Political Digest June 4, 2010

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. It also doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with them. I have to say all this to give some of my critics the benefit of the doubt, assuming they are thick, rather than deliberately taking things the wrong way.

Do you support Arizona's tough new law on illegal immigration?
http://world-news.newsvine.com/_question/2010/05/12/4274124-do-you-support-arizonas-tough-new-law-on-illegal-immigration
Survey on liberal outlet MSNBC. Vote early and often—it’s the Chicago Way!

Stand With Israel Petition
http://tool.donation-net.net/CTBF/DefenseOfIsrael.cfm?dn=1032&commID=148539541&ID=482802

Must Read: The danger of a government with unlimited power
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060203278.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Clearest explanation of the difference between leftists/liberals/progressives/statists and limited government conservatives I’ve seen. The problem, of course, is that nominal conservatives/Republicans far too often cross over to the government-should-solve-everything side chasing votes. I doubtless did myself as a state senator--alas. Excerpt: Today, as it has been for a century, American politics is an argument between two Princetonians -- James Madison, Class of 1771, and Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879. Madison was the most profound thinker among the Founders. Wilson, avatar of "progressivism," was the first president critical of the nation's founding. Barack Obama's Wilsonian agenda reflects its namesake's rejection of limited government. Lack of "a limiting principle" is the essence of progressivism, according to William Voegeli, contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books, in his new book "Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State." The Founders, he writes, believed that free government's purpose, and the threats to it, are found in nature. The threats are desires for untrammeled power, desires which, Madison said, are "sown in the nature of man." Government's limited purpose is to protect the exercise of natural rights that pre-exist government, rights that human reason can ascertain in unchanging principles of conduct and that are essential to the pursuit of happiness. Wilsonian progressives believe that History is a proper noun, an autonomous thing. It, rather than nature, defines government's ever-evolving and unlimited purposes. Government exists to dispense an ever-expanding menu of rights -- entitlements that serve an open-ended understanding of material and even spiritual well-being.

U.S. urged Israel to use caution and restraint with aid boats heading to Gaza
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060200858.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Maybe we should have urged Turkey to allow the boats to be inspected peacefully for weapons, thus avoiding all the bloodshed. But, bloodshed for PR was the plan, wasn’t it. Excerpt: The Obama administration said Wednesday that it had warned Israel's government repeatedly to use "caution and restraint" with half a dozen aid boats bound for the Gaza Strip before Israeli commandos raided the flotilla this week in an operation that killed nine people.

U.S. citizen among those killed in Israeli flotilla raid
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060301931.html?hpid=topnews
Perfectly avoidably if Turkey had insisted on allowing the boats to be inspected for weapons, or if they had not attacked the Israelis when they came on board. But that doesn’t matter to the Jihadists, the left and the media, all eager to complete the job Hitler started and exterminate the Jews. Excerpt: A U.S. citizen of Turkish origin was among the nine people killed in a botched Israeli effort to stop a Turkish aid ship from reaching the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, a Turkish official said Thursday.

Anti-Israel Resolution Makes U.N. Look ‘Foolish,’
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=66998
Excerpt: The rapid condemnation of Israel by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), made without a full knowledge of the facts, makes the international body look “ridiculous,” says a leading Middle East expert. “It makes the United Nations look ridiculous when it comes to solving world problems,” Michael Rubin, a Middle East scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told CNSNews.com. “After all, the United Nations reacted much more swiftly and with much more fervor to this than they did with regard to the North Korean sinking of the South Korean boat, which could precipitate a war that could kill millions.”

Turkey honors slain activists, including US teen
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100603/ap_on_re_eu/eu_turkey_israel
I do not believe that a guy who left the US at age two and joined a movement that wants to destroy American values of freedom of religion, speech and the press, as well as equal rights for women, can fairly be described as a “US teen.” Excerpt: Thousands of mourners hailed activists killed in an Israeli commando mission as martyrs Thursday, hoisting their coffins to cheers of "God is great," while Turkish leaders said Israel had jeopardized its relationship with its closest Muslim ally despite meeting Ankara's demand to release the hundreds captured in the raid. The father of the youngest of the nine activists killed — 19-year-old high school student Furkan Dogan, who had dual U.S.-Turkish citizenship — praised his son for dying in a just cause. Ahmet Dogan told the state-run Anatolia news agency he identified his boy in the morgue and he had been shot through the forehead. Still, he said, the family was not sad because they believed Furkan had died with honor. "I feel my son has been blessed with heaven," he said. "I am hoping to be a father worthy of my son." Dogan, who was born in Troy, New York, but moved to Turkey when he was two, was to be buried in his family's hometown of Kayseri in central Turkey on Friday.

