Pruden on Katrinism.

None dare call it Katrinagate. Yet.

Have you been wondering about the copious amounts of insane flapdoodle being vomited forth from the Democrass Machine in Louisiana and the national Blasphemy, Buggery, and 'Bortion chorus?

Wonder no more, gentle reader. Wesley Pruden, Editor of The Washington Times, knows the sounds of politicians losing power when he hears it.

Enough Mr. Nice Guy. The politicians who have been playing patty-cake over Katrina for a fortnight, making polite small talk as if they were at an ice-cream social at the Presbyterian church, are eager to get down and dirty (and make like Baptists at the monthly congregational business meeting).

Barely hanging on to their fragile control of state offices, Democrats in Louisiana are terrified of the lasting effects of the hurricane and subsequent flooding -- not of the human suffering, which they can cheerfully abide, but of something really serious, the loss of their remaining stronghold in the black precincts of New Orleans. Louisiana and Arkansas are the last Southern states nurturing lingering Democratic strength, as if indulging a wistful if embarrassing longing for a husband repeatedly caught in bed with the nanny.

"It would not take a large shift of population out of New Orleans to tilt the political balance in favor of the Republican Party," Jim Nickel, the former Democratic state chairman in Louisiana, tells the Financial Times. "Although there are large African American populations in other Southern states, they have not been as concentrated and organized in a large metropolitan area. New Orleans has been a veritable ATM machine of votes for the Democratic Party."

No one hits that ATM machine like Sen. Mary Landrieu, who won re-election last year with a bare majority after she was forced into a runoff. Kathleen Blanco, the hapless Democratic governor, defeated Bobby Jindal, the Republican nominee, by a similar razor-thin margin. Mrs. Landrieu first came to Washington with tainted credentials after that New Orleans ATM machine delivered just enough votes to count out the probable actual winner, a congressman from upstate Louisiana.

Her debt to the ATM machine is the explanation for her remarkably churlish ingratitude for the public and private help heaped on her state in the wake of Katrina. First she threatened to punch out the president, and then, after the mayor and the governor made up with George W., continued her rabid attack on him.

The hurricane blew her ATM machine to Texas. Plans are afoot to force the black refugees to return home even if there are no homes to return to, so they can continue to vote -- not in New Orleans, but in refugee camps elsewhere in the state.

"There are people right now ... building tent cities and trailer parks in other parts of the state to basically deal with political issues," Mayor Ray Nagin told interviewer Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." Earlier the Rev. Jesse Jackson suggested that an abandoned Air Force base near Alexandria, 220 miles north of New Orleans, could be turned into a vast refugee camp.

This is breathtakingly cynical, of course, but cynicism flavors everything in Louisiana -- the crayfish etouffee, the jambalaya, the red beans and rice, and especially the politics. Besides, there's precedent. The man who would understand Louisiana, the critic A.J. Liebling wrote in his portrait of Earl Long, must understand that Louisiana is not Southern, but Middle Eastern. The Arabs have exploited the Palestinians for two generations, stuffing them into squalid refugee camps to seethe with exploitable rage, so why not here?

I get racially insensitive and ethnically intimidating hatemail that really, really, hurts my feelings.

Some get it.

Some are waiting eagerly for the new Neil Young and Guns N Roses albums.

(Axl Rose, call your agent. If DeadorAliveInfo.com doesn't know who you are, you need new representation, dude.)

Duke Music said...

This "blog" completely sucks, you are just posting exact news stories copied from their websites.


Golly, that hurts, kiddies. And just when I was about to begin my thirty-seven part series on how I, as a middle-aged white man, imagine the difficulties faced by a young Latina coming of age.

Well, screw that.

(And don't worry, Duke baby. I won't embarrass you by posting some of your genius here.)

Source: "Hitlery's 'ChildProof' Child Care Program Has a Few Bugs to Work Out"

Children Made to Sleep in Cages

By M.R. KROPKO, Associated Press Writer

Sheriff's deputies removed 11 disabled children from a home where some of the youngsters were made to sleep in cages less than 3 feet high, authorities said.

The children's adoptive parents, Mike and Sharen Gravelle, denied during a custody hearing Monday that they'd abused or neglected the children. No charges had been filed as of Monday night, and telephones at the county prosecutor's office repeatedly rang busy Tuesday morning.

One official agreed that there was no sign of abuse.

"The impression that we got was that (the parents) felt it was OK," Lt. Randy Sommers of the Huron County Sheriff's Office told The (Lorain) Morning Journal.

He said a baby slept in a small bed and two girls used mattresses, and the remaining children slept in the cages.

The Gravelles said a psychiatrist recommended they make the children sleep in the cages at night, County Prosecutor Russell Leffler said. The cages, averaging about 30 inches high, 40 inches wide and 40 inches deep, were stacked in bedrooms on the second floor of the house, officials said.
The children, ages 1 to 14, were described as having conditions that included autism and fetal alcohol syndrome.

Deputies were called Friday by a children's services investigator who visited the home and spotted a face peering out of one of the cages, Sommers said. The investigator was sent after the county received a complaint, said Erich Dumbeck, director of the Huron County Department of Job and Family Services. He would not say who complained.

Some of the cages were rigged with alarms, Sommers said, and one had a dresser in front of it. One boy said he'd slept in the cage for three years, he said.

The children were placed with four foster families Monday and were doing well, Dumbeck said. He said he saw them hugging their new foster parents and they seemed relieved.

"We're still trying to figure out what happened in that home," Dumbeck said Tuesday. "We don't have any indication at this point that there was any abuse."

The family has lived in Huron County for 10 years but most of the children were adopted through other Ohio counties, and two through other states, Dumbeck said. He said his agency was trying to determine how the adoptions originated.

"I don't believe there were any caseworkers checking in with this family," he said. "These kids were home schooled and they lived in the country where neighbors were spread out."

Dumbeck said it was unclear whether the Gravelles received adoption subsidies, which can range from $100 to $1,000 a month.

A woman who identified herself as Sharen Gravelle's mother but refused to give her name said the children were happy and loved. "This year they have played and had fun and laughed like no other children have, which they have never been able to do," she said.

Susan Ann Torres, Requiescat in pace.

A baby girl born last month to a brain dead Virginia woman died early on Monday following surgery, according to a statement on a family Web site.
"With great sadness, we are asking for your prayers for the repose of the soul of 5-week-old baby Susan Ann Torres. She passed away last night after surgery for a perforated intestine," the statement said.

The Washington Post, citing hospital officials and the baby's uncle, Justin Torres, said she contracted a disease that can afflict premature infants, which led to an infection and a perforated intestine.

The baby, named for her mother, was delivered by Caesarean section on August 2 to a brain dead woman who was kept on life support for almost three months at a Virginia hospital.

The mother, Susan Torres, who was diagnosed with brain cancer, collapsed after a stroke on May 7 and never recovered.

Doctors at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington gave the mother no chance of survival, but her family decided to keep her on life support to allow time for the fetus to develop.

The baby weighed one pound and 13 ounces (0.8 kg) at birth and there were no complications during delivery, a family statement said at the time.
The Post said the child's condition suddenly and rapidly deteriorated over the weekend.

Doctors at Children's Hospital in Washington tried to stabilize her medically and performed two emergency surgeries but were unable to save her, the Post said. (Thanks to Breitbart.com and WND for the heads up.)

Joseph Farah: Roberts is a Breyer in Rehnquist's clothing.

None of the following surprises me. You "conservatives" do not know what the word means. Or, maybe you do...

In about 10 years time, remember where you heard it first: WorldNetDaily.
Even I, the ultimate skeptic, am just beginning to fathom the extent of the shell game that has been played on conservatives – most of whom are actively working on behalf of the confirmation of a new chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who will make Ruth Bader Ginsberg look like a moderate.

That's right.

