The Disgraceful Jimmy Carter

Just when I think I can't lose any more respect for Jimmy Carter, I do.

He keeps sinking lower and lower.

Carter has been hawking his new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.

As part of his media blitz, he sat down for half an hour with Charlie Rose.

Even ultra-lib Rose seemed to be stunned by some of the things that came out of Carter's mouth.

Carter is absolutely disgusting.

He has gone beyond being an apologist for Hamas and terrorists. He is firmly entrenched in their corner. In short, Carter is an enemy of Israel.

He should quit pretending to be the wise elder statesman, the peacemaker.

He was never wise and he was never a statesman. He wasn't much of a peacemaker either. (I'll give him the elderly though.)

I'm so sick of Carter acting as if the Camp David Accords were the most significant accomplishment of an American president in the 20th century.

Let's be realistic. Carter was a disaster as president, a complete disaster. Now, as a former president, he's an absolute disgrace.

He's actually managed to do what seemed impossible: He's a worse ex-president than president.

Among the idiotic things that Carter said during the interview:

--"Israel wants to confiscate Palestinian land."


--"I can't speak for Hamas... But I can tell you what they tell me... Hamas can't recognize Israel until it stays within its borders."


The man speaks like a spokesman for the terrorists.

He even claimed that he hadn't seen any proof that Hamas was responsible for lobbing missiles at Israel.

Carter is totally clueless. He's a pawn of the terrorists. That must be why the Left worships him.

I thought Rose posed an interesting question when he asked Carter if he believed that he could broker a peace deal, acting in an official capacity and speaking on behalf of America.

Rose said he had the impression that Carter felt he could be helpful and make real progress.

Rose asked, "Could you settle this thing?"

Carter hesitated but eventually admitted, "I think I could do something about it."

Right.

Sure, I think Carter could get something done, too; such as assisting Israel's enemies in wiping the nation off the map.

It was nauseating to watch. It really was.

When Rose turned to presidential politics, Carter didn't hesitate to express his support for Al Gore.

Carter declared, "I think Al Gore is the best qualified to be president."

He went on, "A lot of Democrats know that he was elected in 2000 and should have been president."

Thankfully, the interview drew to an end after that. I was becoming physically ill.

Bottom line:

Carter supports terrorists.

Carter talks like Michael Moore.

Carter does not conduct himself in a manner befitting a former President of the United States.

Disgraceful.

Milwaukee's Crime Crisis: Broken Promises and Excuses

On February 20, 2006, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett delivered his State of the City Address.

When discussing crime, Barrett focused on gun laws as being the key to thwarting crime.

He blamed the state legislature for not doing enough to get guns off the streets.

Barrett said:

In the last five years, police have confiscated over 11,000 guns. Despite a record number of guns taken off the streets, 95 people were killed by someone shooting a gun in Milwaukee last year. We need to do better.

Our state legislature needs to end its preoccupation with an NRA agenda that puts more guns on our streets and instead, enact laws to stem the flow of illegal guns into our neighborhoods.

Let's expand criminal background checks on all firearm transactions and stop the sales of handguns to anyone under the age of twenty-one. There is absolutely no need for a teenager to have a handgun in the city of Milwaukee. We should require ballistic fingerprinting for all handguns sold in Wisconsin. And, the state must direct more resources to its Crime Lab for DNA Analysis.

I understand that enacting these laws will not stop thugs with guns overnight. But these laws will help stem the tide and assist police in catching criminals who use guns to destroy lives. We can not, and I WILL NOT, accept the status quo.

Did you get that?

Barrett said:

"We can not, and I WILL NOT, accept the status quo."

This from the mayor that claims Milwaukee is not a city in crisis.

The Police Executive Research Forum released a survey that has some bad news for Barrett and the citizens of Milwaukee.

Of course, it really doesn't reveal anything that residents don't already know.

Contrary to what Barret says, the city of Milwaukee is in crisis.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Milwaukee is among the leaders in a spike in violent crime being reported this year in numerous cities across the country, according to figures presented at a conference here this week.

In the first six months of 2006, robberies were up 36% and aggravated assaults were up 31.6% compared with the same period in 2005, according to a survey published by the Police Executive Research Forum. Of the 55 U.S. police departments in the survey, only Minneapolis had a higher combined increase in those categories.

Out of 55 cities, Milwaukee ranks number 2 in its increase in violent crime.

That's horrible.

Barrett can't blame the "NRA agenda." That's no excuse.

Wisconsin is the only state in the country besides Illinois that doesn't have some sort of concealed carry law.

That hasn't done anything to prevent the massive spike in violent crime in Milwaukee.

Certain cities, especially the largest, have not had a similar rise in violence, prompting some experts to caution that more data is needed before concluding that the nation as a whole is seeing a new wave of crime.

Others, however, are convinced that crime is on an upward trend.

"I think there is something important going on out there," David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which hosted the conference, said Thursday. "My bones tell me that something is changing."

Several police chiefs have concluded that the jump in violent crime is not a blip but the start of a troubling trend that must be tackled, said Dean Esserman, chief in Providence, R.I.

Violent crime nationally in 2005 showed the largest single-year increase in 14 years, and many cities report that the trend is continuing this year.

Esserman noted that chiefs and mayors from 50 cities attended a conference in August, and most reported violent crime is on the rise. At the time, Los Angeles Chief William Bratton called it a "gathering storm," though it has not hit his city yet.

"The reality is overwhelming," said Esserman, of the Police Executive Research Forum, which hosted that August conference. "Everyone told the same story with desperation and anger."

Mayors can hold conferences. They can talk about the "gathering storm."

Whatever. It's nothing but a gathering of hot air.

The fact is Barrett campaigned for mayor on the promise that he would lower crime in the city.

He hasn't made good on that promise.

He likes to tout the decreased homicide rate, but as the report states, that rate is not an adequate measure of violent crime.

Pledging to lower crime is typical campaign rhetoric, and certainly Barrett can't tackle the city's violence problem alone.

BUT--

The buck stops with him.

He's sticking with ineffective policies and an ineffective police chief. Nan Hegerty is not getting the job done.

Unfortunately, Barrett is an ineffective mayor, on many different levels.

He's no Rudy Giuliani.

...So far, homicides in Milwaukee are down - almost 16% compared with this time last year, with 97 killings to date and 115 at this time in 2005. But officials say non-fatal shootings are rising. Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa expects to treat 34% more gunshot victims this year than last, and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin is up 38%.

Experts say that the total number of shootings - not just the fatal ones - is a better measurement of gun violence.

The Journal Sentinel reported last month that about 600 people a year are struck by gunfire in Milwaukee and survive. Shootings cost taxpayers, hospitals and people with insurance tens of millions of dollars a year, the newspaper found. They also consume police officers' time, leading to slow response for less urgent calls. For months, residents have complained about response times not only for low-level calls but also for more serious crimes.

Police Chief Nannette Hegerty has formed a group in her department to study police responses and consider changes, as it struggles with the surge in violence. One option being considered is whether to continue sending officers to certain lower-priority calls, perhaps handling the calls over the phone or by computer.

Good grief.

Hegerty's group to "study police responses and consider changes" is not enough. It's certainly no consolation to the victims of violence and the survivors of the murdered.

Some people are sitting around gabbing. So what?

Why study the problem? We know how to approach the problem -- follow Giuliani's example and utilize the "Broken Windows" theory.

