refinery bought ethanol to mix with the gasoline it sells. The ethanol is used as a substitute for MTBE, which was phased out in California in 2004 because of concerns it polluted groundwater. The Torrance refinery phased out MTBE in 2003.
--
"I think things are changing with ethanol and biofuel," Knight (Toyota spokesperson) said. "So I think you'll see more of that in California because we've got the agriculture."
Read All>>

The sooner we get to E85 as a standard for our automobile fuel needs, the sooner we will be on a stronger "war footing", we will get a cleaner burning fuel alternative as a bonus!

ICE Begins Crack Down

Demonstrators march through the streets of Los Angeles to protest against legislation that cracks down against illegal immigrants, April 15, 2006. Almost 1,200 illegal immigrants and seven current or former managers at a Netherlands-based firm that hired them were arrested as part of a national crackdown, authorities said on Thursday. (Photo Credit: Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

Dutch company feels frostbitten as ICE (the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement department) begins crackdown. Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security states that this is only the beginning.

The effort is aimed at those who are "exploiting illegal aliens'' and "who adopt as a business model the systematic violation of immigration laws,'' Chertoff told reporters in Washington. The government will "make sure we come down as hard as possible.''

Excerpts from Reuters via Yahoo! News -

Workers, managers arrested in immigration case
By James Vicini - Thu Apr 20, 12:58 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Almost 1,200 illegal immigrants and seven current or former managers at a Netherlands-based firm that hired them were arrested as part of a national crackdown, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

Raids were carried out this week in 26 states at plants operated by IFCO Systems North America, which is based in Houston and makes wooden pallets and crates.
--
IFCO said in a statement that it is cooperating fully with the investigation and that it hopes "to have this matter resolved as soon as possible." The North American operation is a unit IFCO Systems, based in Amsterdam.

About half of the firm's 5,800 U.S. employees in 2005 had invalid or mismatched Social Security numbers, federal officials said.
Read All>>

So doing the math, ICE still has a little more work to do (about another 1,200 illegal aliens to go) at IFCO. Jobs open up in 26 states for high jobless segments of our society.

Help Wanted! ... from U.S. citizens!

DNC Chief Becomes The New Republican

Howard Dean – Photo Credit: AP

Boy, we all would really love to believe this stated change in position. I do not feel we can trust the Democrats (or the Republicans for that matter) to clamp down on illegal immigration because all politicians look at a body, any body, as a future vote. They do tend to forget that 1) we are at war, and 2) Nearly 80% of the voting citizens of this country want the borders tightened up and the illegal immigrant problem to be solved through enforcement of our laws.

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Dean calls the border top priority
By Ralph Z. Hallow - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - April 20, 2006

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean yesterday called border security his party's top immigration priority for November.

"The first thing we want is tough border control," he said. "We have to do a much better job on our borders than George Bush has done. And then we can go to the policy disagreements about how to get it done."
--
"If Dean means what he says about border enforcement, that would put the Democrats somewhere to the right of President Bush on immigration," said Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican.

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee dismissed Mr. Dean's "newfound commitment to border security" as "not believable."
--
Mr. Dean said he wants "immigrants who obey the law and pay taxes to be able to apply for citizenship. We support earned legalization vigorously. And, much to my surprise, so do the American people."
--
Speaking yesterday at a breakfast for political reporters at the St. Regis Hotel, hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Mr. Dean told reporters that Democrats would attack Republicans on "values" in this fall's midterm elections.
--
"Don't forget -- the Republicans have been in power for five years. They've had the House and Senate and the White House most of that time. And they have done nothing about immigration."

Not true, said Mr. King, who represents a district along the Missouri River in western Iowa. He said 200 Democrats voted against a bill passed by the House in December that mandates stronger border security.

"If Dean and his Democrats in the Senate are serious, they could force the president to make a decision to sign or veto an enforcement-only package," he said. Mr. Bush and several Senate Republicans have sought to tie border enforcement to a guest-worker plan -- a program that many of the Republican Party's conservative supporters sharply criticized.
--
"I have no intention of losing this battle," he said. "They started it, and we are going to win it." Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz yesterday responded scornfully to Mr. Dean's immigration rhetoric.

"Someone should remind Howard Dean that it was [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid [Nevada Democrat] who obstructed immigration reform, underscoring the fact that Democrats would rather manipulate the issue than reform it," he said. "President Bush and Republicans in Congress have increased border-security funding by more than 65 percent, expanded the number of border agents by 30 percent and significantly upgraded technology on the border."
Read All>> (subscription)

This may be good news for all of us citizens out here if the politics of the situation forces the Democrat and Republican parties to fall all over themselves and appeal to the wishes of the "voting" public.

We Will See!

The Convenience Of Swords And Stars

Extreme Fang - Huge One Hand Weapon - Photo Credit: excaliburbrothers.com

The neighborhood standards council in Tacoma, Washington is all up in arms about the sales of "Arms" in convenience stores. It seems that the local convenience stores in the area have been able to identify a niche market in the area for swords, throwing stars, and crossbows. It sounds like the renaissance faire might be just around the corner.

Excerpts from Convenience Store News Daily -

Washington C-Stores Encounter 'Sword Fight'
From Associated Press

TACOMA, Wash. -- Some government officials are crusading to get cheap versions of medieval weapons off the shelves of local Washington convenience stores because the appearance of collectible swords, crossbows and throwing stars is upsetting some customers, reported the Associated Press.

The city’s lawyers are having a difficult time, however, figuring out how to revise Tacoma’s “dangerous weapons” ordinance to stop the stores from selling collectible swords without also making it illegal for grocery stores to sell bread knives or camping stores to offer hunting knives, according to the report.
--
“I see no reason for a weapon to be convenient,” Fred Brookshire, chairman of the South End Neighborhood Council, told the AP.
Read All>>

At MAXINE, we are willing to guess that this "Starbucks" guzzling neighborhood council chairman has never been to South Central Los Angeles, say ... after a court verdict.

FlexFuel E85 For Freedom And Life

Chevrolet Astra Multipower - Photo Credit: Women Motorist

Interestingly, there are about 6 million flex-fuel vehicles in the US, but only 600 stations where they can refuel with E85.

The biggest and best lessons about the ethyl alcohol fuel transition experience come from Brazil. This South American country has been serious about the use of cellulose derived fuels for about 30 years now and their experience is paying big benefits as petro based fuel prices skyrocket.

Excerpts from Women Motorist -

Alternative Fuels - Lessons from Brazilia
by Bill Siuru, PhD, PE

In his 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush made a commitment "to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025." He also said ethanol from not only corn, as now produced in the U.S., but also cellulosic ethanol from wood chips and stalks and switch grass would be key in achieving this goal. Brazil, which should be independent of imported oil this year, is showing it doesn’t require any advanced technology like fuel cells. Not only will Brazil be foreign oil-independent, its motorists will not be dependent on only one fuel.

When the first of the fuel crises hit, the Brazilian government reacted with Proalcool in 1975, 75-percent gasoline blended with 25-percent ethanol produced from sugar cane, a major Brazilian crop. It responded to the second crisis with vehicles running on pure alcohol. By the mid-1980s, over 90-percent of Brazilian cars and light trucks ran on alcohol that was substantially cheaper than gasoline and available everywhere in Brazil.

When oil prices dropped in the mid-1980s, coupled with the discovery of new offshore oil fields, gasoline became cheaper. This was further compounded by a drought and a poor sugar harvest disrupting the supply of alcohol. Then by 1989, sugar prices started to rise dramatically and producers exported sugar rather than turn it into fuel. By 1997, alcohol capable cars represented less than 1-percent of new vehicles sold in Brazil.

Brazil learned a lesson from these ups and downs. The result were flex-fuel vehicles (FFV) that could run on any fuel from pure gasoline to pure alcohol. All Brazilian gasoline is blended with at least 20- to 25-percent ethanol. Some 29,000 out of 31,000 fueling stations in Brazil also offer 100 percent ethanol for the older alcohol-only vehicles. Brazil currently has between 3-million and 4-million ethanol fueled vehicles.
--
We could also look at fuel economy in fuel in a new way, that is 'miles-per-gallon of gasoline produced from fossil fuel' (MPGFF.) Thus, while vehicles running on E85 get less MPGs, they get significantly more MPGFFs. For example:

FUEL ECONOMY - Combined City/Highway Mileage
Vehicle MPG City MPGFF (miles-per-gallon-of-fossil-fuel)
Chevrolet Tahoe Gasoline 17
E85 13, 88 mpgff
Chevrolet Impala gasoline 24
E85 19, 126 mpgff
Ford Crown Victoria gasoline 21
E85 14, 93 mpgff
Toyota Prius gasoline 55
E85 35-45, 233-300 mpgff
Read All>>

Distribution, Distribution, Distribution ... Oh, and then let's grow something!

Numbers Game Isn't Real

Photo Credit: http://www.geocities.com/rummyfan/pics.html

Our democracy, in all of its nearly 230 year history, has survived many different military challenges, but none are more important than the challenges to the founding principle of civilian control over the military we are currently faced with.

Allot is being made out of the fact that (at the time of this post) up to 12 retired generals and "Flag" officers have a different opinion and approach to the management of the military than the present Secretary Of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. This, in light of the additional fact that there are over 7,000 retired generals and Flag officers as well as 1.4 million men and women currently serving in the military, who understand, respect, and appreciate the established American tradition of the military being subordinate to civilian direction and control.

There will be disagreements but the principle remains more important than the opinion of a few, albeit well trained and informed retirees.

Excerpts from the New York Post -

RUMSFELD'S JOB SECURITY
FIRING HIM LOSES IRAQ
By John Podhorez

April 18, 2006 -- WHAT'S the dumbest thing George W. Bush could possibly do right at this moment - the action that would, more than any other, suggest his presidency was and is all but finished?

The answer: Fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Either a forced resignation or a dismissal would effectively bring the Bush presidency to an end.

This is something that Bush's out-and-out foes and opponents of the war in Iraq surely understand, otherwise they wouldn't be salivating over the prospect and doing everything they can to put pressure on the president to make it happen.

But some supporters of the president's efforts in Iraq also seem anxious to see Rummy replaced. These thoughtful people have had problems with the war plan from the start and have been insisting for several years that only with another Defense Secretary can the war plan's mistakes be corrected and the conflict brought to a positive conclusion.

Yet such a move would be an unmitigated disaster for the effort in Iraq.
--
At the end of this destructive process, the new Secretary of Defense would take the oath of office in the midst of a general meltdown. The American people, hearing no confidence coming from the war's own leaders about the coming victory, would be throwing up their hands in even greater numbers.

And the 150,000 brave men and women of our armed forces who are in Iraq attempting to do something great, could not but realize that their countrymen and their leaders were really and truly washing their hands of the effort. At which point they would rightly lose heart, and they too would begin to lobby for a getaway.

If you are among those who now basically think we might as well declare defeat even before we go home, then by all means, shout "Fire Rummy" at the top of your lungs.

But if you are among those who believe the war in Iraq must be won and that we can win it, it is madness to join the "Fire Rummy" crew. Even if you think Rumsfeld doesn't deserve to keep the job, he must. There's no other way.
Read All>>

Wine?, Beer?, Which Is Healthier?

Beer drinkers toasting. A new Canadian study found that beer drinkers are more at risk of developing lung cancer than their non-beer-drinking peers, while wine consumption has an opposite effect. (AFP/File/Carl de Souza)

We are not talking calories here. A new study from Canada looks at two previous studies and is able to factor out smoking as a component in the results. It turns out that people who normally drink beer, have a higher chance of getting some forms of cancer.

