J's Cafe Nette

Archive for April, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday gave police officers protection from lawsuits that result from high-speed car chases, ruling against a Georgia teenager who was paralyzed after his car was run off the road.

In a case that turned on a video of the chase in suburban Atlanta, Justice Antonin Scalia said law enforcement officers do not have to call off pursuit of a fleeing motorist when they reasonably expect that other people could be hurt.

Rather, officers can take measures to stop the car without putting themselves at risk of civil rights lawsuits.

“A police officer’s attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death,” Scalia said.

The court sided 8-1 with former Coweta County sheriff’s deputy Timothy Scott, who rammed a fleeing black Cadillac on a two-lane, rain-slicked road in March 2001.

Victor Harris, the 19-year-old driver of the Cadillac, lost control and his car ended up at the bottom of an embankment. The nighttime chase took place at roughly 90 miles an hour.

Harris, paralyzed, sued Scott.

Lower federal courts ruled the lawsuit could proceed, but the Supreme Court said Monday that it could not. Justice John Paul Stevens dissented.

In an unusual move, the court posted the dramatic video on its Web site.

Scalia described a “Hollywood-style car chase of the most frightening sort, placing police officers and innocent bystanders alike at great risk of serious injury.”

A vote of 8-1 is not even close and I’m glad to see the officers get some protection from lawsuits that could ruin them financially.

Now if they’d just rule in favor of those Border Patrol agents who have been sent to jail by an over-eager prosecutor…

Tweet This Post

As the owner of this blog I must take full responsibility for everything that is posted on this site.

Today a post was made that was not in good taste in reference to some of our military serving in Iraq.

To those who saw the post, you know what I am talking about.

To those who didn’t see the post, you will not know what it was as we will no longer discuss it.

I promise you this will never happen again.

Tweet This Post

Today we posted the link to the Los Angeles Times’ article, saying Bush was in heap big trouble when September gets here because he has no backing and the war is lost, basically.

Well, thanks to California Conservative I have been directed to this New York Times article.

Let’s all be clear about this: neither the Los Angeles Times nor the New York Times has a conservative bent and they are not in favor of the war in Iraq.

With that said, let me quote from the New York Times article:

RAMADI, Iraq — Anbar Province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat.

“Many people are challenging the insurgents,” said the governor of Anbar, Maamoon S. Rahid, though he quickly added, “We know we haven’t eliminated the threat 100 percent.”

Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.

At the same time, American and Iraqi forces have been conducting sweeps of insurgent strongholds, particularly in and around Ramadi, leaving behind a network of police stations and military garrisons, a strategy that is also being used in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, as part of its new security plan.

Yet for all the indications of a heartening turnaround in Anbar, the situation, as it appeared during more than a week spent with American troops in Ramadi and Falluja in early April, is at best uneasy and fragile. [They couldn't resist that last paragraph. ED]

Go over to California Conservative and read the commentary there. It won’t hurt any liberal to take a look. They can’t reach through your monitor and grab you.

Tweet This Post

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is calling for higher taxes:

SAN DIEGO — Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said yesterday raising taxes for higher-income families back to their levels under the Clinton administration is a floor, not a ceiling, and he would consider even higher tax increases.

“What I believe is the starting place is to go back to the Clinton levels,” Mr. Edwards told reporters after addressing the 2,000 delegates to California’s state Democratic Party convention.

My question is why? Taxes have been lowered for most of six years now and the economy is doing well.

The class warfare perpetrated by the Democrats is getting old and frustrating. Wouldn’t you love to be in the position that you could work as hard as you want and reap the benefits of your work instead of having to give your money to the state?

What incentive does anyone have to work hard if they have to give most of it to the state? If Edwards wants to raise taxes for the rich he should start with himself and go to the rich members of congress to pitch in first. Lead by example.

I’m reminded of Walter Mondale’s 1984 acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination.

He said something to the effect: “They will say I will raise your taxes, and I will.”