Giuliani describes it:

I very much subscribe to the "Broken Windows" theory, a theory that was developed by Professors Wilson and Kelling, 25 years ago maybe. The idea of it is that you had to pay attention to small things, otherwise they would get out of control and become much worse. And that, in fact, in a lot of our approach to crime, quality of life, social programs, we were allowing small things to get worse rather than dealing with them at the earliest possible stage. That approach had been tried in other cities, but all small cities, and there was a big debate about whether it could work in a city as large as New York. One of the ways that New York used to resist any kind of change was to say, "It can't work here," because they wanted to keep the status quo. There is such a desire for people to do that, to keep the status quo. And I thought, "Well, there's no reason why it can't work in New York City. We have bigger resources. We may have bigger problems, we have bigger resources, the same theory should work." So we started paying attention to the things that were being ignored. Aggressive panhandling, the squeegee operators that would come up to your car and wash the window of your car whether you wanted it or not -- and sometimes smashed people's cars or tires or windows -- the street-level drug-dealing; the prostitution; the graffiti, all these things that were deteriorating the city. So we said, "We're going to pay attention to that," and it worked. It worked because we not only got a big reduction in that, and an improvement in the quality of life, but massive reductions in homicide, and New York City turned from the crime capital of America to the safest large city in the country for five, six years in a row.

Giuliani did not accept the status quo.

See the difference between him and Barrett?

Barrett said, "We can not, and I WILL NOT, accept the status quo."

Giuliani actually DID NOT accept it. His actions backed up his words, unlike Barrett.

...Experts suggest that possible factors behind the recent increase [in violent crime] include easier access to guns, a slow economy, parole of prisoners and less federal money for social services and officers as resources go to homeland defense.

Esserman and other chiefs fault the U.S. Justice Department for forgetting crime as it focuses on terrorism. After the meeting in August, federal officials promised to study the issue, which Esserman called absurd. He said action is needed.

Esserman says studying the issue is "absurd."

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HEGERTY IS DOING.

Action is needed, but it's not happening.

Esserman said another ingredient is getting everyone to care about the violence. He said that too often, the public gives a collective shrug over rampant violence because it affects poor people, usually in the African-American community.

"It has become tolerated. It has become acceptable," he said of the roughly 16,000 homicides every year. "Where is the moral outrage?"

No. Violent crime hasn't become tolerated.

Giuliani and New York refused to tolerate it.

It's true that some mayors and chiefs are tolerating violence, by passing the buck or doing a study when they should be taking concrete steps to deal with the problem NOW.

When Barrett delivers his State of the City Address this year, I think it's a safe bet to assume that he will pound his fist and firmly say, "I will not accept the status quo."

Empty words.

Meanwhile, the violence will continue because the city's approach to fighting crime isn't changing significantly.

That's accepting the status quo.

That's not confronting the crisis.

Barrett has failed the city.

Feingold Can't Get No Satisfaction

Russ "I have never had a craving to be president of the United States" Feingold has weighed in on the leaks from the Iraq Study Group's report due NEXT WEDNESDAY.

He's not happy with what he's hearing. The leaks aren't satisfying Russ.

He's troubled.

He wants a timeline for troop withdrawal and he wants it NOW.

Feingold's Press Release

“I look forward to reading the report of the Iraq Study Group and I expect that it will provide some useful proposals to correct this administration's misguided policies in Iraq. But I am troubled by reports that the Group will not recommend a timeline to redeploy our troops from Iraq. We must redeploy from Iraq so that we can refocus on what must be our top national security priority - the threat posed by terrorist networks operating around the world. While I welcome the reports that indicate the Group will recommend greatly expanded diplomatic efforts in that region, not including a flexible timetable for redeployment of our troops would be a mistake that weakens both our efforts to help Iraqis reach a political solution in Iraq and our national security.”

(Note: "Redeployment" means retreat.)

Feingold wants a dramatic troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Originally, his deadline for retreat was set for December 31, 2006.

Think about that. Feingold proclaimed that U.S. troops should be out of Iraq in a month.

Talk about being completely misguided. What a disastrous policy that would be!

It illustrates just how ridiculous a set timetable is.

Of course, Feingold joined with failed presidential candidate and failed comedian John Kerry to support a July 1, 2007 deadline for troop withdrawal.

When that date rolls around, will the time be right for troops to leave Iraq?

Perhaps. Without question, Iraqis should take responsibility for maintaining order in their country.

But the sort of timetable that Feingold wants is a mistake.

What's guaranteed is that a defined timetable is like calendaring violence, atrocities, and the certain deaths of men, women, and children.

Furthermore, as I've said, I'm troubled by the assumption that this report will be the road map for U.S. policy in Iraq.

Read the transcript of President Bush’s News Conference With Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq.

President Bush hasn't resigned. The executive branch has not changed hands. There hasn't been a coup.

Remember, the Constitution does not grant the Iraq Study Group the powers of the presidency.

Who's grabbing power now?

Billions of Gallons of Raw Sewage

That's what the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District has dumped into Lake Michigan.

Metaphorically speaking, billions of gallons of raw sewage also refers to a significant portion of the content of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Case in point -- The article on the Sierra Legal Defense Fund's "Great Lakes Sewage Report Card."

I wrote about the report card in the wee small hours of Wednesday morning, "The Great Toilets." (What took The Journal Sentinel so long to get to the story?)

Naturally, The Journal Sentinel carries water for MMSD, gleefully reporting the findings that Milwaukee is not the worst polluter of the Great Lakes.

Milwaukee has long been painted by environmentalists as a villain for its chronic sewage spills into Lake Michigan, but a report released Wednesday by a Canadian conservation group shows the city is far from the worst polluter in the Great Lakes.

Milwaukee's grade of a C-plus, in fact, ranks in the top half of the 20 Great Lakes cities evaluated for their sewage management, and at the top of all the major cities surveyed, including Cleveland, Detroit and Toronto.

Still, nobody anywhere in the Great Lakes should be doing back flips, because the report prepared by Sierra Legal Defence Fund shows that an "appalling" amount of fouled water is gushing into the world's largest freshwater system, a drinking source for millions of people, including the Lake Michigan cities of Milwaukee and Chicago.

The 20 cities surveyed in the report alone dump an estimated 24 billion gallons of untreated sewage each year into the Great Lakes, "an outrageous quantity," said Jode Roberts, communications director for Sierra Legal.

"I knew it was a problem, but I had no idea how serious it was," added Elaine MacDonald, senior staff scientist for the group and author of the report.

But Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' deputy water administrator Bruce Baker was somewhat buoyed by the news. While he is dismayed by the volume of nasty stuff spilling into the lakes each year, he said he was happy the group took the time to put the problems of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District in perspective with other Great Lakes sewage spillers.

What a load!

The report declares the dumping of sewage to be "appalling."

Milwaukee only got a C+ grade.

That's not good news.

I guess relatively speaking one could consider it to be positive. It's sort of like being happy about someone committing only a few murders rather than killing hundreds of people.

He said the district still has a lot to do to curb its overflow problems, but it has been "singled out as this really bad actor when we've known all along that when you put them in the context of large cities on Great Lakes, they're certainly not the lowest on that list."

Since 1994, MMSD has dumped an average of more than 1 billion gallons of untreated sewage per year into Lake Michigan. Last-ranked Detroit dumped more than 13 billion gallons in 2002 alone, according to the report. That waste ultimately makes its way into Lake Erie.

Detroit is a worse offender than Milwaukee.

I DON'T CARE.

The Sierra Legal Defense Fund's report is not vindication for MMSD.

The city isn't the worst sewage dumper. So what?

That doesn't make the practice of pouring billions of gallons of raw sewage into the lake easier to swallow.

There is no good news here.

The Iraq Study Group: Quasi-Commander-in-Chief

The Iraq Study Group has arrived at some conclusions.

The "elite" assembly of some of the finest minds in the country has agreed on a plan of action for U.S. involvement in Iraq.

The results were to be revealed NEXT Wednesday.