Up until now, I've been comparing Roberts to Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter. I've got news for you. He's worse.
That, according to his close friend Edward Lazarus. Here's what he has to say about the next chief justice:

"Roberts is not burdened by a Bork-like record of speaking out in his own voice ... Roberts presents a sharp contrast to [Robert] Bork in judicial philosophy. Roberts is already on record strongly disclaiming an allegiance to any particular theory of constitutional interpretation, such as original intent jurisprudence. Roberts says that he picks and chooses what interpretive tools to use (such as textual analysis, historical analysis, or reliance on precedent) depending on which tools seem best to fit a particular case ..."

But it gets worse. Lazarus says Roberts will be very influential because of this style.

"Why could Roberts be influential?" he asks rhetorically. "Because of the very collegiality that is cited as a reason to confirm him. Justice Thomas, for instance, is isolated on the court by his extreme and often unusual views; like Bork, he too is susceptible to caricature due to a strong emphasis on Framers' intent. So while Thomas is a reliable conservative vote, he is not an effective wooer of moderates. But Roberts could both be a reliable conservative vote, and also convince moderates such as Justice Kennedy to join his side. Similarly, while Thomas is too extreme to ever be a chief justice candidate, Roberts, in contrast, could easily become one."

This statement, by the way, made long before Bush nominated Roberts to the job of chief justice following the death of William Rehnquist.

Again, it gets worse – much worse.

"Putting politics aside, the current court member Roberts most resembles is Stephen Breyer. Roberts is far more intellectual than Rehnquist, far more politic than Scalia, and – as noted above – far less extreme than Thomas."

Stephen Breyer. That's who Roberts most resembles, according to his friend.

Roberts is a Washington establishment operative who has been fooling conservatives for much of his life.

In 1981, he worked hand in glove with his good friend Kenneth Starr, another shill for the establishment, to fool President Reagan and the American people into thinking Sandra Day O'Connor was a "conservative," Reagan Republican. He was a plotter, a co-conspirator, a devious manipulator, a spinner.

In a Feb. 16, 1982, memo he wrote to Attorney General William French Smith advising him on how to handle conservative criticism of the O'Connor choice, which had been engineered by Starr, he wrote:

A related criticism focuses on the screening and appointment of federal judges, highlighted by the O'Connor debate. The assertion is that appointees are not ideologically committed to the president's policies, again with particular emphasis on the social agenda ... Here again I do not think we should respond with a "yes, they are"; rather we should shift the debate and briefly touch on our judicial restraint themes (for which this audience should give us some credit).

It really should not matter what the personal ideology of our appointees may be, so long as they recognize that their ideology should have no role in the decisional process – i.e., so long as they believe in judicial restraint. This theme should be glossed somewhat, because of the platform, but we can make the point that much criticism of our appointees has been misdirected.

This is what conservatives got for all their hard work on behalf of George W. Bush – a betrayal. Conservatives were told they had nowhere else to go in the presidential election if they cared about the U.S. Supreme Court.

And what did they get? Not Souter. Not Kennedy. But Breyer.

Also remember Ann Coulter was out in front on this one.

TAKE SOUTER'S HOUSE! (before he takes yours!) update.

Connecticut uber alles, baby.
(TAKE SOUTER'S HOUSE! TAKE SOUTER'S HOUSE!)

Despite Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell's suggested moratorium on eminent domain cases in the state, pending the consideration of new legislation restriction property seizures by local governments, the city of New London has issued eviction notices to homeowners who lost their case before the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Kelo v. the City of New London ruling.

"They have sent us eviction letters and have given us 90 days to vacate," homeowner Michael Cristofaro told WND. "As further insult to injury, they are requiring us to send them $600-a-month rent."

He said the city officials are apparently persuaded the Supreme Court ruling last June is all they need to proceed with their plans to transfer the properties to a private party for development of an office complex.
Cristofaro said he has attempted to contact two members of the city council to see if they are aware of the plans and approve of them.

In the highly controversial Supreme Court decision, the justices ruled 5-4 that the economic development and increased tax revenue resulting from the eminent domain action qualified as "public use" under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

Though the practice of eminent domain is provided for in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, this case is significant because the seizure is for private development and not for "public use," such as a highway or bridge. The decision has been roundly criticized by property-rights activists and limited-government commentators.

The city has previously threatened the homeowners with demands for back rent dating to 2000. Officials say that since they won the case, the homeowners actually have been living on city property for the last five years since they first began condemnation procedures.

In addition, buyout offers were based on the market rate in 2000, before most of the growth in the current real-estate bubble.

The New London Development Corporation, the semi-public organization hired by the city to facilitate the deal, first addressed the rent issue in a June 2004 letter to residents, calling the alleged debt retroactive "use and occupancy" payments.

The Kelo case, named after Susette Kelo, who owns a single-family house in New London with her husband, has ignited a national uproar.

One Los Angeles advertising entrepreneur, Logan Darrow Clements, has spearheaded a campaign to have the city of Weare, N.H., condemn Souter's property, a modest 200-year-old farmhouse on eight acres, in retaliation for his vote approving the seizure of homes in connection with the case.
Clements plans to create on Souter's land the "Lost Liberty Hotel," a kind of museum commemorating the lost right to private property in America.

Because the Board of Selectmen of Weare has rejected Clements' request to condemn the property, Darrow hopes to use a ballot initiative to do the job.

Lies have lives of their own: Why I believe Israelis instead of "Palestinians" and their media punks...

...or, It's not a lie if you believe it.

The No. 1 inspiration for Palestinian suicide bombers – namely, the heart-wrenching videotaped shooting by Israeli soldiers of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy – was a fraud, according to a Los Angeles Times column, which reports that countless horrific terror attacks on Israelis can rightfully be blamed on repeated international broadcasts of the fabricated "news" report.

Yet, while the fraud may be news to the Los Angeles Times, it isn't for readers of WND, whose managing editor, David Kupelian, has been documenting the astonishing truth of the story for five years – in fact, since shortly after the "shooting" occurred in September 2000, as well as dramatic updates since then.

Now, in his widely acclaimed new book, "The Marketing of Evil," Kupelian blows the lid completely off not only the disastrously fraudulent media reporting of the Palestinian boy's famous "martyrdom," but of how the "mainstream media" routinely portray good as evil, and evil as good.

In his Los Angeles Times column Friday, columnist David Gelernter wrote:
More than 900 Israeli civilians have been killed in the intifada, the Palestinian uprising that began five years ago. They were ordinary people chatting on a bus, eating ice cream in a restaurant; suddenly, a bright flash. The next moment the walls are spattered with blood and the bomb's hellish odor fills the air. Some people are blinded, others are cut to pieces. Parents living the worst seconds of their lives cast about wildly for their children in the screaming, smoky chaos.

What explains such bestial crimes? The reported death of a Palestinian child, Mohammed Dura, in Gaza did as much as anything else to ignite the current uprising. In the short video segment produced on Sept. 30, 2000, and distributed immediately, a state-owned French television station called France 2 accused the Israeli army of deliberately shooting and killing the 12-year-old.

But, writes Gelernter, a comprehensive new report by French writer Nidra Poller leaves little doubt that "the video is a fraud." He spends the rest of his column citing some of the damning evidence of the hoax.

In Chapter 8 of "The Marketing of Evil" – "The Media Matrix," on how the media create their own alternate reality and suck Americans into it – Kupelian reveals the breathtakingly deceptive state of American news coverage, focusing at one point directly on the Mohammed al-Dura story:

Remember the "martyrdom" of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura? It's a classic example of the media matrix. The world was horrified as news broadcasts played the sensational video footage over and over again of the Palestinian boy being shot on September 30, 2000, apparently by Israeli forces, and then dying pitifully in his father's arms.

Heart-wrenching photos of the father and son in death's grip became immortalized in posters that were plastered up and down the streets of the West Bank and Gaza, inspiring many a youthful suicide bomber to join Mohammed in martyr's paradise. He became the poster boy and rallying cry of the bloody intifada that claimed hundreds of lives.