Why is it Democrats have never seen a tax increase they didn’t love? And don’t tell me it will be used to reduce the debt because the record so far shows it goes for more porkbarrel spending and social programs that are not needed if they would cut the pork.

And don’t forget it was President Clinton who put income taxes on Social Security benefits.

Tweet This Post

Here’s the commentary by the person who put this on YouTube:

This is the closing monologue to the 2007 CMT Award’s show by Host Jeff Foxworthy, which aired last Monday. He talks about why he likes country music and why he likes being considered a country folk. This is not only very touching but oh so accurate as well.
Thanks Jeff – You really hit a home run with this one!

(I am sorry the video quality isn’t the greatest – I am looking to post a better version soon. I wanted to get this up right away though and it’s really the audio and what is contained that matters)

Tweet This Post

This is video taken from The Beltway Boys

It doesn’t last that long, so please listen to what they are saying.

Tweet This Post

From the Washington Post:

The protesters assembled on the Mall yesterday with a plan to voice their less-than-generous views about a certain president and his vice president. They would form a human chain to spell out I-M-P-E-A-C-H, even including an exclamation point.

But only 150 or so showed up, far fewer than the 1,000 organizers had hoped for. As their photo opportunity approached, they knew they’d be lucky to spell I-M-P.

“We’re going to have to scrap the big plan,” George Ripley, the protest’s leader, announced. He advised his allies to rearrange everyone. They would still form I-M-P-E-A-C-H-!, he insisted, only on a tad smaller scale.

“A nightmare,” a pony-tailed confederate said, shaking his head.

Ripley, 57, grabbed a megaphone and chanted stage instructions, and the scrum began its realignment. There were mothers dressed in pink, Naderites, peaceniks in tie-dyed T-shirts, a guy in a George Bush mask wearing prison stripes, and one Robert Greenough, with two dandelions entwined in his long red beard.

“It’s sad, isn’t it?” he said of the turnout. He and his wife, Joyce, had certainly done their part, bringing their sons, Jordan, 10, and Josh, 14, who seemed happily lost in his iPod, which blared A Static Lullaby, a rock band.

Ripley paced back and forth, exhorting everyone to find a spot. The Columbia Heights resident said he had slept near the Mall overnight to get tickets so news photographers could go to the top of the Washington Monument and capture the moment for posterity.

Well, it was a Sunday and if the weather was as good there as here I can understand why people weren’t there. They had more important things to do with their families.

Tweet This Post

Clarice Feldman at American Thinker has an interesting quote from Richard Perle having to do with a claim of George Tenet’s:

In a review of George Tenet’s book “At the Center of the Storm”, Michiko Kakutani reveals Tenet’s claim that the Administration –or at least the neocons in it–were determined to get Saddam even before the facts were in. In support of this he recounts Tenet’s tale:

On the day after 9/11, he adds, he ran into Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative and the head of the Defense Policy Board, coming out of the White House. He says Mr. Perle turned to him and said: “Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility.” This, despite the fact, Mr. Tenet writes, that “the intelligence then and now” showed “no evidence of Iraqi complicity” in the 9/11 attacks.

Unfortunately for Tenet and whoever( if anyone) was fact checking this whine-arama Perle was out of the country on 9/11 and confirmed to me today that he was unable to return home until 9/15/2003.

Some head of intelligence.

Here’s another story that confirms what Clarice wrote although she made a mistake by putting the year at 2003 instead of 2001.

Tweet This Post

The Multi-National Forces-Iraq had amazing successes this past week as documented here.

Thank you to the brave men and women not only of the US Military but those from all countries working beside them.

Tweet This Post

Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution will no doubt remain controversial forever. These newly released letters provide a fascinating peek inside the mind of a man who has created debate among so many for so long.

As he crafted his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin crossed intellects with some of the finest minds of his age, testing and refining a theory that would change the very nature of mankind’s view of itself.

Now, previously unpublished letters reveal the thinking behind the book that unleashed a scientific and religious furore in the 19th century.

