The ad that appeared in the Sunday Tampa Tribune can be seen here. Be sure to check daily for updates at BlogsforTerri for the latest developements.

This article by Steven Malanga reveals the real engine behind the power of the blue states. A power that started at the local level, but as it grows their power is reaching to state and national levels. In many ways taking over a large part of the democratic party.

Is it really true that America is politically divided between conservative "Red" states in the southern and middle sections of the country and liberal "Blue" states on both coasts? Not exactly: a close look at the district-by-district voting patterns of the coastal states in the 2004 elections brings into crystal-clear focus the real nature of our political divisions. There's really no such thing as a Blue state—only Blue metropolitan regions. Indeed, the electoral maps of some states that went for John Kerry in 2004 consist mostly of Red suburban and rural counties surrounding deep Blue cities.

What makes these cities so Blue is a multifaceted liberal coalition that ranges from old-style industrial unionists and culturally liberal intellectuals, journalists, and entertainers to tort lawyers, feminists, and even politically correct financiers. But within this coalition, one group stands out as increasingly powerful and not quite in step with the old politics of the Left: those who benefit from an expanding government, including public-sector employees, workers at organizations that survive off government money, and those who receive government benefits. In cities, especially, this group has seized power from the taxpayers, as the vast expansion of the public sector that has taken place since the beginning of the War on Poverty has finally reached a tipping point. In New York City, this coalition has helped roll back some of the reforms of the Giuliani years. In California cities and towns, it is thwarting the expansion of private businesses, Wal-Mart above all. In nearly 100 municipalities, it has imposed higher costs on tens of thousands of businesses by persuading city councils to pass "living-wage" laws.

This increasingly powerful public-sector movement results from the merging of two originally distinct forces. First are the government-employee unions, born in the 1950s and nowadays the 800-pound gorillas of policy debates in many statehouses and city councils. Today, public unions don't merely use their power to win contract concessions for their members. They help elect sympathetic legislators and defeat proponents of smaller government; they lobby for higher taxes, especially on the rich and on businesses; and they oppose legislative efforts, such as privatization initiatives, aimed at making government smaller and more efficient.

Regardless of how transparent its aims now seem, this new coalition will remain formidable in the cities, because the tax-eater sector is now so large that it can easily thwart reforms aimed at undermining its programs. But the coalition is also becoming the real power in national campaigns, working both within the Democratic Party and outside it. AFSCME, the AFT, and SEIU were among the largest contributors to the Media Fund, a $65 million advertising effort aimed at defeating President Bush in 2004. Those groups, plus ACORN, also supplied much of the manpower for the national voter-registration effort aimed at defeating the president. A succession of Democratic presidential hopefuls traveled to New York to seek the blessing of 1199/SEIU union chief Dennis Rivera, who once held a seat on the Democratic National Committee, and when John Kerry picked his running mate, he immediately called SEIU boss Andrew Stern, a John Edwards supporter, to say, "I heard you." About one in ten delegates to the 2004 Democratic National Convention was a member of a teachers' union.

The tax-eaters' party has seized control of many of America's cities; now it is trying to make the next big leap.

They have control of most of the cities and the mainstream press, but not the internet which is their eventual bane. No one party, no one school of thought, and no one regardless of power can seize control of the information exchange we call the internet.

Tens of thousands of protesters demanded freedom in a public push for democracy. Lebanon's Prime Minister Omar Karami announced his resignation by loudspeaker.

Flags waved and the crowd cheered as the resignation was announced. The demonstrators also demanded an end to Syrian occupaton by withdrawing it troops and government agents who oversee decisions of the Lebanese government.

Prime Minister Omar Karami announced his government's resignation in a message relayed by loudspeakers to a crowd of about 25,000 at Beirut's Martyrs Square.

Cheers erupted and protesters began handing out red roses to soldiers and police.

When Lebanese soldiers came near, the crowd chanted to them in Arabic: "We need only one army, and it's you," a reference protesting the 15,000 Syrian troops stationed in Lebanon.

In Washington, the White House praised the resignation of Mr. Karami's government, saying it opens the door for new elections "free of all foreign interference," referring to neighboring Syria.

When pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud appeared on two giant TV screens set up in Martyrs Square, the crowd chanted, "Your turn is next, your turn is next."

Mr. Lahoud is especially unpopular because Syria forced through a constitutional change last year that added three years to his term in office.

"Today, the government fell. Tomorrow, it's the one huddled in Anjar," opposition leader Elias Atallah told the crowd to cheers, referring to the Syrian intelligence chief based in the eastern Lebanese town of Anjar. Mr. Atallah said the opposition will continue its actions until all demands are met.

Demonstrators came from across Lebanon's sectarian divide.

They included the Free Patriotic Movement, consisting mainly of Christian university students; the Lebanese Forces; Druze in traditional costume; Sunni Muslim supporters of Mr. Hariri and Shi'ite Muslims, including women with head scarves.

Democracy among the Arab nations is speading far beyond anyones expectations. Without Lebanon Syria is in going to be in a bind in the future.

Also Egypt's Hosni Mubarak recently promised a democratic multi-party upcoming elections there.