Although the Israeli military initially assumed responsibility for the incident, it soon became apparent that the Israelis could not have shot the boy, due to a large barrier between the Israeli military outpost across the remote junction in Gaza and the position of the boy and his father.
In 2003 an independent journalistic investigation concluded that the al-Dura affair was actually a piece of Palestinian street theater, similar to the dramatic Palestinian funeral processions that were observed after the Israeli incursion into the Jenin refugee camp. During that public spectacle, a martyred "corpse" twice fell off the stretcher, only to hop back up and retake his place in the procession. (The Palestinians had claimed 3,000 deaths in Jenin – the actual toll turned out to be 52.)

It turns out many Palestinians were playing to the camera on the day Mohammed al-Dura was "martyred." Israeli commentator Amnon Lord's account of the larger scene at Netzarim Junction when the boy was supposedly shot to death describes "incongruous battle scenes complete with wounded combatants and screeching ambulances played out in front of an audience of laughing onlookers, while makeshift movie directors do retakes of botched scenes."

Palestinian journalist Sami El Soudi echoes Lord's observation, revealing that "almost all Palestinian directors take part more or less voluntarily in these war commissions, under the official pretext that we should use all possible means, including trickery and fabulation, to fight against the tanks and airplanes the enemy has and we don't. … Our official press reported 300 wounded and dead at Netzarim junction the day when Mohammed was supposedly killed. Most of the cameramen there were Palestinians. … They willingly took part in the masquerade, filming fictional scenes, believing they were doing it out of patriotism. When a scene was well done the onlookers laughed and applauded."

"It is incredible," says French journalist Gérard Huber, "how many people were calmly filming the battle of Netzarim on September 30th, 2000. Not only professionals – some of them standing no more than 10 meters away from the al-Dura incident – but amateurs as well. The rushes [video clips] are full of surprising incongruities: Children smile as ambulances go by. A 'wounded' Palestinian collapses and two seconds later an ambulance pulls up to take him to the hospital. It looks as if the driver had been cued in, knew in advance where the Palestinian was going to fall, or was waiting in the upper right hand corner just out of the photographic field ready to zoom in on signal."

Street theater. The Mohammed al-Dura story – which rather than documenting Israeli brutality toward Palestinians shows instead the Arab propaganda machine being enabled, magnified, and laundered by the "mainstream press" – is but one story. There are hundreds and hundreds of similar shabby episodes – from the "Jenin massacre" to the "murder" of Rachel Corrie – that together create and reinforce this preposterous virtual-reality illusion of Israel as the aggressor. The truth is, the Palestinian cause is itself a giant piece of street theater, just as the separate scenes – Mohammed al-Dura's "martyrdom," children being told they'll go to heaven if they commit mass murder, leaders like the late Yasser Arafat pretending to seek peace with Israel (in English) while simultaneously urging violent jihad (in Arabic) – are the little charades that comprise the whole...


Which brings us to The Book of the Day:

David Kupelian is the managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com, the world’s largest independent news Web site. He is also a popular WND columnist and the driving force behind the acclaimed monthly news magazine Whistleblower.

"The Marketing of Evil," which skyrocketed up the Amazon charts upon its release, documents how much of the radical agenda that currently dominates America, from abortion to "gay rights" to church-state "separation," has actually been sold to Americans using the exact same psychological manipulation techniques employed by Madison Avenue.
Response to Kupelian's book so far has been intensely polarizing. While detractors call the book "dangerous" and "a primer for teaching right-wing Christians why democracy and freedom are wrong," most are calling it one of the most important books of the year...


"The Marketing of Evil" by David Kupelian is available now. Get your copy autographed and personalized, only from ShopNetDaily!

Nebraskans finally manage to whack Uber Chimps threatening civilization.

Three chimpanzees were shot and killed by the director of Zoo Nebraska after they escaped from their cage.

Zoo Director Ken Schlueter Jr. said one of the padlocks was apparently not clicked shut by a worker who had cleaned the cage that housed the zoo's four male chimps.

Visitors and employees saw the chimps lift the padlock and break out.
One of the chimps left the zoo and walked about a block and a half into the small town of Royal, where he opened the door of a convenience store. A sheriff's deputy at the scene quickly shut the door and the chimp returned to the zoo almost immediately, Schlueter said.

While one of the chimpanzees went back into his cage, zoo workers and law enforcement officials couldn't get the other three chimps to join him.

"Attempts to pacify the chimps with a tranquilizer gun were unsuccessful," Schlueter said. (Emphasis mine.) He shot the three loose chimps with a deputy's service revolver after the animals tried to get into a building where visitors were barricaded. (Thanks to WOAI for the heads up.)

Don't worry, I won't look up any chimp recipes.

Thank you, Mark Messier.

In 1979, Glen Sather had no idea his 18-year-old fourth-line winger would grow up to be Mark Messier -- the second-leading scorer in NHL history.

"He didn't have superstar written all over him, but he had the desire to play," Sather said Monday, shortly after Messier announced his retirement following a 25-year career.

Messier was a captain in every sense of the word, leading with a stern word, a cold stare, and a chiseled jaw that revealed his intensity. Then, he backed it all up on the ice.

He won six Stanley Cup championships -- including the one in 1994 that ended the New York Rangers' 54-year drought.

"I came into the league as a fourth-line grinder that played a limited role," Messier said. "I worked myself up the ladder to a left winger, to a centerman, to a first-line centerman, to a leader, to having an opportunity to win championships.

"That process in itself was an education for me."

But he was a teacher all the same. Messier is the only player to captain two franchises to Stanley Cup titles, winning five with the Edmonton Oilers -- four with Wayne Gretzky, the lone man ahead of him on the NHL's career points list.

His legend grew once he was traded to New York in the summer of '91.

Three years after Gretzky's stunning trade from Edmonton to Los Angeles and a year following the Oilers' fifth title in seven years, the dynasty was over and Messier was the latest big star about to be shipped out.

Sather, who built the team and ran it from the bench during the glory years, asked Messier where he wanted to go. The answer was the Rangers, who hadn't won a Stanley Cup since 1940.

It took only three seasons for Messier to deliver in New York and cement himself as one of the greatest leaders in sports.

"I knew all the past history of the teams in New York ... but I don't think anything can really prepare you for going to play in New York until you get there," Messier said. "I felt that I was fairly confident in what it took to win a Stanley Cup.

"Messier embraced the challenge, and when it appeared another chance was going to slip away, he pulled a page out of the Joe Namath handbook and guaranteed a victory.

With the Rangers trailing New Jersey 3-2 in the 1994 Eastern Conference finals, Messier promised New York would force a seventh game. He made good on his word by posting his fourth and final playoff hat trick in a 4-2 victory.

New York won Game 7 in double overtime to advance to the finals, which ended with a seventh-game victory over Vancouver.

"He had the biggest influence on my career by far of any player that I played with," said Boston defenseman Brian Leetch, who came up with the Rangers in 1988 and stayed until he was traded last year. "I wish everyone could have had an opportunity to be in the locker room with him and see his dedication to his teammates and to winning.

"The end of Messier's career didn't come close to matching the early part. His final seven seasons all finished without a postseason appearance -- three in Vancouver after his first departure from New York and four more in his second stint with the Rangers.

"That is something that is always going to be a disappointment for me, but I think there are so many good things that happened in the playoffs previous to that that it will diminish those feelings," Messier said.

Sather, now the Rangers' GM, left room for Messier to come back but talks never got that far.

On Jan. 12, exactly 37 years after Namath fulfilled his promise and lifted the Jets in the Super Bowl over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts, the Rangers will retire Messier's No. 11 before a game against the Oilers. It will join Rod Gilbert's No. 7, Ed Giacomin's No. 1 and teammate Mike Richter's No. 35.

Messier all but said goodbye on March 31, 2004, following the Rangers' final home game before the lockout that wiped out all of last season. He isn't sure he would've played anyway.

