When A Vote To Approve Isn't A Vote Of Approval

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), said that if his colleagues were serious about building the fence that they promised, they would find the funding. Image Credit: Rod A. Lamkey Jr. - THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Senate, yesterday, voted 100 to 0 to pass a $32 billion-plus Homeland Security bill that included 2.2 billion dollars for border security and control.

This would sound like progress except for the fact that the bill does not provide funding for the fencing that was previously approved in a vote back in May.

I guess the Senate is just not serious enough about this country's sovereignty and security in this post 9/11 world.

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Senate denies funds for new border fence
By Charles Hurt - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - July 14, 2006

Less than two months after voting overwhelmingly to build 370 miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico, the Senate yesterday voted against providing funds to build it.

"We do a lot of talking. We do a lot of legislating," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican whose amendment to fund the fence was killed on a 71-29 vote. "The things we do often sound very good, but we never quite get there."

Mr. Sessions offered his amendment to authorize $1.8 billion to pay for the fencing that the Senate voted 83-16 to build along high-traffic areas of the border with Mexico. In the same vote on May 17, the Senate also directed 500 miles of vehicle barriers to be built along the border.

But the May vote simply authorized the fencing and vehicle barriers, which on Capitol Hill is a different matter from approving the federal expenditures needed to build it.

"If we never appropriate the money needed to construct these miles of fencing and vehicle barriers, those miles of fencing and vehicle barriers will never actually be constructed," Mr. Sessions told his colleagues yesterday before the vote.

Virtually all Democrats were joined by the chamber's lone independent and 28 Republicans in opposing Mr. Session's amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act. Only two Democrats -- Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Thomas R. Carper of Delaware -- supported funding the fence.

All told, 34 senators -- including most of the Republican leadership -- voted in May to build the fence but yesterday opposed funding it.
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Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who historically has fought to increase border security and enforcement of federal immigration laws, was among those who opposed Mr. Session's amendment.

"We should build these walls; there's no question about it," he said. "But the real issue here is the offset that's being used, and the offset creates a Hobson's choice for almost everyone here."

Mr. Session's amendment would have required across-the-board cuts to the rest of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, Mr. Gregg said, which would mean cutting 750 new border-patrol agents and 1,200 new detention beds for illegal aliens that he included in the bill.
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Mr. Sessions said, "We will rightly be accused of not being serious about the commitments we've made to the American people with regard to actually enforcing the laws of immigration in America, which many Americans already believe we're not serious about.

They don't respect what we've done in the past, and they should not. We have failed, and it's time for us to try to fix it and do better."

Kris Kobach, who was a counsel to the attorney general under John Ashcroft, told a House subcommittee last week that one of the most unusual aspects of the Senate bill is a provision -- slipped into the more-than-800-page bill moments before the final vote -- that would require the United States to consult with the Mexican government before constructing the fencing.
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"Now, from my experience as a Justice Department official, when we had consultation requirements with the State Department, just getting two agencies in the executive branch to consult took months or years," said Mr. Kobach, now a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. "If you add this, three levels of government and a foreign power, your delay" will never end.
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You know, the more I read about what the Senate did yesterday - No money for a border fence and a requirement to consult with Mexico, a foreign government, before we construct a fence on our side of the border - it is getting me a little crazy.

What ARE these 100 publicly elected ladies and gentlemen thinking? Do they really represent the interests of the United States when they knowingly place in a bill that got approved, language that usurps the authority of our own government to act?

A vote to approve isn't an approval when one does not fund and, FURTHER, when one requires the counsel of a foreign power before one may proceed. This is not good.

When Wage Stratification Is A GOOD Idea!

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez testifies on Capitol Hill yesterday before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform. Photo Credit: Associated Press

Hey, vote for this bill. Honestly, we should vote for this bill so that we can finally stratify our labor force.

If we can not enforce our immigration laws, then we will have illegals lining up to claim alien status to receive higher wages. This "law" may have the self-regulating affect of employers wanting to hire the more "cost effective" native/citizen laborer.

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Senate bill seeks more pay for aliens
By Charles Hurt (with contributions from Jeffrey Sparshott) - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - July 13, 2006

The Senate immigration bill would require that foreign construction laborers here under the guest-worker program be paid well above the minimum wage, even as American workers at the same work site could earn less.