Excerpts from Agence France-Presse (AFP) via Yahoo News -

New Canadian study links lung cancer risk to beer
Wed Apr 12, 3:36 PM ET

MONTREAL (AFP) - A new Canadian study found that beer drinkers are more at risk of developing lung cancer than their non-beer-drinking peers, while wine consumption has an opposite effect, scientists told AFP.

The study, which looked at two earlier large studies in the francophone province of Quebec, tried to discount the possible effects of smoking, which often goes hand-in-hand with beer consumption, to get clearer results.
--
"The type of people who drink beer are usually different from the type of people who drink wine in terms of socio-economic status, education level, lifestyle and eating habits," said lead author Andrea Benedetti. "Beer and chips versus wine and a salad."

Also, eating fruits and vegetables regularly seemed to counteract the carcinogenic effect of beer, Benedetti noted.
Read All>>

So, actually, you are more of what you eat as opposed to what you drink. Here at MAXINE, I will celebrate 14 years of the non-consumption of alcohol and tobacco at months end.

Looney Left - Rant vs "One Long Sustained Scream"

Maryscott O'Connor says her liberal Web log, My Left Wing, is "one long, sustained scream." - Photo Credit: By David Finkel - The Washington Post

This from The Washington Post -

The Left, Online and Outraged
Liberal Blogger Finds an Outlet and a Community
By David Finkel, Washington Post Staff Writer - Saturday, April 15, 2006; Page A01

SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. -- In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.

Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.

She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers "malevolent," a "sociopath" and "the Antichrist"? She smokes another cigarette. Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom she thinks of as "Satan," or about Karl Rove, "the devil"? Should it be about the "evil" Republican Party, or the "weaselly, capitulating, self-aggrandizing, self-serving" Democrats, or the Catholic Church, for which she says "I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place where the guilty suffer the tortures of the damned"?

Darfur, she finally decides. She will write about Darfur.
Read More>>

All by herself ... It is sad, really. With no facts. With no links. With little context or perspective. Driven to write about an African country without the internally developed sense of a religious or spiritual life (evidenced by the fact she feels the only way she can express herself is through "one long sustained scream"). To have to write about the Muslim genocide of Christians out of fascistic fear and hatred.

Be afraid, very afraid, if we do not show up at the polls to vote. The people she will elect get to run the country. They will run the global war on terror. They will watch over the country during the bird flu pandemic. Pray for her better mental health, peace, and serenity.

Reconquer - It Doesn't Surprise Mayor Antonio

The Mexican Cession (1848) is shown in red with the Gadsden Purchase (1853) in orange.
© 2004 Matthew Trump.

Last week, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa summed up the enormous undercurrent of discontent in the crowds gathered to protest our government's move to address immigration saying: "We wave these American flags because we say to the Americans that we clean your toilets, we clean your hotels and we take care of your children and now we ask you to help us take care of our children as well."

Excuse me; didn't we elect you mayor of an American city to represent the interests of the citizens of America that live in the city? Mayor, you sound as if the American citizens of your city do not matter and only the Latin illegal immigrants do.

Maybe we should all move to Tijuana and have the Mayor of that city take care of our children as Mayor Antonio wants us to do for the special interest group that he represents!

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Mexican aliens seek to retake 'stolen' land
By Valerie Richardson - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - April 16, 2006

DENVER -- La reconquista, a radical movement calling for Mexico to "reconquer" America's Southwest, has stepped out of the shadows at recent immigration-reform protests nationwide as marchers held signs saying, "Uncle Sam Stole Our Land!" and waved Mexico's flag.
--
The revolutionary tone has surprised even longtime immigration watchers such as Ira Mehlman, the Los Angeles-based spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

"I've always been skeptical myself about this [reconquista], but what I've seen over the last few weeks leads me to believe that there's more there than I thought," Mr. Mehlman said.

"You're seeing people marching with Mexican flags chanting, 'This is our country.' I don't think that we can dismiss this as youthful exuberance or a bunch of hotheads," he said.

Hispanic rights leaders insist there's nothing to the so-called reconquista, sometimes referred to as Aztlan, the mythical ancestral homeland of the Aztecs that reportedly stretches from the border to southern Oregon and Colorado.
--
At the same time, some analysts say the seismic demographic shifts brought on by unchecked border crossings and birth rates are resulting in a de facto reconquista.

"Demographically, socially and culturally, the reconquista of the Southwest United States by Mexico is well under way," Harvard University professor Samuel P. Huntington said in 2004.

"No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans can and do make that claim," he said.
--
MEChA, an acronym for the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, has come under fire for revolutionary language in its "El Plan de Aztlan," a founding document that declares "the independence of our mestizo nation," decries the "brutal gringo invasion," and says that land "rightfully ours will be fought for and defended."

What's notable about MEChA is its otherwise mainstream image. Most Hispanic leaders, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, belonged to MEChA in high school or college. Former Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante came under fire from conservatives for refusing to renounce his membership during the 2003 gubernatorial race.
--
"Aztlan isn't what people say it is, like the reconquista," said Mr. Rangel, who carried a MEChA sign at Monday's rally. "It's a spiritual homeland to Chicanos."
Read All>> (subscription)

MAXINE says - If it walks like a duck .... !

Mayor Antonio has been clear to stand in support of Latin illegal immigrants and it is easy to see why in the context of this article.

Tell the Mayor to visit Campo de Cahuenga in North Hollywood, California, near Cahuenga Pass. It originally was an adobe farmhouse on the Rancho Verdugo where the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed between Lieutenant Colonel John C. Frémont and General Andrés Pico in 1847, ending hostilities in California between Mexico and the United States. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding California and Texas to the United States, formally ended the war.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was the peace treaty that ended the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). The treaty provided for the Mexican Cession, in which Mexico ceded 1.36 million km² (525,000 square miles) to the United States in exchange for USD$15 million. The United States also agreed to take over $3.25 million in debts Mexico owed to American citizens.
(ht: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mexican-American_War)

Easter - Jesus Christ Has Risen Indeed

Romans 6:8-11

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (NIV)

Easter ain't eggs!

Easter is the living hope that the death and rising of Jesus Christ signifies:

• Hope of God's Presence in our midst of our most troubling circumstances.
• Hope of God's Power in the wake of our acknowledged failures.
• Hope of God's Promise in the face of our greatest fears.

1 Peter 1:3

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead... (NIV)

Romney Explodes Democracy

Governor Mitt Romney signed the landmark health insurance bill in Faneuil Hall yesterday as political leaders, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy, looked on. (David L. Ryan/ Globe Staff)

There is a famous quote about democracy by a noted Scottish jurist and historian, Alexander Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) that reads in part:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

The Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, has found a way to give the voters largess from the public treasury.

Excerpts from The Boston Globe -

Joy, worries on healthcare
As Romney signs bill, doubts arise about revenues
By Scott Helman and Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff April 13, 2006

Governor Mitt Romney signed most of a sweeping new healthcare bill into law yesterday at a festive Faneuil Hall ceremony hailed as a hallmark of bipartisan achievement, even as healthcare specialists expressed concern that the plan could start losing money in three years.
--
In a moment widely praised as historic for the state and seen as a big boost to Romney's presidential aspirations, the Republican governor basked in the credit and shared some, too, as he was joined by Democratic leaders of the Legislature and US Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

But amid the wide grins and handshakes, questions surfaced about the cost and the sweep of the legislation, which makes Massachusetts the first state to try to insure nearly all of its residents through an individual mandate to buy insurance.

A legislative staff analysis estimates that the groundbreaking healthcare plan would start losing money in two to three years, which could put pressure on lawmakers to spend more tax money, increase the fee on businesses or scale back the coverage of the sweeping bill. The analysis projects that the plan will be about $160 million short of its estimated cost of $1.56 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1, 2008.
Read All>>

So, is this really a good idea? Sure, we love to not pay for health care, but these type of programs will kill our way of life and explode our democracy.

To continue with quoting Tytler -

"The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage."

Yon Files 2 - From Kabul To The Poppy Fields

Some of the fields below obviously are poppy, but other areas are difficult to make out. Although only one species of poppy has narcotic properties, the number of variations remains uncatalogued. Photo Credit: Michael Yon

Michael Yon travels to the region where the number one cash crop in Afghanistan is grown. It is not so much that al-Qaida and the Taliban are the management problem here ... it is the speed at which these poppies can be grown and processed into heroin.

Excerpts from Michael Yon -

Friday, April 14th, 2006
Kabul to Lashkargar

When we landed in Kabul, Steve put the driver in the back and drove us through the crowded streets. There was a thirty minute ride ahead of us, alternating between racing and jamming in traffic. As we drove away from the airport, there were fewer Coalition soldiers about, and on the hills surrounding the town a dense warren of mud and stone houses that could have been erected thousands of years ago, although many insist that Kabul was once a little paradise.
--
There’s lots of money in the addiction-business, and opium injects more liquidity into Afghanistan than all those 85 other products combined. Afghanistan is the Opium Poppy King, producing nearly all of the world’s supply. Continuing the trend of the past several years, the 2006 crop is believed to be the largest in the history of the world. This, I am told, is closely related to the coincident rising tide of violence in this country.

Over our two days in Kabul, I got more background information from locals and from Brits, one of whom had spent more than two decades in Afghanistan and surrounds. Both nights we drove downtown to meet people for dinner. The restaurant menus were in English, the prices in dollars. The first night I had fresh tuna that was flown in from Dubai. Later that night Steve cleverly managed to back his Land Cruiser into a parked SUV. The Afghan driver, who had been sleeping, came to high alert and jumped out the door, but the telephone number exchange was civil and matter of fact.
--
Soon the Beechcraft had lifted us back into the dusty sky for the final leg to Lashkargar, the capital of Helmand Province, the navel of earth’s heroin production. Whereas the poppy in Uruzgan Province was not blooming and therefore difficult to spot from the air, much of the poppy in Helmand was flowering, and easy to see from the sky. The vast amounts of poppies under cultivation were astonishing, and had I not made photographic proof, I might be reluctant to say just how much is here.
--
Steve tells me that Afghan farmers cultivate eleven variations of the opium species of poppy, and often one farmer will grow several types at once. Some plants need less water or are more cold resistant, and others are bred for late or early harvest, and still others are characterized by bigger yields or better disease resistance. Many of the poppy farms we would see on the ground had sections with white flowers, another with pink and a third with red.
Read All>>

Needed: People for the Un-insulting Treatment of People

Photo Credit: KSBY, NBC Channel 6

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) do not have a clue when it comes to drawing analogies that strike a chord with other people with whom they would like sway to their cause.

Earlier this week in an open demonstration on the UC Santa Barbara campus, PETA erected a large billboard that created quite a stir. The billboard had images and a message comparing the lynching of two black men to the killing of animals for food. When a PETA spokeswoman offered her defense of the exhibition, emotions boiled over, especially among African-American students.

Not long after the controversial exhibit was put up, something blew it over. It's unclear whether it was a gust of wind or something else. The PETA protesters quickly decided that it was time to pack it up. UCSB police were on hand during the shouting match, but both sides were peaceful.
(Report from KSBY Channel 6 titled - "PETA banner sparks students' ire", Wednesday, April 12, 2006, By: Matt Cota)
Read All>>

This is not the first time PETA has put their foot in it. This organization compares the treatment of chickens for food to the Holocaust. These tactics employed by PETA are prime examples of when over-reaching as an art form becomes detrimental to ones cause. Do ya' think?

Chicken Serving Choices Cause Labeling Confusion

When buying chicken at the supermarket, it is a good policy to know if the chicken you are buying needs to be cooked before it is served ... or not.

