J's Cafe Nette

Archive for March, 2008

From my hometown newspaper from Saturday we see the full effects of winter in northern Maine:

Although I know from speaking to family members who live in central Maine and southern Maine it was about 23 degrees on Saturday I was surprised to see how bad it was in the far northern part of Maine.

While I’m enjoying blooming trees and flowers along with lush green grass, I think Sunday’s 48 degrees with wind and rain were bad. I guess it’s all a matter of where you are at the moment.

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You know what’s funny?

It’s been a long time since I’ve been rendered incapable of allowing myself the pleasure of staying abreast of the latest news, (or non-news if you will,) but this darn bug passing through our state managed to accomplish just that.

Anyhow, back to the part I find amusing. Once or twice a day as I might find myself a bit lucid, hubby would dutifully take to my favorite news sites and recite to me the “latest news.” There were moments when I thought he was in a time warp, repeating yesterday’s news so as not to indulge me by participating in one of his least favorite activities (the computer.)

Somewhere in the foggy memory of Thursday or Friday I vaguely remember a conversation which went something like this:

(M):“Log on for me please and check out sites X, X, X, and X and just read me the headlines or the title of the top few posts please.” (This sentence may have taken a half an hour due to the coughing jags and small naps in between words so I’m sure the patience was already waning.)

(H): “Are you sure you want me to do that?” “I watched the news earlier and if you want to know what’s going on I can tell you, but it’s nothing new.”

(M): “It’s different on line.” “You’ll see.” (About that time I knew he was wishing I would fall back into one of those slumbers from which you can’t seem to awaken your body.)

(H): (Computer on, logged in, ready to go)..”Obama, McCain, Clinton, DNC, delegate count, quit, won’t, money, church, economy, primary.” (No, he did not speak in incomplete sentences, but when you are hearing as though inside a huge conk shell one tends to only listen for what seem to be “key” words.)

(M) “Thanks. Maybe later you can check again and see if there is anything new.”

(H) “Sure…now back to sleep so I can watch the NCAA tournament.” (This not said unkindly but after a few days of caring for an immovable object the action had to be stimulating.)

I never had to go further than the first few words of this initial prompting and the better half would log on and repeat the process, dutifully clicking on the pertinent sites and reciting its leading contents. Nothing, absolutely nothing changed. Wait, I stand corrected. There was one story which I requested be read in detail. Lcpl Steven Tatum cleared of all charges. Something was right with the world.

Well, I’ve taken back my rightful place (as H calls it) at the computer and you know what is funny? He was right, there really isn’t much new news out there (although I haven‘t yet admitted that out loud.)

And here I thought he was just trying to get off easy!

(Just joshing folks..I really am going to try to catch up and hopefully have a Tuesday Tid-Bits up for tomorrow.)

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The title is John McCain’s serial number while a member of the Navy.

This is the introductory video for John McCain’s Service to America tour.

His website with other portions of his life story.

This is the first range of videos for the general election.

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I can think of no better way to rejoin the world of the living than to say “Play Ball!”

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Would you like to work in Chicago’s poor black area for between 23 and 25 years and receive as part of your retirement package a 10,000 sq. ft. four bedroom house in addition to your retirement pay?

Well, if your name is Jeremiah Wright and you pastored the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago you would get this perk upon retirement.

Not bad for working a couple hours a week and tearing down your own country in every crisis it has faced.

Now Barack Obama is claiming he would have left the church if Wright hadn’t retired.

He would have left the church pastored by the man he felt was like an uncle? The man whom he compared favorably to his own grandmother when stating her fears?

“Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying at the church,” Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, “The View.” The interview will be broadcast Friday.

Sure, Barack, we believe you. After twenty years of following this man you thought of as an uncle; the man who married you and your wife and baptized each of your children, you would have finally said you had heard enough and left.

Not when he said God should damn America, not when he said the American government created the AIDS virus so they could infect black men, not when he said the chickens were coming home to roost when planes flew into American buildings on Sept. 11, 2001, and not when he gave an award from your church to one of the most bigoted, anti-semites in this country, Louis Farrakhan.

It took twenty years for you to see the light, but now that you are probably the Democratic candidate for President of the United States you will abandon your uncle. The man for whom you threw your own grandmother under the bus to defend.

But we also know and believe if you weren’t running for president with a real shot at the nomination you would have begged him to stay and you never would have said a bad word about this man who is your father figure.

You can fool some of the people all of the time…you know how the rest goes because it was said by another famous man from Illinois.

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When the founding fathers wrote our constitution they made sure to protect each state, regardless of size.

