Hot Air has a little photoshop fun with Congressman Murtha and others. You might need to download the recommended software to view the images.
Here's our favorite. It subtly catches the essence of both Reps. Murtha and Kennedy in a single artful composition:
For what it's worth the American Film Institute lists the 100 most inspirational films of all time. I say "for what it's worth" because any list that ranks Chariots of Fire dead last in terms of inspiration is deeply flawed.
You'll have to go to the link to see the ranking but, no, there are no Jackie Chan or Steven Seagal movies on the list.
Meanwhile, Forbes has a list of the 100 most influential celebrities. If these are the people exerting the greatest influence over our culture, well, a lot of questions have just been answered. Here's the top ten:
1. Tom Cruise
2. Rolling Stones
3. Oprah Winfrey
4. U2
5. Tiger Woods
6. Steven Spielberg
7. Howard Stern
8. 50 Cent
9. Cast of The Sopranos
10. Dan Brown
Lord help us all.
Thanks to First Things for the tip.
Common sense appears to have afflicted the new Supreme Court, at least if the majority's reasoning in the recently decided Hudson v. Michigan is any indicator.
Cases wherein missteps by police have caused courts to let obviously dangerous people go free have always seemed to be exceedingly foolish. If the police overstep their bounds then the police should be disciplined, but to set a criminal free or to throw out incriminating evidence because the police may have violated procedural rules essentially punishes the public for the fault of the enforcement officers.
A majority on the Court now agrees:
The Constitution does not require the government to forfeit evidence gathered through illegal "no knock" searches, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday, in a far-reaching ruling that could encourage police with search warrants to conduct more aggressive raids.
At issue in yesterday's case, Hudson v. Michigan , No. 04-1360, was the "knock and announce" rule, which has deep roots in Anglo American law. In 1995, the court made it part of what defines a "reasonable search" under the Fourth Amendment, without saying how it should be enforced. Before yesterday's decision, police executing a search warrant in most jurisdictions had to worry that they might lose a case if they did not first knock on the door, announce themselves and wait a reasonable time for a response before forcing their way in.
Now, unless state law says otherwise, the most they would face is administrative discipline or a lawsuit for damages.
Scalia's opinion focused on the guilty defendants who go free when otherwise valid evidence is thrown out of court. He concluded that that "social cost" is too high in relation to whatever additional privacy protection residents get from the "knock and announce" rule.
Today's police are more professional than those of 45 years ago, he observed, and there is "increasing evidence that police forces across the United States take the constitutional rights of citizens seriously."
In this environment, Scalia argued, lawsuits and administrative proceedings are enough to ensure that police comply with the "knock and announce" rule.
The decision suggests that reasonable people now hold sway on the Court and augurs well for the future. Scalia was joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, and Thomas.
I know this is just a news story and news stories are notorious for being misleading, but I have to ask why these newly-discovered fossils are called "missing links" in bird evolution.
The article says this fossilized species is similar to loons, grebes, and diving ducks which are all modern birds. The fossil is classified in the family Ornithurae which are modern birds. In other words, this happens to be the oldest known specimen of modern birds. That only makes it an evolutionary link if one assumes that all modern birds descended from the oldest known specimen, an assumption which is little more than a speculation based upon a hope.
Moreover, Gansus yumenensis is said to be an evolutionary link not with some other kind of creature but with other birds, ancient birds. It may well be, of course, but to call it a missing link suggests that it has some sort of dinosaur-to-bird evolutionary significance which it clearly does not have.
In other words, the discovery of these fossils doesn't seem to be at all what the news reports imply, but that's not news either.
The photo below was taken on a hill in Arizona shortly after the Senate immigration bill passed a couple of weeks ago:
This Time magazine excerpt from a soon to be released book by Ron Suskind might sour you on any plans you may have had to visit New York or it may give you a stronger appreciation for the work our intelligence agencies are doing to protect us and our families:
Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence breakthrough, but by an order from Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. And the U.S. learned of the plot from a CIA mole inside al-Qaeda. These are some of the more startling revelations by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose new book The One Percent Doctrine is excerpted in the forthcoming issue of TIME. It will appear on Time.com early Sunday morning.