It is due to this problem, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has recommended to food producers a new labeling standard. The new label standard requires producers to clearly label products as: "Uncooked: For Safety, Must be Cooked to an Internal Temperature of 165 degrees F as Measured by Use of a Thermometer". Further, the new labeling needs to be submitted for approval by May 1st or suffer recalls.

Excerpts from Food Navigator via FMI dailyLead-

Revised labelling required for poultry products
By Ahmed ElAmin

4/11/2006 - By next month food companies will be required to have more explicit instructions that uncooked, breaded or boneless poultry products need to be cooked.

The new requirement was sparked by a recent food recall due to consumer confusion over whether such products needed to be cooked. The product led to a number of people falling sick from Salmonella enteritidis.
--
The labelling re-application requirement applies to frozen poultry products that may also be stuffed or filled, charmarked, or artificially colored. Such products are similar frozen stuffed chicken entrees from that the FSIS recalled on March 10.
--
The FSIS will also approve the accompanying cooking instructions to insure consumers understand them. The instructions may not meet regulatory standards if consumers are directed to use a cooking method that is not practical or not likely to achieve the necessary level of food safety, the FSIS stated.

Microwaving or using a toaster oven to cook frozen product may not achieve the recommended internal temperature.
--
Serenade Foods Division, a Milford, Ind., firm, voluntarily recalled 75,800 pounds of frozen stuffed chicken entrees in March. The raw chicken entrees, because of their frozen state, labeling, and cooked appearance, may have caused consumers to believe these raw products are pre-cooked, the recall notice stated.

The products were contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis that causes human illness. Illnesses have been linked directly to these products through case history of the patients and through microbiological testing of both the products and affected consumers.
Read All>>

This notice would be really funny if food poisoning wasn't so painful and life threatening.

Veterans For Freedom - The Anti-Murtha

Image Credit: vetsforfreedom.org

Here is a web communications portal put together by veterans of our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. These people have a different point of view as to why our tax money and precious living capitol is being spent in these and other countries after 9/11.

Excerpts from Vets For Freedom Mission Statement:

The primary mission of Vets for Freedom will be to support our troops and insert our collective insights and experiences into this national debate. What makes this organization unique is that it is a nonpartisan group made up of veterans of all ranks and all walks of life who have firsthand experience of the horrors of war. We will seek to ensure that political discussions over the Iraq War are honest and forthright by telling the story from the firsthand perspectives of veterans.
--
The Global War on Terror is being fought on two fronts. Our troops are performing magnificently in Iraq fighting a tough and dirty enemy. We are winning in Iraq through a combined military, political, diplomatic and economic effort. However, we are losing the war for the will of the American public to see this conflict through because of the distorted means by which it is too often portrayed.

Inaccurate or politically inflamed media reports and policymaker statements based on rumor, speculation and even nonexistent events place an almost singular focus on negative aspects of the conflict versus any attention to many successes that take place almost daily. Those of us from the frontline have a much different view, but for reasons beyond our understanding, our perspective has been largely ignored. Vets for Freedom seeks to change this environment, providing viewpoints both positive and negative on what will be needed to achieve victory.
--
To be successful, veterans and their supporters must now fight the second front of this war. We must win the American people to win in Iraq.

Semper Fi!
Wade Zirkle
Read All>>

Wade Zirkle, Executive Director of Veterans For Freedom, has written an Op-Ed column for the Washington Post where he articulates a point of view about John Murtha and the effects his actions in Congress have had on our troops in the mission.

Excerpts from the Washington Post -

Troops in Support Of the War
By Wade Zirkle - Thursday, April 13, 2006; Page A21

Earlier this year there was a town hall meeting on the Iraq war, sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), with the participation of such antiwar organizations as CodePink and MoveOn.org. The event also featured Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who had become an outspoken critic of the war. To this Iraq war veteran, it was a good example of something that's become all too common: People from politics, the media and elsewhere purporting to represent "our" views. With all due respect, most often they don't.
--
In view of his distinguished military career, John Murtha has been the subject of much attention from the media and is a sought-after spokesman for opponents of the Iraq war. He has earned the right to speak. But his comments supposedly expressing the negative views of those who have and are now serving in the Middle East run counter to what I and others know and hear from our own colleagues -- from junior officers to the enlisted backbone of our fighting force.

Murtha undoubtedly knows full well that the greatest single thing that drags on morale in war is the loss of a buddy. But second to that is politicians questioning, in amplified tones, the validity of that loss to our families, colleagues, the nation and the world.

While we don't question his motives, we do question his assumptions. When he called for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, there was a sense of respectful disagreement among most military personnel. But when he subsequently stated that he would not join today's military, he made clear to the majority of us that he is out of touch with the troops. Quite frankly, it was received as a slap in the face.
--
The morale of the trigger-pulling class of today's fighting force is strong. Unfortunately, we have not had a microphone or media audience willing to report our comments. Despite this frustration, our military continues to proudly dedicate itself to the mission at hand: a free, democratic and stable Iraq and a more secure America. All citizens have a right to express their views on this important national challenge, and all should be heard. Veterans ask no more, and they deserve no less.
Read All>>

MAXINE urges all, who have the will, to donate to Veterans For Freedom if this portal and position is something that appeals to you.

The MSM should put on a spokesperson from this organization every time they show statements from Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan, John Murtha, MoveOn.org, Dick Durban, and etc., in an effort to achieve some balance in their war position presentations they broadcast.
(ht: Hugh Hewitt)

Arizona Steps On Board The E85 Train

Arizona State Capitol - Photo Credit: Pat & Debbi Furrie

Kansas, Iowa, and now Arizona.

The biggest problem with E85 is distribution complicated by current emissions regulations. Every dollar that adds to the Arab oil infrastructure is another dollar that could flow to terrorists. War-footing is the issue and E85 is one of the quickest answers as to how the average American can participate in the war-on-terror.

Excerpts from The Arizona Daily Star -

Ethanol fuel blend gets boost from state
By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services
Tucson, Arizona Published: 04.12.2006

PHOENIX — A new state law should clear the way for more widespread use of a new fuel blend composed largely of ethanol.

But the law, signed Tuesday by Gov. Janet Napolitano, assumes any service station will sell it. And it also assumes Arizonans actually buy cars and trucks that can use it.

That second point is critical: Motorists who think they're doing good for the environment by filling up on the fuel — made up of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline — could end up voiding their warranties and potentially ruining their engines.

State law does allow the sale of the blend, known as E85, in most of the state. The big exception is in the Phoenix area, where air pollution problems require the sale of specially blended fuels.
--
So who will sell it?

"That's the $100,000 question," Shuler said. He said Pinal Energy hopes to persuade a service station near the new plant to offer it, with an eye on creating more demand.

There are only four places in the state where motorists can get E85 — three in Tucson and one in Sierra Vista.
--
For example, Chevrolet manufactures Impala and Monte Carlo models with a 3.5-liter engine that can be fueled with E85. But not all of those vehicles with that engine will handle the fuel.

DaimlerChrysler announced earlier this month that some flex-fuel vehicles previously available only to fleet buyers will now be offered to the general public.
Read All

Travel To Afghanistan Q2-2006 - The Story Begins

Afghanistan from the sky - Photo Credit: Michael Yon

Michael Yon, one of the most widely recognized military type bloggers, is on a writing mission to Afghanistan and Iraq. This link is of his first dispatch from the field upon his entry to Afghanistan.

Maxine plans to post a link whenever Michael has a post in continuation of his story.

Excerpts from Michael Yon -

Wednesday, April 12th, 2006
Curious Circumstance
Mysterious Land
By Michael Yon

I met up with an old friend in Dubai. Steve Shaulis and I served together in the Army, and we attended the Defense Language Institute together. After we both left the Army, we headed in very different directions. Steve began doing business in places like Romania, Uzbekistan, Thailand, and Singapore, and I started a business in Poland. Still, over the past twenty years we’ve managed to stay in contact, encountering each other now and then on three continents and in perhaps a dozen countries.

Steve first began his forays into Afghanistan in 1997, years before the latest phase of the war. Back then, he was doing business during the reign of the Taliban. Sometimes I’d visit Steve when he was home in Florida, where we’d don our scuba gear at night and walk out his back door to hunt for lobsters in the ocean. While we were finning underwater in the darkness cutting swaths with our lights to lobster hideouts, faxes from Afghanistan would be piling up in his office.

Although television was eventually banned there, many of the Taliban were fanatical about pro wrestling. Steve looks like a wrestler, and he’d sometimes wear wrestling T-shirts which often prompted the Taliban guards to ask for updates on their favorites. The Undertaker was particularly popular there. “They might be fanatics,” he told me, “but they are simple folk.”
--
Enemy operations in Afghanistan are financed largely with drug money. Poppy eradication in Thailand had been a great success, and though the Taliban are widely credited in the press for having stamped out poppies in Afghanistan, their eradication program had only succeeded for a year. After the invasion, the Afghan farmers again planted opium poppies, so in 2002-03, poppy propagation in Afghanistan was on the up tick. Then, in 2004 the crop was bigger still, exceeded only by the crop in 2005. A State Department official recently told me that the 2006 harvest will be the biggest in world history—and nearly all of the opium from those flowers will be exported.
--
The Coalition forces are in Afghanistan for the long haul; permanent bases are under construction. Steve is currently fulfilling $15 million in base construction contracts in dangerous parts of the country. These contracts are mostly for the United Kingdom, the United States, and the United Nations.
--
Some troops have begun calling the battle for Afghanistan “the Forgotten War.” They are largely correct. When it comes to national and media attention, Iraq is not much better, but since there are roughly six or seven times more troops in Iraq, it might seem that our soldiers there would get more recognition. An Army officer told me recently that per capita casualties for Afghanistan and Iraq are nearly the same. Although six times as much coverage would be about right, mathematically, most soldiers I encountered who were serving in Iraq told me they had never seen a journalist there.
--
Before coming to Afghanistan, I emailed to Nick Meo, a British journalist whom I had come to know in Asia a couple of years before. Nick is now in Iraq, but he had spent much recent time in Afghanistan. I asked Nick for suggestions about traveling in Kandahar, Helmand, and Urozgan provinces.

He answered quickly:

Yes. My suggestion is don’t go. They are too dangerous to travel in by yourself if you don’t know your way around. If you’re going with Steve then you should be okay, but they are all very dangerous places now and security has deteriorated massively in the last year. You might just about get away with driving or flying to Kandahar, and making some trips outside the city—maybe to Lashkargar. But you will not make it back alive from north Helmand or Uruzgan.

I did not take his advice, but as of this writing I am still alive. The journey has begun.
Read All>>

I urge all to read all. Following Michael Yon will be a little like following the stories from the front during World War II.

Mr. Yon does not pull punches and he also does not have a liberal bias or agenda. He is an experienced journalist who chooses to work independently.

It's Money, NOT Heat That Fuels Warming Debate

Photo Credit: Time.com

The argument is clear, it's not the forces of religion that corrupt science and the work of scientists ... it is the bureaucratic, and fourth estate - left.

Scientists are motivated to feed the alarmist groundswell through the process of grants and media adulation. The religious forces in this country actually embrace the unemotional and apolitical application of science - a method that allows us to better understand the miracles of the Earth around us.

Excerpts from WSJ's Opinion Journal -

Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.
BY RICHARD LINDZEN - Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes.
--
But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.
--
So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.
--
Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.

M. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.
Read All>>

Roosevelt (Teddy Bear) And Immigration

Protesters march in downtown St. Louis in support of immigration reform Sunday, April 9, 2006. More that five thousand took part in the rally which included St. Louis political leaders and others. (AP Photo/James A. Finley)

At roughly 300 million and illegal immigrant population estimated at 12 to 15 million, the numbers suggest that the American citizen is America, not the illegal immigrant.

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907 -

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.

But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all.

We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Get in line and become an American (respect our laws and sovereignty) or go home.

We Owe Ya' IOWA - Leading A War Footing Strategy

Photo Credit: flickr.com

Iowa's state senate does Kansas one better.

Yesterday, Iowa voted to place a strategy to embrace the availability of E85 Ethanol fuel mix (85% Ethanol, 15% petroleum fuel) at the forefront of its fuel consumption agenda. Through aggressive incentives given from the state tax code, Iowa expects to have 25% of all fuel sold be from "renewable" resources by 2020. The incentives are targeted toward the development of the distribution infrastructure designed for E85 and Bio-diesel.

Kansas, last month, put in place incentives that address the consumer side of the debate and by giving additional incentives on the distribution side, hopes to have 33 stations that are E85 capable by the end of the year (up from only 10).

Ethanol E85 cars use less petroleum fuel and emit less hydrocarbon emissions (when running on E85) than cars using Hybrid technology claim officials at General Motors. GM is the leading producer of flexible fuel automobiles able to use standard gasoline and E85 when available.

Excerpts from The Gazette -

Senate raises renewable fuel bar
Published: 04/11/2006 12:46 PM
Updated: 04/11/2006 3:12 PM
By: Rod Boshart - The Gazette

DES MOINES, IA - The Iowa Senate voted 49-1 today to set a more-aggressive renewable fuel standard and provide incentives for stations to sell more ethanol-based fuel without mandating its use or boosting the state's gas tax on regular unleaded gasoline.

"It's a pretty good compromise," said Senate Co-President Jack Kibbie, D-Emmetsburg, who favored mandating ethanol-blended fuel use for all vehicles in Iowa. He said he would have preferred a mandate, but believed the aggressive timeline would hasten more ethanol use.

"This is the most aggressive renewable fuels program in the country," said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association.
--
Senators also beefed up state money to assist service stations in upgrading infrastructure for delivering 85 percent blended ethanol and biodiesel products to consumers. The Senate nearly doubles the available funding to $16 million - providing $4 million annually for four years.
--
The revised version of House File 2754 sets a 10 percent standard beginning in 2010 and would increase it by 1 percent annually until 2014, when the requirement would jump by 2 percent each year to achieve the 25 percent threshold by 2020.
Read All>>

Political Movements In Iraqi Government Formation Seen

This from The Fourth Rail -

Declining Jaafari
By Bill Roggio

Sistani, Talabani and Sunni parties call for an end to the political deadlock for the selection of the Iraqi Prime Minister

Pressure on Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to withdraw his nomination as the United Iraqi Alliance candidate as the next prime minister increases, this time from some very influential quarters. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most respected and influential Shiite religious leader in Iraq, has reluctantly entered the fray. This indicates the gravity of the situation, as Sistani does not wish to become the arbiter of Iraqi politics.
--
Further calls for Jaafari's resignation come from outside the UIA. President Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Kurdish alliance, has "informed a committee from the Alliance that the Kurdish bloc's decision to reject Jaafari was final," and, according to Reuters, "I think the majority of other groups, or all the other groups, are rejecting Dr Jaafari as prime minister."
--
Previously, the calls for Jaafari's resignation came from different factions within the UIA, including SCIRI's AbdulMahdi and Jalal al-Deen al-Saghir, Mohammed Ismail Khazali of the Fadhila party, and independent UIA member Kasim Daoud. Now that Sistani has openly withdrawn support, Jaafari's time is short. Jaafari's Dawa party must decide if it will support him to the bitter end, in defiance of Sistani's council and the united factions outside the UIA. Will Jaafari and Sadr stand against Iraq?

Sadr must decide if it will bring the Mahdi Army to the streets of Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala and force a showdown with the U.S. Army and Marines, and the Iraqi security forces. Iranian plans to gain influence via Jaafari and Sadr are close to being in shambles. The real questions are will Iran risk an open confrontation with the Coalition and Iraqi government by backing an open insurrection by supporting Sadr's Mahdi Army and elements of the Badr Brigades said to be under their control, and will they risk losing their most influential and powerful pieces on the Iraqi chess board?
Read All>>

Click 'Read All' link to read 'comments' to the above item as well. This is quite enlightening.

When Buying, It's Your "State" Of Mind That Matters

My Brand, My Cause - For some Americans, how you vote is a big influence on what you buy ... and where - Image Credit: Business Week

Many companies factor in the capitol consequence of corporate activism. Marketing and public relations departments throughout the business world are beginning to realize that customers are allowing their political views color or shape their purchasing patterns.

Red state, blue state, it is all a state of mind when a customer makes the choice to shop at your store or buy your products. People, more often than not, are voting with their pocket books in real time.

Excerpts from Business Week, issue release APRIL 17, 2006 -

NEWS: ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY
Companies In The Crossfire
The politically passionate are taking aim at businesses they see as repugnant. Red or blue, they can be a PR nightmare

When Martha E. Ture took a road trip from Indiana to California on I-80, she ate at Subway restaurants rather than Wendy's (WEN ) or McDonald's (MCD ). When she last flew to Las Vegas, she took United Airlines, not American or Continental. When she drinks beer, Ture, who describes herself as a "writer, singer, guitar picker, nature lover, [and] politico," eschews Coors (TAP ) for Sierra Nevada. She stays at Hyatt hotels (never Marriott), and, when she visits a big-box discount store, she always patronizes Costco (COST ), not Wal-Mart (WMT ).

Then there's Jennifer Giroux of Madeira, Ohio. The mother of nine, a registered nurse and Christian-bookstore owner, always gets her pizza at Domino's. She never takes the kids to Ben & Jerry's, opting instead for Cincinnati hometown favorite Graeter's Ice Cream. At the mall, she won't allow the family to walk anywhere near Abercrombie & Fitch, famous for its suggestive advertising. And when she does laundry, and she does a lot, she never buys Procter & Gamble's Tide detergent or Bounce fabric softener.Ture and Giroux don't have much in common. But they do share a trait: Their product choices are driven not by low price or customer service, but by politics.

Like millions of Americans, these two consumers choose -- or avoid -- certain companies because of the political donations of their management or the controversial causes they support.
--
Crisis communications strategists say some companies get it right. They cite P&G and Miller Brewing Co. for responding to incipient crises by reaching out to angry consumers and communicating a concise, consistent, nonpolitical response. But others only compound their woes. Ford (F ) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ) changed positions in their attempts to appease critics, only to face an even stronger backlash from the other side.
--
Boycott efforts sometimes veer into slapstick. In 2004, Teresa Heinz Kerry, widow of Senator H. John Heinz III, made headlines campaigning for her second husband, Democratic Presidential candidate John F. Kerry. Conservative talk-show hosts told red voters to buy new W Ketchup instead of H.J. Heinz' signature product. The upstart's slogan: "You don't support Democrats. Why should your ketchup?" Heinz limited the damage by quickly issuing a statement noting that Mrs. Kerry had nothing to do with the company. One corporate counselor says Heinz let the world know that "Teresa is not on the assembly line stomping tomatoes, and the money is not going to her.

"Three conservatives angry at Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the liberal founders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. (UL ), launched Star Spangled Ice Cream in 2005. Its flavors include Iraqi Road, I Hate the French Vanilla, and Smaller GovernMINT. "We're trying to appeal to conservatives, red states, and NASCAR dads who like Ben & Jerry's ice cream but can't [swallow] their politics," says Vice-President Richard Lessner. The boutique brand is available online, at retail outlets in the Mid-Atlantic region, and at 10 military bases in Texas. Lessner says its sales continue to build as conservatives talk it up and spoon it down.
--
Take Wendy's, for example. Although the hamburger chain's PAC has given 93% of its campaign contributions to Republicans over the past five years, it views itself as a "nonpolitical company" that does not take positions on controversial issues, says spokesman Denny Lynch: "We serve customers on both sides of the aisle." Wendy's backs winners, he says, and today those incumbents are mostly Republican. "We're not a red company," Lynch says. "If Democrats start winning, we'll move our money to Democrats. It's just business."

Other companies say it's better business to steer clear of politics. Costco has won praise from liberals as the un-Wal-Mart, with higher wages and better benefits. But Costco CEO James D. Sinegal has not created a corporate PAC because "we don't believe a public company should take shareholders' money and support political candidates or causes." He and Chairman Jeffrey H. Brotman donate heavily to Democrats, Sinegal says, "but we do it with our own money. I'm a merchant, not a politician." Most American merchants would agree -- if only the activists would leave them to their business.
Read All>>

Life's A Wire-To-Wire Beach For Bourdais!

Jumbotron celebration (L to R) with Justin Wilson (2nd), Sebastien Bourdais (1st) with his team owner - Paul Newman, and Alex Tagliani (3ird). Photo Credit: ecj

... and it really was never that close, not even on the re-starts after the yellow flags.

Excerpts from AP via the Globe And Mail -

AUTO RACING ROUNDUP
Bourdais wins Grand Prix after pileup derails three
Associated Press

Long Beach, Calif. -- Sébastien Bourdais keeps getting better.

The Frenchman began the quest for his third Champ Car World Series title in a row with an overpowering victory yesterday in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Winning here for the second year in a row, Bourdais trailed only after a mid-race pit stop, leading 70 of 74 laps on the 1.986-mile (3.196-kilometre), 11-turn circuit that threads its way through city streets tucked between downtown and the Pacific Ocean.

The 27-year-old driver was dominating throughout the weekend, leading nearly every practice and winning both sessions of qualifying. Through most of the race, he was as much as a half-second faster than runner-up Justin Wilson on each lap.
--
Likely championship contenders Paul Tracy of Toronto, Bruno Junqueira and A.J. Allmendinger didn't even make it through the first turn of the first race of the season.

As the leaders approached the left-hand turn, Mario Dominguez hit the rear of Forsythe Championship Racing teammate Tracy's car, lifting his rear tires off the ground and sending Tracy careering into Bourdais's teammate Junqueira.

Junqueira slammed into RuSport's Allmendinger and Oriol Servia also got caught in the accident that sent all of them to the garage.

"It's definitely not the way to start the season," said Tracy, a four-time Long Beach winner. "That accident took out a lot of championship contenders, and it's a real shame."
Read All>>

Additional Anaylsis from Robin Miller at the CCWS website .

NOTE: Paul Tracy's Forsythe Championship Racing teammate, Mario Dominguez, comes in 4th. Mario said, "This was a strong way to start the season. I'm a little disappointed because we were very close to stepping on the podium. We were saving fuel for most of the race to make sure that we could stay out one lap longer than the guys in front of us. We managed to run quick and consistent laps and at the same time stay within our fuel mileage target and it paid off, we stayed out one more lap and came out in front of Tagliani. Unfortunately our tire choice didn't work very well."

Cristiano da Matta, back from a try at Formula 1, had a strong showing in a second tier team car. It was a very good day for Dale Coyne Racing as the Champion driver line up of Cristiano da Matta and Jan Heylen deliver 5th and 7th place finishes.

O' Canada - Kyoto No Mo'

Power bloc ... WESTPAC, the business roundtable, meets with journalists last Thursday and issues supportive initiatives to combat global warming (Sydney Morning Herald – second article excerpted below). Photo: Lee Besford

Is it just a more conservative new government or the weight of sixty scientific experts that put the kabash on Kyoto in Canada?