An Assault, Cloaked in Peace
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/opinion/03oren.html
Excerpt: PEACE activists are people who demonstrate nonviolently for peaceful co-existence and human rights. The mob that assaulted Israeli special forces on the deck of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara on Monday was not motivated by peace. On the contrary, the religious extremists embedded among those on board were paid and equipped to attack Israelis — both by their own hands as well as by aiding Hamas — and to destroy any hope of peace. Millions have already seen the Al Jazeera broadcast showing these “activists” chanting “Khaibar! Khaibar!”— a reference to a Muslim massacre of Jews in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century. YouTube viewers saw Israeli troops, armed with crowd-dispersing paintball guns and side arms for emergency protection, being beaten and hurled over the railings of the ship by attackers wielding iron bars. What the videos don’t show, however, are several curious aspects Israeli authorities are now investigating. First, about 100 of those detained from the boats were carrying immense sums in their pockets — nearly a million euros in total. Second, Israel discovered spent bullet cartridges on the Mavi Marmara that are of a caliber not used by the Israeli commandos, some of whom suffered gunshot wounds. Also found on the boat were propaganda clips showing passengers “injured” by Israeli forces; these videos, however, were filmed during daylight, hours before the nighttime operation occurred. The investigations of all this evidence will be transparent, in accordance with Israel’s security needs.

Beating Up on Israel
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282740991794622.html?mod=djemITP_h
Excerpt: The ease with which the world's governments condemned Israel over the flotilla incident has been something to behold. The Jerusalem-based correspondent for the Toronto Globe and Mail could not help but notice: "The speed and intensity with which governments around the world condemned the Israeli behavior appear unprecedented." Why? For starters, denouncing Israel for something like this is convenient for leaders who have failed repeatedly to do anything about more important and difficult problems such as Iran, North Korea or sovereign debt. Also, lesser nations learn by example: The Obama administration's unrestrained criticism of the Israeli government in March over East Jerusalem settlements lowered the threshold for teeing off on Israel. Still, I can't think of any other nation, no matter how scummy and uncivilized its practices, that produces this response. Or any other event, such as testing a nuclear bomb

3 flotilla fatalities 'dreamt of martyrdom'
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3898109,00.html
Excerpt: Before boarding the Marmara, Ali Khaider Benginin told his family he dreamt of becoming a shahid. Turkish press reports two other slain flotilla participants expressed similar wish. A Dutch activist arrested on flotilla suspected of ties with Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood. The Gaza flotilla organizers insist that all activists killed on board the Marmara ship were innocent peace activists. However, new reports reveal a completely different picture. Media reports in Ankara on Wednesday revealed that three out of the four Turkish citizens that were killed during the raid declared their wishes to become shahids (martyrs). Another Dutch report claimed a Dutch activist, who was arrested by the IDF is suspected of being a senior Hamas operative.

Another Democrat admits Obama White House offered jobs to get him out of Senate race
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/02/another-democrat-admits-obama-white-house-offered-jobs-to-get-him-out-of-senate-race/#ixzz0plnoJVzn
Excerpt: Democratic Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado, confirmed late Wednesday that deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina said he could be given one of three high-ranking federal jobs if he gave up his candidacy. Romanoff said he was told by Messina that two high-ranking positions at USAID and the director’s position at the U.S. Trade and Development Agency “might be available to me were I not pursuing the Senate race.