In fact, he said the desire to return was stronger now than this time last year. But he leaves in good health and is looking forward to spending time with his young family.

"There was nothing left for me to really achieve," the 44-year-old Messier said. "It was time for me to move aside and go into something else.

"The two-time MVP and 16-time All-Star said he is willing to listen to any offers that will keep him closely tied to the game he loves.

Messier trails only Gretzky in playoff goals and assists, but topped the Great One by adding the postseason guarantee that took him to heightened status in Manhattan.

"He was an exceptional leader who was unselfish, hardworking and dedicated. He truly loved the game," Gretzky said. "He was the best player I ever played with.

"Messier leaves with 1,887 NHL regular-season points, 970 fewer than Gretzky and 37 more than third-place Gordie Howe.

Messier always did things on his terms, and his retirement is no different. After a year off, he wasn't spurred to play again even though he is only six goals shy of 700 -- a mark reached by only six players -- and 11 games short of tying Howe's record of 1,767.

He also scored one goal and had 10 assists in 52 games in the WHA with Indianapolis and Cincinnati when he was 17.

Messier scored 109 playoff goals, 13 fewer than Gretzky, and set up 186 others -- 74 fewer than Gretzky, now the Phoenix Coyotes' coach.

Their second partnership lasted just one year as Messier left the Rangers for Vancouver as a free agent following a surprising run with Gretzky to the 1997 Eastern Conference finals.

When Sather took over as Rangers GM in 2000, he brought Messier back, not for the fourth line but to wear the captain's 'C' again. (Thanks to ESPN.com for the heads up.)

The brutalization of our women continues apace.

From WJLA comes the heartwarming story of how little girls, encouraged to be just like boys for their entire lives, bond just like boys do.

Cumberland, Md. (AP) - Six Frostburg State University field hockey players have pleaded guilty to hazing in a case that sent one of their teammates to the hospital with alcohol poisoning.

All six defendants were fined 300 dollars and sentenced Monday to one year unsupervised probation. The state dropped assault charges.

The women are eligible for probation before judgment - meaning their convictions could be expunged if they meet the conditions of their sentences.

The women were charged in April with hazing their new teammates by urging them to drink large amounts of beer and liquor. Charging documents say the victims also were pelted with flour, ice and eggs and made to sit their own vomit and urine.

The defendants were Elizabeth Armstrong and Tawni Buck of Port Deposit, Kristin Cousin of Edgewater, Amanda Griswold of Rockville, Kimberly Smith of Frederick and Morgan Whalen of Milford, Delaware.

Congrats to their parents for producing such competitors. I am certain they will go far. Maybe they will get to have Donald Trump leer at them on national tv.

Speaking of which, check out new Trump reality contestant Alla Wartenberg, an immigrant from Moldova who achieved the American dream by removing her clothes for money.

"Can any of you girls do any tricks on stage with those funky sticks of yours? You know what I mean."

More mail from the It Takes a Village to Staff a Gestapo Unit crowd.

Ok, La Jami is only a crowd of one with a blog called Hitlery Now, but it's nice to know she hasn't been shipped off to the GULAG just yet.

Actually, I am rather surprised she has come back for more, considering the way I smacked her around (in an intellectual, non-Bill-Clinton-raping-a-defenseless-fat-chick-with-low-self-esteem kind of way) last time.

(But it has been nearly three months. Ya gotta write more often, baby.)

Apparently, my post on Viet Dinh as a possible Supreme Court nominee touched a nerve...


Jami said...

nice national-enquirer politics, buddy. what will viet dinh wear to his confirmation hearing?? inquiring minds want to know!!

the supreme court is supposed to respect the constitution. writing the "patriot" act was the opposite of respecting the constitution.


Apparently, kiddies, it was Jami's house the unholy warriors have been flying planes into for the past four years. Who knew?

She should have said something. Dinh and I would gladly toughen the Patriot Act a bit to protect her and her 48 cats.

But seriously, folks, the Patriot Act is just another chapter in the long history of American wartime fascism: Lincoln and the suspension of habeas corpus, Woody "No Wood" Wilson and the Sedition Act, Fellatio D. Rascalvelt and every thought and deed of his imperial reign, et cetera. Oops. Sorry, baby. I forgot that for you totalitarian types, those were good things.

I know La Jami and the other Leninist-Leninists would love to simply exterminate everybody who has ever set foot in a mosque, but luckily for me (I was just visiting, kiddies.) and others who fit that bill, more civilized people are running things right now. (Rules of War and all that.)

Don't you worry, though. Hiterly will teach all of us non-believers a lesson when she assumes her extra-wide throne.

BTW, princess, you do know the National Enquirer is a Democrass organ, don't you? You gotta get with your own program. You should not be making fun of your own politically friendly forces. That's my job.

Keep the baby, Faith.

Those folks on the Gulf Coast are our neighbors. You know what to do.

First, last, and always, PRAY. Pray for the survivors. Pray for the repose of the souls of those killed by Hurricane Katrina. Pray for the families and friends. Pray for the relief workers, the cops, the firemen, the troops, and the technicians. Pray for the volunteers.

It is time to step up once again, kiddies. "Do unto others", "I was naked and you clothed me", et cetera.

Catholic Relief Services is on the job. The absolute best of crisis charities needs money now.

Mail Checks To:

Catholic Charities USA
Hurricane Katrina
PO Box 25168
Alexandria, VA 22313-9788

Call:(800) 919-9338

Contribute Now Online


Agencies Impacted:

Catholic Charities of Miami
Catholic Charities of New Orleans
Catholic Community Services of Baton Rouge
Catholic Social Services of Houma-Thibodaux
Catholic Social and Community Services of Biloxi, MS
Catholic Charities of Jackson, MS
Catholic Social Services of Mobile, AL

And, as always, give generously to the special collections for hurricance disaster relief in your local parish.

Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.

Today is the Feast of St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople and The Church's greatest preacher. (More here.) Pray for us, all you angels and saints.

Today's reading is Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-13.
Today's Gospel reading is Mark 4:1-10, 13-20.


Everyday links:

The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today


Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.


Memorare

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.


St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.


Prayer to Saint Anthony, Martyr of Desire

Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)


PRAYER TO SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Viet Dinh for the Supreme Court.

James Taranto puts forward the name of a true American.

Justice DinhNow that President Bush has announced that Judge John Roberts will replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist, he must appoint a replacement for Roberts as a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. As Manuel Miranda noted yesterday, the common assumption has been that he will choose either a woman or a member of an ethnic minority, especially a Hispanic. We'd like to suggest a candidate who fits the "minority" requirement, although he isn't a Hispanic: Viet Dinh.

Dinh is a professor at Georgetown Law School and served for two years as an assistant attorney general. His academic specialties, according to his Justice Department bio, cover a broad range: constitutional law, corporation law, and the law and economics of development. The Georgetown press release announcing his return to academia in 2003 notes his governmental accomplishments:

Dinh led the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy since May 31, 2001, and in that time, he contributed to a number of key Administration policy initiatives most notably in the drafting and implementing of the USA PATRIOT Act. He also spearheaded the revision of the Attorney General's Guidelines, which govern the conduct of federal law enforcement activities and national security investigations. In addition, Dinh represented the Department of Justice in the process of selecting and confirming judges to the federal bench, securing the confirmation of 23 United States Court of Appeals and 100 District Court judges in the past two years.

Why Viet Dinh? He's young: 37 to be exact. If he lives as long as William Rehnquist, he could still be on the court in 2048. He has a compelling personal story: born in Saigon, South Vietnam, in 1968, and he came to America as a refugee at age 10 after his country fell to the communists. His experience in the Justice Department would give the Democrats a chance to highlight their compassion for terrorists, something Republicans would no doubt appreciate too.

And he would be the first Asian Supreme Court justice, which means the Democrats, who are sure to come under pressure to wage a futile campaign against any Bush nominee, could alienate a small but up-for-grabs voting bloc in the process.