We have a House of Representatives that has a delegation from each state with the amount of members determined by the population in the congressional district. This is direct representation.

We have the Senate which is equal in that every state from the largest to the smallest has two senators. The original intent was for the senators to be appointed by their states but the constitution was amended to allow direct election and we have seen the folly in that decision with the lifetime senators barely able to walk and constantly campaigning instead of tending to the business of the country.

The electoral college is made up of the 435 House members and 100 Senators plus the delegations from D.C. and several territories.

Now comes Florida Senator Nelson, who wants to abolish the electoral college system in favor of a direct popular vote for president.

Guess who that helps and guess who that hurts?

It helps the big states in the Northeast and of course Florida, Texas and California and hurts just about every other state. In other words, if you live in what they call fly-over country your vote won’t amount to a hill of beans because the big city Democratic machine will make sure to get out all their voters; alive, dead, barely alive; legal and illegal. Vote early and vote often is a joke to us but not to a lot who will pay the money to people to do just that.

We do not have a parliamentary system of government and the founding fathers were a lot wiser than our present-day politicians. I wish Mr. Nelson a lot of luck if this amendment goes to the states for ratification. The majority of states would have their electoral voices silenced by a poor amendment like that.

But since Mr. Nelson is an intelligent senator let us figure out the legal way for us to call for a constitutional convention and see how much havoc we can raise as the delegates to the convention play party politics instead of looking out for the interests of their country. That’s the problem with amendments.

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This has been such a bitter campaign with Obama and Clinton that it seems there will be no healing of the rift in the Democratic party this year and McCain will win by default.

Nancy Pelosi says the superdelegates should vote the way the voters voted; i.e. vote for the candidate with the highest popular vote.

That would mean Obama and Clinton’s supporters are not happy about that and have sent a letter to Pelosi stating their dissatisfaction.

In the letter sent to Pelosi on Wednesday, the Clinton supporters asked that the House speaker retract statements she made a week prior calling for superdelegates to follow the will of primary and caucus voters.

Superdelegates “must look to not one criterion but to the full panoply of factors that will help them assess who will be the party’s strongest nominee in the general election,” the donors wrote.

The letter also noted the donors “have been strong supporters” of the House Democrats’ fundraising arm.

“We therefore urge you to clarify your position on superdelegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the national convention in August.”…

…According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Democratic donors who wrote Pelosi have contributed nearly $24 million to Democratic candidates and committees over the last 10 years.

Hillary Clinton’s Senate and presidential campaigns and her political action committee received $554,000. By comparison, Barack Obama collected $52,200. Contributions for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which helps Democratic House candidates, equaled $2.9 million.

BET founder Robert Johnson, a Clinton supporter who has contributed $2 million to Democratic candidates over the years, and signed onto the letter, said he will continue to contribute to the party but it’s the superdelegates’ prerogative to choose who they want.

“The real issue is fundamental fairness in making sure that the superdelegates carry out their role. They are not, as Nancy Pelosi, would suggest ‘confirmation delegates.’ They are not robot delegates. They are superdelegates whose charter authorizes them to analyze who will be the better candidate of the two to run against the Republican candidate and win the presidency,” Johnson said. He added that he has a letter on his desk from Pelosi asking him to contribute $100,000 to the national convention, but he has not decided yet whether he will donate.

The MoveOn team also calls for the members to match “whatever the CEOs and billionaires refuse to contribute.”

Calling Clinton’s donors “the old guard,” the MoveOn group said, “This is how the Democratic Party used to function — the big donors called the shots. But the small donor revolution has changed that. The 20 people who signed this letter have given Democrats an average of $2.4 million per year over the last 10 years. Small donations now dwarf that: In February alone, Obama and Clinton raised $47 million in small donations.”

So now we have the super wealthy democrats up against Moveon.org and the superdelegates, whose duties are described by Pelosi.

Somehow they are managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

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We have added the Newsmax/AP video feed of the day’s top stories to our sidebar. This is in addition to the Breitbart text stories also listed on the sidebar.

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From today’s Omega Letter by Jack Kinsella:

A Perfect Storm

If someone had told me a year ago that the Republican Party would retain control of the White House after the ‘08 elections, I’d have wondered what they had been smoking.
The conventional wisdom since the mid-terms in ‘06 was that the Dems would sweep both Houses of Congress and recapture the White House.