Of course, the group's findings were leaked already.

From (where else?) the leakers' paradise, The New York Times:

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel’s deliberations.

The report, unanimously approved by the 10-member panel, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, is to be delivered to President Bush next week. It is a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March, avoiding a specific timetable, which has been opposed by Mr. Bush, but making it clear that the American troop commitment should not be open-ended. The recommendations of the group, formed at the request of members of Congress, are nonbinding.

NONBINDING.

Yes and no.

Actually, I think the recommendations are binding, at least in the sense that they place a great deal of pressure on the President to accept them.

In effect, this little Study Group has taken on the role of a shadow administration.

I don't think there's anything wrong with input and suggestions; but that's not how all of this has been framed.

The presentation to the American public, via the lib media, is that the Iraq Study Group has the authority to come up with a solution to the Iraq problem (or civil war, if you work for NBC or are Colin Powell).

The leaking of its conclusions are hardly being reported as some simple suggestions from merely an advisory panel.

A person who participated in the commission’s debate said that unless the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki believed that Mr. Bush was under pressure to pull back troops in the near future, “there will be zero sense of urgency to reach the political settlement that needs to be reached.”

"A person who participated in the commission's debate."

Don't you just love those leakers? What would The Times without them?

The report recommends that Mr. Bush make it clear that he intends to start the withdrawal relatively soon, and people familiar with the debate over the final language said the implicit message was that the process should begin sometime next year.

The report leaves unstated whether the 15 combat brigades that are the bulk of American fighting forces in Iraq would be brought home, or simply pulled back to bases in Iraq or in neighboring countries. (A brigade typically consists of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.) From those bases, they would still be responsible for protecting a substantial number of American troops who would remain in Iraq, including 70,000 or more American trainers, logistics experts and members of a rapid reaction force.

In effect, the report takes power out of the President's hands and pressures him to do what the Study Group says.

As the commission wound up two and a half days of deliberation in Washington, the group said in a public statement only that a consensus had been reached and that the report would be delivered next Wednesday to President Bush, Congress and the American public. Members of the commission were warned by Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton not to discuss the contents of the report.

But four people involved in the debate, representing different points of view, agreed to outline its conclusions in broad terms to address what they said might otherwise be misperceptions about the findings. Some said their major concern was that the report might be too late.

What upstanding people these group members are!

They reach consensus yesterday and before the night is out, they're leaking.

Members were warned not to discuss the report.

Well, four people dismissed that entirely, supposedly due to their concerns that a week might make the report irrelevant.

What a lame excuse! Truly lame!!!

Although the diplomatic strategy takes up the majority of the report, it was the military recommendations that prompted the most debate, people familiar with the deliberations said. They said a draft report put together under the direction of Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton had collided with another, circulated by other Democrats on the commission, that included an explicit timeline calling for withdrawal of the combat brigades to be completed by the end of next year. In the end, the two proposals were blended.

If Mr. Bush adopts the recommendations, far more American training teams will be embedded with Iraqi forces, a last-ditch effort to make the Iraqi Army more capable of fighting alone. That is a step already embraced in a memorandum that Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, wrote to the president this month.

“I think everyone felt good about where we ended up,” one person involved in the commission’s debates said after the group ended its meeting. “It is neither ‘cut and run’ nor ‘stay the course.’ ”

“Those who favor immediate withdrawal will not like it,” he said, but it also “deviates significantly from the president’s strategy.”

The report also would offer military commanders — and therefore the president — great flexibility to determine the timing and phasing of the pullback of the combat brigades.

Translation: Bush should agree to implement the recommendations. Anything short of compliance will be viewed as pigheaded on the part of President Bush and the administration.

Reuters also reports on the Iraq Study Group's leaked recommendations.

The anonymous source that talked to Reuters gave a little different take on things than what The Times splashed.

"The main thing is (the group is) calling for a transition from a combat role to a support role," said the source, who spoke on condition that he not be named. "It's basically a redeployment."

It says, "HE not be named." That means Sandra Day O'Connor was not the leaker.

The source said the idea was to shift U.S. combat forces both to bases inside Iraq as well as elsewhere in the region as the military gradually moved away from combat operations, adding that this should happen over the next year or so.

The New York Times earlier reported that there was no timetable for the proposed U.S. pullback, but the source said: "there is a kind of indication in the report as to when that ought to be completed ... sometime within the next year."

The independent, bipartisan group also decided to call for a regional conference that could lead to direct U.S. talks with Iran and Syria, both accused by the United States of fomenting violence in Iraq, the source added.

The Iraq Study Group is not only acting as Commander-in-Chief, but it's assuming the role of Secretary of State as well.

Who needs a State Department or a Department of Defense when you've got a Study Group?

Many in Washington have held out hope that the group's report would provide a way for the United States to extricate itself from an increasingly deadly and unpopular war or, at least, a set of recommendations on how to move forward that could attract support from both Democrats and Republicans.

Their conclusions are likely to carry significant political weight even if President Bush chooses to ignore them, especially after his fellow Republicans lost control of the U.S. Congress in November 7 elections largely because of deep public discontent with the Iraq war.

This is the problem.

Their conclusions are more than advisory. They have much greater significance.

I'm not comfortable with the politics.

I wonder what would have happened in 1945 if Harry Truman has been bound by a Study Group's recommendations to decide the course of the war in the Pacific.

_________________________________

Today, President Bush met with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki, after talks scheduled for Wednesday were abruptly cancelled.

He didn't seemed fazed by the Study Groups' recommendations.

AMMAN, Jordan -- President Bush pledged Thursday that U.S. troops will remain in Iraq to strengthen the authority of embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and said the two agreed to speed a turnover of security responsibility to Iraqi forces.

...The president acknowledged the pressure at home for the beginning of U.S. troop withdrawals but he said, "We'll be in Iraq until the job is complete, at the request of a sovereign government elected by the people."

He said the United States — which now has about 140,000 troops in Iraq _will stay "to get the job done so long as the government wants us there."

Bush said he wanted to begin troop withdrawals "as soon as possible. But I'm a realist because I understand how tough it is inside of Iraq."

Iraq Study Group? What Iraq Study Group?



Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (L) watches as U.S. President George W. Bush waves after a news conference in Amman November 30, 2006. REUTERS/Ali Jarekji (JORDAN)

Danny DeVito

After his disastrous appearance on The View this morning, will Danny DeVito go on an apology tour?

Will he apologize to President Bush and his supporters via satellite on Letterman?

Will he appear on The 700 Club and beg forgiveness from moviegoing conservatives?

Will Gloria Allred represent President Bush and demand that DeVito personally meet with him before a retired judge to determine just compensation for victimizing the President?

Is this a career ender for DeVito?

The answer to all of the above is NO.

The reason is obvious. DeVito's a lib and he was mocking President Bush.

Thus, no apologies are really necessary, though he has called Barbara Walters to make nice.

ABC, home of the Rosie O'Donnell-hijacked show The View, reports on the incident:

The actor, who was on the show to promote his movie "Deck the Halls," admitted he had been partying with George Clooney the night before and had not slept.

"I knew it was the last seven limoncellos that was going to get me," the actor told the show's co-hosts.

DeVito looked tired and frazzled. He occasionally slurred his speech, some of which was bleeped by the show's producers.

Some of the talk surrounding DeVito's appearance focuses on a long-winded anecdote he told about staying at the White House.

Seeming confused over whether he slept with his wife Rhea Perlman when he stayed in the Lincoln bedroom, DeVito said, "I don't know. Something happens when you go in that hallway. You start not recognizing women."

"No, it was Rhea," he continued. "We went in and we made it our business to really wreck the joint."

What a boorish display!