Thanks to Omar at Iraq The Model for this part one of this story "Blogging Vs Terror (Part 1)."

Omar took a trip to Najaf, the purpose which was giving lectures to "spread blogging and to talk about the importance of blogging and the ways to get blogs and use them" as It part of the Arabic blogging project of the Friends of Democracy.

While sitting in their hotel discussing the upcomming event and the current situation in Najaf, Iraqiya TV was showing some of the arrested terrorists responsible for beheadings and other crimes. One of the Najaf residents said:

"these butchers are not like a simple flu, they're a malignant disease and we need a bitter and rough medicine to get rid of. Showing their pictures on TV is a crucial thing that is needed to expose them to the people. Iraqis need to know who those masked men really are. Iraqis in majority are shocked by the huge amounts of reveled facts as most of the animals we're watching on TV are serious criminals trained and paid for by the intelligence systems of a terror-supporting regime; that is Syria".

Here is where the bloggers take note of their power and talk of using their blogs to expose terrorism and Syria. Not that they haven't probably been doing so in some respects already, but it looks like it will be an organized effort.

Some of us got panicked by the scenes and the statements of those butchers but one guy from the team said "we will strike back through blogs" I agreed with his words so I told my friends about a short conversation I had with someone a few months ago; that person said that terrorists have the capability to prepare video clips for their operations and have them broadcasted on the web in less than 48 hours.

Well, that's fine, now we're going to expose the terrorists and their evil doings and show it to the public opinion in Iraq and the world in a matter of few hours or even sometimes in minutes and the world then will hear our voice first before the terrorists can get their ugly voice out.

Most of the terror activities are run from bases in Syria and a few other places outside Iraq but the future blogs will be here right on the event spot itself. The people will have the ability to show their activities and thoughts and publish them faster and more often than the idiotic terrorists and this way the people (the freedom lovers) will feel stronger and more united and this can make them even more determined to confront the threats.

We've already seen this happening in a limited manner through the number of blogs that are linked to by the friends of democracy website; they were able to get the news to the readers way faster than the media did. One blog has exposed a few aspects of the crimes of the Syrian regime against the Kurds in Syria and today, one blogger from Najaf was the 1st source to publish pictures for some terrorists trying to enter the Iraqi lands from Saudi Arabia.

The blogs can be a powerful weapon in the face of terror and we will have our network which will be for sure stronger than the terrorists'. There is just a few of them while we are the majority and this was seen clearly on the great elections day.

Omar is saving the rest of the story for another post and plans on telling us about the reactions of the people to the blogging lectures they are holding in Najaf.

BTW the Friends of Democracy site that Omar links to is a good one to put on your list of regular reads.

Is democracy is becoming fashionalbe in Muslim nations? Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak asked parliament Saturday to amend the constitution. Mubarak asked for changes to allow for direct, multiparty presidential elections later this year. It would be the first free multipary elections in Egypt's history. Mubarak has been the unchallenged despotic ruller since 1981.

"The president will be elected through direct, secret balloting, opening the opportunity for political parties to run in the presidential elections and providing guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to choose from with their own will," Mubarak said, speaking live on television before an audience at the University of Menoufiya in the Egyptian delta.

Some opposition politicians and other analysts praised the proposal as heralding a new political era for Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, while skeptics said they wanted to await the details to be sure that the eventual constitutional amendment would not create only the appearance of democracy, a commonplace in the region.

Proponents said the measure was the first, central step in reviewing Egypt's entire constitution and answered both vocal domestic demands for increased democracy as well as stepped-up pressure from the Bush administration. The announcement also follows historical elections in Iraq and Palestine as well as the first limited nationwide municipal polls in Saudi Arabia, leaving the region with expectations for political reform.

On the other hand it may be little more than window dressing. Mubarak has had an iron clad despot rule for almost 25 years and to believe he is willing to let go of power is hardly convincing.

It all depends on how the Egyptian parliament writes the rules for candidacy. If candidates are hand picked, or some parties are banned, as the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood party is now, little choice would be acually extended to the people.

Hat tip to Dean's World for the heads up.

Everyone please read the Opinion Journal article and think about the ramifications. International Law creaping into our justice system has concerned me since I blogged "Justices Debate International Law On TV" about six weeks ago. Unfortunatly the source for that article has expired but some excerpts are available in my old post.

However the Opinion Journal piece is about José Medellin, a Mexican citizen on death row in Texas convicted in 1994 of murdering two teenage girls, and sentenced to death. The sentence has been upheld on appeal.

A few months later the Mexican consular authorities in the U.S. learned about Medellin's plight for the first time. They eventually took his case to the International Court of Justice, arguing that under the Vienna Convention they should have been notified when Medellin was first arrested. The ICJ ruled in Mexico's favor and ordered U.S. state courts to review the death sentences of Medellin and 50 other Mexican citizens held on death row in this country.

At first blush, the ICJ ruling seems entirely reasonable. The U.S. is a signatory to the Vienna Convention, which everyone agrees serves American interests; if an American citizen is arrested abroad, the U.S. wants to know about it. Nor does the U.S. dispute the facts of the case. It has apologized, promises to do a better job of keeping its treaty commitment, and has launched an education campaign on the Vienna Convention for state law-enforcement authorities.