A Dinh nomination could also create awkward situations for both the Democrats' 2004 and 2008 presidential nominees. John Kerry* began his political career by confessing (albeit probably falsely) to having committed war crimes against Dinh's countrymen. He also made comments about the Vietnamese that to a 21st-century ear sound shockingly racist:

Most [Vietnamese] people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart.

As for Hillary Clinton, she cast the lone dissenting vote when the Senate confirmed Dinh to the Justice Department in May 2001. Her opposition to Dinh was personal, not racial: During Clinton's co-presidency, Dinh worked for the Whitewater independent counsel's office. On the same day, Sen. Clinton also cast the only vote against Michael Chertoff's confirmation to another Justice Department post; Chertoff had worked for the Senate's Whitewater committee. In June 2003 Mrs. Clinton again cast the lone dissenting vote when Chertoff was confirmed as a judge on the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

But this February Hillary buried the hatchet and voted for Chertoff when the president chose him for a high-profile position, secretary of homeland security. We're guessing she'd do the same thing for Justice Dinh--but she'd be choking back bile all the while.

* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.

From The Intended Irony Department:

All Work and No Pay

Picketers have been standing outside a Wal-Mart in Henderson, Nev., holding signs protesting the discount chain's alleged maltreatment of workers. But these people aren't protesting because they believe in what they're doing. They're getting paid for it, albeit at a niggardly rate, reports the Las Vegas Weekly:

They're not union members; they're temp workers employed through Allied Forces/Labor Express by the union--United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). They're making $6 an hour, with no benefits; it's 104 [degrees] F, and they're protesting the working conditions inside the new Wal-Mart grocery store.

Hmm, now we know why unions favor a legally mandated minimum wage. It prevents anyone form hiring even cheaper picketers to picket the picketers.

HOWIE SPLEEN RULES!

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

Chief Justice-designate John Roberts's confirmation hearings opened today with set-piece bloviations from the 18 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They may not be as entertaining as Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean's remarks on CNN's "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer Friday:

Blitzer: Let's talk about a comment you made. "In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina we have a clear, moral responsibility to do a better job of ensuring social and economic justice for every American, and there is still far too much that we don't know about John Roberts' record and beliefs on these critical issues."
You're making a connection between Katrina and the confirmation hearings of John Roberts, which begin on Monday. And I'm not exactly sure what the point is.

Dean: My point is that John Roberts has a record. John Roberts appears to be a wonderful, decent family person, but, again, we get back to the question about whether you really care and whether you have compassion. It's not enough to say you care. It's what you've done.
John Roberts's legal career has been about taking away every protection for young girls and women who want to participate in sports, for African-Americans and Hispanics, who want the equal same right to vote as everybody else, for taking away for women who believe they should determine what kind of health care they have, instead of having politicians do it.
His entire legal career appears to be about making sure those folks don't have the same rights everybody else does. That's probably not the right thing to do two weeks after a disaster, where certain members of society clearly did not have the same protections that everybody else did because of their circumstances. Americans are fair people and they want a sense of justice. I know Judge Roberts loves the law. I'm not sure he loves the American people.

But the Conservative Bloggers Who Support the Gay Judge Roberts still support Roberts. That's good enough for us.

Katrina: The Good, The Bad, and The Funny. (From Best of the Web Today.)

The Thought Is What Counts

Here's a heartwarming Pentagon press release, dateline Taji, Iraq:
Iraqi soldiers serving at Taji military base collected 1,000,000 Iraqi dinars for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Iraqi Col. Abbas Fadhil, Iraqi base commander, presented the money to U.S. Col. Paul D. Linkenhoker, Taji Coalition base commander, at a Sept. 5 staff meeting.

"We are all brothers," said Abbas. "When one suffers tragedy, we all suffer their pain."

A million dinars isn't a lot of money; the U.S. equivalent is about $680.

But this act of charity should chasten those who think that somehow Katrina shows that Iraqis are unworthy of America's humanitarian attentions.


World Doesn't End; Angry Left Hardest Hit

Hurricane Katrina's death toll "has climbed past 400, making it one of the deadliest hurricanes in the United States in a century," Reuters reports:
Louisiana raised its official death count to 197 on Sunday. Mississippi, the other hardest hit state, had 211 confirmed killed. There were also fatalities, though much lower numbers, in Alabama and Florida.

The number is likely to climb as searchers find more bodies, but the estimates of 10,000 dead that some officials were bandying plainly were far too high. It's even realistic to hope that the toll doesn't top 1,000.
Believe it or not, reaction from the Angry Left is mixed. Josh Marshall calls the apparent lower death toll "possibly encouraging news." But Vanity Fair's James Wolcott saw in the assumed higher death toll an opportunity to diminish a crime against humanity:

Any number substantially higher than 3,000 dead presents a political and symbolic dilemma for the most avid advocates of the War on Terror. . . . Since 9/11, "3000" has been elevated to a sacred, symbolic number in political discourse. . . . If 10,000 deaths amount to but a drop of blood in the abattoir of time, 3000 is an even smaller drop, and once you begin to shrug off large numbers of dead to the caprices of fate, striking a militant pose over a smaller number becomes even harder. . . .

Whatever the final numbers are from Hurricane Katrina, it will be harder for the WOT propagandists to ritualistically invoke the "3000 dead" to the same sonorous effect.

A week and a half ago, we likened the opportunistic spirit in which the Angry Left was attacking President Bush to that which animated looters stealing TV sets. Some of our readers thought this was an invidious comparison, and after reading Wolcott's post, we think they may have a point. Possibly we were too harsh on looters.


And People Complained the Katrina Rescue Was Slow?
"Bronze-Age Boat Sailors Are Rescued"--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 9

LIVE, from the bowels of the Amistad II, it's proof of American racism!

Consider yourselves lucky. I was going to headline this one "White Woman Held Hostage for $20k in FEMA Funds". (Thanks to Best of the Web Today for the heads up.)




Ship of Fools

As we've heard ad nauseam the past couple of weeks, the Katrina disaster raises serious questions about race in America. Just how serious became clear Saturday afternoon, when Fox News Channel's Alicia Acuna conducted a live interview with a frustrated, foul-mouthed New Orleans evacuee in Houston. Blogger Ian Schwartz has the unexpurgated video, and we have the expurgated transcript:

Acuna: [There's] a lot of frustration, and a lot of it stems from the confusion over what a lot of the evacuees have been told is going to happen with regard to their federal assistance coming in. And I have a gentleman standing here with me who helps illustrate that picture. He has chosen not to give his name, he is from New Orleans, and he only says he is for the people.
So if you can explain to me, what has happened with your debit card? You're having a lot of problems, right?

Man: Well, for one thing, you know, they're not activating. You know, they're giving us these cards, and they're not activating these cards, and they're giving us a runaround. Then when we call, you know, for the, you know, to find out if the card is activated, they're giving us the runaround. And they send us back to Red Cross, and we go to Red Cross--nobody knows anything, you know.
I mean, c'mon now, f---, you know, excuse my French, you know, but anyway, you know, we're out here, we're stranded, you know, we don't have any goddamn thing, nobody's not [sic] trying to help us. FEMA is a fake and a fraud. Red Cross is a fake and a fraud, you know. Where do we go from here? I mean, who should we depend on? If we can't depend on our own federal government, who can we depend on?

Acuna: The FEMA cards were supposed to be $2,000 apiece--

Man: Two thousand dollars.

Acuna: --and you received a FEMA card?

Man: I only received $700. Seven hundred dollars, and they cut my card off.

Acuna: And when you asked them why that was, what were you told?

Man: They don't know. Nobody knows.

Acuna: OK, thank you very much.

Man: Do you know?

Acuna: I do not know, no.

Man: Well, find out for me, and you tell me.