The executives at Twentieth Century Fox must be thrilled!

Deck the Halls is being panned by critics. If that's not bad enough, then DeVito goes on national TV and insults the target audience of the film -- FAMILIES.

DeVito's publicist, Stan Rosenfeld, told ABC News that the actor has apologized to Barbara Walters, "The View's" creator and co-host.

"He has called Barbara Walters to apologize for anything that could be construed as unfortunate," he said.

Rosenfeld said he has no idea whether DeVito was drunk during his appearance but emphasized that the actor has never had a problem with drinking.

Personally, I don't care whether or not DeVito was drunk, nor do I care if he has a problem with alcohol.

I do care that he spoke so crassly and disrespectfully about the President, imitating a stuttering, stammering Bush.

He not only insulted the President, but he also mocked people with speech difficulties.

Many media outlets are leaving that part out of their accounts, preferring to focus on his alleged drunkenness.

Watch DeVito embarrass himself.

TMZ

YouTube



DeVito is absolutely classless.

Don't go see Deck the Halls.

Two reasons:

1. The reviews are horrible.

2. It stars Danny DeVito.

Jim Webb Disses Bush

Jim Webb, noted author and Virginia's SENATOR-ELECT, hasn't even been sworn in yet and he's making waves in Washington.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Democratic Sen.-elect Jim Webb avoided the receiving line during a recent White House reception for new members of Congress and had a chilly exchange with President Bush over the Iraq war and his Marine son.

"How's your boy?" Webb, in an interview Wednesday, recalled Bush asking during the reception two weeks ago.

"I told him I'd like to get them out of Iraq," Webb said.

"That's not what I asked. How's your boy?" the president replied, according to Webb.

At that point, Webb said, Bush got a response similar to what reporters and others who had asked Webb about Lance Cpl. Jimmy Webb, 24, have received since the young man left for Iraq around Labor Day: "I told him that was between my boy and me."

Webb, a leading critic of the Iraq war, said that he had avoided the receiving line and photo op with Bush, but that the president found him.

How childish!

Webb was trying to avoid the President?

Doesn't this genius realize that he needs to work with the President?

And Webb can't bring himself to exchange a few words with Bush socially.

Yeah, the Dems intend to change the tone in Washington.

What a crock!

Webb is really strange. He certainly could have given a very generic response to the President's inquiry.

...He said he meant no disrespect to the presidency during the reception, but "I've always made a distinction about not speaking personally about my son."

In interviews during the campaign, Webb said it was wrong to elevate the role of one Marine over others. Webb also expressed concern that a high profile could subject a Marine to greater peril.

He wore his son's buff-colored desert boots throughout the campaign, but refused to speak extensively about his son's service or allow it to be used in campaign ads.

In other words, he readily exploited his son's service to dupe the people of Virginia into electing him; yet he refuses to give a simple response to questions about his son.

President Bush wasn't asking for an in-depth account of Webb's relationship with Jimmy Webb.

The President was showing concern and acknowledging Jimmy's service.

Webb, on the other hand, showed that he's extremely disrespectful and socially awkward.

He also has a violent streak.

Webb should stick to writing those creepy novels. He doesn't relate very well with others.

Mahmoud's Message: Dear Noble Americans

"Noble Americans, I love you. Do you love me?"


Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made good on his promise.

No, not wiping Israel off the map. He hasn't accomplished that -- yet.

I'm talking about his pledge to send a message to the American people.

On Tuesday, November 14, Ahmadinejad said:

"I will soon send a message to the American people. The message is in the stage of preparation."

Ahmadinejad completed his project and delivered the finished product today.

Yippee!!!

The Islamic Republic News Agency reported it this way:

In an important message released Wednesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the people of the United States of America.

In his message, the president said, "While Divine providence has placed Iran and the United States of America geographically far apart, we should be cognizant that human values and our common human spirit, which proclaim the dignity and exalted worth of all human beings, have brought our two great nations of Iran and the United States closer."

What's with this guy?

He wrote that goofy, long letter to President Bush last Spring. Now, he's bypassed our President and has decided to directly address the American people.

The full text of the message is lengthy. It's a long-winded treatise that's in the same league as the best of John Kerry's babbling.

The AFP refers to the letter as "stinging."

Good grief.

The IRNA has translated the message in four parts.

I

II

III

IV

Basically, Ahmadinejad sucks up to the Americans, taking a stance that I'm sure many libs like. I think he was inspired by the recent U.S. elections.

He wants the Dems to make good on their campaign promises -- surrender, cut and run, that stuff.

He appeals to the pro-Palestinian, thinly-veiled anti-Semitic types in America.

He talks about Katrina.

Yes, Ahmadinejad covers all the lib talking points. In fact, I think he secretly longs to be an American lib. He is certainly hoping to be an American lib darling. Maybe he will win the hearts and minds of the American Left, but he won't win me over.

He's a Holocaust-denying, deranged, nuclear weapons obsessed maniac. He hates Israel and he hates that America is allied with Israel.

Big deal. Ahmadinejad wrote a letter.

Bottom line: WHO CARES?

The Great Toilets

The Great Lakes aren't really toilets. We just treat them that way.

Today, the Sierra Legal Defense Fund released its Great Lakes Sewage Report Card.

The grades are somewhat disappointing.

Surprised?

Read the report here.

It's a massive work.

The Associated Press sums up the key findings.

TORONTO -- The untreated urban sewage and effluents that flow into the Great Lakes each year are threatening a critical ecosystem that supplies water to millions of people, according to a study by a Canadian environmental group.

Even though municipalities in the Great Lakes region have spent vast sums of money in recent decades upgrading their wastewater plants, the situation remains appalling, said the Sierra Legal Defense Fund.

Sierra Legal said in a report to be formally released Wednesday that it studied 20 Canadian and American cities, analyzing municipal sewage treatment and discharges into the Great Lakes basin, the Canadian Press news agency reported on the report Tuesday, saying it received an advance copy.

The survey graded municipalities in areas such as collection, treatment and disposal of sewage based on information provided by the local governments.

The main problem, the environmental group said, is that in many cases, antiquated sewage systems are incapable of dealing effectively with the vast amounts of effluent that flow through them.

The situation is especially bad when heavy rains overwhelm treatment systems in cities where storm run-off is collected in the same pipes as sewage.

Some 24 billion gallons of untreated effluent enter the Great Lakes every year through combined sewage overflows, the study found.

Even with a relatively minor rain event, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District dumps untreated sewage into Lake Michigan. Sometimes, it's not completely untreated. It's what MMSD calls a "blend."

When the rain is especially heavy, MMSD's "Lake Michigan solution" can be especially jaw dropping in scale.

For example, from the June 8, 2oo4 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Rained a lot; not our fault.

That, in a nutshell, was the defense sewerage district officials offered Monday for the record 4.6 billion gallons of raw sewage that was dumped into local streams and Lake Michigan last month.

Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District officials told the state regulators that the rains through much of May were so heavy and local sewer lines so leaky that MMSD's system just couldn't handle all the flow. Dumping was done legally as an alternative to causing basement backups, MMSD officials said.

Astonishingly, the report gives Milwaukee (p. 50) a grade of C+.

That's scary. If Milwaukee can pull a C+, how bad does a city have to be to get a lower grade?

Green Bay (p. 49) can be proud with its B+ performance.

...Canada's worst offender was Windsor, Ontario, which _ along with U.S. cities Detroit and Cleveland _ performed "abysmally." Cities such as Toronto and Hamilton also earned below-average grades.

At the top end, Peel Region just west of Toronto, Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota, were the best performers, thanks largely to their ability to keep rain water and sewage separate.

So Wisconsin is among the best performers in the country because it manages to keep rain and sewage apart.