The danger here lies in the remedy. Letting the ICJ tell Texas how to run its courts would move the U.S. in the direction of the European Union, which has a supernational legal system to which national courts must bow. Not far down the line would be an ICJ ruling declaring the death penalty illegal and ordering Texas to get rid of capital punishment.

The U.S. brief in Medellin is due Monday, and we hear there's a battle royal between the State Department, which doesn't want to upset Europeans who support the ICJ (and hate the death penalty), and the Solicitor General's office, which understands the legal principles at stake. At the ICJ, the Bush Administration argued that Mexico's demand would be an "unwarranted intrusion" on U.S. sovereignty. That's still the correct position.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that this is just about the death penalty whether you are for or against it. This case happens to be about the death penalty, but when we start down the road of bowing to international law there is a lot that goes with it.

Giving the International Court of Justice jurisdiction in how we live and operate within our own country is a can of worms we don't want to open. However the lid has already been cracked in a few other cases already. If we continue down that road how long before gay rights or womens rights are decided under influence of international law. How long before parts of our constitution are deemed unfit by global justice. Of course there is a point where we would no longer stand for it, but by then how much damage would be done to our ability to fight back.

From a conversation between Justices Scalia and Breyer in my January post:

"What you're looking for are the standards of decency of American society," Scalia said. "What does an opinion of a wise Zimbabwe judge have to do with what Americans believe?

"Doesn't it seem arrogant to think I can decide moral views for penology, death penalty and abortion?" he said, arguing that elected legislatures should make those decisions.

Breyer responded that international opinion can be relevant in determining fundamental freedoms in a more global society.

"U.S. law is not handed down from on high even at the U.S. Supreme Court," he [Breyer] said. "The law emerges from a conversation with judges, lawyers, professors and law students. ... It's what I call opening your eyes as to what's going on elsewhere."

If "law emerges from a conversation with judges, lawyers, professors and law students," then why the hell do we elect legislators? And what purpose is left for our constitution? I would think even the most extreme liberals would gasp at those statements Breyer made.

So now the UNited Nations is sucking up after harsh criticism from the administration and congress. Of course the UN has plenty to suck up about. General Kofi's total lack of fitness to lead, disclosures of sexual scandals in UN peacekeeping missions and corruption in the oil-for-food program in Iraq.

Senior U.N. officials have begun courting some of the organization's fiercest congressional critics -- including Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who has called for Annan's resignation -- while opening a search for a Republican representative in Washington to lobby on its behalf. In addition, the United Nations has undertaken the most extensive personnel changes since Annan became secretary general in 1997, forcing out several senior U.N. officials who have clashed with the United States or engaged in conduct that exposed the organization to criticism.

Malloch Brown said the United Nations is not "pandering to the United States," but making "a strategic effort to identify what we have in common with Washington and work to celebrate that to really maximize it."

Republican lawmakers say that they appreciate his efforts, but that they want the United Nations to cooperate more fully with a series of congressional investigations into possible wrongdoing. They note that the United Nations has refused to allow its personnel to testify under oath, although the organization has offered to allow U.N. auditors to provide background briefings to staffers representing the five congressional committees investigating the $64 billion oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003.

"A charm offensive isn't what's going to win the day," said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, emerging threats and international relations, who met with Malloch Brown. "The message we gave him is that the secretary general needs to be a much more decisive leader if he wants to regain the respect of a lot of people in Washington."

Some congressional aides said they could not rule out a push by some legislators to withhold funding from the United Nations even if it complies. They noted that Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), who has scheduled a hearing Tuesday on sexual abuse in U.N. peacekeeping missions, has introduced legislation that would require the State Department to certify that "safeguards" are in place to prevent such abuses before funding for such missions is authorized.

Despite the chastising and retoric from congress I imagine they will soon cave the the "United Thugs" as R.J. Rummel calls them on his Democratic Peace blog. Rummel also say "The United Nations has become a weapon and a shield for the world's dictators." My impression is that that is their good points.

Nine year old Noah McCullough from Texas is making sure that Social Security will be secure when his time comes. He has agreed to travel supporting the President's proposal.

Noah isn't your average nine year old. He is said to have an encyclopedic command of presidential history that earned him five appearances on the "Tonight show" and some experiences in the presintial campaign last year. In a trivia contest he beat Howard Dean at the Democratic National Convention, and wrote an article for his local newspaper about his trip to see Bush's inauguration.

Progress for America, which spent almost $45 million backing Mr. Bush last year, plans to lay out $20 million on Social Security this year. It has spent $1 million on television commercials and is working to send experts around the country. Among them are Thomas Saving, a trustee of the Social Security Trust Fund; Rosario Marin, a former United States treasurer; and one really, really young Republican. Noah will not be eligible to collect Social Security for nearly 60 years.

Noah will travel to a handful of states ahead of visits by the president and will go on radio programs, answer trivia questions and say a few words about Social Security. Though he is obviously not an expert (and not really a lobbyist, either), officials say the effort is a lighthearted way to underline Mr. Bush's message.