The correspondence with Darwin’s friend and theological sparring partner Asa Gray, an American botanist and God-fearing Christian, spans decades, beginning in 1854, five years before the publication of Origin, and continuing until Darwin’s death in 1882.

The relationship between Darwin and Gray was good natured, if combative. In one letter, Darwin tells Gray: “An innocent and good man stands under a tree and is killed by a flash of lightning. Do you believe that God designedly killed this man? Many or most persons do believe this. I can’t and don’t.”

Gray responds: “You reject the idea of design, while all the while bringing out the neatest illustrations of it!” Darwin, rather self-conscious of his large nose, writes: “Will you honestly tell me that the shape of my nose was ordained and guided by an intelligent cause?”

Dr Paul White of the Darwin Correspondence Project said: “The letters reveal that debate over design engaged a wide range of participants, and in a manner that was both frank and respectful of differences in religious belief. In contrast to much of the current debate, Darwin and his circle of correspondents seem more tolerant and more humble.”

HT: American Thinker

Tweet This Post

It’s actually a replica of Noah’s Ark, built to one-fifth scale according to the specifications spelled out in the Bible.

It took Johan Huibers, a Dutchman, two years to build it with modern technology. Imagine how hard it was for Noah to build it by hand.

Of course, it’s only a replica of the biblical Ark, built by Dutch creationist Johan Huibers as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.

Reckoning by the old biblical measurements, Johan’s fully functional ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That’s two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house.

Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.

“The design is by my wife, Bianca,” Huibers said. “She didn’t really want me to do this at all, but she said if you’re going to anyway, it should look like this.”

A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine — biblical scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been.

Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and occasional help from his son Roy. Construction began in May 2005.

On the uncovered top deck — not quite ready in time for the opening — will come a petting zoo, with baby lambs and chickens, and goats. And one camel.

Visitors on the first day were stunned.

“It’s past comprehension,” said Mary Louise Starosciak, who happened to be bicycling by with her husband while on vacation when they saw the ark looming over the local landscape.

“I knew the story of Noah, but I had no idea the boat would have been so big.”

In fact, Noah’s Ark as described in the Bible was five times larger than Johan’s Ark.

Read the rest of the story.

Tweet This Post

Some quotes from the Chicago Sun-Times:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), known for his soaring rhetoric, stumbled during the first Democratic debate Thursday at South Carolina State University.
“Last night I was a little nervous,” Obama said at a rally in Charleston on Friday, where he filled the gym at Burke High School.

Constrained by a 60-second limit for replies that worked against Obama’s speaking style — a very long windup to the pitch — his tendency to generalize meant he did not directly answer some questions. Even when asked something noncontroversial, what he personally did to improve the environment, he said 3,000 campaign volunteers planted trees on Earth Day. With a prod from moderator Brian Williams, the NBC anchor, Obama added he’s “been working” to install energy efficient light bulbs at home. He sounded out of touch.

Some examples:

• Obama failed to cast himself as a forceful commander in chief.

Obama was asked how he would “change the U.S. military stance overseas” if two U.S. cities were attacked by al-Qaida. After a reference to the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, he said “review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack.”

Contrast that with the reply from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) — her best during the 90-minute debate. “Retaliate,” she said. “Focus on those who have attacked us and do everything we can to destroy them.”

Obama knew he blew it because a few minutes later he added “enemies” of the U.S. “have to be hunted down.”

• • Obama did not use an opening he had to reassure Jewish voters about Israel.

On Tuesday, Obama spoke to the National Jewish Democratic Council in Washington. “My commitment to you is unwavering,” he told them. Obama heavily courts wealthy Jewish donors and some have questions about his Muslim ties. His campaign produced a 29-page “American-Israeli Relationship Issue Packet” on his views that an Obama staff fund-raiser was handing out at the NJDC conference.

Asked at the debate to name America’s three most important allies, Obama said the European Union, NATO and Japan. He added Israel at Williams’ prodding, a lapse that could hurt him with Jewish voters.
• • Obama’s debate claim that the Iraq war could end with “one signature” from President Bush or “16 votes,” referring only to the Senate, is wrong.