The bill "would guarantee wages to some foreign workers that could be higher than those paid to American workers at the same work site," says a policy paper released this week by the Senate's Republican Policy Committee. "This is unfair to U.S. workers, inappropriate, and unnecessary."
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"Two-thirds of the people who voted for that bill coming out of the Senate were Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid and Senator Kennedy. So, it's the Reid-Kennedy bill," House Majority Leader John A. Boehner said yesterday when asked why he refuses to credit any of the Republicans who were instrumental in drafting the bill or any of the 23 Senate Republicans who voted for it.

For their part, Democrats have begun calling it the "Frist-McCain" bill, a reference to Mr. Frist and Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has been one of the chief architects of the Senate bill.
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A recent article he read about immigration in Time magazine, he said during a hearing on immigration, "was right on target in identifying the underlying racism and xenophobia which really grips us despite our denial of it."

But provisions of the Senate bill such as the wage guarantee for foreign workers raise concerns among more than just racists and xenophobes. “That certainly is negotiable to me," Mr. McCain said yesterday.

The Davis Bacon Act of 1931 (DBA) requires that the local prevailing wage be paid to all workers employed in federally contracted construction or projects done for the District of Columbia. Those wages -- up to four or five times higher in some fields than the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour -- are set by the Department of Labor.

The Senate's immigration bill would require that the higher wages be paid to foreign temporary workers in all construction occupations, even if the project isn't federally funded and doesn't otherwise fall under DBA.

"In other words, foreign workers employed in a construction job for which a DBA wage rate has been determined could be guaranteed wages higher than those paid to American workers doing the same job on the same private construction project for the same employer," the policy paper reports.
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When the construction business finally gets hip to this process, aliens will not get hired because they are too expensive ... or the Government could just heavily fine companies that hire the illegally documented/undocumented laborers which IS A LAW already on the books.

Of course, there would need to be an effort placed on muzzling groups like the ACLU and La Raza from the inherent discrimination that this law would set up ... not the discrimination of the wage stratification, but the discrimination brought about by a company wanting to save money by hiring the lowest cost labor.

Isn't this why we have an immigration problem in the first place!?

Creationism Breakthrough: Of Mice & Men Revisited

“For the first time we have created life using artificial sperm” - Professor Karim Nayernia. Image Credit: Kamir/BBC

This guy looks too happy ...

He should, I guess, he just proved that man can make sperm cells in a lab environment.

Through the isolation of embryonic stem cells, scientists in the lab, have created sperm cells, then implanted these cells into the females of the species of mice that were used in the experiment and created offspring.

So when do you think we begin to enter "the slippery slope", and who decides when we may have slipped a little too much?

This breakthrough offers a whole new spin on "Knockout Mouse Ranching" - Atrificial mouse brothels?

Excerpts from a report published in the journal 'Developmental Cell' via BBC Health -

'Lab-made sperm' fertility hope
By BBC - Last Updated: Sunday, 9 July 2006, 23:01 GMT 00:01 UK

Scientists have proved for the first time that sperm grown from embryonic stem cells can be used to produce offspring.

The discovery in mice could ultimately help couples affected by male fertility problems to conceive.

And by understanding embryo developmental processes better, a host of other diseases might be treated using stem cells, they say.
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The experiment was carried out using mice and produced seven babies, six of which lived to adulthood.

However, the mice showed abnormal patterns of growth, and other problems, such as difficulty breathing.

As well as the safety concerns, using stem cells to create sperm also raises ethical questions.

For the first time we have created life using artificial sperm

Stem cells are special because they have the potential to develop into any tissue in the body.
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They encouraged these early-stage sperm cells, known as spermatogonial stem cells, to grow into adult sperm cells and then injected some of these into female mouse eggs.

The fertilised eggs grew and were successfully transplanted into female mice and produced seven babies.
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In the future, men with fertility problems might be able to have their own stem cells harvested using a simple testicular biopsy, matured in the lab and then transplanted back.

It is estimated that one in seven UK couples have difficulty conceiving - about 3.5 million people. In about a third of all couples having IVF, male fertility is a contributory factor.