"What I want to tell people about Social Security is to not be afraid of the new plan," Noah said. "It may be a change, but it's a good change."

Cute little kid, someday I have a feeling he will be out stumping for himself, maybe for President.

After hearing about this on FOX News I later found the story on Denvers CBS4 TV News website.

Professor Ward Churchill appears to have broken copyright laws by making mirror images of other artists work and selling them as his own. One is a copyrighted drawing, and the other is an autographed print by Churchill.


This original was by the late artist Thomas E. Mails, and was published in a 1972 book called The Mystic Warriors of the Plains.


This artwork titled "Winter Attack," was "drawn" by University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill. He made and sold about 150 copies for around $100 each. One was sold to Boulder County resident Duke Prentup, who as he flipped through a 1972 book called The Mystic Warriors of the Plains written and illustrated by Thomas E. Mails. He found the original sketch above that is strikingly similar to the Churchill piece.

The following is the transcript from the exchange between CBS4 News reporter Raj Chohan and Churchill on Thursday in the hallway outside Churchhill's office.

"Get that camera out of my face," Churchill said.

"This is an artwork we've got called 'Winter Attack.' It looks like it was based on a Thomas Mails painting; it looks like you ripped it off. Can you tell us about that?" Chohan asked.

That prompted Churchill to take a swing at Chohan while he held a stack of papers in his hand.

The exchange continued:

Chohan: "Sir, that's assault, you can't do that. Can I ask you about this? It looks like you copied it."

Churchill: "I was just grabbed by the arm. And that (camera) gets out of my face."

Chohan: "Sir, we're allowed to take these pictures, this is a public space."

Churchill: "You're not allowed to grab be by the arm."

Chohan: "He didn't touch you sir, we've got it all on tape. Sir, this is called Winter Attack. It's a serigraph by you. It looks like it was copied from Thomas Mails artwork. Can we talk to you about that please?"

Michelle Malkin has more with other pictures that may have been copied by Ward Churchill as well.

As more information gets out on the Terri Schiavo case, apparently some minds are being changed. John Grogan columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News is one of them.

I no longer so blithely believe Schiavo's feeding tubes should be pulled and her life allowed to end. I'm no longer so sure her parents do not deserve a say in their daughter's future. I no longer am totally comfortable assuming her husband, Michael, who now has two children by another woman, is acting unselfishly.

That's not to say I have changed my opinion about the right of all of us to die with dignity when life has lost all meaning. But for Terri Schiavo, who lingers in a Florida nursing home, the devil is in the details, uncomfortable details that raise sticky moral dilemmas.

Detail 1: Terry Schiavo is not dying. She is not being kept alive artificially. Her heart beats and lungs breathe without help. She cannot swallow food or water. Once the feeding tube is removed, she would slowly starve to death over days or weeks.

Detail 2: Schiavo is not comatose. Her eyes open, and she sometimes responds to stimuli. Doctors say there is no brain activity and her responses are simply reflexive. Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, want to believe otherwise.

Detail 3: The Schindlers think their daughter could benefit from physical therapy and might someday swallow on her own, but her husband, as her legal guardian, reportedly will not allow it. Which leads to an equally uncomfortable question: If Schiavo merely required spoon feeding instead of tube feeding, would anyone seriously be arguing to withhold food and water? Does not every human, no matter how incapacitated, deserve sustenance?

Detail 4: Unproven allegations that Schiavo might have suffered physical trauma immediately before her heart stopped for several minutes in 1990, leading to brain damage, have not been fully investigated. The Schindlers have long suggested their son-in-law strangled their daughter; Michael Schiavo's lawyer says the abuse allegations have never been substantiated. Before pulling the plug on this woman, don't these questions need to be fully answered?

All of the BlogsforTerri supporters and the media attention they have demanded is having the right effect. We will not give up on this. Not for one day.

Read the rest of John Grogan's column [here].

Here is a clasic example of why we need tort reform in this country.

That one parishioner's accident could have such an economic consequence for an entire archdiocese alarmed Philip K. Howard, the New York-based chairman of Common Good, a group critical of what he has called "America's lawsuit culture" and its effects on society.

"The notion of $15 million in pain and suffering to a person who's nearing the end of life needs to be balanced against who's paying for that," Howard said. "In effect, they're making this elderly gentleman's family rich at the expense of everyone in the parish. Is that a fair result? Doesn't sound like it to me."

The 2002 crash became the archdiocese's fiscal burden after a two-year court fight. Margaret Morse, a longtime member of the Legion of Mary at Christ King Parish in Wauwatosa, was driving when she caused the accident that left Hjalmer Heikkinen of West Allis a quadriplegic. Morse's insurance had a $50,000 limit, so the church and the archdiocese were pulled into the lawsuit.

Look I am not against awarding pain and suffering damages but this is way beyond the pale. If Morse was driving for herself instead of for the church they would never have awarded anything approaching that much.

The jury felt sorry for the elderly person (which is fine). But they also knew that because she was driving on behalf of the church they figured they had a cash cow with millions of dollars.