The same conventional wisdom dictated that it would be Hillary Clinton leading the charge.
Hillary’s ambitions have been an open secret since she first began to run for the Senate — so much so that she was forced to pledge to serve out her first term before throwing her hat in the ring. Then, along came that great Democratic messiah, Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama is a liberal’s dream; a black man of mixed race, with a checkered history to forgive, an Islamic heritage that threatens Western civilization; articulate, urbane and erudite . . . the perfect candidate to stick his thumb in the eye of the Republican Establishment.

And the best the GOP could come up with to challenge two history-making candidates is a broken down warhorse, a relic of a war we’d like to forget, whose conservative credentials are so thin that Ann Coulter vowed to campaign for Hillary Clinton if McCain became the GOP nominee.

Fortunately for America, not everybody is as willing to drive over a cliff rather than countenance a bumpy patch in the road as Ann is.

Assessment:

If Jeremiah Wright had been the pastor of an all-white separatist church with Nazi sympathies, nobody would be debating whether or not his church’s most loyal members might have racist tendencies.

But Jeremiah Wright was the pastor of an all-black separatist church with expressed sympathies for both al-Qaeda, and The Nation of Islam, and therefore, Barack Obama’s twenty-year membership in the Trinity United Church hasn’t proved fatal to his campaign.

His brilliantly crafted speech diverted attention away from the anti-American, pro-African and pro-Islamic nature of Wright’s rantings, convincing America it was all about race, instead. (And if anybody is to blame, it is ‘typical’ whites — like his racist grandmother.)

What makes it about ‘race’ is that racism is introduced as the motive for any criticism of Barack Obama, as is sexism if one criticizes Hillary.

If you criticize Obama, you’re a racist, if you criticize Hillary Clinton, you’re a misogynist, and if you DON’T criticize John McCain, you’re all that and more.

After all, John McCain was endorsed by anti-Catholic pastor John Hagee, say Obama’s supporters. (And George Bush spoke at Bob Jones University — but he’s not running.)

If I am understanding the argument correctly, its ok to be a racist or a liar — just look at the Republicans!

(In case you missed it, the central campaign theme for ‘08 is ‘change’.)
The fact is, Obama’s 20 year membership in Wright’s church is NOT an equivalent to John McCain being endorsed by John Hagee, despite Obama’s apologists’ earnest contentions to the contrary.

Hagee endorsed McCain. That is not the same as McCain endorsing Hagee.
Obama attended Wright’s church for twenty years. That is a fairly strong endorsement of Wright’s preaching.

(Last year, Obama put $23,000.00 in Rev. Wright’s collection plate. I doubt McCain is even sure where Hagee’s church is.)

But Obama’s defenders are out there, making that case with a straight face, and hoping that if they talk fast enough, nobody will catch on.

And if they can’t pull it off, then they can always change the subject back to Hillary. . .
Early and often on the campaign trail, Hillary has described her harrowing trip into the heart of war-torn Bosnia as First Lady.

She described the plane corkscrewing in for a landing to avoid sniper fire, and running hunched over from the plane to the safety of their waiting cars. Hillary was accompanied on her Bosnian firefight by their daughter Chelsea.

At one point, she joked, “there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the First Lady.”
I’ll bet Bill had a laugh a minute as Hillary told the world that it was her husband’s policy to send his wife and sixteen year-old daughter on diplomatic missions that were too dangerous for him to risk.

But the Clintons stopped laughing when Sinbad started telling it, however. (The comedian was also on Hillary’s plane, together with singer Cheryl Crow.)

“It was too dangerous for the president. So he sent his wife and kid into combat along with a black comedian and a guitar player . . .”

The Clinton campaign slammed Sinbad, (noting he was an Obama supporter,) and staunchly defended Hillary’s version of events. Hillary included the sniper story in a speech as recently as last week.

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

But then CBS dredged up a videotape of the visit. It shows them smiling and waving as they walked at a leisurely pace across the tarmac from a cargo plane, stopping to shake hands with Bosnia’s acting president and listen while an 8-year-old girl read them a poem. (Oooops)
It’s been said that the Clinton model is to tell a big lie when a little lie will do, and to tell little lies when the truth would work better. Leaving aside that her husband is a convicted perjurer, Hillary’s list is pretty impressive all by itself.

* During her campaign for Senate she claimed to be a life-long Yankees fan (she’s from Chicago)

* She claimed Palestinian ancestry when addressing Arabs, Jewish ancestry when addressing Jews, and gave Sufi Arafat a big hug following a speech in which Arafat accused Israel of deliberately infecting Palestinians with AIDS.