Bush’s expected veto of the Iraq War funding bill — with timelines for troop withdrawals, can only be overridden by supermajorities in the Senate and the House.

You have to do well in the sound-bites or you lose because the television networks are only interested in sound-bites and not substance, not that the two-year senator actually showed any in a 60 second timeframe.

Tweet This Post

Admittedly, I’m sick of hearing presidential candidates this far from the first primary, but as I scan the news I’m beginning to wonder if the only people running are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, with John Edwards as a trailing third.

Otherwise I’ve heard about McCain complaining the press isn’t as nice to him as it once was (they never are) and occasionally something critical of Rudy Giuliani, but I haven’t heard nearly as much from the political Right as I have from the political Left.

I assume all candidates from both parties are running just as hard so why are we not being informed of substantive issues other than the Iraq war (we know where all the candidates stand on this issue) taken by the various candidates of each party?

People complain when those of us on the Right say the media is prejudiced against us and they deny it, but check out any major newspaper (not the political blogs or definite left or right on-line sites) and tell me about which candidates you are reading the most.

Check the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, the Chicago papers, the Boston papers and tell me if you see a story about one of the so-called major Republican candidates talking about his positions on anything other than the Iraq war. Heck, you can even include the Iraq war in it.

Then tell me how many stories you have seen about Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, to a certain extent, addressing adoring crowds of people all over the country.

Am I missing something here or do we have just one party running for president next year? Just asking.

Tweet This Post

Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein is writing a book supposedly taking apart Hillary Clinton’s career story.

My question is, what can he tell us that isn’t already known, and if not known won’t matter to those who plan to vote for her?

Drawing on a trove of private papers from Hillary Clinton’s best friend, the legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein is to publish a hard-hitting and intimate portrait of the 2008 presidential candidate, which will reveal a number of “discrepancies” in her official story.

Bernstein, who was played by Dustin Hoffman in the film All the President’s Men, has spent eight years researching the unauthorised 640-page biography, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Bernstein reaches conclusions that stand in opposition to what Senator Clinton has said in the past and has written in the past,” said Paul Bogaards, a spokesman for Knopf, which publishes the book on June 19.

With the thoroughness for which he is famous, Bernstein spoke to more than 200 of Clinton’s friends, colleagues and adversaries. He stops short of accusing the New York senator of blatantly lying about her past, but has unearthed examples of where she has played fast and loose with the facts about her “personal and political life”, according to Knopf.

The book could revive the explosive charge, made earlier this year by David Geffen, a former Clinton donor and Hollywood mogul, that “the Clintons lie with such ease, it’s troubling”.

If you want more of his titillating tale you’ll have to follow the link.

My reaction to this and any other book trying to make candidates look bad just before an election? (

Tweet This Post

Give a listen and tell me if you like it too.

Unfortunately, the link just takes you to the main page. Go to the one titled “1980 Ronald Reagan “I paid for this microphone.”

Talk about being real.

Tweet This Post

There is nothing I could add to this:

Taking the oath to become an American Citizen

A couple of hours ago I returned from Los Angeles with my wife. We were there so that she could take the oath of citizenship of the United States of America.

After they repeated the oath the new Americans waved little American flags and cheered loudly. I turned to the man sitting beside me whose wife was also taking the oath, and like me, his eyes were filled with tears.

We recited the pledge of allegiance with the new Americans, sang the National Anthem, and cried to the song “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood.

Except, Congratulations!

Tweet This Post

According to KnoxNews: Business, it appears former Senator Bill Frist is no longer being investigated for insider trading.

WASHINGTON – In the end, Bill Frist’s habit of frequent e-mails helped document the former Senate Republican leader’s account that he was not involved in insider trading in his 2005 sale of HCA Inc. stock.
The former Tennessee senator was able to show in copies of e-mails given to federal investigators that he began the process of selling his family’s HCA stock in April 2005 – well before HCA had disappointing second-quarter earnings and publicly reported that fact July 13, two people familiar with Frist’s records said Friday.