What is sad about the whole thing is that no matter how much, or how little Margaret Morse (who was responsible for the accident) has to cough up, millions of catholics all over the country are footing most of the bill here. Where is the justice in that?

Indeed we need tort reform to bring a little sanity to such blatent beyond silly jury damage awards.

This is just too wierd but you can't make this stuff up.

An appeals court said a man can press a claim for emotional distress after learning a former lover had used his sperm to have a baby. But he can't claim theft, the ruling said, because the sperm were hers to keep.

The ruling Wednesday by the Illinois Appellate Court sends Dr. Richard O. Phillips' distress case back to trial court.

Phillips accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a "calculated, profound personal betrayal" after their affair six years ago, saying she secretly kept semen after they had oral sex, then used it to get pregnant.

He said he didn't find out about the child for nearly two years, when Irons filed a paternity lawsuit. DNA tests confirmed Phillips was the father, the court papers state.

Phillips was ordered to pay about $800 a month in child support, said Irons' attorney, Enrico Mirabelli.

The judges backed the lower court decision to dismiss the fraud and theft claims, agreeing with Irons that she didn't steal the sperm.

"She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift - an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee," the decision said. "There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request."

No I don't suppose that any guys would demand to have their sperm returned to them after oral sex, but if they have read this story, then they just might demand that their inamorata" swallow or spit."

Irons' attorney also said "Imagine how a child feels when your father says he feels emotionally damaged by your birth." Well probably about half as bad as the child would feel knowing how his mother got pregnant. Especially later when he grows up and hears the old disparaging saying about where they best part of his fathers sperm went.

The good news keeps coming in that gives up hope for Terri Schiavo and the Schindler family. Please continue to pray, call Jed Bush and pledge your support. A Paypal link is expected to be in place late Wednesday evening for pledges to the ad campaign on BlogsforTerri.com

Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer extended until Friday an emergency stay that was to expire this afternoon. He said he also needs more time to determine whether Terri Schiavo needs more medical tests to determine if she has greater mental capabilities than previously thought.

Terri Schiavo's parents have been in a long, bitter struggle with her husband, Michael Schiavo, to keep her alive. She collapsed 15 years ago Friday, when a chemical imbalance possibly triggered by an eating disorder caused her heart to stop beating and cut off oxygen to her brain.

The Florida Department of Children & Families moved to intervene in the case today, hours after Gov. Jeb Bush told reporters he again was seeking a way to keep Terri Schiavo alive. Details of DCF's involvement in the case were not immediately available and both the governor's office and the agency declined to comment. Greer denied a DCF attorney an opportunity to speak at the afternoon hearing.

"We are really elated," said Robert Schindler, Terri Schiavo's father. "Forty-eight hours to us right now seems like six years. We pray to God and we thank God that we have some time and are very, very thankful that DCF has picked this up."

George Felos, who represents Michael Schiavo, criticized the DCF move, saying it "reeks of the intervention of politics into the case and is an affront to the court."

A court filing by the agency remained sealed, but both Felos and David Gibbs, a lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, said it was related to allegations Michael Schiavo abused his wife.

Those allegations — partly based on bone scans shows Terri Schiavo suffered fractures and statements she made to family and friends that she was unhappy in her marriage — have been raised before. Felos said DCF had investigated the allegations and ruled them unfounded.

Michael Schiavo has emphatically denied harming his wife.

Some doctors have testified that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope for recovery, but the Schindlers have countered with other medical opinions that she might improve with rehabilitation. The 41-year-old woman appears to cry, laugh and react to her family.

Please read the whole story.

Heh! This is really worth a few giggles, but I can imagine the Liberals in a decadent state from their erstwhile election losses jumping on this. Yet it is hard to conjure up who hollywood would find play the part. Not that James Bond would be that hard a part to play, but a politically correct Bond?

Liberals are embracing a new cause. Stung by severe serial electoral whippings on peripheral issues such as war, terrorism, sexual behavior, family values, guns, religion, infanticide, the economy, taxes, entertainment, lock boxes, drugs, education, health care, language, manners, and the godly nature of marriage, the Left desperately has decided to flap its only wing over Bond . . . James Bond!

For four breathless decades, from England's Carnaby Street to America's Main Street, moviedom's dashing, misogynistic, international super spy dazzled us mortals with his unlimited prowess while operating in speeding Aston Martins, rumpled beds, and other tight spots. He made male fans jealous and all females except uberfraulein Janet Reno squirm from a bad dose of unrequited love. Scots actor Sean Connery verbally burred his way into our hearts as the original 007, but his many forgettable successors never matched Connery's sly charm and Greek-god good lucks.

[...]

The Guardian's cruelest bifurcated-tongue lashing was to liken author Ian Fleming's alter-ego James Bond character to "an ancient gay dress designer." (Question Number 1: Could anyone other than a memory-challenged liberal manage in a single breath both to propose a new, gay Bond and condemn the old Bond because he "acts" gay? Question Number 2: Could someone kindly reach New Jersey's AC/DC ex-Governor James McGreevy and tell him to buzz Barbara Brocolli about a job?)