* She once claimed to have been named for famed mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary. (She was born five years BEFORE Sir Edmund became a household name by climbing Mount Everest)

* She claimed daughter Chelsea was at the Twin Towers on 9/11. (Chelsea was asleep on the other side of town)

* She once claimed to be a soccer star at school. (Her school didn’t have a soccer team)

* And of course, the Big One: “I had no idea that the vote to authorize the war with Saddam Hussein would lead to war.”

Hillary’s much-touted White House experience finally came shining through. Caught red-handed in a bald-faced lie, she coolly told a radio interviewer yesterday that she had merely ‘misspoken’.

“You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things – millions of words a day – so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement,” she said.
Later, she repeated her ‘explanation’ saying, “So, made a mistake. I’m human.”

Misspoke? Her recollection of being sent to war zones too dangerous for the president was part of a prepared speech!

Her re-telling of the tale just last Friday came directly from the text of her prepared speech. How does one ‘misspeak’ from a prepared speech? (On three separate occasions?)
It is as ridiculous as Obama’s claim that he didn’t know his pastor of twenty years was a ranting racist. And evidently to their respective supporters, just as acceptable an explanation.
In a democracy, it can be rightly observed that the people get the government that they deserve.

What are the choices, again? Oh yeah. A liar, a racist and a war hero.

Decisions, decisions.

Now comes a new Gallup Poll showing a good portion of Democrats will cross party lines in November if their preferred candidate is not nominated.

The Democrats are destroying their party by this bitter primary campaign and it seems they don’t care enough to come to some sort of compromise about personal attacks.

If they don’t come up with some sort of plan the voters of Florida and Michigan will have been disenfranchised because the party will not allow their delegations to be seated in the convention.

Make no mistake, this is the workings of the party elites in Florida and Michigan to go forward with primaries on the dates they did, even after being told they would not be seated.

And it is the same party elites who govern our nation from state house to capitol of the U.S. Great judgment. They think they can break the rules and get away with it. It looks as though it isn’t going to work and the very leaders of the party, the Superdelegates, are going to be the deciding votes in who gets the nomination.

A perfect storm, indeed.

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When giving instructions to a child, be specific, very specific!

Roger Simon is on to something here:

The RogerLSimon.com tip of the day – skip to end! The whole point of the piece is in the last three paragraphs or so – neatly buttoned up in New York Times speak in the last sentence…..

Somehow I don’t think this is a problem unique to New York:

Somewhere down there in the chain of command of New York State politics, there must surely be an honest person. It could take a while before we work our way down to him, though.

Jay Tea asks a very important question.

The only answer I can think of is it just wouldn’t be (ahem) politically correct.

Usually when another nation bestows an award upon a US President it receives ample media coverage. If this event (July 2007) was covered, I must have missed the news:

WARSAW (AFP) — Poland plans to bestow its top award on the late US president Ronald Reagan, in a posthumous homage for his role in the collapse of the communist bloc, Polish authorities announced Wednesday.

The wife of the former US leader, Nancy Reagan, is to receive the Order of the White Eagle from Polish President Lech Kaczynski when the latter visits the United States next week…

Soon, my home state will vote in the primaries. Republican turnout will no doubt be low with John McCain having secured the nomination and the race on the democratic side will certainly be Mrs. Clinton’s to lose.

Will this Bosnia issue change the mind of many voters in PA? The Philadelphia Inquirer has already endorsed Senator Obama and while Mrs. Clinton would like the endorsement of The Philadelphia Daily News, that could be in doubt following a meeting the Senator attended with journalists from that publication where she was queeried on her version of the trip abroad:

This afternoon, in the session with Daily News editorial writers and reporters (and some Inquirer staffers as well) in a conference room at the Daily News and Inquirer Building, I asked the presidential candidate about these discrepancies and also showed her a copy of the photo — at the top of this post — of her on the tarmac that day.

She was quick to answer, jumping in before I was fully finished with the question. Here’s her response in its entirety:

“Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK — because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke — I didn’t say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire — that’s not what I was told. I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can’t, I can’t rush by her, I’ve got to at least greet her — so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left, Now that’s my memory of it.

What the Daily News will do is any one’s guess, but the Senator can ill afford to lose another Philadelphia paper to Obama. It may not change the final result in the state but it could cost her delegates she desperately needs.

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Let the spin begin. (I guess the scrutiny became a bit too hot.)

Sorry Mrs. Clinton. Not buying.

This is operating under the duress of sniper fire:

This is not:

And what irks me is that the Clinton campaign would believe voters were naive enough not to know the difference.

No Senator, there are some things you would never forget and coming under sniper fire would be near the top of the list. There is no room for “she misspoke” on this issue.