Acuna: OK, thank you. And actually, Bob [Sellers, the anchorman], one thing I can tell you--we talk about this confusion, and there are quite a few reporters who have been kind of confused during those news conferences. And we actually have direct access to a lot of these officials. And FEMA, in all fairness, has said there are going to be glitches. They understand that there are problems. They have said that everyone is going to get assistance that qualifies; however, they're still working it out. They keep reiterating to us that this is a work in progress. Back to you.

Sellers: Alicia, is that gentleman still there by any chance?

Acuna: He is still here.

Sellers: Could you ask him what he wants? What is he looking for?

Acuna: Sure, hold on one second.
The anchor in New York would like to know--his name is Bob--he would like to know what it is that you would like to happen. What do you want?
Man: What I would like to happen? I would like for them to give us at least $20,000 apiece so we can, you know, get our life together. You know, we didn't ask to come on that bus, slave. It's like a slave ship. It's just like, you know, back in history, you know, they put us on a slave ship. They separated us from our family. They did it--you know, just modern-day slavery, you know? Just give us what the f--- we deserve.

Sellers: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa! Hold on! Hold on! That's, that's, that's enough. I mean, you've made your point, sir. We thank you very much for being with us. But Alicia--

Man: It's like a slave ship.

Sellers: --we know there's frustration there, and a lot of these folks have gone through so much, and we don't want to, you know, minimize or trivialize that. But we still have certain responsibility here in terms of what we're doing as far as broadcasting.

The Fox people seem to have missed the first obscenity, which the man uttered under his breath. Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words, even when two of them are the F-word, so take a look at this:

Looks just like a slave ship, doesn't it? Well, except that on a slave ship, he probably wouldn't have his arm around a white woman.

Man, that Jesse Jackson sure does get his talking points out there quickly.

The reality of politics knocks the Orange Revolution for a loop.

Orange Turmoil
Is Yushchenko’s Democratic dream hopeless?
By Nikolas K. Gvosdev of National Review Online

The political crisis in Ukraine is a stark wake-up call for those politicians and pundits who were so quick last winter to laud what they viewed as the inevitable, quick triumph of democracy. It is also a reminder that there is no substitute for determined investment if the United States is to secure the benefits of “regime change.”

Paul Saunders and I drew a good deal of criticism for an essay (“On Liberty”) we penned earlier this year when we wrote, “Some act as if the emergence of democracy in a country were solely a matter of protests in a capital city’s main square … and they downplay the very real challenges needed to make democracies functional. Others, anxious to prove that the number of ‘democracies’ in the world is growing, seem more eager to color in new countries on the map as ‘democratic’ than to establish sustainable democracies that genuinely provide freedom, justice and a better quality of life to their citizens.” But in the aftermath of recent events in Kiev, I think our cautionary perspective has been vindicated. I’d also like to echo a point raised by John Mearsheimer, author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: “Realists are often accused of disliking democracy and even of being anti-democratic. This is a bogus charge. … Realists, however, are well aware of the difficulty of spreading democracy …”

Alright, enough theoretical posturing, and on to the question at hand: What’s happening in Ukraine?

Fulfilling the promises of the “Orange Revolution” — after all, Ukrainians (and Georgians and Kyrgyz, for their part) did not risk life and limb to protest electoral violations last November to dispossess one group of oligarchs in favor of empowering another group — was always going to be difficult. But Ukraine (like Serbia in 2000, or even Boris Yeltsin’s Russia in 1991) had two particular hurdles to overcome.

The first challenge was for Viktor Yushchenko to transform an umbrella opposition movement into a governing coalition. Up to the presidential elections, it was very clear what the various members of the opposition were against — they were against the authoritarian, crony-capitalism regime of outgoing president Leonid Kuchma; they were against the efforts of then prime-minister Viktor Yanukovych to fix the elections in his favor; they wanted Ukraine to join the Euro-Atlantic community. But the politicians, intellectuals, and tycoons who clustered together under Yushchenko’s banner had no common political agenda. Some wanted to pursue radical-free market reforms while others hankered for a kinder, gentler version of Soviet socialism. And while some were committed to ending the practice of using state power to apportion out the country’s economy, others were more than happy to retain Ukrainian crony-capitalism if they could be the beneficiaries. (And like the Clintons in the United States, a number of Ukrainian political figures who had applauded the media’s efforts to uncover corruption and malfeasance when it was directed against their opponents didn’t particularly care for any sort of in-depth investigative journalism into their own affairs.) Up to this week, Yushchenko tried to balance his populist-oligarch prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko — whose exuberance and fiery rhetoric and popularity with the crowds many credit for the success of the Orange Revolution with Petro Poroshenko, a close ally whom he appointed as chairman of the security and defense council. But the exodus of several key officials — including Yushchenko’s own chief of staff — as well as increasingly bitter battles over the fate of a number of key Ukrainian assets (with different business groups lining up behind Tymoshenko and Poroshenko) ended this arrangement. Yushchenko has nominated a technocratic governor, Yuri Yekhanurov, as the new prime minister, but cannot bequeath his choice a majority in the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. Whether the country can move ahead and whether the government can demonstrate a renewed commitment to fighting corruption and forging ahead with reform remains to be seen.

But the West can’t salve its own conscience by blaming this solely on the Ukrainians. Many of us today have a curious lapse of memory when talking about the transitions to democracy in Eastern Europe after 1989. We put forward a heroic tale about how Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, or Hungarians transformed dysfunctional communist regimes into flourishing democracies (and assume therefore that Ukrainians, Georgians, Iraqis, or Lebanese should do the same). But as John Hulsman and Anatol Lieven pointed out in the summer issue of The National Interest, it was the prospect of eventual membership in NATO and the European Union which forced discipline on the political and economic elites of Eastern Europe, enabling them to make the hard choices necessary to reform their societies.

Ahhh...democracy. The magic word.

Religion of Peace update.

The news:

Palestinians torch four Gaza synagogues

A view:

The Face of Islamic Religious Intolerance

Today, as I knew they would, crazed Palestinian mobs are desecrating 25 synagogues in Gaza, setting them on fire and destroying what it took years to build. I have visited almost all of these synagogues, prayed in many of them. I cannot even begin to put into words the pain I feel today, the anger, and the sadness.

The world, as I expected, is silent. The UN's Kofi Annan was asked to protect the remaining synagogues, but we hear nothing. Empty buildings, they will protest quietly, and what did you expect? Unspoken is the silent message that while the Christian world and the Jewish world would respect places of worship, the Moslem world cannot be held to the same level of accountability. Did you expect any different? No, I did not, though it would be a mistake to assume that knowing they would destroy these holy places in any way lessens the pain.

We can't say that we expected no better, of course, because that would be deemed racist and wrong. It would be insulting to the honorable religion of Islam, even though it is the truth. It would imply that their values are different than ours, even though they are. It would suggest that their culture is one that lacks respect for other religions, one deeply embedded in violence and one that cannot tolerate and respect the beliefs of others. We can't say all that, and so the lie will live on, the destruction go unpunished, the truth left unsaid.

The world will quietly offer Israel their condolences and throughout the world, in places like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and even in Poland, Romania, Hungary and the Ukraine, people will wonder if maybe they could destroy a nearby synagogue too. Why should the land on which these buildings sit continue to be "wasted" when there are no Jews around? Could there be a way to rid Europe and Arab countries of these buildings in which Jews once prayed? The first step, of course, is to deny.

9/11 = Gaza.

From David Wilder (Israelinsider) comes lamentation on the occaision of another step in the long drawn out process known as the suicide of the West.

The last thing any normal person would expect, on such an ominous date, would be total surrender to terror. However, that is exactly what is happening. In the coming hours, the State of Israel is going to deal Arafat the beginning of his posthumous victory, and send strong signals to bin Laden that he's following the right track. The last Israeli soldier will leave the land once called Gush Katif, and all of Gaza, Israelrein for the first time in thirty eight years, will fully belong to the terrorists.