Andrew Romanoff details contacts with White House over potential jobs
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/andrew-romanoff-details-contac.html?wpisrc=nl_polalert
You can understand the White House being confused by all this. In Chicago, there is so much out right corruption, bribes and stealing among politicians that the media wouldn’t bother with job offers. Excerpt: The White House has just released its first official statement about the contact between former Colorado State House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina regarding Romanoff's Senate aspirations. The big news? Romanoff applied for a job at the U.S. Agency for International Development after the 2008 election, when the Obama administration was still in the transition period. No job materialized back then, but the White House has a long memory, and when Romanoff was preparing to challenge the White House-backed candidate for a Colorado Senate seat last fall, Messina reached out to him to see whether a job at USAID might still hold appeal. It apparently did not. It's not entirely clear why Romanoff didn't mention his USAID application when he released his version of events Wednesday night.

White House Faces Fresh Questions Over Back-Room Dealmaking
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/02/administration-offered-possible-job-primary-challenger-colorado-sources-say/
Excerpt: The White House faced fresh questions over back-room dealmaking after it acknowledged one of President Obama's top advisers had suggested to a Democratic candidate the potential for an administration job in lieu of challenging the candidate whom the president favored in the Colorado Senate race. Former Colorado House of Representatives Speaker Andrew Romanoff on Wednesday night released a copy of an e-mail in which White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina described three federal international development jobs that might be available to him if he were not challenging Sen. Michael Bennet for the Democratic nomination.

Obama: Illegals Needed for Jobs Senate Hopefuls Won’t Do
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=4656
Satire: (Sorry, but you have to say that for some people.) President Barack Obama today in his first face-to-face meeting with Gov. Jan Brewer since the Arizona chief executive signed a law allowing police to enforce federal immigration legislation, insisted that “the U.S. needs illegal immigrants to do jobs others won’t do.” Specifically, the president said he needs undocumented workers to fill a variety of federal posts which Democrat senate candidates have rejected in recent months. Despite offers by top White House officials and even former President Bill Clinton, Mr. Obama said, politicians like Pennsylvania’s Joe Sestak and Colorado’s Andrew Romanoff refused to drop their senate aspirations in order to fill crucial government positions. “These are the jobs that American Democrats aren’t willing to do,” the president reportedly told Gov. Brewer. “And if Democrat politicians feel this work is beneath them, where else can I turn but to America’s perennial source of cheap labor for lousy jobs?”

The New Long-Term Care Entitlement
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19411&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
Another wonderful, vote-getting benefit. Another straw on the stagger camel’s back. The politicians get he votes now, and the bills come due in 20 years. Excerpt: One of the provisions of ObamaCare is a new federal program for long-term care. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act establishes a federal insurance program to provide benefits to workers who become functionally disabled -- unable to perform normal activities of daily living, such as eating or bathing. For eligible workers and retirees, the CLASS program will pay some of the nonmedical expenses of long-term care, such as an aide to bathe them or prepare meals at home, or to defray some of the costs of nursing home care. The program is voluntary, and will be funded by premiums paid by workers, say Biff Jones, a graduate student fellow, and Joe Barnett, director of policy research at the National Center for Policy Analysis. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO): The average monthly premiums will start at $123 in 2011. After five years of premium payments, participants will be eligible for a projected benefit of about $75 per day ($27,375 annually), if they have at least two functional limitations and a health care practitioner certifies the limitations are expected to last more than 90 days. They can receive the inflation-adjusted benefit for the rest of their lives, as long as the limitations remain. Further: Nearly 10 million workers are expected to enroll in the CLASS program by 2019. The CBO estimates that the program will collect $41 billion in premiums during the first five years before it begins paying benefits. Over the first 10 years the government will collect about $72 billion more in premiums than the benefits it pays out. If this were a private insurance program, the insurer would invest the premiums in stocks and bonds, and the return on those investments would pay for a substantial percentage of the eventual payouts, say Jones and Barnett. By contrast, the surplus CLASS funds will be spent on general government operations and replaced with IOUs from the Treasury. After the first 20 years or so, however, the CBO estimates that the program will begin to pay out more benefits each year than the premiums it collects. For every dollar by which benefits exceed current premium revenues, the federal government will have to tax or borrow another dollar. The unfunded liability will grow in following years.