Update: For those who might say that’s just one photograph or perhaps there were other issues the former First Lady dealt with in Bosnia, here is a firsthand report from CBS news:

Others writing:
Sweetness and Light

Mark Halperin

Ed Morrissey

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A new dispatch has been posted from Michael Yon. It is chock full of terrific information and photos as usual.

The final paragraph in this piece captured my attention. Because of the trust I have in Yon’s feelings and observations this gives me hope that we may be nearing a light at the end of at least one tunnel in Iraq:

There are no guarantees, but this could be the endgame for major combat operations in Iraq. Combat is likely to heat up in Mosul and western Nineveh by about May. There likely will be some reports of increased US and Iraqi casualties up here, but this does not mean that we are losing ground or that al Qaeda is resurging – though clearly they are trying. If there is an increase in casualties here as we go into the summer of 2008, it is because our people and the Iraqi forces are closing in. We have seen just how deadly al Qaeda can be. This enemy is desperate. They know they are losing. They are not likely to go out easy. The enemy is smart, agile and adaptive. Likely they will land some devastating blows on us, but at this rate, our people and Iraqi forces appear to be driving stakes through al Qaeda hearts faster than al Qaeda is regenerating.

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Remember the controversy back in 2003 when Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks made the following statement?

Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.

It caused quite a furor, so much so that even the President was asked about it in an interview with Tom Brokaw. Here was his reasoned reply:

The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say … they shouldn’t have their feelings hurt just because some people don’t want to buy their records when they speak out … Freedom is a two-way street … I don’t really care what the Dixie Chicks said. I want to do what I think is right for the American people, and if some singers or Hollywood stars feel like speaking out, that’s fine. That’s the great thing about America. It stands in stark contrast to Iraq…

The group took a hit professionally for a period of time but as is the case in America, there are those who support all sides of any issue and with their support and self determination the group regained their popularity.

It seems to me that injecting politics into entertainment is rather foolish but many do it. Perhaps they find it a good marketing tool. Well, it appears the Dixie Chicks were not quite finished back in 2003 as they released another song with political undertones in 2006:

On March 16, 2006, Dixie Chicks released the single “Not Ready to Make Nice” in advance of their upcoming album. Written by all three Chicks alongside Dan Wilson, it directly addressed the political controversy that had surrounded the group for the past three years:

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go ’round and ’round and ’round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

and, in criticism of the death threats the women (particularly Maines) received,

It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better
Shut up and sing or my life will be over

It’s unthinkable that someone would threaten another’s life over a statement with which they disagree. Where exactly would we be without the freedom of speech?

Far more preferable would be a response such as this one from Marine Cpl. David Thibodeaux:

Some have said this is a smack down of the Dixie Chicks. I disagree. The Corporal will never achieve the fame, fortune and name recognition of this group. One video will not destroy years of a fan base, recording contracts and Grammy Awards.

No, I believe this Marine is speaking for himself and those like him who have sworn to defend the rights we all cherish. Just another well reasoned reply.

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It is no secret that there have been countless documents, tapes etc. recovered since Saddam Hussein was deposed, some of which are now being released for public consumption.

Judge for yourself after reading this article if the world is not a better place without this tyrant in a position of power:

The Americans captured more than 600,000 intelligence items, including thousands of hours of video and sound recordings, all of which have been scanned and summarized, but only 15 percent was fully translated into English.

A document from 2002, from the chief of staff of the Al-Quds Army, sent to the Karbala Division, orders each brigade to build a model of an Israeli town and practice taking it by force.

Hamas representatives, including Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was assassinated by the Israel Defense Forces in 2004, contacted Iraqi intelligence and asked to coordinate attacks against American and Israeli targets to delay the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The documents also show that Iraqi agents also followed the activities of Israel in Jordan, Qatar and the Philippines.

A video recording of a meeting between Saddam and Yasser Arafat on April 19, 1990, showed Saddam threatening to assassinate then president George Bush. “We may not be able to reach Washington, but we could send someone with an explosives belt to Washington,” Saddam told Arafat, three months before the invasion of Kuwait.

“We can send people to Washington. A man with an explosives belt could throw himself on Bush’s car.”

Saddam also told his Palestinian guest that he intended to launch surface-to-surface ballistic missiles against Tel Aviv and that he possessed chemical weapons that “have been successfully employed” against Iran – and he would not hesitate to also use them against Israel.