U.S. intelligence got its first inkling of the plot from the contents of a laptop computer belonging to a Bahraini jihadist captured in Saudi Arabia early in 2003. It contained plans for a gas-dispersal system dubbed "the mubtakkar" (Arabic for inventive). Fearing that al-Qaeda's engineers had achieved the holy grail of terror R&D - a device to effectively distribute hydrogen-cyanide gas, which is deadly when inhaled - the CIA immediately set about building a prototype based on the captured design, which comprised two separate chambers for sodium cyanide and a stable source of hydrogen, such as hydrochloric acid. A seal between the two could be broken by a remote trigger, producing the gas for dispersal. The prototype confirmed their worst fears: "In the world of terrorist weaponry," writes Suskind, "this was the equivalent of splitting the atom. Obtain a few widely available chemicals, and you could construct it with a trip to Home Depot - and then kill everyone in the store."
The device was shown to President Bush and Vice President Cheney the following morning, prompting the President to order that alerts be sent through all levels of the U.S. government. Easily constructed and concealed, mass casualties were inevitable if it could be triggered in any enclosed public space.
Having discovered the device, exposing the plot in which it might be used became a matter of extreme urgency. Although the Saudis were cooperating more than ever before in efforts to track down al-Qaeda operatives in the kingdom, the interrogations of suspects connected with the Bahraini on whose computer the Mubtakkar was discovered were going nowhere. The U.S. would have to look elsewhere.
Conventional wisdom has long held that the U.S. has no human intelligence assets inside al Qaeda. "That is not true," writes Suskind. Over the previous six months, U.S. agents had been receiving accurate tips from a man the writer identifies simply as "Ali," a management-level al-Qaeda operative who believed his leaders had erred in attacking the U.S. directly. "The group was now dispersed," writes Suskind. "A few of its leaders and many foot soldiers were captured or dead. As with any organization, time passed and second-guessing began."
And when asked about the Mubtakkar and the names of the men arrested in Saudi Arabia, Ali was aware of the plot. He identified the key man as Bin Laden's top operative on the Arabian Peninsula, Yusuf al Ayeri, a.k.a. "Swift Sword," who had been released days earlier by Saudi authorities, unaware that al-Ayeri was bin Laden's point man in the kingdom.
Ali revealed that Ayeri had visited Ayman Zawahiri in January 2003, to inform him of a plot to attack the New York City subway system using cyanide gas. Several mubtakkars were to be placed in subway cars and other strategic locations. This was not simply a proposal; the plot was well under way. In fact, zero-hour was only 45 days away. But then, for reasons still debated by U.S. intelligence officials, Zawahiri called off the attack. "Ali did not know the precise explanation why. He just knew that Zawahiri had called them off."
The news left administration officials gathered in the White House with more questions than answers. Why was Ali cooperating? Why had Zawahiri called off the strike? Were the operatives planning to carry out the attack still in New York? "The CIA analysts attempted answers. Many of the questions were simply unanswerable."
One man who could answer them was al-Ayeri - but he was killed in a gun battle between Saudi security forces and al Qaeda militants, who had launched a mini insurrection to coincide with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Suskind quotes a CIA operative as questioning whether it was an accident that the Saudis had killed the kingpin who could expose a cell planning a chemical weapons attack inside the U.S. "The Saudis just shrugged," the source tells Suskind. "They said their people got a little overzealous."
You might want to read Ed Morrissey's analysis of this revelation at Captain's Quarters. We wonder how much of a role, if any, the NSA eavesdropping program that the left was so outraged by a few months ago played in defusing this threat.
Despite my reluctance to question a genuine genius, I'm skeptical that we're anywhere close to doing what Stephen Hawking claims we're on the verge of doing:
Acclaimed British physicist Stephen Hawking has said that humanity is finally getting close to understanding the origin of the universe. Speaking at a lecture in Hong Kong, Hawking said that despite some theoretical advances in the past years, there are still mysteries as to how the universe began.
"Despite having had some great successes, not everything is solved. We do not yet have good theoretical understanding of the observation of the expansion of the universe," he told an audience of 2,500 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Thursday. "Without such understanding, we cannot be sure of the future of the universe.
"New observational results and theoretical advances are coming in rapidly; cosmology is a very exciting subject. We are getting close to answering these old questions: why are we here, where did we come from?"