Your Health Care Costs, Going Higher
http://townhall.com/columnists/CarrieLukas/2010/06/01/your_health_care_costs,_going_higher&Comments=true
Excerpt: How much will the new health care law cost? That was a matter of particular dispute during the debate of the Patient Protection and Affordability Act. The bill's authors monkeyed around with the numbers, delaying some benefits, creating new revenue raisers, and pushing off known, needed reforms, so that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) could come up with a score below the $900 billion target. Only the most naïve failed to recognize that those numbers were meaningless: Ultimately, they would have no relationship to how much the legislation would add to taxpayers' burdens and bloat the federal budget. CBO has since been revising its estimates upward: Another $115 billion for additional administrative costs associated with the new law. In addition, Congress now struggles to pass a change to the Medicare reimbursement rates, which will cost $23 billion just to patch the problem over for two years.

Why You're Bribing Brazilian Farmers
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jonathan/rauch060110.php3
Excerpt: Voters want change. President Obama promised change. Tea party supporters demand change. Well, brace yourself. Change has come. The United States subsidizes the country's farmers, to the tune of $250 billion since 1995. That is not change. It has been a fact of life since the 1930s. More specifically, the United States subsidizes its cotton farmers, to the tune of $3.5 billion a year since 2000 (a figure equivalent to five-sixths of the value of U.S. cotton production over that time, according to the Congressional Research Service). Cotton subsidies, too, have been a fact of life since the 1930s. As of now, however, the United States also subsidizes Brazilian cotton farmers. This is something new. "If the average person at home realized what's happening with the cotton program, there would be outrage in the streets," says Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., a perennial farm-subsidy critic. "Instead of reforming the cotton program so it's less market- and trade-distorting, we're now creating a taxpayer subsidy to go to Brazilian cotton producers. It's beyond ridiculous." In 2002, Brazil filed a complaint against U.S. cotton subsidies with the World Trade Organization, of which the United States is a member. The international trade treaty allows signatories to subsidize farmers, and, in fact, they all do. The assistance, however, is supposed to be limited, and trade-distorting subsidies -- ones that either subsidize exports or encourage overproduction -- are subject to particularly tight limits. Brazil argued that Washington's generous cotton program violated the trade rules. Despite some legislative and administrative efforts by the U.S. to tweak the subsidies, last year the WTO ruled generally in Brazil's favor. Brazil won the right to levy retaliatory duties on more than $800 million worth of U.S. exports annually, a prospect that manufacturers here reacted to with alarm. The Obama administration found itself in a hard spot. Substantially changing farm subsidies requires an act of Congress, but the next farm bill is not due until 2012, and trying to get lawmakers to approve a stand-alone subsidy cut seems out of the question. A trade war with Brazil, however, is the last thing that Washington needs, particularly when the U.S. has been found to be in the wrong. So last month the administration announced a deal with the Brazilians. In due course, Congress will change the cotton program. Until that happens, the U.S. government will send Brazil an annual check for $147.3 million (a sum based on estimates of the cotton subsidies' economic cost to Brazil), which Brazil is to spend on "technical assistance and capacity-building" for agribusiness. Translation: Washington is bribing Brazilian farmers to keep illegal subsidies flowing to U.S. farmers.

Mexico opens California office to provide ID for illegals'
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Mexico-opens-California-office-to-provide-ID-for-illegals-95434969.html
Imagine if we did something like this in Mexico. Excerpt: The Mexican government is opening a satellite consular office on Catalina Island -- a small resort off the California coast with a history of drug smuggling and human trafficking -- to provide the island's illegal Mexican immigrants with identification cards, The Washington Examiner has learned. The Mexican consular office in Los Angeles issued a flier, a copy of which was obtained by The Examiner, listing the Catalina Island Country Club as the location of its satellite office. It invites Mexicans to visit the office to obtain the identification, called matricular cards, by appointment. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican whose district includes Catalina Island, said handing out matricular cards will exacerbate an already dangerous situation. "Handing out matricular cards to Mexicans who are not in this country legally is wrong no matter where it's done," he said. "But on Catalina it will do more damage. It's a small island but there's evidence it's being used as a portal for illegals to access mainland California." (Twenty-six miles across the sea, Santa Catalina is a-waitin’ for me, Santa Catalina, the island of romance.”