Excerpts from the Telegraph -

Kyoto is pointless, say 60 leading scientists
By Philip Sherwell(Filed: 09/04/2006)

Canada's new Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, has been urged by more than 60 leading international climate change experts to review the global warming policies he inherited from his centre-Left predecessor.

In an open letter that includes five British scientists among the signatories, the experts praise his recent commitment to review the controversial Kyoto protocol on reducing emissions harmful to the environment.
--
They emphasised that the study of global climate change is, in Mr Harper's own words, an "emerging science" and added: "If, back in the mid 1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary." Despite claims to the contrary, there is no consensus among climate scientists on the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, they wrote.
--
"'Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified.

"Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise'."
Read All>>

So, who are these guys listening to?

Excerpts from The Sydney Morning Hearld -

Business warms to change
New research on global warming has caused a split at the top end of town, writes Deborah Snow.

WESTPAC chief executive David Morgan had an interesting story to tell at an invitation-only breakfast for a handful of journalists in Sydney last week.

The anecdote concerned a recent private conversation with the head of the giant General Electric Company in the US, Jeff Immelt.

"He said to me he was virtually certain that the first action of the next president of the United States, be it Republican or Democrat, would be to initiate urgent action on climate change. And he wasn't saying that as a casual political comment ... he is [allocating] billions of dollars worth of investment in the confidence of that development."

George Bush and John Howard have both cold-shouldered the case for more direct government intervention to combat global warming.

But last Thursday Morgan - and five other top businesss executives - put their heads above the parapet with the launch of the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change, a powerful new voice which wants business and government to respond more rapidly to inexorably rising world temperatures.
--
It is also an open rebuke to the Business Council of Australia, the body which represents the chief executives of Australia's top 100 companies. The council was so wracked with division the last time it debated the issue nearly four years ago that it wound up deadlocked and decided not to take a position at all.

Morgan told journalists last week that the council's debate had been "immature", and signalled that he and other members of the roundtable would now be going back into that forum to try to move it forward. "The thing that has been missing is some fact base about the economics," he said.
Read All>>

The fact that these business leaders are basing their action and opinions on "a recent private conversation with the head of the giant General Electric Company in the US, Jeff Immelt" is pretty scary!

Let me see, who would MAXINE listen to about "global warming" ... 60 scientists or ... the head of a company that left Katie Couric on the air for fifteen years just to have her bolt off to be the on-air cornerstone of the competition’s news division.

Palm Sunday

Photo Credit: http://www-bfs.ucsd.edu/pur/sbo/images/lone_palm.jpg

This from The Anchoress -

7 Days that Shook the World
by Greg Kandra - April 9, 2006

After spending the last few weeks in the desert of Lent, suddenly we find ourselves in an oasis, clutching long leaves of palms.

But like so many things you see after being in the desert, it’s a mirage. What we see, or think we see, is about to shift before our eyes.

Soon enough, the palms will be whips. The leaves will be thorns. Jubilation will become jeers. That is the paradox and the mystery of Holy Week.

The liturgies of this week are powerful and primal. In the days to come, there is silence and smoke, fire and water, shadow and light. We are a part of something both ancient and new, and what we do this week reminds us of that. The altar will be stripped. The cross will be venerated. The tabernacle will be emptied. The Blessed Sacrament will be moved. Bells will be stilled.

And yet here we stand, at the gates to Jerusalem, palms in our hands and hosannas on our lips, beginning the arduous trek to Calvary.

It is easy to be distracted by the events of the world, and not really pay attention to what we will do this week. Somewhere, wars are raging, and politicians are squabbling. Somewhere, Easter eggs are being sold, and chocolate is being inventoried, and plastic grass is lining wicker baskets.

But not here. Not now. Not yet.

This week, take the time to wonder about what we are doing, and what we are remembering.

For close to two thousand years, we have gathered like this, in places like this, to light candles and chant prayers and read again the ancient stories of our deliverance and redemption.

But are we aware of what we are doing? Do we understand what it means? Do we realize the price that was paid? A proper accounting is impossible. The ledger—His life, for our souls—seems woefully unbalanced.

So try this. This week, take a moment in each day that passes to wonder: What was He doing during this time of that one week all those centuries ago? What was crossing His mind on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday? What sort of anguish? What kind of dread?

Has anything we have ever worried about, or lost sleep over, or agonized about, even come close?

He was a man like us in all things but sin. He must have been terrified, His mind buzzing with questions. Long after the others had drifted off to sleep, did He stay awake and worry? Maybe He sat up alone, late at night, whittling a piece of wood, the way His father had taught Him, until a splinter sliced His skin, drawing a rivulet of blood. He might have flinched and thought: Well, this is nothing. And still it stings. How intense would the pain of death become? How long would it last? How much humiliation would He be forced to endure, stripped and bleeding? And: What about His mother? Is there anything He could do to spare her from this?

As you shop for Easter baskets and dye, think of this. Ponder this. Wonder about it. Make it a kind of prayer.

And then, remember what we are doing, and why.

Because, of all the calendars in all of human history, this is the week that changed the world.

Wilson Breaks Up Newman/Haas Front Row

Sebastien Bourdais wins the pole position - Photo Credit: CCWS

Sebastian Bourdais sets new track record on his way to keeping the provisional pole position he earned yesterday, and scoring the 19th pole of his career (tying him for 10th all time with Rex Mays and Danny Sullivan). Tracy drops to a disappointing sixth position in the starting grid.

This from the CCWS website -

A Champ Car driver gets 15 laps around any given track in order to set a fast time in qualifying, but two-time defending Bridgestone Presents Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford champion Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald's Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), used just six of them to establish his dominance in Long Beach.

Bourdais set a new track record on his sixth trip around the 1.968-mile Long Beach street circuit, then decided to spend the rest of his day admiring his handiwork, getting out of car after just one stint on his red-walled Bridgestone Potenza tires. His top lap of 1:06.886 (105.924 mph) was nearly a half-second better than anything anyone else in the 18-car field was able to muster on a sunny Saturday, giving him the Bridgestone Pole Position for tomorrow's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The defending Long Beach champion earned his 19th career Champ Car pole with the effort, moving him into a tie for 10th on the all-time Champ Car list. He will be joined on the front row for tomorrow's 76-lap affair by RuSPORT's Justin Wilson (#9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), who snared the second spot in today's qualifying with a best lap of 1:07.208 (105.416 mph). Bourdais' Newman/Haas Racing teammate Bruno Junqueira (#2 Hole In The Wall Camps Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) rounded out the top three after posting a top effort of 1:07.225 (105.389 mph).
--
Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) was the first driver to wrest the top spot away from Bourdais, vaulting to the top of charts at the halfway-point of the 35-minute session.

Tracy's best lap triggered a furious run of quick circuits that saw his Forsythe Championship Racing teammate Mario Dominguez (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) jump ahead before Bourdais decided to put his cards on the table. Using the red-walled option tires from Bridgestone, the Frenchman went to the point on his third lap, got into the 66-second range on his fifth and set his eventual pole-winning time on his next pass.
--
Tomorrow's season-opening Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach will take the green flag at 1 p.m. local, 4 p.m. Eastern. The race can be seen live on NBC as well as the official website of the Champ Car World Series, www.champcar.ws, using the popular Race Director feature.
Read All>>

The top nine positions are within one second of each other making this first race for ChampCar more competitive than the IndyCar qualifying at the St. Pete street course last week. IndyCar only managed to have the top six cars post times within one second of the top qualifying time.

Tomorrow, MAXINE will be on the streets of Long Beach! Yeah!

Audio Stalking - A New Way To Watch You

Photo Credit: London Times

It always feels like ..., someone is watching meeeeeee!

We are aware that businesses and municipalities have been installing cameras all over for security purposes, but did you know that if you are in the proximity of a cellphone user that, inadvertently, your conversations might be picked up and monitored as well?

You may become a part of a larger survey to gage advertising exposure without your permission, and worse, without your knowledge.

At least, when you are out in public, you know you may be watched ... for your own safety. With this new technology it is possible that you may now be exposed to monitoring within your own home ... without your knowledge.

This from the Wall Street Journal -

Ad Measurement Is Going High Tech
Explosion of Media Offerings Complicates Finding Whether Message Is Getting Through
By DON CLARK - April 6, 2006; Page B4

Media companies have long searched, with mixed results, for proof that advertising works. Some high-tech help may be on the way.

A number of established audience-measurement companies and industry newcomers are developing tools to better gauge the connection between media exposure and consumer behavior. The audience-measurement job is more complicated these days because of an explosion of media offerings in and outside the home.

A dark horse in the race is Integrated Media Measurement Inc., a start-up led by some prominent technology entrepreneurs that is using specially adapted cellphones to measure what consumers listen to and see. The company has developed software that helps the phones take samples of nearby sounds, which are identified by comparing them against a database.

Besides television and radio, IMMI, as the San Mateo, Calif., company calls itself, says the technology can track exposure to CDs, DVDs, videogames, sporting events, audio and video on portable gadgets and movies in theaters. The closely held company has been testing its system for nine months with about 200 consumers in Sacramento, Calif., and hopes to help answer some tricky questions. They include:

• How often are TV shows watched outside the home?

• Which songs prompt listeners to change radio stations?

• Which movie trailers get viewers to go to the theater?

"For the first time, you may be able to get an answer to one of the holy-grail questions -- is my promo working?" says Alan Wurtzel, president of research for General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal unit, who has been briefed on the IMMI system. "It's a very interesting methodology."
--
Some companies argue that cellphones could lead to distorted research. Survey participants, for example, could change how often they carry or converse on phones or download content to them.

Arbitron Inc. instead proposes a special-purpose gadget called the portable People Meter, which it has been testing in Houston. GfK AG's Mediamark Research Inc. also is developing a pager-size media-measurement device.
--
With conventional media ratings, "we don't have the opportunity to take a look at cause and effect," said Artie Bulgrin, senior vice president of research and sales development at ESPN, which has been evaluating IMMI's service. "What we see so far is very interesting and very compelling."
Read All>>

Say again? What's that program you're watching?

Technology creep and privacy, it is becoming a big issue.

Of Flag Burning To Flag Banning In Colorado

A group of students hold an immigration protest across the street from Skyline High School in Longmont, Colo., on Friday, after school officials denied the students to protest on campus. Daily Times-Call photo by Richard M. Hackett via Associated Press

Civil protests take on many forms. The displaying our nation's flag, for ANY reason, should not be considered to be an insightful or negative act.

In Colorado, the nationally mandated education establishment felt it was perfectly ok to ban the display of the American Flag.

In the morally equivalent world of academia, if the Mexican Flag waved in protest to the wish of American citizens of having our immigration laws be respected, then the display of the American Flag in support of the American rule-of-law must be insulting as well.

This is a prime example of why "home schooling" and "vouchers" alternatives to the present education system have been gaining popularity. The "inmates" have come to run the asylum!

Excerpts frim the Washington Times Insider -

Colorado school drops ban on flags
By Valerie Richardson - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - April 8, 2006

DENVER -- Students at Shaw Heights Middle School wore Old Glory on their T-shirts without fear of reprisal yesterday after their principal bowed to community pressure to drop the school's flag ban.

Principal Myla Shepherd canceled the ban late Thursday night after an outcry from parents, students and state leaders, including Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, who said the school rule violated state law.
--
Ms. Shepherd said she changed the dress code March 31 after nationwide immigration rallies led to "some unrest and increased tensions among students." Some students taunted each other with U.S. and Mexican flags, while several dozen students wore camouflage one day in support of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Another Colorado school, Skyline High School in Longmont, enacted a ban on flag displays after some students threw U.S. and Mexican flags in each other's faces. Skyline also lifted the prohibition yesterday.