My skepticism arises from the fact that even if we do elucidate the Big Bang and figure out how it occurred, we still will not know why it did. "Why" questions are metaphysical and beyond the purview of scientific discovery.
There really are only two candidates vying for the honor of answering the "why" and "where from" questions: Either we are a flukish by-product of the cosmic birth pangs having no reason for being here and having come from nothing but primordial star dust, or we are here because a loving, powerful being intentionally caused it to be inevitable that we would emerge. Perhaps this being - perhaps it is the God of the Bible - desired significant, conscious beings upon which to lavish, and with which to share, the gift of existence, and so created us.
We are here, in other words, because God has willed it. If that is not the case then there is no reason at all why we are here. Life is totally void of purpose and meaning. We are like insects which live, reproduce and die. Nothing we do, no matter how impressive, means a thing.
Science, at least as so many of its practioners insist, is not equipped to endorse either alternative and is not competent to answer the "why" question.
It seems that liberal theology is an unrelenting pandemic that attempts to persuade people to see the Bible in terms altogether different than those its Author intended. Perhaps someone should be working on an anti-liberal vaccine.
The church I attend offers a series of Bible-study programs designed to further one's understanding each of which runs for 34 weeks. We get a work book that contains reading assignments and then we meet once a week to discuss the assignment. We also watch a video presentation during class by a speaker who talks about the topic.
Unfortunately, the materials sometimes reflect the thinking of liberal theologians that take a different point of view. This causes me to place less emphasis on the materials and more on the opportunity to meet and grow with fellow participants of the Church.
In the course I attended last year, Ms Janet Howe Gaines was a speaker in the video that was shown during one of the classes and she made the comment that the Biblical book of Jonah was most likely a myth. This prompted me to do a little bit of research on Ms Gaines and subsequently post a response on Viewpoint which can be found here.
I have recently registered to participate in another course entitled Jesus in the Gospels which starts in the fall. I purchased the study materials well in advance so I might be better able to add as much value as possible to the group discussions. The material for the course was written by Leander E. Keck who served as New Testament consultant on the four-phase Disciple Bible study and covener of he consultation on the development of Christian Believer. Dr. Keck, Winkley Professor of Biblical Theology Emeritus and for Dean of Yale University Divinity School,, was the covener of the Editorial Board of the New Interpreter's Bible. Impressive, huh?
After delving into the study material, it wasn't long before I read the following:
Furthermore, the Gospels themselves sometimes disagree when reporting the same event. A famous instance concerns the day Jesus died. According to John, Jesus died the day the lambs were being slaughtered to be eaten at the Passover meal that night; but according to the other three Gospels, he died the day after the Passover meal. Each date suggests something important about Jesus, but both cannot be right historically.
While Dr. Keck may have difficulty understanding exactly when Jesus died, all four Gospels are consistent in their telling of when he was risen (Matthew xxviii. 1-10, Mark xvi. 1-18, Luke xxiv. 1-49 and John xx. 1-23). Therefore, it seems to me that all four Gospels must be consistent regarding the time of death of Jesus.
Then again, Dr. Keck states:
In Luke the angels announce "good news" for all the people: "To you is born this day [Christ], the Lord, " as well as "peace on earth" - adding up to a different good news about a different peace from the savior.
Right as Luke is in what he portrayed theologically, he apparently did not get the date exactly right historically. Nowhere else do we read of an empire-wide census that required all people to be registered in their ancestral home. Beside, Quirinius was governor of Syria in A.D. 6-7. Here Matthew's dating is to be preferred: Jesus was born in the last years of Herod's reign, which ended in 4 B.C. In any case, Luke's mistaken date should not keep us from seeing the point: Jesus the Savior was born in the heyday of Augustus the savior. The contrast is deliberate, and it calls for faith's perception of its significance.
Dr. Keck is referring to the second chapter of the book of Luke where it states:
And he seems to feel a need to point out that Cyrenius wasn't the governor at that time but, rather "Quirinius". I find it odd that someone would offer a work intended to inspire people to discipleship of the Lord and yet take every apparent opportunity to inject their perception of discrepancies.