Meantime, on the U.S. side of the pond, the liberal showbiz bible Variety also has concluded that James Bond is passé, done in by the one-two movie punch of Mike Myers' satiric Austin Powers and Gen X heartthrob Matt Damon's "accessible" (whatever that means) super-secret-agent Jason Bourne.

Clearly, it's time for the Hollywood-London cinematic liberal axis to forge James Bond anew in the cauldron of Political Correctness, to cast a truly modern, 21st Century man or woman with a modified name and radically re-engineered style, one who can Live And Let Live as a Leftist hero for the hapless, hip and hip-hoppers.

While I know I shouldn't be supprised anymore, Maureen Dowd still amazes me with her acerbic dogmatism on anything the Bush administration does.

Instead of trying to destroy AARP, Republicans should be signing up the seniors' lobby to find Osama.

AARP's super-relentless intelligence network is certainly better than that doddering C.I.A's. Osama has to have turned 50, and AARP somehow knows where everyone who has turned 50 lives.

But no. The same Republicans who used to love AARP when it helped them pass the president's prescription drug plan now hate AARP because it is against the president's plan to privatize Social Security.

Just to keep the record straight Ms Dowd, the AARP was drug kicking and writhing to get on board the prescription drug plan. Let me also add that AARP is the largest liberal lobby in washington, and that AARP gets it's power from its ability scare, then herd old people to the polls to vote Democrat.

This is just so stupid it gives me a headache. NY State officials are appealling a State Supreme Judge order that stopped the Department of Motor Vehicles from giving driver's licenses to aliens legal or not.

Well actually they only ones who were being refused licenses to begin with, was aliens that do not have proper identity documents. What it means then is that the court order is to allow illegal aliens to drive. Legal documented aliens were not being refused.

Could someone please tell me on what law or part of the constitution these judges are making assinine decisions like this on. No of course not because they pull decisions like this out of their ass.

State officials said they would immediately reinstate what the judge barred last Thursday: a requirement that noncitizens provide satisfactory immigration documents before they could renew driver's licenses, and the suspension of up to 300,000 licenses without further notice.

Joe Picchi, a spokesman for the department, said that the state filed a notice of appeal late Tuesday, and that the action would automatically cancel the temporary restraining order issued last week by Karen S. Smith, an acting justice of State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

But that legal interpretation was disputed by lawyers who won the temporary restraining order as part of a class-action lawsuit on behalf of immigrants, both legal and illegal, who were denied the renewal of their licenses for lack of a Social Security card or a visa satisfactory to clerks at motor vehicles offices. The lawyers contended that the judge's restraining order remained in effect, and said that the issue would soon be argued at the Appellate Division in Manhattan.

As a practical matter, however, Justice Smith's order may never have been put into practice, according to several immigrants and their advocates, who said the motor vehicles department continued to require all the identity documents, despite the order.

And here further down in the article is another gem that will get your eyes rolling (Put down any refreshments first).

New York law allows people without a Social Security number, including illegal immigrants, to get licenses if they have a letter from the Social Security Administration saying that they are ineligible for a number.

So if they are breaking the law by being here illegally, the Social Security office will give them a letter telling the NY Motor Vehicle Dept to license them to board aircraft and enter federal buildings. Hello! There are no lights going on here?

After Doug Wead played secretly recorded tapes of then Governor Bush for journalists, and released them to the media, he says he has regrets and is turning the tapes over to Bush.

Are we supposed to be touched by this? Wead was supposedly an old friend of President Bush. What kind of friend secretly tapes you, then releases some of the tapes to the media just to promote his book? And now he has regrets. Well maybe that is true, because he is directing further profits from the book to charity.

Still I think he was a weasel to record them let alone make them public, but I digress, as he is a minister I leave his judgement to God.

"Contrary to a statement that I made to the New York Times, I have come to realize that personal relationships are more important than history," Wead wrote in a letter to the show's host, Chris Matthews, that MSNBC released to the public on Wednesday. "I am asking my attorney to direct any future proceeds from the book to charity and to find the best way to vet these tapes and get them back to the president to whom they belong. History can wait."


On the tapes, recorded over the course of the two years before Bush became the Republican presidential nominee, Bush discusses strategy for his presidential run and appears to acknowledge past drug use. He says he will refuse to answer questions about using LSD, cocaine and marijuana because "I don't want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago."

On the tapes Bush also said "I'm not going to kick gays." He also said when he was told that a conservative supporter was saying he had pledged not to hire gay people, "No, what I said was, I wouldn't fire gays."

This is very good news. It is looking more hopeful for Terri as Circuit Court Judge George Greer extends feeding Terri until Friday while he conciders arguments from her parents.

Finally, it's official. "There are serious allegations of abuse in the case." Today's surprise? The Florida Department of Children and Families is intervening. Why?

...

A state circuit judge Wednesday extended until 5 p.m. Friday the stay keeping Terri Schiavo's feeding tube intact, saying he needed time to consider more arguments from her parents from her parents that she should undergo new medical tests and that her husband should be dismissed as her guardian.

Please read the whole story [here].

The tittle of this post refers to someone who wrote BlogsforTerri about their son in a similar situation to Terri's.