It is more difficult to say whether artificial sperm produced this way could ultimately be used as a new treatment for male infertility.
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Professor Harry Moore, professor of reproductive biology at the University of Sheffield, said: "These processes in the test-tube are far from perfect as the mice that were born by this process were abnormal.
"We therefore have to be very cautious about using such techniques in therapies to treat men or women who are infertile due to a lack of germ stem cells until all safety aspects are resolved. This may take many years."

Anna Smajdor, a researcher in medical ethics at Imperial College London, said: "The creation of viable sperm outside the body is a hugely significant breakthrough and offers great potential for stem cell research and fertility treatments.

"However, sperm and eggs play a unique role in our understanding of kinship and parenthood, and being able to create these cells in the laboratory will pose a serious conceptual challenge for our society."

Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, agreed.

She said the use of adult stem cells from sources such as umbilical cord blood had consistently produced more promising results than the use of embryonic stem cells.
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When Hatred (not disagreement) Trumps Public Safety

Alert and not-so-alert readers of NYTimes.com will notice a little something different this morning: a major redesign of the site’s look and feel, from top to bottom (almost). The home page, that hugely symbolic focal point of any site, went live at 11:33p Eastern Standard Time Sunday, April 2, 2006. Image Credit: Khoi Vinh/Subtraction 7.0

It is amazing as to what lengths the "4th Estate" would go to make certain that it destroys those who wish to lead in a different manner than it (the 4th Estate) believes leadership should be done.

I can agree with disagreement ... I cannot agree with the putting of public safety in jeopardy because of a disagreement. The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times will never know the damage they have done with the disclosure of government information gathering programs, but the people who know the people murdered on trains in the city of Bombay (Mumbai), India have an idea.

This from Hugh Hewitt -

From testimony of Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, U.S. Department of the Treasury before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations:

In short, the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program has been powerful and successful, grounded in law and bounded by safeguards. It represents exactly what I believe our citizens expect and hope we are doing to prosecute the war on terror.

Much has been said and written about the newspapers’ decision to publish information about this program. As a government official, I must first point out that the newspapers almost certainly would not have known about this program if someone had not violated his or her duty to protect this secret.

At the same time, I do very much regret the newspapers’ decision to publish what they knew. Secretary Snow and I, as well as others both inside and outside the government, made repeated, painstaking efforts to convince them otherwise. We urged that the story be held for one reason only: revealing it would undermine one of our most valuable tools for tracking terrorists’ money trails. We were authorized to set these arguments out for the relevant reporters and editors in an effort to convince them not to publish. In a series of sober and detailed meetings over several weeks, we carefully explained the program’s importance as well as its legal basis and controls. We strongly urged them not to reveal the source of our information and explained that disclosure would unavoidably compromise this vital program.

These were not attempts to keep an embarrassing secret from emerging. As should be clear from my testimony above, I am extremely proud of this program. I am proud of the officials and lawyers in our government whose labors ensured that the program was constructed and maintained in the most careful way possible. And I am proud of the intelligence analysts across our government who have used this information responsibly to advance investigations of terrorist groups and to make our country safer. I asked the press to withhold the story because I believed – and continue to believe – that the public interest would have been best served had this program remained secret and therefore effective.

Some observers have argued that the disclosure of the program did little damage because terrorist facilitators are smart and already knew to avoid the banking system. They correctly point out that there has been an overall trend among terrorists towards cash couriers and other informal mechanisms of money transfer – a trend that I have testified about. They also hold up as public warnings the repeated assertions by government officials that we are actively following the terrorists’ money.

Of Immigration, Assimilation, Americanism, Service

General Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, chokes up at the hearing. Photo Credit: By Joe Raedle -- Getty Images

Few of us who were born here in the United States really understand the struggle to become free.

The one thing though, that we do understand, is the gratefulness one has once freedom is achieved.

This is why many of us become confused when we see hundreds of thousands of people, carrying foreign country flags as we did in May, demanding immigrant rights similar to those who have attained citizenship. We are confused by the push for rights for and by immigrants without assimilation, Americanism, and service to this country.

General Pace's witness in front of members of Congress yesterday, served as stark contrast backdrop in the changes of attitude by immigrants, and those who support them, in the immigration debate.