That's amazing.

Also from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

On Tuesday, two environmental groups notified the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District that they intend to file a second lawsuit against the district in federal court in Milwaukee in an attempt to halt ongoing sanitary sewer overflows.

In March 2002, Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers in Milwaukee and Alliance for the Great Lakes in Chicago, formerly the Lake Michigan Federation, filed a lawsuit in federal court, seeking a cessation of sanitary sewer overflows and asking a federal judge to impose financial penalties against the district for violations of the federal Clean Water Act.

The lawsuit alleged the dumping of more than 900 million gallons of untreated sewage from sanitary sewers into Milwaukee rivers and Lake Michigan from 1994 to January 2002.

Who knew that a city with a history of dumping BILLIONS of gallons of untreated sewage into Lake Michigan was worthy of a C+ grade?

More proof of grade inflation I guess.

The Reuters Album of Shame

Reuters photographers and photo editors have done it again.

Add two more questionable photos to the Reuters Album of Shame.


Women cry behind a coffin containing the body of their relative, in front of Imam Ali hospital in Baghdad's Sadr city November 27, 2006. Their relative was killed during Sunday's clashes in north Baghdad. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem (IRAQ)

The woman on the left bears a striking resemblance to President Bush.

Is this another case of a Reuters altered image?

Is Adnan Hajj working for Reuters again under a new name?

Today, we're treated to yet another Reuters disgrace. This photo isn't altered. It's just strange, one of those creative cropping shots.



Pope Benedict XVI arrives at Anitkabir, the mausoleum of the founder of the secular Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in Ankara, November 28, 2006. Ataturk's mausoleum is the first official stop for Pope Benedict XVI during his four-day visit to Turkey. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi (TURKEY)

Why would this shot be slapped on Reuters' photo wire?

Is this a photo of Pope Benedict or an unidentified woman's legs?

Given Reuters' history of shameful shots, I think that this photo was no accident. I think it's a clear attempt to be sexually suggestive and disrespectful.

Reuters' editorializing photographers and their cheap shots are a disgrace to photojournalists everywhere.

Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such as documentary photography, street photography or celebrity photography) by the qualities of:

Timeliness — the images have meaning in the context of a published chronological record of events.

Objectivity — the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict.

Narrative — the images combine with other news elements, to inform and give insight to the viewer or reader.

I think a new category of photography needs to be established for Reuters.

Perhaps "propaganda photography"?

"Poor taste photography"?

"Unprofessional, sleazy photography"?

POPE BENEDICT IS NOT ISLAMOPHOBIC

The Turks greeted Pope Benedict today.


A heavily armed security officer stands on the roof of the Ankara airport before the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI for a four-day Apostolic journey to Turkey at Esenboga airport in Ankara November 28, 2006. (Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters)



Turkish policemen guard the car waiting for Pope Benedict XVI outside Ankara's airport, Turkey, Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Amid heavy security, Pope Benedict XVI brought a message of peace and brotherhood to Turkey.

How sad that a holy man bringing a message of love and reconciliation must risk his life to deliver it!

ANKARA, Turkey -- Pope Benedict XVI began his first visit to a Muslim country Tuesday with a message of dialogue and "brotherhood" between faiths, and Turkey's chief Islamic cleric said at a joint appearance that growing "Islamophobia" hurts all Muslims.

Benedict also said guarantees of religious freedom are essential for a just society. His comments could be reinforced later during the four-day visit when the pope meets in Istanbul with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians.

Religious freedom is about as foreign in some places as tolerance.

..."The so-called conviction that the sword is used to expand Islam in the world and growing Islamophobia hurts all Muslims," Bardakoglu said at a joint appearance.

Here's the problem:

ME, ME, ME.

Why is it always about Muslims? Why must they play the victim card so readily?

Religious tolerance is NOT a one-way street.

True, Islamophobia hurts all Muslims.

Judeophobia hurts all Jews.

Fear of Christians hurts all Christians.

Theophobia in general is a problem when it promotes violence and hate.

Here's some relevant questions:

Why aren't Muslims expected to be held to the standards that others are?

Why aren't they required to reflect on the reasons some people exhibit from Islamophobia?

I think a little personal responsibility is in order rather than whining about being victimized.


A small group of about 20 people, one holding a sign reading 'blood in the past, blood in the future, blood in the Vatican', protest the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in Ankara, Tuesday Nov. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Gee, I wonder why there's a rise in Islamophobia.

...The comment appeared to be a reference to Benedict's remarks in a speech in September when he quoted a 14th century Christian emperor who characterized the Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman." Those remarks triggered a wave of anger in the Islamic world; on Sunday, more than 25,000 Turks showed up to an anti-Vatican protest in Istanbul, asking the pope to stay at home.

People hold placards comparing Pope Benedict XVI to the devil during an anti-pope demonstration outside Turkey's religious affairs directorate in Ankara, November 28, 2006. (Yves Herman/Reuters)

The Pope is the devil.

What a peaceful message from the anti-Christian crowd! Can you feel the love?

"Peace is the basis of all religions," Benedict told Bardakoglu.

The Vatican said the speech was an attempt to highlight the incompatibility of faith and violence, and Benedict later expressed regret for the violent Muslim backlash.

"All feel the same responsibility in this difficult moment in history, let's work together," Benedict said during his flight from Rome to Ankara, where more than 3,000 police and sharpshooters joined a security effort that surpassed even the visit of President Bush two years ago.

"We know that the scope of this trip is dialogue and brotherhood and the commitment for understanding between cultures ... and for reconciliation," he said.

Too many Muslims don't want understanding. They don't want brotherhood. They don't want reconciliation.

That's a tragedy.

I admire Pope Benedict for stressing the incompatibility of faith and violence.

The 25,000 anti-Pope protesters in Turkey should put down the placards, take off the headbands, stop shotting ugly slogans, and listen to what Pope Benedict has to say.

Profiles in Terror

Yesterday, there was a protest at Reagan Washington National Airport, a "pray-in" held by imams, rabbis, and ministers.

The demonstration was staged to keep the story of the six imams removed from a US Airways Minneapolis to Phoenix flight last Monday alive.

Supposedly, the purpose of the protest was to get US Airways to apologize for being anti-Muslim, discriminatory, and engaging in racial profiling.

Actually, I think the entire episode was a test.

How would passengers and airline personnel react to the weird behavior of the imams?

After charges of profiling were leveled, would US Airways back down?

Would the public side with the imams?

According to the Associated Press:

Imam Omar Shahin, one of the six imams detained last Monday at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said they hadn't done anything suspicious.

The imams, who were returning from a religious conference, had prayed on their prayer rugs in the airport before the flight. After they boarded the flight, a passenger passed a note to a flight attendant. The men were taken off the airplane, handcuffed and questioned.

"It was the worst moment in my life," Shahin said.

I don't buy that. I think it was a highlight for Shanin. I think he got exactly what he wanted -- an opportunity to criticize the U.S. government for profiling and a chance to stir up Muslim rage.

If that incident last Monday was the worst moment Shahin has experienced, then he's had a very charmed life.

I think there's a good chance that Shahin hated being removed from the plane, handcuffed and questioned as much as Cindy Sheehan hates being arrested and led away in handcuffs.

US Airways Group Inc. spokeswoman Andrea Rader said prayer was never the issue. She said the passenger overheard anti-U.S. statements and the men got up and moved around the airplane.

"We're sorry the imams had a difficult time, but we do think the crews have to make these calls and we think they made the right one," she said.

The men were behaving suspiciously.

It would have been a grave mistake for US Airways to ignore them.

I sincerely believe that this was a case of entrapment.

These imams WANTED to cry, "Profiling!"