The about-face came shortly after Mr. Suthers sent letters to the schools Thursday along with copies of the state statute, which states that the right to display the U.S. flag "shall not be infringed with respect to the display: (a) On an individual's person; (b) Anywhere on an individual's personal or real property."

"While schools can and should act to prevent conduct by students that interferes with the education process, their remedy must be narrowly tailored and cannot include a general ban on displaying the American flag," Mr. Suthers said.
--
Eric Golgart, whose sixth-grade daughter, Katie, was suspended Thursday for wearing a Marines T-shirt, said the superintendent promised to expunge the suspensions from the students' records.

Still, Mr. Golgart said he wanted to see Ms. Shepherd resign her post and issue an apology to the U.S. Marine Corps.

"As soon as she started suspending kids, it got personal," said Mr. Golgart. "One girl who was suspended has a brother and sister-in-law fighting in Iraq. She's been wearing these shirts all year."
Read All>>

So now, in Colorado anyway, it is ok to NOT be suspended from attendance to the nationally mandated education system for showing support for our military (national employees) or displaying our American flag (our nation’s symbol). Thank GOD!

Please tell Mr. Golart that he will be waiting until the U.S. becomes part of Mexico, or a Muslim nation for the principal (Mrs. Shepard) to resign her post and give that apology to our troops.

Of course, if the "inmates" carry the day with their version of Ward Churchill like attitudes and philosophy ... the apology may not be that far off!

Is It Racism, Or "Just Another One Of Them Racing Deals"?

(ht: Michelle Malkin)
From COX & FORKUM on Dateline planting Muslims in the stands to gage reaction.

As MAXINE sees it, given the three-fer in the middle, we'd be giving the 'raspberry' to the NBC camaraman (not the Jeff Gordon fan ... or the Muslim)!

Frenchie Lays It Down - Gains Seasons First Point

Sebastien Bourdais qualifies at Long Beach - Photo Credit: CCWS

The day was cool and so was the challange to be at the top of the point standings after today's first qualifing session of the season.

Excerpts from Champ Car website -

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

It took just 30 minutes for two-time defending Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford champion Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald's Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) to resume his place at the top of the point standings, as the Frenchman claimed the first available point of the 2006 season by leading Friday qualifying at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Bourdais earned the first point of the year and guaranteed himself a front-row starting spot for Sunday's season opener after posting a best lap of 1:07.675 (104.689 mph) to lead Friday qualifying at the 1.968-mile street circuit in Long Beach. Bourdais' fast lap ended a furious game of leapfrog atop the time charts, ending a chase that saw six different drivers hold the pole at various times throughout the 30-minute outing.

Bourdais headed a 1-2 Newman/Haas Racing sweep on a sunny Long Beach Friday, besting his teammate Bruno Junqueira (#2 Hole in the Wall Camps Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) by 0.066 seconds. Junqueira, who ran his first Champ Car session since his devastating accident in last year's Indianapolis 500, hung up a time of 1:07.741 (104.587 mph) on just his fifth lap of the year, slipping into the second spot.

Four-time Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach winner Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) showed his customary speed on the Southern California streets, ending his day in the third spot despite the fact that he banged the wall and shredded his right-rear tire with six minutes to go in the session. Tracy's best lap of 1:07.947 (104.270 mph) was the last of the 18-car field to card a time in the 67-second range on the day.
Read More>>

So, tomorrow is the run for the pole, but Sebastian will get to be in the front row no matter what happens. Someone needs to break up the Newman/Haas Racing front row! Pray for our neighbor from the north (Tracy) doesn't keep banging the walls.

Beauty And The "Beach" - A Preview

Photo Credit: champcarworldseries.com

2006 is here and it really all begins (in LA) at the Long Beach Grand Prix. This year will be the 32nd year the vision of Chris Pook will be run in the streets of Long Beach.

It is this venue that helped add to the legends of racing elites like Mario and Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr., Bobby Rahal, Emerson Fittipaldi, Danny Sullivan, Alex Zanardi, Paul Tracy, and Sebastien Bourdais to name a few.

The green flag drops on the first qualifing session today at 2:05 PM PST. Sebastien Bourdais from the Newman-Haas Racing Team (ChampCar champion of the last two years) was second quickest to Justin Wilson in the testing sessions held last week at Fontana. Bourdais looks to be the first driver to "three-peat" as champion of an open-wheel racing series since Ted Horn did it through 1946-1948.

The beauty is the venue (photo above).

This from Robin Miller at Champ Car World Series -

ROBIN MILLER'S STRAIGHT FROM THE GEARBOX

There are several plausible reasons why Sebastien Bourdais won't walk away with his third straight Champ Car title this year.

Bruno Junqueira, three times a bridesmaid in this series, has the fire and experience to unseat his teammate at the top of the heap.

Justin Wilson, a two-time winner in 2005, is real comfortable with his surroundings as he begins his third season and he's got the team and talent to pull it off.

Paul Tracy, whose 30 victories are tops among active drivers, certainly possesses all the right stuff and has the added incentive of making up for last year's disappointment.

A.J. Allmendinger, a champion at every level during his still developing career, is as quick as anybody on four wheels and just needs to improve his consistency to be a challenger.

Oriol Servia, runner-up in the point standings a year ago, has moved to a new team but his smarts and savvy should bring out the best of PKV Racing.

Any or all of these drivers could unseat Bourdais but, at the end of the 15-race schedule, the championship is going to have to come through the 27-year-old Frenchman.
--
"It's going to be a learning process but there are some very clever people on this team and we'll do our best to be competitive," said the 31-year-old Spainard, who will also be tutoring rookie teammate Katherine Legge.

At the end of the day, it's going to take an idiot to pick against Bourdais. Or somebody who flunked out of Ball State.

I'm going with Mr. Wilson in 2006 so that should make Sebass feel pretty confident
Read All>>

By the way, this is a track where the IRL has never been!

UPDATE: from CCWS website -

Sebastien Bourdais paced the opening practice session of the 2006 Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford season today, besting the 18-car field in Friday morning's 75-minute practice at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Bourdais got around the 1.968-mile street course in 1:08.948 (102.756 mph) to pace the morning's outing, coming in a tenth-of-a-second ahead of Team Australia's Alex Tagliani.

Tagliani (1:09.030) , A.J. Allmendinger (1:09.043), Justin Wilson (1:09.180) and Paul Tracy (1:09.225) rounded out the top five in the session, which was run without incident. Team Australia's Will Power led the six-car rookie class in the morning and was 10th overall.

NOTE: The first eight places were within one second of each other.

Da Vinci Code Found To Be "New" Fiction

A copy of the book The Da Vinci Code is displayed outside the High Court in London, February 27, 2006. (Toby Melville/Reuters)

Yes, Dan Brown did not steal (word for word) the fiction of the novel titled "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail".

Excerpts from Reuters -

“Da Vinci Code" publishers win case
By Gideon Long 42 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - The publishers of "The Da Vinci Code," the blockbuster novel by author Dan Brown, won their UK court case on Friday over accusations of plagiarism.
--
Judge Peter Smith gave his verdict at the end of a trial which lasted nearly a month and was followed intensely by reporters, copyright lawyers and fans of the novel, which has sold over 40 million copies worldwide.

"The plaintiffs' case has failed," he said. "Dan Brown has not infringed copyright. None of this amounts to copying The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."
--
They had based their argument on the similarities between the books, which both raise the possibility Jesus had a child by Mary Magdalene, that she fled to France after the Crucifixion and that Christ's bloodline survives to this day.
Read All>>

Cool, an "original work" of fiction. Now we can sleep.

When Is A Leak NOT A Leak?

Photo Credit: Slate.com

When the President asks someone to divulge the contents of a "formally classified" document to someone else.

Also, when the L.A. Times puts the story about what "Scooter Libby" testified to (according to court papers) on page A-20 ... that's all anyone really needs to know!

Excerpts from the New York Post -

DUBYA CAN'T LEAK
April 7, 2006 -- AND INFO WAS ALREADY PUBLIC
By John Podhoretz - Opinion

IT'S amazing how the common topics and subjects of discussion three years ago should vanish so quickly from memory.

Yesterday, breathless news reports suggested that President Bush had directed the "leak" of classified information in July 2003. Yet the "leak" in question was from a document called the National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE - and by the time this "leak" occurred, the contents of the NIE as they related to Iraq were almost entirely public.

On Oct. 7, 2002, nine months before Bush's supposed "leak," the administration released an unclassified version of the very same NIE at the urging of Senate Democrats. And in early 2003, reporters hostile to the administration (primarily John Judis and Spencer Ackerman of The New Republic) were being told all sorts of things about the still-classified portions of the NIE.

And this "leak" wasn't a leak in any case. A "leak" is the unauthorized release of government information. The leak of classified information is a crime. But according to Scooter Libby, the former chief of staff to the vice president who gave the information from the NIE to a reporter, he only released it because he was authorized to do so by the president himself.

Constitutionally, the authority to declare documents "classified" resides with the president. So, under the terms of an executive order first drafted in 1982, he can declassify a document merely by declaring it unclassified.
--
Also lost in the mists of recent memory is the reason we're talking about this in the first place. Fitzgerald is involved in this story because he was asked to investigate whether the public exposure of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment was a crime. For it to be a crime, she had to be a covert CIA operative who had served in that capacity at some point in the five years prior to her exposure - and the person exposing her had to be doing it consciously and with knowledge that she was covert.
--
Wilson's appalling lies were revealed in 2004. And yet, here we are, in 2006, fighting the same old battles. Guess this is what happens when you don't win a war quickly enough.
Read All>>

Of course, that is the whole point. There is the world war against terrorism due to 9/11 ... and then there is the war for power inside the U.S. (which is also never won quickly enough) by people who will try to win at ANY COST.

The Democrats in congress first complain that the Bush administration is to secretive about what it is doing and "we" need more information. The Bush administration releases information so then the Democrats in congress complain that the information is a "leak". What is a President to do?

"Classified" information communicated to the press is NOT a leak when the President says it is NOT a leak. To the members of the fourth estate and the Democrats in congress ... get elected President, then you can do the same! Oh yes, you tried that in the last election (with Kerry) and FAILED.

Let's move on.

Creationism vs. Truth

Photo Credit: volny.cz

NBC works overtime to create news. Dateline, in a stroke of controversy genius, decided to plant ethnically dressed Muslims in the stands at a recent NASCAR automobile race and then tape and report on the reactions of the crowd.

With this kind of "set-up" we could only imagine how the editing is going to go.

Excerpts from AP -

Apr 5, 6:45 PM EDT
NASCAR: Dateline NBC's Plan 'Outrageous'
By JENNA FRYER AP Motorsports Writer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- NASCAR said it was "outrageous" that "Dateline NBC" targeted one of its race tracks last weekend for a possible segment on anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States.

NASCAR said NBC confirmed it was sending Muslim-looking men to a race, along with a camera crew to film fans' reactions. The NBC crew was "apparently on site in Martinsville, Va., walked around and no one bothered them," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Wednesday.

"It is outrageous that a news organization of NBC's stature would stoop to the level of going out to create news instead of reporting news," Poston said.
--
"'Dateline' is looking into this story," NBC said in a statement. "We were intrigued by the results of a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll and other articles regarding increasing anti-Muslim sentiments in the United States.