Frist disclosed in a written statement recently that he had received letters from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York saying they had closed their investigations and were taking no action against him.

His recent written statement said: “I’ve always conducted myself according to the highest ethical standards in both my personal and public life, and my family and I are pleased that this matter has been resolved.”

If this is the end of the case I will be pleased for Mr. Frist. While he served as Majority Leader there were times I felt he could have been more forceful in seeing legislation through to completion but I never questioned the decency of the man. He was always respectful of those with whom he disagreed and conducted himself with dignity in a sometimes not so dignified environment.

HT:Powerline

Tweet This Post

Diversity is one reason I read Roger Simon every day. When he chooses to write on politics he will praise or a take to task the right or the left. I could not let this article pass by without sharing, not because of politics but rather the take on being a politician today.

It’s because I’m not good enough an actor. My real thoughts and feelings pop out too easily.

I don’t regret this for a second. I wouldn’t want to be a politician. I want to stick with my own opinions, thank you. And my own self. The need for political victory not only distorts what you think and feel, it distorts it to such a degree that you probably no longer remember what you thought and felt in the first place. You have become a creature of your own prevarications. You are … someone new.

That politicians are inauthentic human beings is not exactly news, but it has been exacerbated in our times by their high visibility . They are forced to give their opinions on virtually all matters in a non-stop all-news cycle. These opinions are in turn crafted to appeal to constituencies (often the “base” in primaries, then the “center” in the general election) much in the manner products are crafted for consumers. They are, in essence, phony – and we the consumers (the voters) know it. How could we not? Yet we – with the media as the all-too-willing promoter – participate in this charade.

Mr. Simon, I would not presume to speak for others but as for me, these few paragraphs speak volumes.

Tweet This Post

Fred Thompson’s thoughts on the NFL Draft:

I’ve been a dedicated fan of professional football since I was a kid. I have the “premium” satellite football package and I’ve had seats for Tennessee Titans games since they first came to Nashville. So you can probably guess what I’ll be doing this weekend. Like a lot of other fans, I’ll be listening to draft guru Mel Kiper, Jr., as the NFL draft plays out in New York.

Mr. Thompson offers an interesting assessment of the process and the players involved.

Tweet This Post

Alan Dershowitz is not known to be a political conservative under any circumstances. He worked to get Jimmy Carter elected and must surely feel betrayed by the former president now.

I have known Jimmy Carter for years. I first met him in the spring of 1976 when, as a relatively unknown candidate for president, he sent me a handwritten letter asking for my help in his campaign on issues of crime and justice. I had just published an article in The New York Times Magazine on sentencing reform, and he expressed interest in my ideas and asked me to come up with additional ones for his campaign. Shortly thereafter, my former student, Stuart Eisenstadt, brought Carter to Harvard to meet with some faculty members, me among them. I immediately liked Jimmy Carter and saw him as a man of integrity and principle. I signed on to his campaign and worked very hard for his election.

I continued to work for Carter over the years, most recently I met him in Jerusalem a year ago, and we briefly discussed the Mid-East. Though I disagreed with some of his points, I continued to believe that he was making them out of a deep commitment to principle and to human rights.

Recent disclosures of Carter’s extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?

And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source. Initially, I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School, but then a student at the Divinity School, Rachael Lea Fish showed me the facts.

They were staggering. I was amazed that in the twenty-first century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up, a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son, hosted speakers who called Jews “the enemies of all nations,” attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States’ own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a “fable.” (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.

Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard’s decision, since it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: “This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan.” Carter’s personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot.

The extent of Carter’s financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known. What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter’s friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter “$500,000 to help the former president establish his center…[and] more than $10 million to Mr. Carter’s different projects.”

Carter gladly accepted the money, though Abedi had called his bank, ostensibly the source of his funding, “the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists.” BCCI isn’t the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center “in 1993 alone…$7.6 million” as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family. Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. It’s worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government’s myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center’s Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center’s activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center’s human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq, the Sudan, or Syria, but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center’s website.