Yesterday's goofy "pray-in" smacks of Cindy Sheehan tactics. Instead of camping out near President Bush's ranch to attract the media, the clergy drew the media by camping out near the US Airways ticket counter in Terminal A.

As the religious of various faiths joined together to protest the alleged dehumanization of the imams and the degrading treatment they endured, more details from witnesses have emerged.

The information makes the protesters look ridiculous.

It makes MSNBC's Contessa "Rosa Parks" Brewer, a former Milwaukee news personality, and CAIR members look like absolute fools.


Watch--



Audrey Hudson of The Washington Times has the story:

Muslim religious leaders removed from a Minneapolis flight last week exhibited behavior associated with a security probe by terrorists and were not merely engaged in prayers, according to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials.

Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted "Allah" when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix.

"I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud," the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department.

Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.

"That would alarm me," said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. "They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane."

A pilot from another airline said: "That behavior has been identified as a terrorist probe in the airline industry."

And they claim that all they were doing was praying.

The imams were discriminated against for exercising their religion.

Is switching from their assigned seats on a plane part of their prayer practices?

...Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, called removing the imams an act of Islamophobia and compared it to racism against blacks.

BS.

The imams were acting suspiciously.

It wasn't Islamophobia to have them removed from the plane and questioned.

It was a completely rational and totally appropriate thing to do.

...The protesters also called on Congress to pass legislation to outlaw passenger profiling.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas Democrat, said the September 11 terrorist attacks "cannot be permitted to be used to justify racial profiling, harassment and discrimination of Muslim and Arab Americans."

"Understandably, the imams felt profiled, humiliated, and discriminated against by their treatment," she said.

I completely disagree with Jackson-Lee.

The 9/11 attacks weren't used as justification to harass the imams.

It would have been negligent on the part of the airline to allow the behavior to pass without investigating further.

Yes, there are "soft on terror" Dems like Russ Feingold who would prefer to aid the terrorists and put American lives at risk rather than question people acting inappropriately.

We can't afford to make that mistake.

According to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials, the imams displayed other suspicious behavior.

Three of the men asked for seat-belt extenders, although two flight attendants told police the men were not oversized. One flight attendant told police she "found this unsettling, as crew knew about the six [passengers] on board and where they were sitting." Rather than attach the extensions, the men placed the straps and buckles on the cabin floor, the flight attendant said.

Sure. That happens all the time. Nothing suspicious about that at all.

Who doesn't ask for extenders and then store them on the floor? That's perfectly normal behavior. Right.

I'd like to know how the imams' explained their request for extenders to authorities.

The imams said they were not discussing politics and only spoke in English, but witnesses told law enforcement that the men spoke in Arabic and English, criticizing the war in Iraq and President Bush, and talking about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

Are all these witnesses conspiring against the six imams?

That's not believable.

...One of the passengers, Omar Shahin, told Newsweek the group did everything it could to avoid suspicion by wearing Western clothes, speaking English and booking seats so they were not together. He said they conducted prayers quietly and separately to avoid attention.

The imams had attended a conference sponsored by the North American Imam Federation in Minneapolis and were returning to Phoenix. Mr. Shahin, who is president of the federation, said on his Web site that none of the passengers made pro-Saddam or anti-American statements.

It sounds like this was a setup, arranged for the media's consumption.

The discrepancies between the imams' stories and those of the witnesses are too dramatic to be explained away as differences in interpretations.

The pilot said the airlines are not "secretly prejudiced against any nationality, religion or culture," and that the only target of profiling is passenger behavior.

"There are certain behaviors that raise the bar, and not sitting in your assigned seat raises the bar substantially," the pilot said. "Especially since we know that this behavior has been evident in suspicious probes in the past."

I feel sorry for the crew and passengers of Flight 300.

They are being victimized by these imams. They're being exploited by Muslims with an anti-American government agenda.

"Someone at US Airways made a notably good decision," said a second pilot, who also does not work for US Airways.

A spokeswoman for US Airways declined to discuss the incident. Aviation security officials said thousands of Muslims fly every day and conduct prayers in airports in a quiet and private manner without creating incidents.

That's key. Muslims fly all the time without problems.

This was not civil disobedience.

The six imams were not involved in a Rosa Parks moment. To suggest that is an insult to her courage and strong will.

These imams were playing a game, not making a statement.

The men do not have the right to cause a disturbance and disrupt the flight.

They acted like terrorists and so they were treated like terrorists.

I don't see anything wrong with that.

Georgia Thompson Reporting for Duty

Over the river and through the woods,
To Grandmother's house we go.

It's not going to be a very festive holiday season for Georgia Thompson and her family.

She's not going to Grandmother's house.

She's going to Illinois, to prison.

MADISON, Wis. -- Former state employee Georgia Thompson is reporting to prison on Monday after she was convicted this summer of of illegally steering a state contract to a company whose executives gave money to Gov. Jim Doyle's campaign.

...Thompson will serve an 18-month sentence at a minimum-security facility near Peoria, Ill.

I wonder what Jim Doyle will be doing for the holidays.

I suppose he's too busy to pay Thompson a visit.

I wonder if Doyle feels guilty. It's highly unlikely, but if he does, it might be cathartic for him to write an O.J. Simpson-style If I Did It book.

I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.

Turkey "Welcomes" Pope Benedict

TIME tries to rationalize "Why Turks Are Not Pleased to See the Pope."

In response to thousands and thousands of crazed anti-Pope Benedict protesters taking to Turkish streets over the weekend, the article offers up one of those "Let's understand why they are acting this way" analyses.

Like after 9/11, rather than blame the terrorists, libs put the onus on Americans to determine what we did to bring the attacks on ourselves. Why are the terrorists so mad at us?

TIME takes a similar stance with the Turkish reaction to the Pope's upcoming visit to Turkey, straining to justify the intense anger.

"For many in Turkey, the visiting pontiff personifies the mounting hostility they feel from Europe."

Reporter Pelin Turgut writes:

It took a 12 hour bus ride for Hafize Kucuk and Sevgi Ozen, 21-year-old university students, to get from the northern Turkish city of Samsun to an Istanbul rally Sunday protesting Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey this week. But they thought little of the inconvenience. "This is a man who insulted our Prophet [Muhammad] and didn't even apologize properly," said Kucuk. "Now he's coming to our country, a Muslim country. This is unacceptable. We came to make our voices heard."

The rally, attended by some 15,000 Islamist protestors, was a colorful affair. Huge, lurid posters linking Benedict to Crusader knights. Hundreds of young men, wearing white headbands inscribed with the message "We don't want this sly Pope in Turkey", chanted angry slogans.

Militant protestors are a minority, but many Turks are deeply skeptical about a visit they view as part of a Western design against Turkey, which is mostly Muslim but officially secular.

I wouldn't call the rally a colorful affair at all.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a colorful affair.

"Colorful" is not the right word to describe the rally. The connotation is too kind.

I would call it a disgusting display of hate and intolerance.

..."At this point most Turks are deeply suspicious of the West," says Cengiz Aktar, political science professor at Galatasaray University. "They see this visit as yet another development to be suspicious of."

Oh, I see. It's the big, bad West that's causing Turks to act this way.

Our fault.

...Nationalists believe the Pope's visit to Hagia Sophia, a major tourist attraction, is a sign of Christian desire to reclaim it as a church. Newspapers have speculated feverishly over whether he will pray while inside.

"Its not that we have anything personal against the Pope," says Zafer Emanetoglu, head of the youth branch of the Islamist party which organized Sunday's rally. "But we know that he is here as part of a greater plan against Turkey, and to unite Christians against Muslims."

Blah, blah, blah.

That sounds insane. Pope Benedict isn't going to "reclaim" Hagia Sophia.