The file listing potential targets in Israel covers 223 pages and was classified as Top Secret by Iraqi intelligence. It was found on April 13, 2003, in the headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service in Baghdad by a unit of U.S. Marines. [Emphasis, mine]

Much more at the link above including a list of potential targets in Israel which Saddam had designs on destroying.

HT: Clarice Feldman

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I find myself in a situation of my own making which is giving me much grief these past few days.

I befriended an atheist French man who was claiming he wanted to commit suicide. We spoke online via Skype, a voice and video site, and became good friends even though we had nothing in common.

A couple of weeks ago he posted a photo of another Christian woman’s face on the naked body of a woman hanging on a cross with her genitalia covered in an American flag.

I asked my “friend” to please take it down as it was very hurtful to me as a Christian and I considered it blasphemy.

He didn’t take it down but left it, so I broke off our friendship and showed my anger. I never used bad words but I told of some of the things he has done.

To complicate matters a member of my family visited the site and put in a comment. Since this family member is currently at my home my IP address showed up and I have been accused of trying to lie about my identity. I told them what happened and she did too but they don’t and won’t believe me.

Today a post went up to supposedly talk about animal cruelty and I was the topic of 90% of the post and asked why I don’t give up my crazy religion.

When I didn’t answer the person kept trying to egg me on.

It has taken all the strength I can muster to stay away from there and to not say anything.

I ask the prayers of any Christians reading this to help me stay away from that site, even as a lurker, and to ask the Lord to help me get over the feelings of rage I have right now.

I’ve asked others for prayers, but a few more won’t hurt.

I pray that God will surround me with angels who will make me forget these awful people who are so anti-God they don’t realize their own peril.

I thank any of you who pray for me.

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Because He lives we can all be thankful for this holiest of all days—the commemoration of the day Jesus Christ, the Messiah, arose from the dead!

Have a very happy Resurrection Sunday, and remember it’s not about rabbits, chicks or Easter eggs. It’s about the Resurrection!

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Today and Sunday we celebrate what I consider to be the holiest of days because we are commemorating the reason Jesus came to earth (to die in our place) and then His Resurrection when He defeated death and Satan.

Here is part of Matthew 27 describing the torture and crucifixion of Jesus (NIV):

24When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

25All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”

26Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

The Soldiers Mock Jesus

27Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. 30They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 31After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

The Crucifixion

32As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. 33They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). 34There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it. 35When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots.[b] 36And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. 37Above his head they placed the written charge against him: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 38Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. 39Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”
41In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42″He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” 44In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

The Death of Jesus

45From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 46About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi,[c] lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”[d]

I have highlighted verses 29-31 because it gives you a small idea of what Jesus went through.

It is not thorough, though. There was more than mocking and a crown of thorns and spitting. Jesus was physically flogged 39 times. Each whip contained 9 pieces of sharp metal or some other object designed to rip the flesh.

Jesus spoke not a word of protest, and that’s important to remember.

39 hits with the flogs with 9 weapons on each equals 351 cuts on His flesh, which was torn from his body and bled mightily. Yet, Jesus uttered not one word of protest.

Most people, I suspect, would have died from the flogging alone, but not Jesus. He was not to get out of it that easily.

He was then ordered to carry the cross that would be used for his crucifixion. If you have an idea this was a nice smooth piece of wood please disabuse yourself of that idea right now. It was rough wood. The Bible refers to it as a tree. You can be sure it was heavy and had plenty of splinters in it, and yet He struggled without a word to carry that cross for you and for me.

He fell twice before Simon was told to help Him with the cross.

When they got to Golgotha He willingly lay down on this rough, splintered wood and willingly allowed the Roman soldiers to nail His wrists and feet to that cross.

Then the cross was lifted by rope with the help of the soldiers, and when it was upright it was dropped unceremoniously into the hole in the ground.

All the while He still had the crown of thorns on His wonderful head.

Because He was man and God it meant the man side of Him suffered just as any other human would have suffered under the same circumstances.

Yet He spoke not a word of complaint, and asked God the Father to forgive them for they knew not what they did.

I have highlighted verse 46 because it has been a verse on my heart all this week.

Now go back and check verse 46, and you will hear the first sign of despair from Our Savior. For the first time in eternity Jesus was not in fellowship with the Father. He became sin for all of us and the Father couldn’t stand to look upon Him. For the first time in eternity He was out of Fellowship with the Father.

Think about that and let it sink in. This is what has been on my heart all this week. For the first time in eternity.

Thankfully, God did not make Him suffer as long as He could have, since it was Passover and the people wanted it over so they could celebrate. It was a holy day for them and they didn’t want to have to bury a Man on the holiday.

But, fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy not a bone in His body was broken. Instead, since He appeared to be dead the soldiers pierced His side, also fulfilling prophecy.

Many times I see people wearing crosses around their necks. I have one. The difference between mine and the crucifixes I have seen is mine has no body on that cross. He came off the cross, was buried, resurrected and ascended into Heaven where He is today!

And while He suffered in agony I am convinced He looked down through the ages and saw me. When He was on the cross I was on His mind. And you, and you, and everyone in this world.

All you have to do is pray and ask Him to forgive your sins and to come into your heart and be your Lord and Savior. He did the hard part.

Thank you, Jesus, for remembering me in your hours of agony. Thank you Father, Son and Holy Ghost for loving this sinner enough to provide a way of redemption.

If I got what I deserve I’d go to hell, but due to the very death, burial, resurrection and ascention of Jesus, the Only Begotten Son of the Only God, I will share eternity walking in fellowship with You.

You knew me before I was born. You knew me in my mother’s womb, and though my earthly father didn’t want anything to do with me until I was 54 years old, my Heavenly Father has the hairs on my head numbered.

Jesus could have called a band of angels to stop the crucifixion, but He knew if He did so mankind would be lost forever.

Thank you, Jesus, for your merciful love for me and all mankind.

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Captain Ed provides a round-up of a few of the issues which have arisen out of the release of Hillary Clinton’s records while First Lady:

The news media have begun digging into the newly-released schedules for Hillary Clinton during her husband’s administration, and they have already found some interesting holes and juxtapositions in her timelines. For instance, the Guardian in Britain notices that Hillary was outside of the country when a few crises arose, calling into question how much impact she had on their management:

Scroll through the post as there are many updates. None of this is supposition on the part of others and certainly shows that the Senator should be questioned on many of her present claims.

Here’s another supposed contradiction (not related to release of WH documents) which caused me to take pause:

In a speech on Iraq policy delivered Monday at George Washington University, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recalled facing “sniper fire” on her 1996 trip to Bosnia to visit U.S. troops on a peacekeeping mission. But reporters traveling with the then-First Lady made no reference to any “sniper fire” at the time, and pictures of Clinton arriving at the main air base in Tuzla (see attached video) don’t show anyone ducking or covering.

These are the Senator’s quoted words from the above mentioned speech:

I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.

Take a few moments and view the video mentioned above and judge for yourself where the truth lies. HT:The Hillary Project

Senator Obama has been put through a meat grinder (and deservedly so) over the past week for his association with a pastor who has shown his disdain (speaking lightly) for the United States.

Now I ask this…If one candidate is being held to a certain standard and made to explain his actions and words, should not the other be just as accountable?

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Yikes, I knew them all, (and given a bit of time probably could remember all the words.)

How many can you name?

Enjoy!

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Ninety years of service to their country and assistance to their allies deserves a bit of recognition.

But, while I admire all who have served and do serve admirably in this fine unit, one man caught my attention in this video. (One hundred and eleven years young and I can only imagine the wealth of historical knowledge he holds in his head.)

Warm regards to the RAF on this milestone birthday.

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While some might feel that voters in Florida and Michigan are being disenfranchised by not allowing their delegates to be seated at the Democratic Convention, I for one believe that when they voted, they knew that possibility existed.

Now it appears Michigan might be headed in the same direction as Florida.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s hopes of ending the primaries with game-changing victories from new contests in Florida and Michigan grew dim on Tuesday as Florida officially scuttled plans for a new vote and Michigan lawmakers appeared far from a deal.

Most children are raised in households where parents teach right from wrong, a sense of fair play and that rules are set in place not to be broken. How then, do we explain to those old enough to understand that in our elections if you are trailing, it is perfectly acceptable to change the playing field in midstream?

If the RNC were to announce today that they were now allowing all of Michigan’s delegates to be seated, I would be just as disillusioned as I am with this debate among the Democrats.

See, I get a real queasy feeling when I read the following:

Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, Clinton supporters, are trying to line up money to pay for a Michigan revote. Mr. Rendell called the financier George Soros, a Democratic donor, on Monday and asked him to help pay for a revote.

Why on earth is the Governor of my home state interjecting himself in the affairs of Florida and Michigan? Perhaps Michigan does not prefer to have Soros money involved in their states politics. (To his credit, Mr. Soros declined.)

The final paragraph of this NYT article sums up the entire mess, in my opinion:

Florida and Michigan were stripped of their delegates for violating party rules by holding their contests in January.

What’s that old saying…rules are meant to be bent but never broken.