The Carter Center’s mission statement claims that “The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities.” How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel’s far less serious ones?

No reasonable person can dispute therefore that Jimmy Carter has been and remains dependent on Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia. Does this mean that Carter has necessarily been influenced in his thinking about the Middle East by receipt of such enormous amounts of money? Ask Carter.

With the recent publication of Carter’s book which seems to blame the Israelis for all the problems in the Mid-East while excusing the actions of the Palestinians, has made people think of Carter as an anti-Semite.

With this kind of financial backing by anti-Semitic Arabs, or more accurately, anti-Jew Arabs, it would seem Carter has been bought and paid for.

Tweet This Post

Saudi Arabia has announced it has foiled a terrorist plot by rounding up 172 would-be terrorists who were planning to blow up oil facilities and kill government officials.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia announced yesterday that an anti-terrorism sweep netted 172 Islamic extremists and had stopped plans to mount air attacks on the kingdom’s oil refineries, break militants out of jail and send suicide attackers to kill government officials.

A government official said the plotters had completed preparations for their attacks, and all that remained to put the plot in motion “was to set the zero hour.”

It was one of the biggest roundups since Saudi leaders began cracking down on religious extremists four years ago after militants attacked foreigners and others involved in the country’s oil industry, seeking to topple the monarchy for its alliance with the United States.

The Interior Ministry said the plotters were organized into seven cells and planned to stage suicide attacks on “public figures, oil facilities, refineries … and military zones,” including some outside the kingdom. It did not identify any of the targets.

The militants also planned to storm Saudi prisons to free jailed militants, the ministry said.

“They had reached an advance stage of readiness, and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks,” the ministry’s spokesman, Brig. Mansour al-Turki, said in a phone call. “They had the personnel, the money, the arms.”

The ministry said some of the detainees had been “sent to other countries to study flying in preparation for using them to carry out terrorist attacks inside the kingdom.”

Brig. al-Turki said he didn’t know whether the militants who trained as pilots planned to fly suicide missions like those in the September 11 attack on the United States or whether they intended to strike oil targets in some other way.

“I have no information on what they were planning to do with the airplanes, but I assume, based on the possible use of airplanes in attacks, that they planned to fly the airplanes into specific targets,” he said.

The militants were detained in successive waves, with one group confessing and leading security officials to another group as well as caches of weapons, Brig. al-Turki said. He told the privately owned Al Arabiya television channel that some of those arrested were not Saudis.

The Interior Ministry said police seized large quantities of weapons and explosives and more than $5.3 million in currency during the sweep. State TV showed video of one cache dug up in the desert that included explosives, assault rifles, handguns and ammunition wrapped in plastic.

Saudi justice is swift and we can count on these people being executed as soon as all the information they have is given.

This is a big catch, as we don’t know how far their tentacles were extending.

Tweet This Post

From the Washington Times:

President Bush yesterday invited congressional leaders to the White House to discuss redrafting a new war-spending bill next week, and warned Democrats he is willing to wield his veto power repeatedly to block troop-withdrawal deadlines for Iraq.

“I’m optimistic we can get a bill, a good bill, a bill that satisfies all our objectives, and that is to get the money to the troops as quickly as possible,” Mr. Bush said during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the president’s Camp David retreat.

Speaking a day after the Democrat-led Congress passed a war bill with troop-pullout dates, Mr. Bush said he has enough support to sustain his veto as Democrats began looking for a resolution to the impasse that would appease its anti-war wing.

“If the Congress wants to test my will as to whether I’ll accept a timetable, I won’t accept one,” said Mr. Bush, who is awaiting the bill to formally veto it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he thinks the president is open to negotiations based on his recent statements, and called on the president to “carefully” read the bill, “stop swaggering” and sign it.

“He will see it fully provides for our troops and gives them a strategy worthy of their sacrifices,” the Nevada Democrat said. “Failing to sign this bill would deny our troops the resources and strategy they need.”

Democratic and Republican leaders agreed to meet with Mr. Bush Wednesday, and Mr. Reid has talked to Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, the minority leader, about how to move forward.