Turning to the notes in my Companion Bible I find that
A Papyrus (in British Museum), being a rescript of the Prefect Gaius Vibius Maximus (A..D. 103-104) shows that Herod must have been acting under Roman orders. Vib. Max. was Prefect of Egypt, and wrote: "the enrollment by households being at hand, it is necessary to notify all who for any cause soever are outside their homes to return to their domestic hearths, that they may accomplish the customary dispensation of enrolment, and continue steadfastly in the husbandry that belongeth to them." There is a large number of Papyri relating to these enrolments. A second registration is recorded in Acts v. 37.
The notes also indicate that Cyrenius is Greek for the Latin Quirinus. His full name being Publius Sulpicius Quirinus.
Having discovered this reasonable explanation and numerous references to evidence that confirms the taxing as well as a solution to the confusion regarding Cyrenius / Quirinus I didn't bother to address the problem Dr. Keck has with the "date" he referred to earlier. I'm content to believe the problem is simply one he has created for himself by failing to "rightly divide the word of truth" 2 Timothy ii. 15.
I am convinced that difficulties arise for people like Dr. Keck simply because they're thinking only of the human agent as the writers of the Bible, instead of having regard to the fact that the Word of God is the record of the words which He Himself employed when He spoke "at sundry times and in diverse manners" Hebrews i. 1. and from not remembering (or believing) that "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost". 2 Peter i. 21, Mark xii. 36, Acts i. 16; iii.18; xxviii. 25; Hebrews iii. 7; ix. 8; x. 15; and 2 Timothy iii. 16 where we read "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
There are many "apparent contradictions" in the Bible. When the reader assumes it to be authored by man, they readily conclude the contradictions to be matters of fact and the quest for the treasure of blessings comes to an end. If the reader assumes it to be authored by God, apparent contradictions are an indicator that the reader has failed to "rightly divide the word of truth" and the quest has only just begun.
How such learned people can miss such an obvious and crucial truth is beyond my understanding.
If more evidence were needed that the Democrats are the party of defeat and retreat Friday's House of Representatives vote on the non-binding resolution provides it. The bill praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and states that an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest. It passed 256-153:
Seth Swirsky explains why he, a standard sixties liberal, finally resigned from the Democratic party. It's an excellent piece that recounts a pilgrimage that will resonate with many. The Democratic party has shifted so far to the left over the last thirty years that many whose political views haven't much changed during that time find themselves coming to the realization that they presently have more in common with conservatives than they do with MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, and the Democratic party leadership.
Swirsky's essay reminds us how very far the Democrats have moved to the left since the days of Harry Truman and John Kennedy. No doubt there are others who feel, like Ronald Reagan, another former Democrat, that they haven't left the party so much as the party has left them.
I've argued on previous occasions that true conservatism conserves. It conserves the best of our cultural heritage and the best of our natural heritage. Thus, those who look at our natural places as potential targets of economic exploitation and development are, whatever else they may be, not fully conservative. It seems to me that to take seriously our Biblical mandate for stewardship over the land we inhabit entails in part that we preserve as much of its natural richness as possible consistent with human welfare (as opposed to human greed). It's with that responsibility to nature in mind that the news that President Bush is creating a vast new preserve near Hawaii is most welcome:
The world's largest protected marine area is being created around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, an archipelago 1,400 miles long and 100 miles wide that is home to rare marine mammals, fishes and birds. President Bush announced on Thursday his decision to create the nation's newest national monument from the vast chain of largely uninhabited islands, atolls, coral reef colonies and seamounts.
Conrad C. Lautenbacher, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the new protected area in Hawaiian waters would dwarf all others. "It's the single-largest act of ocean conservation in history. It's a large milestone," Lautenbacher said. "It is a place to maintain biodiversity and to maintain basically the nurseries of the Pacific. It spawns a lot of the life that permeates the middle of the Pacific Ocean."
The region hosts more than 7,000 species, at least a fourth of them found only there and including some on the government's endangered list, such as the Hawaiian monk seal and the nesting green sea turtle. Bush decided to invoke the 1906 National Antiquities Act and create a national monument for the first time during his presidency, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
Earlier Wednesday, the president had planned to use instead the National Marine Sanctuary Act, a law that would allow challenges from Congress and others to the decision, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to upstage Bush. "This means the area will get immediate protection rather than having to wait another year," the official said.
