5 Terrorists convicted

Story: "Five Britons were found guilty on Monday of plotting to carry out al Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks across Britain that could have killed hundreds at targets ranging from nightclubs to trains and a shopping centre.

The gang planned to use 600 kg (1,300 lb) of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to make explosives to be used in bombings in revenge for Britain's support for the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, prosecutors said.
...
After the longest-ever terrorism-related trial in British history, the men -- Omar Khyam, Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar, Waheed Mahmood and Salahuddin Amin -- were found guilty of plotting to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.

Shujah Mahmood, brother of one of those convicted, and another man, Nabeel Hussain, were cleared of the charges at London's Old Bailey central criminal court."

Ah, 5 british men convicted of terrorism charges, trying to bring a 1300lb bomb in england.
Now, what I would like you to notice: This is not your Tom, Dick, and Harry englishman, these are all men with arabic names.
And that fact is hidden on the bottom quarter of the article. Shamefull.

Glad the law enforcement agencies caught these men before they could do more damage.

Colossal Carbon Footprint looms over Democrat Debate

Newsday:"A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season.

For Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, it was wheels up shortly after they voted in favor of legislation requiring that U.S. troops begin returning home from Iraq in the fall.

No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.

All but Biden, who flew on a private jet, chartered their flights "

I wouldn't expect them to try and 'pool resources' or anything, they are in competition for winning the Democrat nomination after all. What I would expect, at least out of one candidate, is to take a passenger airliner, (and support union labor!) or have they're campaign scheduled so they arrive in the same place the day before.
But ya know, liberalism is often synonymous with hypocrisy, and this is another example of that.

McCain cracks me up

really, the best part is half way through. What the anchors problem is, I have no idea, but is seems like she's watching kangaroos break up her car while conducting this interview.

Investigation of Carbon Off-sets

Financial Times: "The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary sector rising to $4bn in the same period.

The FT investigation found:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts."

So the carbon offsets are a fraud. Sorta like global warming. And most other liberal myths.
Surprise!

W stays solid on war funding

Story: ""Yesterday, Democratic leaders announced that they planned to send me a bill that will fund our troops only if we agree to handcuff our generals, add billions of dollars of unrelated spending and begin to pull out of Iraq by an arbitrary date," Bush said on the South Lawn.

He said the bill would mandate the withdrawal of U.S. troops beginning as early as July 1 and no later than Oct. 1, despite the fact that Petraeus has not yet received all the reinforcements he has said he needs in the latest military buildup to help secure Baghdad and the troubled Anbar Province.

Democrats have argued that the election that left Democrats in control of Congress was a referendum for a change of strategy in Iraq. Bush used the same election results to argue his point.

"The American people did not vote for failure," he said. "That is precisely what the Democratic leadership's bill would guarantee.

"It's not too late for Congress to do the right thing.""

Bush is doing the right thing here. We set a time table to withdraw, and we loose. Why?
Because we certainly can not win by telling the Muslim Nazis when we plan to leave. In no way does it benefit us militarily, nor does it make the country more secure.
What it does do: Gives the enemy a time line, 'if we can just out last the united states, then we will have our power back'.

Aside from that, this bill has so much bacon in it, even a hobbit would be ashamed.

Green movement brings out the heavy hitters

Story: "I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming. Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of forest conservation which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required."

Ah, the brightest mind of our time, Sheryl Crow. If this is the best the environmental movement has to offer as a way to save the world, we don't have a whole lot to worry about.

More nuggets of brilliance:

"I also like the idea of not using paper napkins, which happen to be
made from virgin wood and represent the height of wastefulness. I have
designed a clothing line that has what's called a "dining sleeve." The
sleeve is detachable and can be replaced with another "dining sleeve,"
after usage. The design will offer the "diner" the convenience of
wiping his mouth on his sleeve rather than throwing out yet another
barely used paper ".

What a solution.


In other news, I'm back and ready to once again Push back the Frontiers of Ignorance. Thank you all of you for your concern as I was having HTML problems, and lackadaisical posting.

Negligent

Howdy ya'll,
sorry about the lack of posts over the last week, I've been pretty lackluster with the postings.
I should be back to regular postings next week.
Thank you.

AdSense

Ok, I just put an ad box up on my site. I'm interested in your thoughts on it, so if you don't mind it, say so, if you strongly hate it, let me know.