Senior House leadership aides have held “very preliminary” discussions with White House staffers about post-veto negotiations, although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, has not yet reached out to Republican leaders on the issue, one official told the Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the talks were not public.

Senator Reid knows the president won’t sign the bill in its present form, but he is at least willing to discuss compromise legislation with the president. That’s a step in the right direction.

Speaker Pelosi will hopefully come around to also attending the meeting and a compromise can be reached that will satisfy everyone.

Politics is a game of compromise, and each party must be willing to give up something he wants in order to come to a consensus. Here’s praying this works to the benefit of our troops who are the political football in all of this and are the most innocent parties, but the ones who are affected the most.

Tweet This Post

On a personal note if you will allow, the following expresses my feelings perfectly about two recently found friends.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” — Anais Nin

Just a little something I did not want to leave unsaid.

Tweet This Post

My daughter in law just got off the phone with me. The test results from Wednesday have been confirmed, and the two lymph nodes under her arm are so small no treatment is necessary on them.

She will go back in six months unless she has some symptoms for another scan. After 4 clean scans a person is declared in remission from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

This is absolutely nothing short of a miracle and a Physician much greater than any on earth is responsible for this.

I get down on my knees and cry Holy! Holy! Holy!

Heavenly Father, I praise Your Holy Name, for you are God, and there is none other before You or after You.

Amen.

Tweet This Post

This article got me to thinking about what would happen in the US if this were in our court system ( I know, too much time on my hands right?).

Chimp denied a legal guardian
Court turns down request in case aiming for ‘ape rights’.

An Austrian judge turned down a request this week to appoint a woman as legal guardian of a chimpanzee.

The decision is a blow to a growing movement in Europe attempting to give apes some of the legal rights of humans, such as protection from being owned. But proponents of ape rights say they will appeal the decision and continue fighting for the cause elsewhere in Europe. In Spain, for example, they are pushing for a national law that would extend some human rights to apes.

The goal of the Great Ape Project is to extend basic human rights to apes, such as the right to life, protection of individual liberty and prohibition of torture.

Tweet This Post

I’m not sure if this is good news or bad since history has shown each leader in Russia gets progressively worse, and Putin has virtually returned to communism as a system of government.

MOSCOW (AP) – President Vladimir Putin told Russians more clearly than ever Thursday that he will step down when his second term ends next spring, but left his choice of a successor tantalizingly unclear.
Speaking a day after the burial of Boris Yeltsin, who handed him Russia’s reins seven years ago, Putin rejected claims that he has beat a retreat from democracy and stifled freedoms that flourished under his predecessor.

The constitution adopted under Yeltsin bars presidents from serving three straight terms. But Putin’s popularity—and Russia’s lean experience with democratic power transfers—has led to persistent speculation that he might stay on.

Last month, the speaker of the upper parliament house became the latest in a string of politicians to call for constitutional changes allowing Putin to run in the presidential election in March 2008.

Putin has dismissed the idea but has occasionally left confusing hints. In a state of the nation speech to parliament, he seemed to clarify the issue with few words: “The next state of the nation address will be given by another head of state.”

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Full story.

Tweet This Post

From the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire:

The subject of hedge funds came up tonight and two top contenders — John Edwards and Hillary Clinton — had only good words for the investment pools that others in their party have come to see as symbols of unchecked financial excess, of the rich and for the rich.

The question came at the first Democratic presidential debate at historically black South Carolina State University, in rural and lower-income Orangeburg, from moderator and NBC News anchor Brian Williams: Do hedge funds make America better in any way?

Mr. Edwards, who’s been tweaked by critics of late for a perceived disconnect between his populist “Two Americas” rhetoric and his own lifestyle of hedge funds, huge homes and $400 haircuts, envisioned at least the potential for good: “The financial markets are an important component of trying to figure out what it is we need to do about the fact that we have 47 million people without health care, 37 million people who wake up in poverty every day.”