Excerpts from The Washington Post -

General Speaks of Immigrant Father
Congressional Hearing Turns Personal
By Glenn Frankel and Daniela Deane - Washington Post Staff Writers - Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Page A03

MIAMI, July 10 -- A congressional hearing on immigration came to a dramatic pause Monday when Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, choked up as he talked about his Italian immigrant father and the opportunities that America had given to his family.

A hush fell over the auditorium at Miami Dade College as Pace, a Marine who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up in Teaneck, N.J., was overcome with emotion and struggled to continue reading from his statement as the opening witness at the field hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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After he composed himself, Pace described his older sister, who went to law school, and his older brother, who, like himself, attended the Naval Academy and was a Marine.

"There is no other country on the planet that affords that kind of opportunity to those who come here," Pace concluded. The audience burst into applause.

Pace's father was born in Italy in 1914, immigrated to the United States and became an electrician in New York City, raising four children there. The first Marine to be named chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Pace has been chairman since September 2005 after serving as vice chairman for four years.

Pace, whose last name means "peace" in Italian, is a 1967 graduate of the Naval Academy and has served in Thailand, Korea and Japan.
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Field hearings are being held around the country on the separate House and Senate immigration bills currently before Congress. The subject of the Miami hearing, chaired by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), was the contributions immigrants have made to the armed forces.

The House bill calls for tighter border controls, 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and funding for local law enforcement agencies along the border. It also calls for tougher deportation standards and stringent enforcement of rules governing employers who hire undocumented workers.

The Senate's immigration bill, co-sponsored by Kennedy and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), includes similar provisions. But it also outlines a method for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens and calls for a guest-worker program that would provide legal residency status for as long as six years.
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Let's end the confusion now - PUT UP THE FENCE ... deport found illegals ... deeply fine companies hiring known illegals.

California Dreamin' - "Chat Room Bomber" Visit Disclosed / UPDATE - Burnin' Down The House

Port Authority Police Lt. John Ryan walks into the PATH train tunnel under the World Trade Center disaster site in this April 16, 2002 file photo in New York. Authorities thwarted an alleged terrorist plot to use suicide bombers in the PATH tunnels which extend under the Hudson River and link New Jersey with lower Manhattan. The terrorists believed that by bombing the train tunnels, they could unleash a flood on Lower Manhattan, including Wall Street, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Beth A. Keiser, File

Upon deeper review of the "Chat Room Bomber's" possessions, it was discovered that the terrorist arrested in Libya last week, had visited California in recent years.

Five other suspects are still at large.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Suspect in tunnel plot said to visit U.S.
By PAT MILTON, Associated Press Writer - with contributions from Hussein Dakroub/Beirut, Lebanon. - 1 hour, 31 minutes ago

Lebanese authorities found maps and bombing plans on the personal computer of an al-Qaida loyalist accused of plotting to attack New York train tunnels, and a U.S. official disclosed that he had visited the country at least once.

Acting Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat described the information found on 31-year-old Assem Hammoud's computer as "very important."

"It contained maps and bombing plans that were being prepared," Fatfat said in a local television interview.

In the U.S., a federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said Hammoud had visited the United States at least once — a trip to California six years ago.

The official said Hammoud had a legitimate visa for a brief stay, and was believed to have been visiting either family or friends. The visit occurred long before authorities say the tunnel plot began to unfold.
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Lebanese security officials told The Associated Press that they obtained "important information" from Hammoud's computer and CDs seized from his office at the Lebanese International University, where he taught economics.

"This information helped the investigators make Hammoud confess to his role in plotting a terror act in America," one Lebanese official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
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Other suspects still at large include a Saudi, a Yemeni, a Jordanian, a Palestinian, and an Iranian Kurd, As-Safir said.

The suspect's family denied that he had any al-Qaida links. His mother, Nabila Qotob, said Hammoud was an outdoorsy person who drank alcohol, had girlfriends and bore none of the hallmarks of an Islamic extremist.