We've got it good

Article: "Compared with the upheavals of the early 20th century, the challenges we face today — whether as families and individuals or as societies and nations — are almost laughably trivial. Have psychologists who tell us that accident witnesses need grief counselling forgotten about Holocaust survivors and PoWs in Burma? Do environmentalists really believe that global warming is the greatest threat ever faced by Western civilisation? Do judges understand what they are doing when they extend doctrines of human rights to gay adoptions? Can politicians honestly speak of terrorism today in the same breath as the threat from Communists and Nazis to previous generations? Anyone who makes such comparisons is insulting our intelligence, as well as our courageous forebears."

Very good points all around, and a good article. Like I told a friend yesterday, you live in america. How bad can your life be?

Hat tip to Matt, I forgot this the first time around.

Iran: None to kind to hostages

The Woman's story: "Faye Turney told Britain's top-selling Sun tabloid in her first interview since the 15 were released by Iran on Thursday after 13 days in detention that she was threatened with years in prison as a spy unless she did what her captors wanted.

Turney said one morning she heard wood being sawn and nails hammered near her cell and a woman measured her with a tape. "I was convinced they were making my coffin," she told The Sun.
...
The 25-year-old sailor, a mother with a 3-year-old daughter, said she was kept in isolation for five days and was asked by an Iranian official how she felt about dying for her country. When captured, she feared she could be raped, The Sun"


This, compared to what we do in Guentonamo. Give me a break, for Iran, this was nice.

And in other news, read this article with Aurthur Batchelor, and come to your own conclusion as to why they allowed themselves to be kidnapped.
As Colonel Bob Stewart, former commander of British peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, told the BBC the decision was unprecedented and said the capture of the 15 was "hardly one of the most glorious annals of royal naval history"

HE IS RISEN

Border Criminals in court assisted robbery, $100,000

Story: "Two illegal aliens have agreed to a $100,000 out-of-court settlement after threatening a multimillion-dollar civil rights lawsuit against a Texas deputy over an incident in which the lawman shot at an alien-smuggling vehicle he said tried to run him down.
Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia and Candido Garcia-Perez, Mexican nationals who were being smuggled into the U.S. in April 2005 when they were injured by fragments of the lawman's bullets, agreed to the amount after a mediation hearing in Austin, Texas. They initially asked for $1.5 million.
...
"It's not any different than paying off a bank robber who happens to get shot on his way out of the bank," he said. "In this case, the two conspired to break the law and when they got caught tried to run down my deputy."
...
Hernandez, 25, was sentenced March 19 by U.S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson in federal court in Del Rio, Texas, to one year and one day in prison and ordered to pay $5,347 in damages to Mrs. Rodriguez-Garcia. The judge also ordered three years of supervised probation and an additional $5,000 fine."

This is a travesty beyond belief, in a couple of ways.
1. The News outlet reactions:
I didn't hear about this until I received it in an email from a lady who diligently tracks pretty much all things border related. I read the same article, but the link wasn't from source I'd heard of, and after 10 minutes of scouring the net, I finally found this solitary article reporting this story.
Why? This is huge! The only reason to hide this story is to distract from the current news cycle, which as of now is either the Iranian hostage situation, or the 'justice department crisis'.
2. Non-US citizens bringing a suit against a US citizen in a US court system, and the defendants simply giving up because it cost to much to fight it. Simply reprehensible that this could happen, let alone happen by a foreign national in the US.
3. These men are criminals, in a couple of senses. First, and most obviously, they broke through our border and entered, lived, and conducted 'business' while in the US, without being a citizen, or even with a green card or work visa. Secondly, he tried to run a United States Law enforcement officer (ya know, the guys that risk their lives day in and out for you and me) during a routine traffic stop. But still, he can file a suit on the officer, twice in fact.
4. This officer was already convicted of racial profiling (an absurd law in and of itself), and because of this, the criminal was let off the hook. So what happens next? He files a civil suit against the officer.

This entire situation is beyond disgusting. Justice has not been done here, and we have yet another precedent of pandering to illegal immigrants, at the expense of our own service men. It follows in the tradition of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, and their conviction.

How about now?

Story: "Just about everywhere east of the Rockies, it's extremely cold for this time of year – with snow in parts of the Northeast and Midwest, and freezing temperatures elsewhere - and it's going to stay this way right through the weekend.

Parts of the upper Northeast are slogging through over a foot of snow which closed schools, tangled traffic and knocked out power to more than 180,000 homes and businesses.

Frost and freeze warnings are in effect for the next few nights throughout much of the Southeast, while the snow continues to pile up across portions of the Great Lakes and the Northeast, which has seen more snow so far this April than what fell over the entire month of December."

Darn that global warming! Its making easter cold!!!
Sheesh.

Bizzare end to hostage crisis

Story: "The President of Iran shook hands with the British hostages this afternoon after announcing he was freeing them.