UVa at center of battles over climate change
http://www2.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/state_regional/state_regional_govtpolitics/article/uva_at_center_of_battles_over_climate_change/56842/
Excerpt: The ideological battle over global warming that heated up with last fall’s “Climategate” e-mail controversy has spilled over to the grounds of the University of Virginia. At the center of the latest skirmish are two former U.Va. professors who represent opposing views on the dangers of climate change. U.Va. has before it separate demands for information — a civil subpoena from the state attorney general and a Freedom of Information request from Greenpeace. Both resulted from the leak in November of more than a thousand e-mail messages hacked from the climate research unit of the University of East Anglia in England. U.Va. last month filed a petition in Albemarle County Circuit Court seeking to block Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s civil investigative demands, or CIDs, for climate research by former U.Va. professor Michael Mann. The university has sought an extension to the FOI request that Greenpeace filed in December for information on former state climatologist Patrick J. Michaels and another retired professor, both of whom are outspoken skeptics of global warming, as is Cuccinelli.

The (Not So) Great Pretender
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/the_not_so_great_pretender.html
A few years ago, the film Catch Me if You Can told the story of Frank Abagnale, Jr., an extraordinary con man who managed to successfully impersonate a pilot, a doctor, and a legal prosecutor all before the age of nineteen. I've noticed a number of similarities between Mr. Abagnale and our president. But when it comes to being a Great Pretender, Obama is sorely lacking. Like Mr. Abagnale, Mr. Obama has been playing multiple parts ever since he came on to the national stage. Unlike Mr. Abagnale, the president is a lousy actor. The key to being a confidence man is the ability to inspire confidence. Confidence that you really are what you are pretending to be. Before embarking on the big con, President Obama could have used Frank's advice. For example: Obama pretends to be a brilliant scholar. He successfully accomplished this during the campaign by sticking with a cool, calm persona and shutting up when the teleprompter was off. His acolytes in the press and Democratic Party were so eager to be conned that they did not notice that Obama never provided any evidence of a stratospheric IQ. College transcripts were safely locked away. The candidate started appearing nowhere without his teleprompter or glued to his campaign staff, especially after performances such as this and his chat with Joe the Plumber.

Blagojevich trial will spotlight worst elements of state's political culture
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/blagojevich/ct-met-blagojevich-trial-politics-20100602,0,2512076.story
They should spotlight the best elements of Illinois political culture. Take far less time. Excerpt: Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's federal corruption trial will feature prosecutors feeding voters a steady reminder of the worst elements of Illinois' political culture — allegations that money, insider influence and personal interest drive public policy in this state. From charges of trying to shake down a children's hospital for campaign cash to trying to peddle President Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat for profit, the case will once again put Illinois politics on trial. For Democrats, the trial represents a long-feared day of reckoning after 18 months of a Blagojevich-fueled circus. The challenge is to weather months of testimony involving pay-to-play charges as the party tries to maintain its control of state government, led by Gov. Pat Quinn, who replaced Blagojevich as governor after twice serving as his running mate. "It's not a plus. It's not a plus," acknowledged House Speaker Michael Madigan, the veteran Southwest Side lawmaker who is chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party.

A Gun For Grandpa
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/536098/201006021837/A-Gun-For-Grandpa.aspx
Excerpt: Chicago is deciding whether to prosecute a great-grandfather and Korean War veteran under its handgun ban. He refused to be a victim, and now there's one less armed thug roaming the streets. What's the problem? If the 80-year-old vet living on the city's West Side didn't have the gun the city said he shouldn't have, he and his 83-year-old wife and 12-year-old great-grandson might have joined those victims of gun violence about whom gun-control advocates constantly chirp. The vet obtained the gun in violation of the city's handgun ban after a prior incident in which the couple was robbed at gunpoint by three armed intruders. So when Anthony Nelson — a parolee with a record of drug and gun arrests — tried breaking into their East Garfield Park home, they were ready. Nelson fired twice at the as-yet-unnamed homeowner, who walks with a cane but retained enough of his military marksmanship to drop the intruder with a single gunshot to the chest. Yet in some quarters, instead of being hailed as a hero, it's the homeowner who's being considered a threat and the armed predator a victim of gun violence.