Hammoud studied at Concordia University in Montreal for seven years beginning in 1995, university spokeswoman Chris Mota said Sunday. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in commerce in 2002.
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UPDATE:

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Official: Tunnel plot suspect mulled arson
By PAT MILTON, Associated Press Writer - Mon Jul 10, 4:16 PM ET

NEW YORK - The Lebanese man accused of plotting to destroy and flood Hudson River train tunnels also discussed the possibility of setting wildfires in California to inflict harm on the U.S., a federal official said Monday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said wildfires were "only part of their planning discussions. No steps were taken to carry it out."
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The possible fire plot and backpacks — first reported by Newsday and the Los Angeles Times — were among several new allegations to emerge in recent days about the 31-year-old Hammoud, who was arrested in Lebanon in April.
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Hammoud's family denied that he had any al-Qaida links. His mother, Nabila Qotob, said Hammoud was an outdoorsy person who drank alcohol and had girlfriends — none of the hallmarks of an Islamic extremist.
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Pinch Me - 3 In-A-Row For AJ Allmendinger!

One happy dude. Beyond fairytale endings to destiny. Image Credit: LAT Photographic

Like the lyric in the song made famous by Canada's Bare Naked Ladies - pinch me, I must be asleep.

AJ Allmendinger becomes the first driver to capture three in-a-row wins in races in twelve years when Al Unser Jr. did it back in 1994!

AJ's team-mate, Paul Tracy, muscles his way past Bourdais to take and keep second place for a Forsythe Championship Racing One-Two finish.

The win moves AJ up from 3ird in points for the season to 2nd (168), 23 points behind Newman/Haas Racing's Sebastian Bourdais (191) with eight races to go.

Photo by Paul Webb, USA LAT Photographic - Copyright © 2006 Champ Car World Series, LLC.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! Sports -

Allmendinger wins third straight Champ Car race
By MIKE HARRIS, AP Auto Racing Writer - July 9, 2006

TORONTO (AP) -- The whole scene felt just a little too familiar to A.J. Allmendinger. Fortunately for the only American-born driver in the Champ Car World Series, it didn't turn out that way -- and he captured his third race win in a row.

Headed for an easy victory Sunday at the Molson Grand Prix of Toronto, a late caution flag bunched the leaders and gave teammate Paul Tracy and series leader Sebastien Bourdais one last shot at Allmendinger

Almost exactly a year ago, in Edmonton, Allmendinger was on his way to a win when a late caution waved. Then-teammate Justin Wilson, right behind Allmendinger, crashed on the restart, but Allmendinger also made a mistake on the slick track and hit the wall with eight laps to go, giving Bourdais an unlikely win.

Asked what was going through his mind when Nelson Philippe and Oriol Servia crashed with 10 laps to go on Sunday, bringing out the third yellow flag of the race, Allmendinger gritted his teeth and replied: ``Edmonton, last year.''
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"It's a lot of confidence and it's nice to be in this car,'' said the 2004 rookie of the year, who didn't win until the third year -- and 32nd race -- of his Champ Car career.

"I love Champ Car racing and I'm starting to love winning,'' Allmendinger said.

It took getting fired by RuSport last month after a fourth-place finish at Milwaukee and being hired a few days later by Gerald Forsythe's team to get the 24-year-old Californian to the victory podium.

Since he replaced Mario Dominguez in the No. 7 Lola, Allmendinger has been unbeatable.

"If somebody had asked me heading to Portland for my first race with Forsythe if I could win three in a row, I'd have said no,'' Allmendinger said. "But, after the first practice, feeling the energy of the team, seeing how well they work together and knowing how comfortable I felt in the car right away, it's no surprise.

"The team and my whole engineering staff has been absolutely awesome,'' he added. "They seem to hit the car perfect when it counts.''
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Tracy, a former series champion who has struggled this year, had a shot at winning his third Toronto race after the Philippe-Servia crash late in the 86-lap event on the 1.755-mile temporary street circuit.

The local favorite -- from suburban Toronto -- was behind Allmendinger on the restart on lap 83, but couldn't get close enough at the end to make it a race. The winningest driver in the series -- with 30 victories -- wound up a distant 1.851 seconds -- nearly the entire final straightaway -- behind his new teammate.

The Champ Car series gives the drivers a limited amount of extra turbocharger power, called push-to-pass, for each race. Tracy said he had used up the extra boost in getting past the other contenders, while Allmendinger was able to conserve his.