It has been reported that Neve Dekalim will be called Arafat City. Who knows what will become of the other communities. What is certain is that our enemy will have cause to celebrate, and celebrate big time, they will. Because Israel, the country of Entebbe, leading the fight against world terror, caved in. Israel collapsed. Israel acquiesced to the Arafats and the bin Ladens of the world. On 9/11.

It's mind-boggling.

It's even more mind-boggling that most people, intelligent people, around the world, haven't picked up the significance of the event. And the most mind-boggling fact is that not only the terrorists will be celebrating tonight. Jews, in Israel and elsewhere, and leaders of the 'free world,' will raise a figurative 'l'chaim' to Ariel Sharon's great courage and statesmanship. The same people who lambaste bin Laden, and who are investing millions of dollars to find and kill one of the most evil men ever to walk the face of the earth, will give credit to Osama's alter ego, thank G-d, dead and buried, Arafat. They both desired the same thing -- the difference being that the former is smarter than the latter. But that makes no difference. Arafat and bin Laden represent exactly the same thing -- kill, kill, and kill, and you will be justly rewarded. So it is written in the Koran. And if anyone thought it wasn't true, well, Israel is helping the world to believe.

Why bad economists are different from you and me.

Walter Williams battles the ghouls of academia.

According to a couple of poorly trained economists, there's a bright side to Hurricane Katrina's destruction. J.P. Morgan senior economist Anthony Chan believes hurricanes tend to stimulate overall growth. As reported in "Gas Crisis Looms" (Aug. 31, 2005), written by CNN/Money staff writer Parija Bhatnagar, Mr. Chan said, "Preliminary estimates indicate 60 percent damage to downtown New Orleans. Plenty of cleanup work and rebuilding will follow in all the areas. That means over the next 12 months, there will be lots of job creation which is good for the economy."

Professor Doug Woodward, of the business school at the University of South Carolina, has the same vision. Professor Woodward said, "On a personal level, the loss of life is tragic. But looking at the economic impact, our research shows that hurricanes tend to become god-given work projects." Within six months, Professor Woodward "expects to see a construction boom and job creation offset the short-term negatives such as loss of business activity, loss of wealth in the form of housing, infrastructure, agriculture and tourism revenue in the Gulf Coast states."

Let's ask a few smell-test questions about these claims of beneficial aspects of hurricane destruction. Would there have been even greater economic growth and job creation for our nation had Hurricane Katrina not only destroyed New Orleans, Mobile and Gulfport, but other major metropolitan areas along its path, like Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, as well? Would we consider it a godsend, in terms of jobs and economic growth, if a few more category 4 hurricanes hit our shores? Only a lunatic would answer these questions in the affirmative.

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), a great French economist, said in his pamphlet "What is Seen and What is Not Seen": "There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen." What economists Chan and Woodward can see are the jobs and construction boom created by repairing hurricane destruction. What they can't see, and thus ignore, is what those resources would have been used for had there not been hurricane destruction.

Bastiat wrote a parable about this which has become known as the "Broken Window Fallacy." A shopkeeper's window is broken by a vandal. A crowd formed sympathizing with the man. After a while, someone in the crowd suggested that the boy wasn't guilty of vandalism; instead, he was a public benefactor, creating economic benefits for everyone in town. After all, fixing the broken window creates employment for the glazier, who will then buy bread and benefit the baker, who will then buy shoes and benefit the cobbler, and so forth.

Those are the seen effects of repairing the broken window. What's unseen is what the shopkeeper would have done with the money had the vandal not broken his window. He might have employed the tailor by purchasing a suit. The vandal's breaking his window produced at least two unseen effects. First, it shifted unemployment from the glazier who now has a job to the tailor who doesn't. Second, it reduced the shopkeeper's wealth. Had it not been for the vandalism, the shopkeeper would have had a window and a suit; now he has just a window.

Simple, no? You knew that all along, didn't you kiddies?

Of course, were it the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus providing the resources to repair the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Chan and Professor Woodward would be correct. But what the heck, maybe we shouldn't be so harsh on these economists in light of the fact that they didn't receive their training at George Mason University's Economics Department, where there are no bad economists.

Pseudo-scientific Teflon scare update.

Remember my wonderful post on this topic, kiddies? It was cleverly entitled Get your paws off my non-stick cookware, you neopagan dirt worshippers!

Here's the latest from Gregory Conko and Human Events Online.

The newest horror story involves an alleged threat from Teflon-coated cookware. Two Florida-based law firms have filed a $5 billion class-action suit in eight states against Teflon manufacturer DuPont for “failing” to warn consumers about the product’s alleged dangers.

What dangers?

One component used to make Teflon is a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, which causes liver cancer in lab animals at high doses. While the Environmental Protection Agency classifies it as a “likely” carcinogen, it is not clear whether PFOA actually does cause cancer in humans, or how much exposure is needed to do so.

In August, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine professor Edward Emmett announced that his research, funded by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health, found neither toxic effects nor a higher cancer risk among people who live near a West Virginia Teflon production facility, even though they had as much as 80 times the level of PFOA in their blood as average Americans.

But that doesn’t bother attorney Alan Kluger. “I don’t have to prove that it causes cancer,” says Kluger. “I only have to prove that DuPont lied in a massive attempt to continue selling their product.”

There is still one problem with Kluger’s legal theory, however. There isn’t any PFOA in the Teflon itself, or on Teflon-coated crockery. The chemical is used early in the production process but is destroyed before finishing.
According to researchers in both Denmark and China, consumers are not exposed to PFOA from the use of non-stick cookware. A U.S. study – funded by DuPont but peer reviewed and published in the prestigious journal Environment Science & Technology – detected no PFOA in any of the non-stick cookware samples tested.

Surprise!

In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Teflon for cookware and found it safe for consumers. The EPA says that “there aren’t any steps that EPA recommends that consumers take to reduce exposures to PFOA,” and it “does not believe there is any reason for consumers to stop using any consumer or industrial-related products.”
You might think that would be the end of the story. But the typical formula used in these big class action suits is to trump up some bogus health claim, demand a quick settlement, and then cut and run before the facts are in.

The lawyers know they can count on people’s fear of chemicals and their natural concern for the health of their families to generate public outrage. Teflon has been around for half a century, and the brand is a household name. What better way to arouse the public’s ire than to vilify a product that nearly every American has used?

The lawyers also know they can count on a major corporation like DuPont to try and protect its reputation. In 2004, for example, the company paid an $82 million out-of-court settlement to the residents of Parkersburg, West Virginia, who alleged that PFOA from a nearby DuPont plant had tainted their water supplies – despite the lack of any evidence.

Idiots.

Bob Novak: Priscilla Owen for O'Connor's seat?

From the man at the center of the Plamepot Dome scandal (Remember that bit of ancient history, kiddies? Why isn't Howie Spleen screeching about it anymore?) comes some informed (?) speculation about CuriousGeorge (F)lyingBushMonkey's next move in the War of Judicial Usurpation. (Thanks to Human Events Online for the heads up.)

With Senate confirmation of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice virtually assured, the struggle for the Supreme Court returns to replacing retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The belief in legal and political circles is that President Bush will name a conservative woman, and the front-runner is Federal Appellate Judge Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit, Austin, Texas).

According to White House sources, Bush met secretly with Owen last week. While not decisive evidence, this was no mere get-acquainted session beginning a long exploration. The president knows and admires his fellow Texas Republican. The countervailing political pressure on Bush is to name a Hispanic American, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a Texas Republican the president knows and likes even better than he does Owen. But signals last week that he might name Gonzales probably should not be taken seriously.

Bush's original nomination of Roberts to replace O'Connor would have moved the court to the right, but it would not have been decisive because of uncertainty over Chief Justice William Rehnquist's future. Roberts for Rehnquist is a conservative replacing a conservative. That leaves open whether a conservative affecting the court's orientation for a generation shall replace O'Connor, a pro-choice social liberal.