"It's very early on in our newsgathering process, but be assured we will be visiting a number of locations across the country and are confident that our reporting team is pursuing this story in a fair manner," it said.
Read All>>

And one wonders WHY people do not tune in to Main Stream Media anymore. Let us just say we have a problem with their credibility when they, themselves, create the news. Remember Dan Rather and Mary Mapes in the run-up to the last presidential election? Oh, yea! That turned out well.

I love it that NBC lays the blame on pursuing this story because it was "intrigued by the results of a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll". The MSM inciting the MSM - This is rich.

- Day By Day cartoon over at Partisan Pundit -

Of Faith & Floating Ice

A basilisk lizard, or Jesus lizard, runs across water during an experiment. These lizards can run across water for up to 15 feet (4.5 meters). Photograph courtesy PNAS

Excerpts from the Washington Post -

Floating Ice May Explain How Jesus Walked on Water, Researchers Say
By Alan Cooperman - Washington Post Staff Writer - Thursday, April 6, 2006; Page A03

Combining evidence of a cold snap 2,000 years ago with sophisticated mapping of the Sea of Galilee, Israeli and U.S. scientists have come up with a scientific explanation of how Jesus could have walked on water.

Their answer: It was actually floating ice.

The scientists acknowledge that the Sea of Galilee, in what is now northern Israel, has never frozen in modern times. But they say geological core samples suggest that average temperatures were lower in Jesus's day, and that there were at least two protracted cold spells in the region 1,500 to 2,500 years ago.

In addition to chilly weather, their explanation depends on a rare physical property of the Sea of Galilee, known to modern-day Israelis as Lake Kinneret. It is fed by salty springs along its western shore that produce plumes of dense water, thermally isolating areas that could freeze even if the entire lake did not, they assert.
--
This is not the first time that Nof, 61, has attempted to debunk a biblical miracle. In 1992, he and Nathan Paldor, an atmospheric scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, wrote a scientific article proposing that strong winds across the narrow, shallow Gulf of Suez could have lowered the Red Sea by 10 feet, allowing the Israelites to cross to safety and then swallowing up an Egyptian army within a few minutes when the wind stopped, just as the book of Exodus says.

Nof, who described himself as a nonreligious Jew, said he hopes that critics will realize that he is an "equal opportunity miracle buster" who has taken on both Moses and Jesus.

"This isn't going to convince a believer not to believe, and nobody's trying to do that. At least, I'm not trying to do that," he said. "I personally believe that all these biblical stories are based on some truth."
--
Wendy Cotter, professor of scripture at Loyola University Chicago, a Roman Catholic school, wrote her doctoral dissertation 15 years ago on biblical accounts of Jesus's stilling the wind and walking on the sea. When she heard about Nof's theory, she said, her first thought was: "Anything's possible -- but that's not what the writer means."

To the Romans, she said, the sea was "the ultimate force of nature, which was why the Caesars always claimed control over it." Jews in the time of Jesus also feared the sea and, moreover, were familiar with the Book of Job, in which God is described as the one who can "walk on the sea," she said.

In attributing to Jesus the power to walk across the waves, "Christians were using the imagery that had previously been used by both the Romans and the Jews to show that a person has been given authority by God," Cotter said. "Water, or ice, is not the point."
Read All>>

I think MAXINE would rather "Aim At Heaven ...". It is time to read today's "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers - Prayer Edition.

Today's reading is titled - The Collision Of GOD And Sin ... and the prayer is ... O, Lord, I would praise Thee for Thy mighty Redemption at the heart of all our problems. By Thy great power raise us up to newness of life.

Good Day!

To FiOS, Or Not To FiOS - That Is The Question

For high-speed internet, there are more choices if you happen to live in lucky service areas. It not just a choice between DSL (formally fast) or cable access anymore.

This extensive review from CNET -

Some assembly required
By Matt Lake - CNET Reviews - April 3, 2006

Some roads to broadband Internet access are smooth. Because of this, they are the roads most traveled in the quest for ever more streaming video and a Web and e-mail experience without an overture of modem beeps.

Take DSL, if it's available in your area. Sign up for it, get a self-install kit, and after you've plugged in a few filters and installed the hardware and software you need, you're online. It's not as easy as installing AOL software, perhaps, but about the same price and a lot faster.

Or take cable. If you happen to have a cable outlet in the room where you'll be computing (or the one you're using for a wireless access point), you do another self-install. If you don't have a convenient outlet, you pay Comcast 50 bucks to come out, drag wire into your computer room, and sign on the line that commits you to paying about $45 per month. Assuming you can tolerate the other kind of "broad band" (the extrawide time slot needed to allocate to a visit from the cable guy), it's that simple.

But just because these two types of Internet access are the most common and the smoothest to install, don't assume they're your only choice. In a few regions, there are two other ways to get online. If they were available in my area, I'd be all over them.These two alternative broadband technologies are consumer-grade fiber-optic access (spearheaded by Verizon's FiOS) and municipal wireless, such as the newly available service in Upper Dublin, Pennsylvania.
--
Roads less traveled

So there are two other ways to zoom onto the Internet. For now, sadly, they're available only in a few communities. FiOS will most likely spread faster than municipal wireless, but who knows which service will land in your community first.

So here's a question for you: If you had the choice between FiOS, BreezeAccess, or the DSL/cable route, which would you take?
Read All>>

Ahhhh ... choices, choices, choices!

Two Chickens, Hold The Arsenic!

Photo Credit: whyfiles.org

Yes, arsenic ... a poison to the human body. Added to chickens to help reduce parasitic disease and promote growth when raising large flocks for food production. This is not the only use of arsenic in our dietary environment. It is common practice that this poison is purposely added to our drinking water, farm raised fish and even rice production. And all we really thought we had to worry about was the flu!

OKAY? - Beef, it's what's for dinner!

Excerpts from the New York Times via FMI Daily Lead -

Eating Well
Chicken With Arsenic? Is That O.K.?
By MARIAN BURROS Published: April 5, 2006

ARSENIC may be called the king of poisons, but it is everywhere: in the environment, in the water we drink and sometimes in the food we eat.

The amount is not enough to kill anyone in one fell swoop, but arsenic is a recognized cancer-causing agent and many experts say that no level should be considered safe. Arsenic may also contribute to other life-threatening illnesses, including heart disease and diabetes, and to a decline in mental functioning.
--
Human exposure to it has been compounded because the consumption of chicken has exploded. In 1960, each American ate 28 pounds of chicken a year. For 2005, the figure is estimated at about 87 pounds per person. In spite of this threefold rise, the F.D.A. tolerance level for arsenic in chicken of 500 parts per billion, set decades ago, has not been revised.
--
"When this source of arsenic is added to others, the exposure is cumulative, and people could be in trouble," said Dr. Ted Schettler, a physician and the science director at the Science & Environmental Health Network, founded by a consortium of environmental groups.

Those at greatest risk from arsenic are small children and people who consume chicken at a higher rate than what is considered average: two ounces per day for a 154-pound person. The good news for consumers is that arsenic-free chicken is more readily available than it has been in the past, as more processors eliminate its use.
--
McDonald's, the country's largest fast-food chain, said it does not use chicken with arsenic but the test revealed the presence of more than incidental amounts. Perhaps the chickens were purchased before the company started demanding arsenic-free chickens a couple of years ago.

Because there are still many more arsenic-fed than arsenic-free chickens for sale, consumers can reduce their exposure by buying from companies that have stopped using arsenic, or by choosing chickens labeled organic or antibiotic-free. They can also remove the skin from the chicken treated with arsenic, which reduces levels significantly.
Read All>>

PETA should be a little more vocal about the human toll chickens bring to our lives instead of worrying about the condition of the lives of chickens themselves.

The Democrat Security Plan Released - Yea ... Really!

Photo Credit: Slate.com - Howard Dean

This from Slate via a friend -

Real Vague
The Democrats' national-security plan is bland and banal—but the Republicans' is worse.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, April 3, 2006, at 6:16 PM ET

The Democrats' biggest challenge these days is persuading the American public that they, too, have the cojones to storm shores and drop bombs should the need arise, and so last week the party's congressional honchos released a brief, stars-and-stripes-lined document titled Real Security: The Democratic Plan To Protect America and Restore Leadership in the World.

It's more a rough outline than a "plan"; it raises at least as many questions as it answers; it reeks of banality.
--
One item on the checklist: "Rebuild a state-of-the-art military by making the necessary investment in equipment and manpower so that we can project power to protect America wherever and whenever necessary." What is the "necessary investment"?
--
Another: "Eliminate terrorist breeding grounds by combating the economic, social, and political conditions that allow extremism to thrive." OK, but with what money and what kinds of projects? "Redouble efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea"? Any ideas how?
--
I especially like this item: "Eliminate Osama bin Laden, destroy terrorist networks like al Qaeda, finish the job in Afghanistan, and end the threat posed by the Taliban."
--
The real contest will begin when both parties nominate their candidates, at which point this document may or may not be a dead letter. For now, though, the Dems have hoisted a banner: real security vs. rhetorical security; tough and smart vs. tough and, well, not so smart. Let that debate begin.
Read All>>

The way MAXINE see it is that this writer has it wrong.

The Democrat leadership (as represented by Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, Kerry, Kennedy, and etc.) does not have a bland national security plan (let me throw in Cynthia McKinney's reaction and attitude on security as well). It is non-existent combined with a dangerous cut-and-run / moral equivalency component.

The Republicans, for their part, have forgotten how to lead. It is not worse than the Democrats ... it is just bad.

We need to put up a fence at the border. We will either put one up now, or we will put one up after someone launches a terrorist attack after it is proven that they used the open border to launch the attack.

The wish is that this issue of national security would be as simple as being about power politics and Hispanic racism. It just isn't - we are at war - and our leaders and citizens who get their primary information from the mainstream media, really do not know how much our way of life based on Christian respect and self-determinate freedoms are under attack.

"Real Vague" does even begin to describe the stance the Democrats (or the Republicans for that matter) currently have in regards to our national security.

Ugliest Sports Face Of All - A Winning Smile

Corey Brewer and the Gators won Florida its first title in three Final Four appearances, the second under coach Billy Donovan. Photo: Bob Rosato/SI

Or would that be a losing frown ... !

This from AP via Yahoo Sports -

(3) Florida 73, (2) UCLA 57
By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer
April 4, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- There go the Florida Gators again, runnin' it up on their way to a national championship.

In basketball, believe it or not. Against UCLA, of all teams. And with a tennis player's son as the star.

Joakim Noah dominated the Bruins on Monday night with 16 points, nine rebounds and a record six blocks to key a 73-57 blowout for Florida's first title in that other sport.

"It's like I'm in a cloud," Noah said. "Not only does this feel good, but it smells good and it tastes good. I can't even describe it."

The Gators and all their fans would certainly agree, especially after watching this runaway -- a pick-your-score kind of game that was decided early.
Read More>>

USF Definition>>

Not MSM Worthy - More News From Iraq

This from the New York Daily News -
(ht - Carol Platt Liebau)

American death toll in Iraq hits 2-yr. low
BY RICHARD SISKDAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - U.S. casualties fell to their lowest totals in two years this month as Iraqis increasingly aimed attacks at each other rather than coalition forces, the U.S. military said yesterday.

Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch noted "a decrease in the number of casualties of the coalition forces and a significant increase in Iraqi casualties, both security forces and innocent men, women and children."

Figures from the Pentagon and watchdog groups showed that, through yesterday, 30 U.S. troops had been killed in March, the lowest total since the 20 who died in February 2004.
--
While fewer Americans were being killed or wounded, "the number of attacks against the Iraqi security force members has increased 35% in the last four weeks, compared to the previous six months," Lynch said. "What we're seeing them now do is shift [their] target from the coalition forces to Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces."
Read All>>

Highlighted: Isn't this what John Kerry advocated last fall? You know ... That Iraqi's should be killing Iraqi's? Just asking!