"Obviously, coming home 1-2 was the best we could do,'' said Tracy, who had only his second podium finish in the first seven races this season. "When it came down to the end, he had more push-to-pass and I couldn't really make it competitive. But my state of mind and spirits are up, and I can build on this.''
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What's In A Crowd Count?

Thousands of supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, presidential candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), attend a rally to protest against the result of last weekend's election in Mexico City's Zocalo square July 8, 2006. Image Credit: REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar (MEXICO)

Depending on who one listens to, the size of the crowd of supporters for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador that had gathered in Mexico City's "Plaza de la Constitución" (Constitution Square) to protest the results of last weekend's election was estimated to be anywhere from 100,000 to 400,000.

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the protests held May 1st, on immigration reform in downtown Los Angeles draw upwards to 1,000,000 people? Further reports on the "day without immigrants protest" had Chicago with 300,000 plus.

Funny, I guess that even given that the vote was close ... it wasn't important enough to show up and protest the vote count.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Mexican tells crowd he'll seek recount
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer - 49 minutes ago

MEXICO CITY - Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called on a huge crowd of supporters Saturday to keep peacefully protesting as he goes to court to challenge what he called his fraudulent electoral defeat.

The fiery former Mexico City mayor said he would present fraud allegations to Mexico's electoral court on Sunday and formally request that all 41 million votes be recounted.

The ruling party's Felipe Calderon can't be declared president-elect until the electoral court weighs allegations of fraud or unfair campaign practices. The court has until Sept. 6 to declare a winner.
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Election monitors from the European Union said they found no irregularities in the count. Calderon says the vote was clean and has taken congratulatory phone calls from President Bush and the leaders of Canada, Spain and Colombia, among others, despite Lopez Obrador's plea for foreign governments to hold off on recognizing the result.

Lopez Obrador called for nationwide marches beginning Wednesday and converging on Mexico City for a July 16 rally.

He provoked groans of disappointment when he told the crowd of more than 100,000 packing Mexico City's central plaza not to block highways during the marches.
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The likelihood of continuing demonstrations suggests how difficult it will be for Calderon to unify Mexicans, many of whom believe the nation has yet to overcome the decades of institutional corruption and fraud that kept its leaders in power.

Lopez Obrador has repeatedly evaded questions about whether he would accept court decisions that go against him.

Lopez Obrador took direct aim at President Vicente Fox, accusing him of conspiring with Mexico's autonomous elections agency, known as IFE, to engineer a Calderon victory.

Election officials say Calderon, of Fox's National Action Party, beat Lopez Obrador by less than 244,000 votes out of 41 million ballots — or a margin of about 0.6 percent.
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Lopez Obrador has millions of devoted followers who believe only he can help Mexico's poor and downtrodden. Most of his supporters come from Mexico City and poor southern states, while Calderon's strength is in Mexico's industrialized north.

Lopez Obrador claims a manual recount would confirm that hundreds of thousands of votes for him remain uncounted, miscounted or voided. The law allows such a recount only for specific polling places where credible evidence of irregularities exist. The leftist's supporters say that applies to at least 50,000 of the approximately 130,000 polling places.

The crowd in Mexico City's famed Zocalo plaza would accept nothing less than victory.
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Many traveled all night to arrive at the Zocalo, joining a sea of yellow, the color of Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party.

"We are ready to do whatever is necessary," said Belisario Cruz, 32, a farmer from Tabasco. "We are tired of the rich having everything and the poor having nothing."
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Amazing AJ! - Strikes Again In Toronto - UPDATED

AJ Allmendinger - Photo credit: Phillip Abbott, USA LAT Photographic

The fairytale run of AJ Allmendinger continues in Toronto!

The first day of qualifying proves that AJ's run of great racing is no fluke. For the third time in three races, AJ can do no better than be on the front row. If his time posted Friday survives today's qualifying session, he will have captured the pole position of the start of the race for the second time in two races. With the way he is running, even if someone betters his time in the first session, he would probably be able to come back and still set best time - we'll see.