With the national monument designation, the federal government can immediately begin a five-year phaseout of the eight commercial fishing permits in the area and impose strict prohibitions on any other extractive uses.
President Clinton used the act to create 19 national monuments and expand three others to set aside 5.9 million acres of land, mainly in the West, and he drew widespread criticism from conservatives.
About 132,000 square miles of the area already is designated either a coral reef ecosystem reserve or a national wildlife refuge. By making it a national monument, the government will have greater power to protect it. Expanding the existing reserve and refuge to a monument of 140,000 square miles will make it the largest no-take marine conservation area in the world, just ahead of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Does this make George Bush a "Crunchy Con"? No matter. He's doing a good thing and Viewpoint applauds him for it.
The media keeps a running tab on the number of American servicemen and women killed in Iraq, the purpose of which, evidently is to hasten the day when the public decides it has had enough. Never is it mentioned, when this tally is updated, how remarkably low a number it really is. After four years of fighting the number of American military deaths has just topped 2500, roughly the same number of troops who died on a single day, D-Day at Normandy, during WWII.
In the Pacific during WWII we lost 6900 Marines taking Iwo Jima and 13,000 troops securing Okinawa.
Twenty eight thousand Confederates and 23,000 Union troops died at Gettysburg in three days.
Shifting perspective away from combat casualties, in the four years from 2001 through 2004 traffic fatalities in the U.S. exceeded 153,000, homicides in 2005 alone surpassed 16,900, and approximately 1200 people nationwide have died from heat exposure since 2003.
Indeed, an American is almost safer in the military in Iraq than in some American cities where the number of murders exceeds 300 per year.
Twenty five hundred deaths over four years is a terrible statistic, and the families of the dead find no consolation in comparisons such as this one. Nevertheless, politicians have to look at the cost through the lens of historical and actuarial realities, and in that perspective the number of military deaths is remarkably low, especially considering the extraordinarily high stakes involved in the Iraqi undertaking.
The text of the document found in the building where al-Zarqawi was killed is revealing, and it explicitly affirms Bush's policy of resolute refusal to cut and run and absolutely demolishes the Democrat rationale for a premature withdrawal. The text can be read here.
The short version is that the insurgents acknowledge that they're being worn down and degraded, the American strategy is working, and the best thing we could do, from their point of view, is to follow the advice of the "Last Helicopter" wing of the Democratic party and begin to withdraw. Since Bush is not likely to do that the next best thing is for al-Qaeda in Iraq to instigate a war between the U.S. and Iran to divert our resources out of Iraq and relieve the pressure on the insurgents.
The terrorists are on the ropes, and the Murtha, Pelosi, Kerry crowd, desperately fearful that Bush will succeed and be hailed by the public for his achievement, are riding to the terrorists' rescue with demands that we get out before they're absolutely defeated.
Read the insurgents' reasoning and the strategy laid out in the document at the link.
The president's detractors have much to apologize for but rarely do. Contrast that with the president himself:
President Bush, who often teases members of the White House press corps, apologized Wednesday after he poked fun at a reporter for wearing sunglasses without realizing they were needed for vision loss. The exchange occurred at a news conference in the Rose Garden.
Bush called on Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten and asked if he was going to ask his question with his "shades" on. "For the viewers, there's no sun," Bush said to the television cameras.
But even though the sun was behind the clouds, Wallsten still needs the sunglasses because he has Stargardt's disease, a form of macular degeneration that causes progressive vision loss. The condition causes Wallsten to be sensitive to glare and even on a cloudy day, can cause pain and increase the loss of sight.
Wallsten said Bush called his cell phone later in the day to apologize and tell him that he didn't know he had the disease. Wallsten said he interrupted and told the president that no apology was necessary and that he didn't feel offended since he hadn't told anyone at the White House about his condition.
"He said, `I needle you guys out of affection,"' Wallsten said. "I said, 'I understand that, but I don't want you to treat me any differently because of this."' Wallsten said the president said he would not treat him differently, so Wallsten encouraged him to "needle away."
"He said, `I will. Next time I'll just use a different needle,"' Wallsten said.