Today Terri Schiavo lies at the brink of execution by order of the court, she reacts to stimuli, interacts with her family, feels pain, says things like momma and help me, and yet - according to Judge George Greer and Michael Schiavo, she's a worthless human being worthy of death by starvation and dehydration. Today it's Terri, but...

Read the rest at BlogsforTerri

BTW if you still want to pledge at BlogsforTerri be sure to overnight the donation.

The following is from the BlogsforTerri website. They need to place a prominent advertisement in The St. Petersburg Times to get effective local support. Please help if you can, the clock has run out. The feeding tubes may soon be removed and Terri allowed starved.

We have an aggressive timeline (we are out of time) and need to get the word out to the community that will make the greatest impact. The St. Petersburg Times, with 450,000+ paid subscribers, is the ideal vehicle. The 150+ blogs currently part of BlogsforTerri are calling Terri Schiavo supporters to help us place a prominent advertisement in this Sunday's edition. It'll be hard hitting and tell the truth. CLICK HERE for more information and to pledge your support online. Your personal information will be kept confidential.

In case you are not up on the latest developements read this interview with Bobby Schindler, Terri's brother. It is the text of an interview with a frustrated brother speaking up about the way his sister has been treated, what his family has had to endure, and the very strange behavior of Michael Schiavo toward his sister and Terri's family.

These are video clips linked through Hyscience, some of which Terri's family were ordered by the judge not to release, prove that Terri is not in a vegetative state.

Other links of interest:
Link to all Hyscience posts on Terri Schiavo
Link to the Blogs for Terri News Aggregator

Update: Judge Greer Issues Temporary Stay till 5:00 pm tomorrow!

Attorneys for the Schindlers have just been notified that Judge Greer has granted their Emergency Motion for a Temporary Stay. The new Stay will hold over until after tomorrow's hearing and by its terms will remain in effect until 5:00 pm, February 23.

2nd DCA Issues MANDATE Without Further Instructions
As expected, the 2nd District Court of Appeals issued its Mandate this afternoon at 1:00. The stay protecting Terri's life has now expired by its own terms. A motion for a new stay is set to be heard by Judge Greer tomorrow at 2:45. [more]

Attorneys for the Schindlers have been advised that Judge Greer is in possession of the 2nd DCA's Mandate and their Emergency Motion for a Temporary Stay, and that he intends to rule on that motion this afternoon as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Terri is being fed. Her family is with her and she is doing well.

Source: email from Schindler Family

The trillion dollar costs that Democrats have been touting as their chief reason for not supporting the President's Social Security reforms are a myth. That is what several prominent economists are saying, including the 2004 Nobel Prize winner Edward Prescott.

They say that the costs the Democrats are citing as "transition costs" are actually the amount the government is borrowing now to pay the current benefits combined with the massive debt already owed to the SS "Trust Fund."

"We hear a lot about transition costs," Arizona State University professor Edward Prescott, 2004 winner of the Bank of Sweden Nobel Prize in Economics, said. "But I'm going to use some economic jargon, not 'political accounting' jargon.

"There are no transition costs," Prescott said at the Cato Institute Feb, 9. "Re-labeling debt is not a cost."

Lawrence Hunter, senior research fellow with the Institute for Policy Innovation, told the Cybercast News Service that he agrees with Prescott.

"There are no transition costs," Hunter said. "There's simply a cash flow crunch that exists and if Congress chooses to borrow the money to alleviate that, it has done nothing more than replace one form of debt ... with another. It's refinanced the debt."

Congressional opponents of President Bush's plan to move part of Social Security payroll tax revenues into personal retirement accounts tout the alleged "transition costs" as a primary basis for their opposition.

Here Hunter explains how Social Security works which helps me a lot because my understanding of the Social Security math is just above zero.

To understand the argument, a basic primer on Social Security is essential.

"One dollar comes in, one dollar is borrowed. Eighty-four cents is borrowed to pay current benefits," Hunter explained. "Because we're taking in more than we need to pay current benefits, the government borrows the other 16 cents to pay for everything from paper clips to battleships."

"The 84 cents, they don't keep track of. There's no accounting of that. It's off [the] balance sheet," Hunter said.

Prescott added that the federal government is being less than honest when it calls the money it has borrowed from current FICA taxpayers to pay retired workers' benefits an asset rather than a liability.

"Firms are required to list pension fund liabilities," Prescott stressed. "I think the federal government should as well."

The 16 cent-per-dollar surplus from FICA taxes is listed on the government's books, in what Hunter called, "this silly IOU scheme." The government "borrows" the surplus from the Social Security Trust Fund by replacing it with a special Treasury bond, essentially writing itself an IOU.

"We've deluded ourselves into thinking that all of those Trust Fund bonds are assets," Hunter said. "They're not assets at all, they're liabilities."

Thanks to Sean Hackbarth at The American Mind for the link.

I'm under the weather so no blogging today.

Don't know about tomorrow yet, can't keep food down.

Doug Wead, an adviser to the first Presidnet Bush, and an old friend of George W Bush, has released a dozen tapes he recorded of their conversations. The conversations ranged in length from five minutes to nearly half an hour.