Al Shabaab Threats Against the United States?
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100602_al_shabaab_threats_united_states?utm_source=SWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=100603&utm_content=readmore&elq=a81293936e37402797f8cbab9b7c1354
I hope no one profiles these Somalis by asking them for papers! That would be shameful, even if the murder an elementary school full of kids. Excerpt: Excerpt: On the afternoon of Sunday, May 30, an Aeromexico flight from Paris to Mexico City was forced to land in Montreal after authorities discovered that a man who was on the U.S. no-fly list was aboard. The aircraft was denied permission to enter U.S. airspace, and the aircraft was diverted to Trudeau International Airport in Montreal. The man, a Somali named Abdirahman Ali Gaall, was removed from the plane and arrested by Canadian authorities on an outstanding U.S. warrant. After a search of all the remaining passengers and their baggage, the flight was allowed to continue to its original destination. Gaall reportedly has U.S. resident-alien status and is apparently married to an American or Canadian woman. Media reports also suggest that he is connected with the Somali jihadist group al Shabaab. Gaall was reportedly deported from Canada to the United States on June 1, and we are unsure of the precise charges brought against him by the U.S. government, but more information should be forthcoming once he has his detention hearing. From the facts at hand, however, it appears likely that he has been charged for his connection with al Shabaab, perhaps with a crime such as material support to a designated terrorist organization. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a lookout to authorities in Texas, warning that another Somali purportedly linked to al Shabaab was believed to be in Mexico and was allegedly planning to attempt to cross the border into the United States. This lookout appears to be linked to a U.S. indictment in March charging another Somali man with running a large-scale smuggling ring bringing Somalis into the United States through Latin America.

Militants attack Afghan peace conference
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100602/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
Didn’t get the “Islam is a religion of peace” memo. Excerpt: The thump of rockets and the rattle of gunfire punctuated President Hamid Karzai's speech opening a national conference Wednesday where delegates were divided over whether to negotiate peace with Taliban leaders to end nearly nine years of war. Taliban fighters wearing suicide vests fired at the tent holding some 1,500 dignitaries, lawmakers and civil society activists, triggering a battle with security forces that killed at least two militants. Three civilians, but no delegates, were wounded. One rocket landed with a thud about 100 yards (meters) from the tent and kicked up smoke. Karzai brushed off the interruption, about 10 minutes into his address, and urged fighters from the Taliban and another major insurgent group, Hizb-i-Islami, to lay down their arms. "My dear Taliban, you are welcome in your own soil. Do not hurt this country, and don't destroy or kill yourselves," Karzai said, emphasizing that more fighting would only prevent the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan.

Man throws acid on daughter for love outside faith
http://www.siasat.com/english/news/man-throws-acid-daughter-love-outside-faith
Didn’t get the “Islam respects women” memo. Excerpt: In an alleged attempted "honour killing", a man poured acid on his daughter and threw her into a canal for planning to marry a man from another religion Tuesday, police said. The girl is in critical condition in hospital. Gulistan, 18, daughter of Asghar Ali of Charaura village in Bulandshahr district, 350 km from Lucknow, fell in love with Ravinder, 20, who ran a medical store in the village and often came to their house to deliver medicines. The couple eloped 10 days back but were traced to Delhi and Gulistan was taken back to the village. Her parents then pretended that they had agreed to let her marry Ravinder and asked her to come with them to Delhi to buy clothes for the marriage. The girl left with her father and brother. When they reached near the upper Ganges canal on Grand Trunk Road, they stopped and dragged her out. First they poured acid on her face, strangulated her and then threw her in the canal. Assuming that she had died, they left the place. However, Gulistan revived in the water and shouted for help. Some local boys of nearby villages, playing there, rescued her and informed police, who admitted her to hospital.

Agents feared Mexican drug cartel attack on border dam
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7033818.html
I hope they stop this….as long as they don’t profile anyone while doing so. Excerpt: An alleged plot by a Mexican drug cartel to blow up a dam along the Texas border — and unleash billions of gallons of water into a region with millions of civilians — sent American police, federal agents and disaster officials secretly scrambling last month to thwart such an attack, authorities confirmed Wednesday. Whether or not the cartel, which is known to have stolen bulk quantities of gunpowder and dynamite, could have taken down the 5-mile-long Falcon Dam may never be known since the attack never came to pass. It may have been derailed by a stepped-up presence by the Mexican military, which was acting in part on intelligence from the U.S. government, sources said. The warning, which swung officials into action, was based on what the federal government contends were “serious and reliable sources” and prompted the Department of Homeland Security to sound the alarm to first responders along the South Texas-Mexico border. Mexico's Zeta cartel was planning to destroy the dam not to terrorize civilians, but to get back at its rival and former ally, the Gulf cartel, which controls smuggling routes from the reservoir to the Gulf of Mexico, said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, head of the Southwest Border Sheriff's Coalition, as did others familiar with the alleged plot.