If only those of his opponents in the media and in Congress who have vitriolically accused President Bush of lying to the American people in order to cajole us into war, as well as numerous other impeachable offenses, could display just half as much class and grace as he does.
Another apparently fabricated atrocity unravels in Gaza. News reports which claimed that Israeli artillary had killed Palestinian beachgoers, including an entire family, turn out to be highly dubious:
An Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer has confirmed that the explosion that killed eight Palestinians on Friday, was caused by a stockpile of Hamas explosives.
"Shortly after we stopped defensive firing at Hamas rocket launch pads which were deployed behind Palestinian human shields, members of Hamas scrambled to fire more rockets at our positions," said Col. M. "We have eyes on every meter of Gaza, from the sky, from the ground and from the sea. One of their rocket tripods collapsed inadvertently setting off an explosion of a stockpile of Qassam rockets. The Palestinians killed their own children. And this was not the first time."
Hamas terrorists fired rockets and mortar bombs from a crowded Gaza beach at southern Israel. Some of the rockets fell near the Israel city of Ashkelon. Some 17 rockets were fired between Saturday and Sunday morning. A man at a school in the Israel town of Sderot was wounded, Israel officials said.
Israel Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant said today that the Israel Defense Forces has additional evidence that it wasn't Israel artillery that hit the beach in Gaza. Galant, who commands Israel's southern command, said Israel stopped firing 15 minutes before the explosion. It's all on secure videotape from both sides of the conflict. Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he was sorry about the deaths, which included three children.
There's more information at the link. It is a tactic of terrorists everywhere in the Middle East, it seems, to use civilians as shields and then when something goes wrong to report an atrocity perpetrated by the Israelis or the Americans against the dead innocents. Few people in the region ever find out about the truth and in the West many of the critics of American and Israeli policy don't care what the facts are.
All that matters to many is the first impression made by the allegation. When the truth trickles out a few days later it scarcely makes a ripple in the public perception and is often overwhelmed by yet another false allegation of another atrocity being amplified in a complient press.
Michelle Malkin nails the rank double standard and hypocrisy of the attempt to crucify a Marine for singing a song that conveys insufficient sensitivity to the horrors of war.
Read Malkin's comparison to a truly execrable rap song that came out last year to effusive praise from the MSM, and then compare the lyrics of Hadji Girl for which Cpl. Joshua Belile is being put to the rack.
Better yet, listen to the song for yourself here (scroll down to pic of Belile). The song has a callousness and coarseness to it that I find unpleasant, even disturbing, and which the Marines might be justified in discouraging. Nevertheless, the outrage being expressed over the ballad strikes me as hysterical, absurd and based on claims about the song that are simply not true.
Senator Joe Lieberman, all but abandoned by the Democratic party in his primary race with businessman Ned Lamont, may be holding the decisive card. The Democrats have been frosty toward him because of his support for the Iraq war and his unwillingness to criticize the Bush administration for the manifold crimes of which the Democrats believe it guilty.
The word is, though, that if it looks like Leiberman will lose the primary to Lamont he may jump ship and run as an Independent, in which case he'd probably win re-election. Such a move would make it almost impossible for the Democrats to regain majority status in the Senate. Leiberman's defection would be an interesting payback to the party for its failure to support a long-term senator and former vice-presidential candidate.
Read the full account here.
Now that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has decided that there's no case against Karl Rove, Jason Leopold at TruthOut (the window).com looks pretty ridiculous with all that egg dripping down his face. A month ago he wrote:
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove. During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.
We waited for the news to break in the MSM but it never did. Apparently it didn't because either Leopold's sources are unreliable or he just projected his own fantasy onto reality. Either way TruthOut looks bad. Again.
Mohammed at Iraq the Model gives us an inside look at the new security push in Baghdad:
Baghdad looked tense today as the city witnessed the launch of the new massive security operation "Forward Together". The feeling here ranges from anxiety to hope which I saw clear in the voice and looks of the people I met; in addition to the understandable anxiety that accompanies every new military operation I saw a lot about hope that this new operation may be able to stop or even reverse the deterioration of security in the capital.