AThe White House did not dispute the authenticity of the tapes or respond to their contents. Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said, "The governor was having casual conversations with someone he believed was his friend." Asked about drug use, Mr. Duffy said, "That has been asked and answered so many times there is nothing more to add."

The conversations Mr. Wead played offer insights into Mr. Bush's thinking from the time he was weighing a run for president in 1998 to shortly before he accepted the Republican nomination in 2000. Mr. Wead had been a liaison to evangelical Protestants for the president's father, and the intersection of religion and politics is a recurring theme in the talks.

There is a lot of information in the article, but nothing that the liberal left can run with (although I am sure they are going to try). One think I was struck with was his firm refusal to attack gays.

Early on, though, Mr. Bush appeared most worried that Christian conservatives would object to his determination not to criticize gay people. "I think he wants me to attack homosexuals," Mr. Bush said after meeting James Robison, a prominent evangelical minister in Texas.

But Mr. Bush said he did not intend to change his position. He said he told Mr. Robison: "Look, James, I got to tell you two things right off the bat. One, I'm not going to kick gays, because I'm a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?"

Later, he read aloud an aide's report from a convention of the Christian Coalition, a conservative political group: "This crowd uses gays as the enemy. It's hard to distinguish between fear of the homosexual political agenda and fear of homosexuality, however."

"This is an issue I have been trying to downplay," Mr. Bush said. "I think it is bad for Republicans to be kicking gays."

Told that one conservative supporter was saying Mr. Bush had pledged not to hire gay people, Mr. Bush said sharply: "No, what I said was, I wouldn't fire gays."

As early as 1998, however, Mr. Bush had already identified one gay-rights issue where he found common ground with conservative Christians: same-sex marriage. "Gay marriage, I am against that. Special rights, I am against that," Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead, five years before a Massachusetts court brought the issue to national attention.

Doesn't seem to me like a very Christian sort of thing for this guy to do, however, it shows that Bush is not a gay-hater or gay-basher. George Bush has always said he was against same sex marriage. He has said he would support civil unions.
Dean at Dean's World has expaned into some of the other areas of the Times article.

US News & World Report has a good story by John Leo on how the MSM pagages the news for consumption, while to their dismay the bloggers "un-package" it.

[M]ost people realize that the news media do not just report. They frame and package the news. Stories reflect the mind-set and values of the newsroom. This packaged world is now under heavy assault, partly because different packaging is available (Fox News, talk radio), partly because a strong unpackaging industry has arisen (bloggers, bolder anti-Establishment voices in academia and traditional media).

In the Eason Jordan story, we have something new: retroframing, or the sad attempt to reimpose a discredited frame. Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, said something on a panel (we still don't know exactly what), the gist of which was that U.S. soldiers had deliberately shot at journalists in Iraq. This was a serious charge, particularly coming from one of CNN's high priests, but the major media essentially looked the other way for many days, thus signaling that nothing important had happened. But bloggers descended quickly, demanding to see the unreleased videotape of the panel and asking about Jordan's evidence. Jordan "walked [the story] back," as one commentator said, meaning that he softened what he apparently had said. But he resigned, essentially because of the case made by the bloggers.

Blog flap. Here's the retroframing: Some mainstream media fell back on their traditional view of bloggers as inaccurate, upstart nobodies who dare to criticize their betters. Last week, for instance, the New York Times, which had looked the other way for two weeks, ran a story dripping with disdain. Headlined "Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters," it offered a simple-minded view of bloggers as wild conservatives out to collect liberal scalps. The story was laced with quotes assuring us that bloggers are a "lynch mob" of "salivating morons," fanning fears of "the growing power of rampant, unedited dialogue" on the Internet (as opposed to the completely reliable and unrampant reports in mainstream media).

Why some in mainstream media keep depicting bloggers as inaccurate is a mystery. In the blogs I follow, accuracy is crucially important, and errors have to be admitted quickly, usually on the day of the mistake. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com suggests that mainstream media might want to hire some bloggers to check their stories before publication. This is a cheeky but polite reminder that bloggers are in the checking business and big media should get used to having someone looking over their shoulder.

Thankyou for your unbiased opinion John Leo.

Apparently this Snopes.com legend that has been going around the internet turns out to be true. Pictured below is a female mako shark that was hooked at the annual shark-fishing derby called the "Yarmouth Shark Scramble." It was caught by Jamie Doucette of Wedgeport, Nova Scotia.

This Mako was hooked in the mouth, only fought slightly for 15 minutes, came up along side of the boat to have a look, long enough for one of the crew to put a rope around it tail!!! That's when the s**t hit the fan!!

The shark took off towing the 42 foot fishing boat backwards through the water at about 7 Knots. Just like in JAWS. The boat was taking on water, the Shark would jump completely out of the water at times. This went on for an hour before the Shark actually drowned. He weighed in at 1035 LBS.

I'll bet that the "Jaws" theme song went through Jamie Doucette's mind for a while after that episode.

March 12, 2008 Edit: Updated with apologies to photographer Carla Allen Transcontinental Media, who captured this excellent photo.