Report From The Iraqi North

Image Credit: http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/ug/kurdistan.jpg

This development is generally ignored by the Main Stream Media. Free Kurds in northern Iraq, want to spread the wealth!

Imagine that. This can only mean trouble for our own "cut-and-run" crowd here in the U.S.. Where's Cindy Sheehan, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Al Franken, John Murtha, and etc. to speak against the "unprovoked" Kurdish incursion into Iran to promote freedom?

This posting from Captian's Quarters -

April 03, 2006
Iranian Kurds Take On Teheran

The Kurds of Iraq have enjoyed their taste of freedom so much that they wish to extend it to their cousins across the border. The Washington Times reports on the efforts of a secular, Western-sympathetic band of insurgents that have targeted the Iranian military in a region of the Islamic Republic that has four million Kurds living under the mullahcracy's thumb:

A little-known organization based in the mountains of Iraq's Kurdish north is emerging as a serious threat to the Iranian government, staging cross-border attacks and claiming tens of thousands of supporters among Iran's 4 million Kurds.

The Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, better known by the local acronym PEJAK or PJAK, claims to have killed 24 Iranian soldiers in three raids against army bases last month, all staged in retaliation for the killing of 10 Iranian Kurds during a peaceful demonstration in the city of Maku.

Three more soldiers from Iran's elite Republican Guard were killed last week in a gunbattle near the Iraqi border, Iran's official news agency reported.

But the greater threat to the Tehran regime may come from the group's underground effort to promote a sense of identity among Iranian Kurds, who make up 7 percent of that country's population. PEJAK leaders say the effort is spreading quickly among students, intellectuals and businessmen.

"The Iranian government's plan to create a global Islamic state is destroying our people's culture and values," said Akif Zagros, 28, a graduate in Persian literature who was interviewed in a simple stone hut at the group's headquarters. "So we fight back. But our aim is not just to bring freedom to Kurds, but to liberate all the peoples of Iran."

It's amazing that the Kurds remain so pro-Western, considering the raw deal that the West has given them since Winston Churchill started dividing up Southwest Asia.

Read All>>

UPDATE: The National Organization for Women should be involved in these efforts.

More excerpts directly from The Washington Times article -

Tehran faces growing Kurdish opposition
By James Brandon

Unlike most other rebel groups in the Middle East, PEJAK (The Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, better known by the local acronym PEJAK or PJAK) is secular and Western-oriented. When the group's members talk, their Kurdish is peppered with such Western words as "freedom," "human rights" and "ecology."

PEJAK's ideology combines the Kurds' traditionally low-key Islam and pagan-influenced culture with the movement's political opposition to the dogmatic Islamic government in Tehran.

Nearly half the group's members are women, attracted by its promotion of sexual equality. Female volunteers receive the same training as the men, wear the same clothes, and greet visitors with a steady eye and firm handshake.

"Here in our camp, the women learn to be strong so that when they go back to Iran, they can teach women and, in fact, all people about our struggle for democracy and human rights," said Gulistan Dugan, 36, a psychology graduate from the University of Tehran and a member of the leadership council.

"The daughters of our movement take part in all our operations, including military ones."

It is to bad that the looney left NOW could not adopt some of the principles that PEJAK has adopted for their struggle to be free.

IRL Scores The First Street Scene Of Season - UPDATED

Photo: indyracing.com

This race comes just one week before the gran'daddy of all temporary street races - The Long Beach Grand Prix.

Today, the legends of American open wheel racing will be on and around the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. This race may be the only venue that the IRL will have that will remind racing fans of how good it was when American open wheel racing was unified and represented by one major series ... CART!

Back when CART was king, it was not uncommon for the first fifteen places on the grid starting the race on a closed temporary street circuit to have qualified within one second of each other. Today, when the IRL lines up, only the first six places on the grid will be that close.
Realistically, These first six places will be the racers to watch:

Grid Position - Car# - Driver Name - Speed - Sponsor, Team

1 - 27 - Franchitti, Dario - 104.054 - Klien Tools, Andretti/Green
2 - 09 - Dixon, Scott - 103.522 - Target, Chip Ganassi
3 - 11 - Kanaan, Tony - 103.493 - 7/11, Andretti/ Green
4 - 06 - Hornish Jr, Sam - 103.389 - Marlboro, Penske
5 - 03 - Castroneves, Helio - 103.270 - Marlboro, Penske
6 - 07 - Herta, Bryan - 103.058 - XM Radio, Andretti/Green

More about the St. Petersburg venue, this from indyracing.com -

Sunday, April 2, 2006
City invests in the long-term future of Honda GP of St. Pete
By Dave Lewandowskiindycar.com

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – When you live in the Sunshine State, where do you travel for spring break?

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker and family packed their bags, put gas in the car and drove 15 minutes across town to a hotel for three days of fun on St. Petersburg Beach.

“Just getting out in the morning and walking on the beach, you feel like you’re in a different country,” said 10-year-old Julann Baker. “We do a lot of things on the beach and just have fun.”
--
Coupled with spring break visitors on Gulf of Mexico beaches (about nine miles from downtown), Baker said the economic impact of the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg is akin to a Final Four.
--
"I love the St. Pete course,” Cheever Racing’s Chris Festa said. “It's easier to drive than most street courses. It's not so bumpy. There's one big bump on the back section, but that's about it. And you can actually pass on this street course, which is unusual for street courses. I love coming here. It's like being on a regular road course."
Read All>>

We pray for a safe race.

This will be the first race of the year for the Rahal/Letterman team since they did not race last week due to the death of one of their drivers (Paul Dana). Their drivers, Buddy Rice and Danica Patrick will be starting Pos. #7 (1.31 sec. behind the leader) and Pos. #14 (2.23 sec. behind the leader) respectively.

UPDATE: This from indycar.com - "I Drove Like I Stole It!" (Castroneves)

Castroneves climbs to new heights with street-course victory
By Dave Lewandowskiindycar.com

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The fencing lining the 1.8-mile Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg temporary street circuit isn’t as high as many oval facilities, but Helio Castroneves nonetheless enjoyed the view.

Thousands of sun-splashed fans in the front stretch grandstand were treated to Castroneves’ eighth career fence climb after the Marlboro Team Penske driver won under caution on the streets of St. Petersburg.

Scott Dixon, who started on the front row and led 36 laps, was runner-up with Tony Kanaan third. The 2003 and 2004 IndyCar Series champions, respectively, won road-course races last year. Now Castroneves can boast, too.

“I was really pushing out there,” Castroneves said after climbing down from the fence but not necessarily returning to earth. “I was trying to go as fast as I could. Even when I was in the lead, I was getting too close to the wall, trying to make up time.”
--
Scott Dixon, who started on the front row and led 36 laps, was runner-up with Tony Kanaan third. The 2003 and 2004 IndyCar Series champions, respectively, won road-course races last year. Now Castroneves can boast, too.
Read All>>

A tough race for all. A great venue worthy to be in any racing series. This will be a race to travel to or watch every year.

Castroneves leads all drivers by 23 points in the point standings after two of fourteen races.

It's Monday, Monday for the "USF" Bruins

Photo by Andy Lyons, © Getty Images - Jordan Farmar #1 of the UCLA Bruins celebrates after scoring a basket against the LSU Tigers in the second half during the semifinal game of the NCAA Men's Final Four on April 1, 2006 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Now THAT is an "Ugly Sports Face" ... a well earned one at that!

This from AP via Yahoo Sports -

(2) UCLA 59, (4) LSU 45
By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer
April 1, 2006 AP - Apr 1, 11:10 pm EST

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Oh, Baby, can UCLA play defense.

Throw some offense in there on the same night and not even LSU and its gigantic star, Glen "Big Baby" Davis, had a chance. The Bruins shut him down Saturday en route to a 59-45 victory over the Tigers that put them one win away from their 12th national title.

The last step in the quest to hang another banner at Pauley Pavilion comes Monday in the final against Florida, a 73-58 winner over George Mason in the first semifinal.

Luc Richard Mbah A Moute was UCLA's top performer in this one, finishing with 17 points on 5-for-9 shooting, to go with nine rebounds. But he got plenty of help.
Read On>>

And this from the Rocky Mountian News -

Bruins' defense shuts down Tigers
By Randy Holtz, Rocky Mountain News April 1, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS – Hey, isn’t this the Final Four?

Isn’t this supposed to be the most riveting, compelling, dramatic basketball on the planet? No one seemed to get that memo on Saturday, fans streaming out of the RCA Dome halfway through the second of two nondescript games on an unusually forgettable day of hoops on the college game’s grandest stage.

After Florida led nearly from start to finish in Game 1 to dispatch George Mason, UCLA followed suit with a surprising 59-45 thrashing of Louisiana State, the Bruins using their defense to harass the abysmally shooting Tigers into easy submission.

The Bruins, a No. 2 seed, and the Gators, a No. 3, will hook up on Monday night in what fans hope will be a far more entertaining game than the ones they saw Saturday. UCLA will try to extend its record number of NCAA titles to 12, while Florida will be going for its first. Tipoff is 7:17 p.m. MDT on CBS 4.
Read On>>

UCLA "Faces" The Music In The Final Four

Photo: MIKE WINTERS/daily bruin senior staff - UCLA coach Ben Howland has an 8-4 career record in the NCAA Tournament in five appearances with three different programs.

We wish UCLA well against LSU today in the Final Four.

While watching the game I will be watching for the faces that exude the best of what it means to have an Ugly Sports Face. We have seen them throughout our viewing of sporting contests, however, they are never better than when everything is on the line.

This from the Washington Post -

Essay
Rarrgh
The Ugly Sports Face: We're So Not Ready For Primal Time
By Hank Stuever
Washington Post Staff WriterSaturday, April 1, 2006; Page C01

Feel like a winner? Then, please, make a face like the Devil's: Bare your teeth and open your mouth in a triumphant, testosteronic "Yeahrarrrgh!" Squint your eyes and furrow your brow with the cruel, overbearing certainty of your complete dominance. Be Mel Gibson in "Braveheart" and Howard Dean in Iowa and Ozzy Osbourne in 1981 all at once. Clench your fists and punch the air. Let the world see your best Ugly Sports Face.
--
Ugly Sports Face (USF) should not be included among the freeze-frame oofs and grimaces captured when the ball is in play, when an athlete has no control over what his face might be doing. We all understand the exertion there, in midair or mid-catch or mid-tackle or mid-serve; getting or giving the punch, coming into the final lap, colliding with the catcher at home. Those are moments of pure intensity, and in many obvious ways, they are beautiful contortions. The twisted masks that are athlete's faces only begin to hint at what kind of intensity it takes to play the game.
--
Rather, USF comes after the score. It is a phenomenon of end zones and victory laps, when an athlete is more in control of the face he shows the world -- the swish of a three-pointer, or the overtime squeaker, the winning difference of milliseconds.
--
But what is more commonly seen in all competitions, in young men and women, even at chess tournaments, is Ugly Sports Face. Every last person is now a gladiator. The Beast has been loosed -- forget the Gatorade; get the holy water. That young man at the dinner table who manages to catch the olive tossed by his father at his mouth -- even he entitles himself to some USF.
Read More>>

I pray for many USF opportunities in this coming political year. USF for our efforts in Iraq - USF for a fence on our borders - USF for the defeat of Rob Reiner's Proposition 82 and etc!!

Maxine wishes one and all USF opportunities, especially for UCLA as it plays LSU today.