Today's final qualifying session begins at 2:20 pm ET

Excerpts from CCWS -

AMERICAN A.J. ALLMENDINGER CONTINUES TITLE QUEST
Leading First-Day Champ Car Qualifying at Molson Grand Prix of Toronto

TORONTO (July 7, 2006) - American racing prodigy A.J. Allmendinger (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) continued his march toward the top of the Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford standings, leading a qualifying session for the third consecutive race, pacing today's opening session at the Molson Grand Prix of Toronto.

Allmendinger snapped off a quick lap of 58.621 seconds (107.777 mph) to lead the first day of qualifying around the 1.755-mile Exhibition Place street circuit, besting former RuSPORT teammate Justin Wilson (#9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) by two-tenths of a second to score the first championship point of the weekend. Nelson Philippe (#34 CTE Racing - HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) put up a quick time of 59.203 seconds (106.718 mph) late in the session to wrest the third spot away from hometown favorite Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone).

The Forsythe Championship Racing driver, who just yesterday signed a deal to extend his stay with the Chicago-based team, used a daring strategy and a new set of red-rimmed alternate Bridgestone Potenzas to take advantage of a rare bit of open track midway through today's 30-minute qualifying session.

Allmendinger was one of the first drivers to pit after his first stint, and was sitting fifth after everyone else had logged their first set of times. Sitting in the pits, Allmendinger and his team realized that every other car was on the Pit Lane as well, and decided to roll out ahead of everyone else for their second stint.

"My engineer asked me if I wanted to go out or if I wanted to wait, because the track usually gets better with every lap somebody runs on it, and there were still 10 minutes left in the session," Allmendinger said. "But we decided to go out and take advantage of the clear track and we ran three good, clean laps."
Read All>>

UPDATE:

Justin Wilson, AJ's former team-mate, pulls out a last lap of session pole position over AJ by .082 seconds. Read the blow-by-blow of the qualifying session here>>!

So, it's Wilson and Allmendinger on the front row, followed by Bourdais and Tracy - This will prove to be an interesting start!

Race tomorrow on CBS starting at 9:30 AM PST

Score One For The FBI - Zero for the NYT

Traffic streams past the New York entrance of the Holland Tunnel Friday, July 7, 2006 in New York. Law enforcement officials say authorities have disrupted planning by foreign terrorists for an attack on New York City tunnels. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Jason DeCrow

The FBI, monitoring internet "chat rooms", nabs a plot to compromise New York's underwater tunnels to Manhattan Island.

Boy, it’s a good thing that the New York Times didn't get wind of this, otherwise they would have been able to shut down the distribution of the newspaper off of the island for a long time! They're slip'n ... they just must be asleep at the wheel.

Excerpts from the AP via Yahoo! News -

FBI disrupts New York City tunnel plot
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer - 24 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Authorities have disrupted planning by foreign terrorists for an attack on New York City tunnels, two law enforcement officials said Friday.

FBI agents monitoring Internet chat rooms used by extremists learned in recent months of the plot to strike a blow at the city's economy by destroying vital transportation networks, one official said.

Lebanese authorities, acting on a U.S. request, have arrested one of the alleged plotters, identified as Amir Andalousli, the other official said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way.

A senior Lebanese security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspect was arrested a month ago. He said his real name is as Assem Hammoud, and that the native of Beirut admitted to the plot.

"Hammoud is a member of Al-Qaida and he confessed to this (plot) information frankly and without coercion," the Lebanese security official said.

One U.S. official said other arrests in the plot had been made overseas, and not all were in Lebanon. The official would not say how many people are believed to be involved.
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Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said, "This is one instance where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase."

The planning for the tunnel attacks was first reported by the New York Daily News in its Friday editions, the first anniversary of the attacks on the London transportation system that killed 52 people.
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Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said that federal law enforcement and New York police have been monitoring a plot to attack New York's mass transit system for at least eight months.

"There was nothing imminent, but it was being monitored for long period of time," said King, who said he has received regular intelligence briefings on the alleged plot as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

King said he had been unable to publicly disclose the plot because to do so would risk the investigation.

"This is ongoing, that's why I've said nothing about it until now," King said. "It would have been better if this had not been disclosed."