Well maybe this is our best chance to achieve some progress security-wise and there's a growing feeling (I won't say dominant but it's here and it's visible) that the new government has the real and serious desire to end this tragic chapter of Baghdad's history.
It seems that President Bush's visit to Baghdad has given more credibility for the operation; that at least was what I heard from people around me or read in Baghdad's papers today; the visit definitely left a positive impression that America is dead serious this time about finding solutions for Iraq especially when it comes to security and critical parts of reconstruction like electricity.
No one can predict how much time this new operation will take but time in this case is of little importance compared to accomplishing the objectives of the operation.
The streets weren't so much different this morning except for increased security presence in the form of checkpoints and traffic jams that were associated with a few incidents and this is what I experienced this morning on my way to work, most likely that was because I live in one of the hot spots that was among those listed as targets for the operation.
I heard a number of explosions that weren't so far away with sporadic light and medium gunfire but news reports indicate that only one incident left casualties.
Some Baghdadis have shopped for extra amounts of water, food and fuel expecting the operation and curfews to take more than a few days and there's a minor internal immigration within Baghdad from the more dangerous districts to the relatively safer ones. This isn't happening in large numbers and I knew about it only from some families that I know that have temporarily left their homes in some districts.
In Baghdad you can't find the same feeling you would find in Ramadi, that is the fear that the operation will include collective punishment and this is because Baghdadis are used to living standards of a big city (in Middle Eastern standards though) but in the past few years they have suffered enough from militants of all types and want their city life back, they want to see militias and insurgents defanged and they want schools and markets and services to function properly again.
So for this operation to work out, we will need to focus on disarmament and collecting every piece of weapons that can be collected because each weapon represents a chance for more violence. In fact I believe this will be the main objective of this operation; to maintain strong security presence, make it harder for the militants to move around and do as much disarmament as possible.
The media here is reporting that the plans include collecting all unnecessary weapons from homes; that's if a family possesses two weapons fro example they will be allowed to keep only one small weapon with a limited amount of ammunition even if both weapons were licensed. There are also rumors that the campaign will include questioning those who have recently moved from other provinces and settled in Baghdad or those who relocated themselves within Baghdad to verify the reasons behind that movement.
There's more from Mohammed at the link. For three years we have been training the Iraqis to take over the task of providing security for their country. More and more they're doing exactly that. If the Iraqi government can suppress the insurgency in Baghdad and make it a safer place it will represent a quantum leap forward toward the goal of a stable Iraq.
Kathryn Lopez at National Review Online shows that Nancy Pelosi must have been spending some time studying at the feet of the master flip-flopper, John Heinz-Kerry:
Pelosi on Iraq: Then vs. Now
June 14, 2006
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has called Operation Iraqi Freedom a "war of choice" and a distraction from "the real war on terror." At a "Take Back America" rally yesterday, Pelosi elaborated on her rationale:
PELOSI NOW:
"During the debate on the war, I was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. I saw all the information, all the intelligence. And my statement was that I will not vote for this war because the intelligence does not support the threat being claimed by the administration."
But in fact, during the long debate on whether to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, Pelosi indicated that the intelligence she saw DID support the administration's claim of Saddam Hussein as a "gathering" threat:
PELOSI THEN:
"As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
During debate to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, Pelosi said:
PELOSI THEN:
"Yes, he has chemical weapons, he has biological weapons, he is trying to get nuclear weapons." And she told Tim Russert on a November 17, 2002 appearance NBC's Meet the Press, "Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There's no question about that."
But flash forward to the "Take Back America" rally where Pelosi insisted:
PELOSI NOW:
"[T]here was never anything in the intelligence that said Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States, never."
So which is it? As the House prepares to debate the war in Iraq and the Global War on Terror, these brazen flip-flops only further underscore Capitol Hill Democrats' lack of seriousness in combating terrorism. When it comes to strengthening national security, the American people have a clear choice between Republicans who want to meet the challenge and Democrats who want to relent and retreat.
K-Lo shouldn't be too put out by Pelosi's prevarications. After all, what does the truth matter when there are elections to be won and Republicans to be bashed? As postmodern philosopher Richard Rorty famously observed, "Truth is just whatever your peer group will let you get away with saying," and Pelosi's peer group will let her get away with saying anything at all that helps liberals like her look good to the voters.