The notion that the protesters have nothing personal against the Pope is equally insane.

Clearly, many of them do.

I think the protests should be condemned for what they are -- UGLY.

Look at a sampling of pictures from protests over the weekend:


A Turkish woman brandishes her placards during an anti-Pope rally organized by Islam-based Welfare Party in Istanbul, November 26, 2006. REUTERS/Fatih Saribas (TURKEY)

That placard on the left seems pretty personal to me.


Supporters of the pro-Islamic Felicity Party wave Turkish and party flags during an anti-pope rally in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

I demand an apology! These Muslims are insulting Jesus! Come on, Christians! Let's rally in the streets and chant anti-Muslim slogans and wear headbands!

When was the last time thousands and thousands of Christians did that in response to something Muslims said or did?

It didn't happen after Muslims killed three thousand innocents on American soil, all in the name of Allah.


A Turkish woman, wearing a headband that reads:'The ignorant and sneaky pope who insulted Islam and our Prophet should not come to Turkey' attends an anti-pope rally in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

Again, that's personal.

An apology from these Muslims to Christians is definitely in order for insulting the Holy Father, calling him ignorant and sneaky.



A Turkish woman, wearing a headband that reads:'No to an alliance of crusaders, let the pope not come!', holds a banner during an anti-pope rally in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006. (AP Photo/Osman Orsal)

Muslims are bashing Christians. Is that politically correct?


A Turkish nationalist glues posters against Pope Benedict XVI. Crowds have begun converging in central Istanbul for a demonstration called by a small Islamist party against the visit to Turkey by Pope Benedict XVI, which starts on Tuesday.(AFP/Bulent Kilic)

Nooooo. That poster doesn't look to be a personal attack on the Pope, does it? It's a very flattering depiction of Pope Benedict.

Right.



A girl shouts slogans during an anti-Pope rally organised by the Islam-based Welfare Party in Istanbul November 26, 2006. Pope Benedict XVI is expected to arrive in Turkey on Tuesday. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski (TURKEY)


Demonstrators chant slogans during an anti-Pope rally organized by Islam-based Welfare Party in Istanbul, November 26, 2006. REUTERS/Fatih Saribas (TURKEY)

These photos bother me most of all. They are children being taught to hate.

It looks like they've learned their lessons well.

Wouldn't it help matters if these Muslim children were being taught to love others?

Wouldn't it make a difference if these Muslim children were being taught tolerance rather than violence?

I truly don't understand how SOME Muslim parents can raise their children to hate Christians and other non-Muslims.

Don't they want their children to inherit a peaceful world?

If they do, they're going about it the wrong way.
_____________________________

VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) -- On a day that tens of thousands took to the streets denouncing a four-day papal pilgrimage to Turkey set to begin Nov. 28, Pope Benedict XVI called for prayers for the success of the visit to include interreligious dialogue with Orthodox Christians and Muslim leaders against the backdrop of underlying deep divisions in the nation.

In Nov. 26 remarks during the gathering at St. Peter’s Square for the Sunday recitation of the midday Angelus, the pope also focused on the day’s celebration of the feast of Christ the King and called for a commitment to avoid all discrimination against those afflicted with AIDS in anticipation of the observance of World AIDS Day, Dec. 1.

Extending greetings to “the dear Turkish people, so rich in history and culture” and “sentiments of respect and sincere friendship" to the nation and its representatives, Pope Benedict urged the thousands of pilgrims gathered to offer prayers “that this pilgrimage may bring the fruits that God desires.”

I'll be praying for the Pope's safety and a successful visit to Turkey.

I won't be marching in the streets insulting Muslims.

Frank McBride and Kyle Doss: Serenity Now!

It seems like this story has been going on forever. It's only been a week, but that seems like an eternity when it comes to news.

Enough already!

Everyone is familiar with Michael Richards' explosion into a racist rant during his stand up act at a comedy club.

Read the background here if you've been living under a rock and don't know what happened.

Unfortunately, the saga continues.

Yesterday, (while I was doing my post-Thanksgiving patriotic duty to support the nation's economy), one of the targets of Richards' attack and his lawyer announced that they believed Richards needed to apologize for his behavior, not just verbally but financially as well.

This should come as no surprise. The lawyer is Gloria Allred. The woman is everywhere. She has an uncanny ability to get the infamous to hire her to represent them.

From the Associated Press:

Two men who say they were insulted by actor-comedian Michael Richards during his racist rant at a comedy club want a personal apology and maybe some money, one of the men and their lawyer said Friday.

Frank McBride and Kyle Doss said they were part of a group of about 20 people who had gathered at West Hollywood's Laugh Factory to celebrate a friend's birthday. According to their attorney, Gloria Allred, they were ordering drinks when Richards berated them for interrupting his act.

When one of their group replied that he wasn't funny, Richards launched into a string of obscenities and repeatedly used the n-word. A video cell phone captured the outburst.

Richards, who played Jerry Seinfeld's wacky neighbor Kramer on the TV sitcom "Seinfeld," made a nationally televised apology on the "Late Show with David Letterman" earlier this week. He has since apologized to the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, both civil rights leaders.

Let me be clear.

I think Richards was completely out of line and should apologize for his horrendous behavior. It was such an out of control, horrible display.

BUT--

Why should he apologize specifically to Jackson and Sharpton?

What is that???

I think it's funny that the AP identifies them as civil rights leaders.

If they're the best the civil rights movement can offer, then the movement is lost. Don't forget that Jackson and Sharpton have anti-Semitic remarks in their pasts.

Now Doss has come out of the shadows and anonymity of the audience and taken center stage. He wants an apology, too. It can't be just any apology.

But Doss, 26, said Friday he wanted a "face-to-face apology."

"To have him do what he did to me ... I can't even explain it," Doss said. "I was humiliated, even scared at one point."

Richards' publicist said his client wants to apologize to both men, who are black, but hasn't been able to locate them.

Again, Richards is in the wrong.

He went absolutely nuts.

BUT--

I don't believe that Doss was scared.

He's not a shy, meek, and mild type of person. He's a heckler, right?

What's with this "ordering drinks" stuff?

So Doss and company were behaving appropriately and politely and Richards went berserk?

That's a new kink in the story.

Even if that's the case, I don't buy that 26-year-old Doss feared for his safety because a guy pushing sixty was screaming at him from a stage in front of an audience.

If Doss is demanding a "face-to-face apology," that's his business.

Is it really necessary to get a lawyer?

Richards has said he wanted to apologize directly to the people he insulted.

Why hire Allred?

Is she working pro bono?

I think it's more likely that Allred found Doss and not the other way around.

Allred, speaking by phone from Colorado, said Richards should meet McBride and Doss in front of a retired judge to "acknowledge his behavior and to apologize to them" and allow the judge to decide on monetary compensation.

"It's not enough to say 'I'm sorry' on 'David Letterman,'" she said.

She did not mention a specific figure, but pitched the idea as a way for the comic to avoid a lawsuit.

What sort of retired judge is Allred thinking of?

Is she envisioning a Judge Judy or a Judge Joe Brown scenario?

If Allred thinks Doss and McBride should file a lawsuit against Richards, then they should sue for damages.

This retired judge idea is really weird.

"Our clients were vulnerable," Allred said. "He went after them. He singled them out and he taunted them, and he did it in a closed room where they were captive."

How dramatic!

Richards did taunt them. Absolutely.

However, they weren't captive. They were free to leave.

And if it's true that they were heckling Richards, then they certainly can't be seen as vulnerable.

I'm not excusing Richards' behavior in any way.

However, I do object to Allred's description of the men as vulnerable. In no way can they have been considered captive.