Danger on the Border
http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2010/06/02/danger-on-the-border/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MassadAyoob+%28Massad+Ayoob%29
Excerpt: Those who patrol the borders – and those who own adjoining property – find things left behind by the border-crossers, such as Moslem prayer rugs and copies of the Koran. Since there aren’t a whole lot of Mexicans who practice the Moslem faith, this leads people of logic to the conclusion that Islamic fanatics who have declared a fatwa against the United States are crossing into our country there. At least one left behind a patch celebrating “martyrdom” in Arabic. It doesn’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes or Dick Tracy to put it all together. I’ve seen intelligence briefings that indicate Al Qaeda members are among those who have penetrated our border via this route, assisted in some cases by Mexican drug cartels. There is strong evidence to suggest that they’ve brought in hardware that includes crew-served weapons and explosive materials. Picture Mumbai: a handful of commandoes roaming the streets, machine-gunning every innocent person in sight with AK47s, setting fire to heavily occupied buildings as they go. Now picture it in this country, combined with massive explosions at power plants and communications centers within the target communities, to kick off the attack. Then, picture it happening in multiple cities at once across the United States when Osama bin Laden “pulls the trigger” on the attack. You have trouble picturing that? Some highly placed American intelligence people don’t.

Rancher visits D.C., tells of life on the border
http://www.douglasdispatch.com/articles/2010/06/02/news/doc4c06d82c40edd859152710.txt
Excerpt: On Thursday, Cochise County rancher Bill McDonald testified before two House subcommittees about border issues faced by rural Arizona residents. He was invited by Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, whose 8th Congressional District includes all of Cochise County. In inviting him to testify, Giffords said she wanted members of Congress to hear from a person who lives with security problems caused by illegal activities involving immigrants and drugs on a daily basis.

Arizona's governor is ready to go to court
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/06/arizonas_governor_is_ready_to.html
Excerpt: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) doesn't scare easily. President Obama (D) doesn't scare her, neither does the US Attorney General, Erick Holder, or the ACLU all of whom, in one form or another, have threatened to take her state to court over Arizona's decision to implement US immigration laws. No problem, she told John King on CNN, staunchly defending her policies.

Texas lobbyists getting concealed handgun permits
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/06/texas_lobbyists_getting_concea.html
Excerpt: In Texas, veteran lobbyists in Austin, the capital, are scrambling to get concealed handgun permits -- all so they can speed around security lines at the Capitol Building. It could only happen in Texas: People with concealed handgun permits recently have become members of a privileged class -- those waved around airport-style security checkpoints that recently went up at the Capitol Building. The checkpoints came on the heels of a knife-wielding wacko inside the building, and a crazy man who popped off a few shots with his handgun outside the building. "Because of a scare with one crazy guy with a gun, the only way to get quick access to the Capitol will be to carry a gun," Brad Shields, a veteran lobbyist, told the Austin American-Statesman.

Tuvalu, Islands not sinking, claims they are, are opportunistic
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/02/tuvalu-and-many-other-south-pacific-islands-are-not-sinking-claims-they-are-due-to-global-warming-driven-sea-level-rise-are-opportunistic/#more-20131
Trying to Gore the taxpayers. Excerpt: We’ve mentioned several times here on WUWT that the claims about sea level rise and sinking islands are overblown. For example, this idiotic publicity stunt by the Maldivian government, signing a legal declaration underwater, demonstrates just how far some people are willing to prostitute their victimhood for financial gain. The MO: You other countries warmed the earth, raising sea level which threatens our island. Pay up sucka! (...) Geographer Associate Professor Paul Kench has measured 27 islands where local sea levels have risen 120mm – an average of 2mm a year – over the past 60 years, and found that just four had diminished in size.... They found that the remaining 23 had either stayed the same or grown bigger, according to the research published in a scientific journal, Global and Planetary Change.