“They play an enormous role in how money moves in this country,” the former North Carolina senator continued.

Mrs. Clinton actually sounded the more populist note, suggesting the potential for some regulation of hedge funds: “America is a great place because we have an entrepreneurial economy. We have people who are willing to make stakes and new enterprises and invest their money. And, obviously, one of the other reasons we’re a great country is because we’ve learned over the years how to regulate that, so nobody gets an unfair advantage.

The former first lady of Arkansas also drew a question on that state’s Wal-Mart, another favorite target of fellow Democrats: Is the now-global retailing giant “a good thing or a bad thing” for the nation?

“Well, it’s a mixed blessing,” she replied. It started, she recalled, as a homegrown provider of affordable goods to rural areas of Arkansas (“where,” she added, “I was happy to live for 18 years”). But as the company grew, she said, it “raised serious questions” about corporate responsibility for providing employee health care, safe working conditions and not discriminating based on race and sex.

Go read the rest so you can see it all in context.

Also, stroll over to this WSJ article for a summary of the actual debate. (Subscription may be required)

Tweet This Post

Wizbang, a site that has been conservative since its inception, now has Wizbang Blue for the liberal readers of the blogosphere.

I’m adding it to our blogroll and now you have someplace other than Huffington Post or Kos to choose from which to read.

Seems they’re doing what we are except we don’t devote an entire section of our blog to each side of the political aisle.

Tweet This Post

From The American Spectator Online comes the story of our Speaker of the House refusing to meet with the President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, who is an ally of the United States in the war on drugs.

According to sources within the House Democratic leadership, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has denied the request for a meeting with Uribe when he comes to Washington next week. Uribe’s staff has attempted to set up a meeting with Pelosi, offering to come to her offices with Uribe if necessary. Pelosi has refused the meeting.

“She has third parties who have encouraged her not to take the meeting,” says a leadership aide, who said a coalition of labor organizations and MoveOn.org had been pressuring her to not meet with Uribe. “We’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not like we’re talking about some family from San Francisco who stopped by her office unannounced. This is the president of a country.”

In Colombia, Uribe has been struggling against communist terrorist groups financed by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, as well as leftist political pressure internally. All while attempting to work with the U.S. against narco-trafficking. “He’s a friend and an ally,” says a State Department source, who was unaware of Pelosi’s snub. “I’d be surprised that one of our national leaders would not meet with a strategic partner of the United States of America.”

Earlier this week Pelosi declined to meet with the man overseeing U.S. military forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petreaus. Pelosi, though, is willing to meet with America’s enemies. Against the advice of the State Department, Pelosi pressed for and did meet with the dictator of Syria earlier this month. According to leadership staff, she has members of her personal staff working on initial plans for a trip to Venezuela, perhaps in the fall, to meet with Chavez.

It has already been announced former Vice President Al Gore has refused to meet with Uribe for human rights violations, but with our Speaker of the House being an active member of the leadership of our country what is her excuse for not meeting with him?

She met with Assad and he can’t be any better than what she thinks Uribe is. She refused to meet with Gen. Patreaus before going ahead with the plan to block him and our troops in Iraq, but she can find the time for Assad and now possibly Chavez, who stood at the U.N. and publicly proclaimed the sitting President of the United States of America “Satan” and announced he could still smell the sulphur.

Even if he were a benevolent dictator I wouldn’t meet with him just on that principle.

What kind of signal is she trying to send out to the world? That if the Democrats get in the White House it will be as it was when Jimmy Carter was there? Everything will stand on “human rights” and enemies of our country will be welcome even if they violate human rights?

Sometimes I think our government is curiouser and curiouser, and I can’t figure out our newly elected leaders.

Why is it the Democrat leaders in our government march to the beat of Moveon.org and labor’s drum? Aren’t they special interests and don’t they accuse Republicans of favoring special interests?

How about both parties favoring the special interests of the American people for a change?

Tweet This Post

If you loved Dragnet and The Tonight Show, don’t miss this..a great Thursday night laugh courtesy of Power Line.

Tweet This Post