...Richards' publicist said the comic wasn't considering any demand for payment. "He's not dealing with that," Howard Rubenstein said. "He wants to apologize to them directly and then see what happens."

A face-to-face apology is fine if a phone call or a formal letter isn't enough. I would imagine that could be arranged.

However, I don't think Richards should be expected to pay monetary reparations for his outburst.

Did anyone in the audience know Doss and McBride?

Without knowing their identities, the argument can't be made that Richards' slandered them and that would have a negative impact on their careers. It can't be said that Richards or other audience members could track them down and harass them.

Were they emotionally harmed by the episode?

That's difficult to quantify.

If Doss and McBride want money and Allred wants her piece of that pie, then let them go to court, not to a retired judge.

Why a retired judge?

It seems like a shakedown.

Richards shouldn't be expected to fork over money without the benefit of a defense.

Let's hear what McBride and Doss' roles were in the incident. Put them all under oath. Get witnesses.

I suspect it would come out that Doss and McBride were taunting Richards.

If they were completely innocent in the matter, you can bet that Allred would have already filed a lawsuit.

"The Politics of Murder"

David Ignatius has an interesting, albeit naïve, opinion piece in today's Washington Post.

He tackles the "troubles" in the Middle East.

He thinks he has isolated the problem and come up with some potential solutions regarding the the United States' role in the Middle East.

I think he's wrong.

Ignatius writes:

A disease is eating away at the Middle East. It afflicts the Syrians, the Iraqis, the Lebanese, even the Israelis. It is the idea that the only political determinant in the Arab world is raw force -- the power of physical intimidation. It is politics as assassination.

This week saw another sickening instance of this law of brute force, with the murder of Pierre Gemayel, a Lebanese cabinet minister who had been a strong critic of Syria. Given the brutal history of Syria's involvement in Lebanon, there's an instant temptation to blame Damascus. But in this land of death, there are so many killers and so few means of holding them to account that we can only guess at who pulled the trigger.

I fell in love with Lebanon the first time I visited the country 26 years ago. Part of its appeal, inevitably, was the sense of living on the edge -- in a land of charming, piratical characters who cherish their freedom. Lebanon has great newspapers, outspoken intellectuals, a wide-open democracy. It has almost everything a great society needs, in fact, except the rule of law.

And thus Ignatius identifies the problem in the vibrant land of Lebanon and the Middle East in general -- no rule of law.

As is so common today, he uses the disease paradigm to illustrate what's happening in the violent region.

The assassination, the murder, the use of force are all symptoms of the "sick" society.

A cure is needed, desperately.

...The sickness must end. The people of the Middle East are destroying themselves, literally and figuratively, with the politics of assassination. So many things are going right in the modern world -- until we reach the boundaries of the Middle East, where the gunmen hide in wait. Those who imagined they could stop the assassins' little guns with their big guns -- the United States and Israel come to mind -- have been undone by the howling gale of violence. In trying to fight the killers, they began to make their own arguments for assassination and torture. That should have been a sign that something had gone wrong.

Did the U.S. and Israel think that they could stop the "politics of assassination" and the terrorists' little guns with their big guns?

That's being very simplistic.

In the first place, neither the U.S. nor Israel have unleashed the truly big guns.

If we've been undone by the Middle Eastern brand of violence, it's precisely because we're fighting a war while trying to be politically correct. If we're bogged down, it's because we're permitting ourselves to be.

Ignatius dismisses U.S. efforts to compromise and to empower the people of the Middle East, to establish a framework by which freedom-loving people can seek a better life via the rule of law rather than by the barrel of a gun.

...The Middle East needs the rule of law -- not an order preached by outsiders but one demanded by Arabs who will not tolerate more of this killing. Any leader or nation who aspires to play a constructive role in the region's future must embrace this idea of legal accountability. That is what the United Nations insisted this week, with a unanimous Security Council resolution demanding that the murderers be brought to justice.

Ignatius has solved the problem!

The Middle East needs the rule of law.

No kidding!!!

In case he hasn't noticed, there are maniacs standing in the way of satisfying that need. God is supposedly telling them to destroy the infidels (that's us).

The real problem is far too many Arabs ARE tolerating the killing. They support it. They teach it. They want it.

Legal accountability?

The Middle Eastern suicide bombers, murdering in the name of Allah, are on a holy mission. Do you think these people care about legal accountability?

Moreover, Ignatius seems to think that there is a separation of church and state in the Middle East.

That's absurd.

Of course, there are citizens in the Middle East who want to have an ordered and civilized society. These oppressed people need help to fight the tyrants and the terrorists. We're helping them.

What's the alternative? Just stand by and let the hatred for Israel and America continue to be taught to Middle Eastern children, and wait for the next 9/11?

That's not an option.

Ignatius seems to forget that WE were attacked repeatedly throughout the 90s. And it's as if he can't remember the grand scale of the acts of war on September 11, 2001, when nearly three thousand innocents were slaughtered on American soil.

Now the United Nations must find a way to make the rule of law real. It has chartered a special investigator, Serge Brammertz, to gather the facts and has called for an international tribunal to try the cases. It must make this rule of law stick.

With all due respect, this is ridiculous. It's meaningless.

How is the UN, that savior worshipped by libs, going to make the rule of law stick?

It's nuts to think that special investigator Brammertz will supply the magic bullet to end the politics of murder.

...The idea that America is going to save the Arab world from itself is seductive, but it's wrong. We have watched in Iraq an excruciating demonstration of our inability to stop the killers. We aren't tough enough for it or smart enough -- and in the end it isn't our problem. The hard work of building a new Middle East will be done by the Arabs, or it won't happen. What would be unforgivable would be to assume that, in this part of the world, the rule of law is inherently impossible.

This paragraph is pure crap.

America isn't aiming to save the Arab world from itself. It's assisting Arabs save themselves from the hostile forces of Islamic extremists.

Ignatius slaps our military and our country when he says we aren't tough enough or smart enough (echoes of John Kerry) to deal with the extremism that brought down the World Trade Center and destroyed a section of the Pentagon and murdered all aboard United Airlines Flight 93.

And it certainly is our problem.

How incredibly stupid to suggest otherwise!

The terrorists and nutcase Middle Eastern leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have clearly stated their goals -- to destroy Israel and do as much damage to the U.S. as possible.

Of course it's our problem. OF COURSE.

I agree with him that building a new Middle East must be done by the Arabs. But just as the reconstruction of Europe happened after World War II, the civilized people need the help of other civilized people to build a democracy and a better life.

Ignatius ends with the lame claim that it would be wrong to assume that the rule of law can't be achieved in the Middle East.

That's just fine and dandy, but what's so frustrating is that Ignatius wants to bail out, redeploy, cut and run, whatever you want to call it.

If he believes that the rule of law can reign supreme, ending the politics of murder, then why would we not lend a hand in establishing it?

Obviously, the forces of good need our help. I'm sure the loved ones of those in the mass graves of Iraq, those brutalized and tortured, those children murdered by Saddam's WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, want to see justice.

What would Ignatius like to do?

Does he think that the U.S. should buy ad time on Arab TV and run some slick commercials telling Arab kids to "just say no" to Islamic extremism?

We can't possibly eradicate the Islamic extremists' desire to kill us, but we can help to bolster the civilized Arab world.

Think of it this way:

Just because it's impossible to permanently rid a garden of weeds doesn't mean that it's a mistake to pull out as many weeds as possible. It would be wrong to ignore the weeds and give up.

Is it better to let the weeds strangle the flowers and overtake the garden?

More importantly, can the flowers themselves kill the weeds that threaten their existence?

HAVE A BLESSED THANKSGIVING!

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day

October 3, 1863


The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

A. Lincoln