The Daily News reported that the plotters wanted to blow up the Holland Tunnel, the southernmost link between Manhattan and New Jersey, in the hopes of flooding New York's financial district. The desired effect would be akin to the flooding that ravaged New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the newspaper said.
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UPDATE:

Excerpts from AP -

ADDS PATH train tunnels; locates all major river crossings from Manhattan. Image Credit: AP Graphic

FBI: Thwarted plot involved 'martyrdom'
By PAT MILTON, Associated Press Writer - Sat Jul 8, 12:59 PM ET

NEW YORK - The terrorist plot, in the words of one FBI official, involved "martyrdom and explosives": suicide bombers who would attack train tunnels used by tens of thousands of commuters in an effort to bring death and flooding to lower Manhattan.

Eight suspects had hoped to pull off the attack in October or November, federal officials said. But federal investigators working with their counterparts in six other countries intervened before the suspects could travel to the United States and become a more serious threat, officials said Friday.

Initial reports said the suspects — including an al-Qaida loyalist arrested in Lebanon and two others in custody elsewhere — wanted to attack the Holland Tunnel, a major thoroughfare that carries cars beneath the Hudson River and into Manhattan.

But officials said the group, with five suspects still at large, had specifically mentioned only the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation train tunnels, which carry more than 215,000 passengers each weekday between New York and New Jersey.

"This is a plot that involved martyrdom and explosives," said FBI Assistant Director Mark J. Mershon.
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New York's transportation system has emerged as a potential terrorist threat several times over the years. A June book by journalist Ron Suskind highlighted a reported plot by al-Qaida to kill thousands by spreading cyanide gas in the subway. In May, a man was convicted of plotting to blow up a bustling subway station.

Associated Press writers Pat Milton in New York; Lara Jakes Jordan, Katherine Shrader and Mark Sherman in Washington, D.C.; and Sam F. Ghattas in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.

Meathead Goes Back To Grinding ‘em Out

Photo Credit: LA Times

Well, after having a very heady and protected run at political influence and power, Rob Reiner runs back into familiar heady, protected, and powerful territory - film direction and production.

It is said that he has taken on two projects. One is designed to be a box office hit with Jack Nicholson, and the other is designed to bang people over the head in a political statement saddled smartly against war, go figure.

All of this movie making activity will be going on while the audit of the California Children and Families, "Commissioner Reiner" headed, is underway. Word on the results of the audit are expected anywhere from as early as August to sometime this fall. This mix is never far from the front burner.

Excerpts from Bill Bradley's New West Notes (LA Weekly)-

Rob Reiner's Next Projects Not Political
By Bill Bradley - June 3, 2006

On the night of the landslide defeat of his tax-the-rich for universal preschool initiative, Proposition 82, movie director Rob Reiner declared that it was only the beginning of his drive for preschool and he would continue to be heavily involved in politics. But now, going on four weeks from California’s June 6th primary, it looks like his next project is cinematic, rather than political, and will engage him heavily during this fall’s general election campaign.

Various Hollywood sources say that Reiner will direct a film called The Bucket List, tentatively starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. In the movie scenario, two terminally ill patients break out of a cancer ward and endeavor to live out all those things on a list they have of what they would like to do before, as the saying goes, they kick the bucket. These adventures include driving race cars, dating models, scarfing down plates of caviar, gambling in Monte Carlo, and so on.

Reiner also has another movie project in development, one with more of a political theme and a very current political connection. Whiskey River is, according to the Internet Movie DataBase, a story in which “an American soldier injured in Iraq is called back into action before he's fully recovered, prompting his father to kidnap his son in order to save his life.”

The writer is one James Webb, one of the most highly decorated Marine Corps officers of the Vietnam War, Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy, and an acclaimed novelist. But Webb is somewhat busy just now. Due to his opposition to the Iraq War, he re-registered as a Democrat. In fact, last month he became the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Virginia. Last fall, he trailed incumbent Senator George Allen -- a 2008 presidential hopeful -- by 15 percent. Now he’s cut the incumbent’s lead to five percent.

Webb’s connection with Rob Reiner is somewhat problematic, of course, in what was the most dominant of the Southern colonies prior to the American Revolution. So we should not expect to see the erstwhile “Meathead” -- Reiner’s Emmy Award-winning acting role on the classic sitcom All In The Family -- surfacing in a very closely fought Virginia Senate race with major national implications, both for the Presidential primaries of 2008 and the Iraq War today.
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