Certainly not in a Presidential election should anyone be allowed to alter the rules set in place (no matter how foolish) or system in any manner, or we had better prepare ourselves for challenges in the future which none of us may want to see come to fruition.

.

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I have no comment on this video as I think it is clear what Williams is saying:

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If you’re like most people with an internet connection you check in a few times a day to see what news might be of interest to you.

I don’t remember where I read it but I saw a headline Monday stating campaign workers are suffering from campaign fatigue. Welcome to my world. I don’t know how they could have kept pace for so long now anyway. There oughta be a law. Nominations and elections compressed into sixty days with real debates between the candidates of both parties participating at the same time.

Maybe then we could actually decide who the best candidate is according to our political beliefs.

It’s also in the news that the former governor of New Jersey, a chauffer and the soon-to-be ex-wife were involved in three-way sex before the marriage. In addition, the new governor of New York had barely been sworn in when he and his wife of 16 years announced they had a bumpy spot in their marriage and each engaged in extra-marital sex at the time.

Paul McCartney’s wife of about four years walked off with about $50 million on Monday and is whining to the press.

I’ve been married over 40 years. My aunt living with us was married over 50 years. We all hit bumpy spots in our marriages, but none of us had extra-marital affairs.

Unless physical or mental abuse is involved any bumps in a marriage can be smoothed out if the couple are really dedicated to their vows.

Naturally there are some exceptions. Some people were just never meant to be married to each other and staying together “for the good of the children” is not the solution. Get out as soon as you realize it has gotten to the point you have irreconcilable differences and stay friends for the sake of the children.

I don’t want to hear people in campaigns complaining of campaign fatigue when they have enabled the disease they have, and I really don’t care who goes to bed with whom as long as it doesn’t involve me or my husband.

Maybe future presidential aspirants will wait until the traditional time to start campaigning next time if we get some kind of common sense into our electoral system.

Now it looks as though there will be a floor fight over the seating of the Florida Democratic delegation in Denver because they dared vote so close to Iowa and New Hampshire.

Maybe after the election the parties and states can work out one day of a national primary. Give it your best shot and if you win, fine. If you lose, well them’s the breaks.

But keep your body to yourself until or unless you get married again, and for goodness’ sake, if you are a public official don’t tell everyone in the world you lack morals.

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No Tuesday Tid-bits…no anything.

Just no news which hasn’t been hashed and re-hashed a million different ways over the past couple of weeks and at that, written far better than I would ever hope to pen.

This is not to say that I do not enjoy reading those who find what’s available at the moment appealing, it’s just that my brain seems to have rebelled against anything intelligent being formulated on the issues of the day.

I have but this terrific jazz composition (Tubby Hayes/Jimmy Deuchar) to offer today.

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What a superb job HBO has done in both casting and producing “John Adams.”

Watching the first two episodes was akin to traveling back in time to join with those who forged the independence of this country.

Having visited Independence Hall and the surrounding historic area of Philadelphia many times, it was easy to imagine these gentlemen within those hallowed halls.

The breathtaking scenery and period costuming provided authenticity which I don’t believe I have ever witnessed in any of the historical documentaries I have viewed in the past. Wonderful..just wonderful.

The USPS has made available for viewing original letters written by both John and Abigail Adams. They lend such insight into the struggles both encountered in the face of freedom. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page for access.) I found them to be fascinating reading and another glimpse into the birth of a nation.

HBO deserves to be congratulated on this endeavor and the brilliant work of David McCullough and Tom Hanks are to be applauded.

I know where I will be on all Sunday evenings through the completion of this excellent programming. To all involved in this brilliant walk through history, I say, Bravo!

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Serious problems face pig farmers in Britain:

Hundreds of farmers are to hold a demonstration at Westminster to protest against falling pork profits.
Farmers’ leaders say the industry is in “meltdown”, and some warn that so many farmers are quitting that there may be a pork shortage by the end of the year.

Feed prices have doubled over the past year and farmers say they are losing more than £20 on every pig raised.

Joining the protest will be Winnie, a nine-year-old pig who has attended previous farmers’ protests.

Apart from the demonstration in Whitehall, a petition calling for support for pig farmers will also be presented to Downing Street.

As well as the feed price problems, British farmers also abide by stricter welfare regulations than those in other EU countries, making their pigs more expensive to rear.

If things don’t change we’ll see a lot of farmers going out of business.

Hilarious (but ingenious) related video:

A+ for effort!

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The smooth country voice of George Jones and photography blended together to provide that escape we all need once in a while.

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