Appellate Judge Edith Clement (5th Circuit, New Orleans) was the runner-up to Roberts in the first selection process, but the word in legal circles is that she did not do well in her interview with the president and now is out of the picture. Appellate Judge Edith Jones (5th Circuit, Houston) has been mentioned for the Supreme Court for a decade and at 56 is near the outer age limit. New names are Appellate Judge Karen Williams (4th Circuit, Orangeburg, S.C.), one of the most conservative federal judges, and Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan.

Priscilla Owen is viewed as the strongest choice and, at age 50, able to guarantee a conservative court for 20 years. She was a petroleum industry lawyer in 1994 when Republicans tapped her to run for the Texas Supreme Court. She and George W. Bush, candidate for governor of Texas, sometimes campaigned together, with Karl Rove their mutual consultant. Owen was considered non-controversial when Bush selected her for the Appeals Court in 2001, but a wide-ranging Democratic filibuster delayed her confirmation for four years.

If Owen is nominated a month from now, she will have had little more than four months on the federal appellate bench. But that is twice as much appellate time as Justice David Souter had before going on the Supreme Court. Approved only 55 to 43 for the 5th Circuit, Owen would face bitter opposition for the higher court. But so would any of the other conservative women acceptable to Bush.

Sobran on patriotism.

(Note: The link above will take you to Joe's current on-line column. The archive is here. Not all of his past columns are available in the archive.)


Joe Sobran, one of the few principled opponents to the war in Iraq, delivers an intellectual beat-down to the "conservatives" favorite serial adulterer, Spammity, you and me, et al.

In America, a patriot is a guy who complains about all the things that are wrong with this country and then accuses other Americans of not loving it. Judging by their intellectual subtlety, some of our patriots could have studied civics under Huck Finn’s Pap. “Call this a govment! Why, just look at it and see what it’s like.” Today Pap would probably be a talk-radio host. A popular one, too. Nowadays no talent like his goes unrewarded.

The other day Rush Limbaugh raised the thoughtful question whether people who oppose the Iraq war are really patriotic. Just asking, of course. Not accusing anyone of anything. Hinting, maybe.

Oddly enough, Bill Clinton (whom Rush isn’t too fond of, and vice versa) once said something in the same vein: “There's nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country.” That’s the patriot’s creed in one pithy sentence. Saddam Hussein couldn’t have said it better. How can you hate torture chambers and try to pass yourself off as a patriot? I’ll never understand people like that.

Rush had a point, though, when he asked how people can say they “oppose the war” but “support our troops.” After all, the war is what our troops are doing. And they are volunteers, not draftees. You might as well say you have nothing against soldiers, as long as they don’t hurt anyone. What do you think soldiers are paid to do? Hand out chewing gum?

It reminds me of an illuminating moment in a television documentary about neo-Nazis many years ago. The interviewer asked a young man why he would belong to such a group. Slightly abashed, he replied, “Well, Nazism is the answer for me. It may not be the answer for everyone.” Only in a pluralistic country could such a concept arise: tolerant, all-volunteer Nazism. Often the best kind. Somewhere, Hitler and Goebbels must be kicking themselves for not thinking of it.

Live and let live, I always say. Don’t bother the other fellow if he wants to goose-step to a different drummer; that’s his business. What a dull world it would be if we all had to goose-step at the same pace! It would be especially hard on those of us who use canes and walkers.

A truly equal-opportunity, nondiscriminatory Nazism might be an improvement on some types of American patriotism. Rush and Sean Hannity, brothers under the thin skin, habitually speak of opponents of the war as “liberals” and “the Left,” unless something has changed since I last snapped off my radio. But they ignore those of us who can oppose the war without hankering to send an alleged lesbian to the White House in 2008.

I think I speak for millions when I say I wouldn’t mind seeing a white male in the White House — maybe even a dead white male next time, considering how poorly the live ones usually perform. What we usually get are deadly white males.

The point is to end the war, which was a bad idea in the first place and has failed on its own terms, which you can believe no matter what else you think about the government. I know liberals and leftists who believe that, but I also know conservatives, moderate Republicans, libertarians, anarchists, and others who believe it too.

And no, I won’t insult your common sense by saying I “support our troops.” I rather strongly disapprove of what they’re doing in Iraq. When you join the armed forces, you agree to fight wherever you are told, no matter where, no matter why. And President Bush isn’t too good at explaining why. Cindy Sheehan is right about that; but her son, it pains me to point out, did agree to serve. Did she try to dissuade him?

Most of us love our country. We can hardly help it. It’s only natural to feel affection for your homeland. But that doesn’t translate into unconditional love for whoever happens to be in charge of it at any given moment, whether it’s a Clinton or a Bush.

I like Americans. Some of my best friends are Americans. I know that’s what anti-Americans always say, but in my case it happens to be true. In fact, nearly all my best friends are Americans. Maybe a few are illegal aliens, but they’re the minority.

From The Life Imitates Anime Department:

Remember Paranoia Agent?

Check out this story from Mainichi:

Man on pushbike hits schoolboy with baseball bat

KOBE -- A man on a bicycle hit a junior high school student with a metal baseball bat on Monday morning, police said.

The man attacked the boy in Kobe's Nada-ku at about 7 a.m., leaving the victim with minor injuries on the right thigh.

The man immediately left the scene on his green bicycle.

The 13-year-old boy was on his way to school when the man approached him from behind, police said.

You know The Church is in trouble when...

...70% of Catholics polled mistakenly say the Eucharist is a symbol of Christ's presence!

Maybe I should entitle this one "Creeping protestantism".

Nah, I'll choose to look on the less dark side. Maybe they do not know what the word "symbol" means.

Sorry for all the levity, kiddies, but I can't resist an Abbott and Costello reference.

Heehee!
(As always, click to enlarge.)

Hockey's back, kiddies!

Yippee! But shouldn't that be "Leafs" tickets?

Fyodor's football picks: The results.

I picked eight college games on the weekend of 9/9 - 9/10. I was 5 and 3.

I picked fifteen NFL games on the weekend of 9/11 - 9/12. I was an almost respectable 7 and 8.

Those folks on the Gulf Coast are our neighbors. You know what to do.

First, last, and always, PRAY. Pray for the survivors. Pray for the repose of the souls of those killed by Hurricane Katrina. Pray for the families and friends. Pray for the relief workers, the cops, the firemen, the troops, and the technicians. Pray for the volunteers.

It is time to step up once again, kiddies. "Do unto others", "I was naked and you clothed me", et cetera.

Catholic Relief Services is on the job. The absolute best of crisis charities needs money now.

Mail Checks To:

Catholic Charities USA
Hurricane Katrina
PO Box 25168
Alexandria, VA 22313-9788

Call:(800) 919-9338

Contribute Now Online


Agencies Impacted:
Catholic Charities of Miami
Catholic Charities of New Orleans
Catholic Community Services of Baton Rouge
Catholic Social Services of Houma-Thibodaux
Catholic Social and Community Services of Biloxi, MS
Catholic Charities of Jackson, MS
Catholic Social Services of Mobile, AL

And, as always, give generously to the special collections for hurricance disaster relief in your local parish.

Just in case you missed the significance of that last post because of my sublime subtlety, let me try again.

Today is the Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary. First celebrated in Spain, this feast was extended throughout the whole church by proclamation of Pope Innocent XI after a Polish army dedicated to Mary defeated the mohammedans at the gates of Vienna in 1683. Pray for us, Blessed Mother.

(Hint: Today is September 12.)

Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.

Today is the Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary. First celebrated in Spain, this feast was extended throughout the whole church by proclamation of Pope Innocent XI after a Polish army dedicated to Mary defeated the mohammedans at the gates of Vienna in 1683. Pray for us, Blessed Mother.

Today's reading is Galatians 4:4-7.
Today's Gospel reading is Luke 1:39-47.


Everyday links:

The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today


Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.


Memorare

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.


St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.


Prayer to Saint Anthony, Martyr of Desire

Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)


PRAYER TO SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.