The sailors will leave Tehran early Thursday and arrive at London's Heathrow airport around 1200 GMT, said Robin Air, father of Royal Marine Capt. Chris Air. Families will be reunited with the crew later Thursday at a military base, he said.
...
"Mr Ahmadinejad joked when he met one of them, saying: "How are you? So you came on a mandatory holiday?"
...
Mr Ahmadinejad said he had pardoned them as an Easter present for the British people and to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed. "

Ah, kind of Mr. A. Well, I'm glad they're out of there. It is curious though, that they were taken captive in the first place.
A coup by the more radical arm of the religious there? I don't know how much more radical one can get, but it is interesting to speculate.
More likely though, the British finally began threatening the use of force, and the US naval games in the district finally had an effect.

It will be interesting to hear the sailors reaction once they reach home, but I bet they do not recant their position on the location of the capture.

House dems refuse to acknowledge war on terror

Story: "The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget.

This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like the phrase.
...
The “global war on terror,” a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the “long war,” which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years.

Committee staff members are told in the memo to use specific references to specific operations instead of the Bush administration’s catch phrases. The memo, written by Staff Director Erin Conaton, provides examples of acceptable phrases, such as “the war in Iraq,” the “war in Afghanistan, “operations in the Horn of Africa” or “ongoing military operations throughout the world.” "

Once again, we have a stunning example of a liberals priorities. Politics before country, and bowing to evil before supporting good.

The claim is that they wish to avoid 'vauge phrases', but 'ongoing military operations throughout the world' strikes me as even more vauge then 'The Global War on Terrorism'. I mean, how much more descriptive can you get in one phrase? We are dedicated to fighting terrorism abroad, around the world.

Its shocking how long this nation has survived with a party that hates its country comprising nearly half the voting base.

Supreme Court: Some good, some bad

Bad news first:
Story: "The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency must consider greenhouse gases as pollutants...

"Because greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act's capacious definition of 'air pollutant' we hold that EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of such gases from new motor vehicles," the court ruled.

Led by Massachusetts, a dozen states along with several US cities and environmental groups went to the courts to determine whether the agency had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide emissions.

"The harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized," said judge John Paul Stevens as the ruling was carried by five votes in favor to four against.

The Republican administration of US President George W. Bush has fiercely opposed any imposition of binding greenhouse limits on the nation's industry. "

Trees everywhere begin protesting, and when asked why, they state 'CO2 is nessesary for our survival, we contest in the strongest possible terms that it is a harmful gas. How would you like it if oxygen was considered harmful to the environment?'

On to the good news,
Story: "The Supreme Court on Monday declined for now to review whether Guantanamo Bay detainees may go to federal court to challenge their indefinite confinement."

Good, a no-brainer decision that was correctly made. Enemy combatants, who purposefully chose to wage war on the US out side of the geneva convention, and are not US citizens, simply should not be tried in US civilian courts.

Iran-US firefight, September 7

Time: "U.S. soldiers from the 5th Squadron 73rd Cavalry 82nd Airborne were accompanying Iraqi forces on a routine joint patrol along the border with Iran, about 75 miles east of Baghdad, when they spotted two Iranian soldiers retreating from Iraqi territory back into Iran. A moment later, U.S. and Iraqi forces came upon a third Iranian soldier on the Iraqi side of the border, who stood his ground. As U.S. and Iraqi soldiers approached the Iranian officer and began speaking with him, a platoon of Iranian soldiers appeared and moved to surround the coalition patrol, taking up positions on high ground. At that point, according to the Army's statement, the Iranian captain told the U.S. and Iraqi soldiers that if they tried to leave they would be fired on. Fearing abduction by the Iranians, U.S. troops moved to go anyway, and fighting broke out. Army officials say the Iranian troops fired first with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, and that U.S. troops fell further back into Iraqi territory, while four Iraqi army soldiers, one interpreter and one Iraqi border guard remained in the hands of the Iranians.

The official release says there were no casualties among the Americans, and makes no mention of any on the Iranian side. U.S. soldiers present at the firefight, however, tell TIME that American forces killed at least one Iranian soldier who had been aiming a rocket-propelled grenade at their convoy of Humvees."

They fought back, bravo.
Once again, we see another '!' for Iran. Not only have they been supplying IEDs to the terrorists, (which, if you haven't noticed, since the surge, things have definitely quieted down over there.), attacked US soldiers, kidnapped British Sailors, (twice!), consistantly made a case for destroying Isreal, repeadadly deny the holocaust, call for the end of western civilization, and creating a nuclear bomb.

This is not good.