Free Iran!
Discarded Lies: Free Iran
Fresh from his whirlwind tour of Arab dictatorships in Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, and Egypt, John Kerry wants us to know that they are very frustrated with US policies.
ArabicNews.com says Kerry “admitted the US committed terrible mistakes,” in a meeting with the Grand Imam of Al Azhar University: Kerry to Al Azhar Grand Imam: Washington commited terrible mistakes in Iraq.
The Grand Imam of Al Azhar is on record supporting suicide bombing as a legitimate form of “resistance” against “occupiers.” He has also said that suicide attacks against coalition forces in Iraq are permitted under Islamic law. Are these some of “the steps necessary to be able to advance the stability of Iraq?” I am now feeling an immense sense of relief that John Kerry is not President of the United States. |
10. Stories must be corroborated by at least two really strong hunches. 9. "Evening News" pre-show staff cocktail hour is cancelled until further notice. 8. Reduce "60 Minutes" to more manageable 15-20 minutes. 7. Change division name from "CBS News" to "CBS News-ish" 6. If anchor says anything inaccurate, earpiece delivers an electric shock. 5. Conclude each story with comical "Boing" sound effect. 4. Instead of boring Middle East reports, more powerball drawings. 3. To play it safe, every "exclusive" story will be about how tasty pecan pie is. 2. Not sure how, but make CBS News more like "C.S.I." 1. Use beer, cash and hookers to lure Tom Brokaw out of retirement. |
| WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. government ran a $1 billion budget surplus in December, helped by a rise in corporate tax payments, the Congressional Budget Office said in its latest budget report released on Friday. The surplus, which compared with an $18 billion deficit in the previous December, helped create a smaller fiscal deficit for the first three months of the 2005 fiscal year, than in the same quarter of the prior year. |
| "CBO is projecting that the deficit will narrow slightly to $348 billion in 2005″
Hows that for liberal media bias? In only a far left extremist mind could a whopping 16.7% reduction in the deficit in a single year as "narrowing slightly." Now a little math lesson for the mathmatically challenged donks. Bush has said his goal is to cut the deficit in half by 2009. Now we know that would be impossible with that paltry 16.7% reduction yearly cause Reuters said its just such a slight reduction. Get your calculators out, if you extrapolate that paltry 16.7% for each year until 2009 what number do you come up with? The answer is 168. As in the deficit will be at 168 billion in 2009. Well well well, even you donks can figure out thats a 60% reduction in the deficit from last year. |
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* Business layer only uses abstractions of technological services. 14/0 * Layers should be testable individual. 12/0 * Separation of concerns. 11/0 * Layers are a logical artifact that does not imply distribution between layers. 11/0 * Low coupling between layers, high cohesion within them. 10/0 * Inbound external interface modules (eg web service handlers) should not contain business logic. 10/0 * User interface modules should contain no business logic. 10/0 * Business logic layers contain no user interface and don't refer to user interface modules. 8/0 * No circular references between layers. 8/0 * Layers may share infrastructural aspects (eg security) 7/0 * Layers should be shy about their internals. 8/0 * Lower layers should not depend on upper layers. 6/0 * Adaptability: be able to change. 2/0 * Layers should be substitutable. 2/0 * Layers should be independently maintainable and versioned. 2/0 * A layer should be wary of exposing lower layers to upper layers. 1/0 * Layers can have multiple adjacent upper layers. 2/1 * Every layer should have a secret. 3/2 * Layers should be agnostic of consumers (a layer shouldn't know who's on top of it.) 4/4 * Prefer layers to interact only with adjacent layers. 4/4 * Always wrap domain logic with a service layer. 4/5 * Layers should only interact with adjacent layers. 2/3 * The domain layer should not talk to external systems - the service layer should do that. 2/3 * Changing a lower level layer interface should not change upper layer interfaces. 2/5 * There are at least three main layer types: presentation, domain, and data source. 3/9 * Separate development teams by layer. 1/22 * Layers should have separate deployment units (eg separate jars or assemblies for each layer). 0/7 * Rethrow exceptions at layer boundaries. 0/15 * Distribute at layer boundaries 0/18 |
| Democrat Christine Gregoire will be sworn in as Washington’s Governor today, possibly thanks to voters such as Mary Coffey, James Courneya and Rosalie Simpson. Why do we mention them in particular? Because, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently reported, they’re all dead–and have been since well before the first absentee ballots were even mailed out.
Revelations of the formerly living casting ballots in elections isn’t new to American politics, although it’s something most of us thought was a relic of the late Richard Daley’s Chicago. But this isn’t the only jaw-dropper to have come out of Washington’s gubernatorial race, which Ms. Gregoire claims to have won–on a third recount, by 129 votes–over Republican Dino Rossi. Now Mr. Rossi is contesting the result in state court, hoping a judge will find enough evidence of fraud or incompetence to order a revote, a prospect Ms. Gregoire calls “absolutely ludicrous.” Mr. Rossi certainly has a mountain of evidence on his side. In December, officials in King County, which includes Seattle, discovered 573 “erroneously rejected” absentee ballots, plus another 150 uncounted ones that showed up in a South Seattle warehouse. There were reports that hundreds of voters were registered in storage rental facilities and private mailboxes, that felons had voted, and that military ballots were sent out too late to be counted. Then we learned that several hundred provisional ballots had simply been fed into voting machines, making it impossible to authenticate their legality. Now it turns out the number of votes cast in King County exceeds the total number of voters by about 1,800... |
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| The criminal probe into why former Bill Clinton aide Sandy Berger illegally sneaked top-secret documents out of the National Archives — possibly in his socks — has heated up and is now before a federal grand jury...
...Berger admits removing 40 to 50 top-secret documents from the archives, but claims it was an "honest mistake" made while he vetted documents for the 9/11 commission's probe into the Twin Towers attacks. Berger has also acknowledged that he destroyed some documents — he says by accident... ...The documents include multiple drafts of a review of the 2000 millennium threat said to conclude that only luck prevented a 2000 attack. That story conflicts with Berger's own testimony to the commission, in which he claimed that "we thwarted" millennium attacks by being vigilant — rather than by sheer luck, as the review reportedly suggests. The probe was touched off last spring when stunned archives staffers reported seeing Berger sneak classified documents out of a top-secret reading room in his pants and socks while vetting Clinton-era items for the commission. They then ran a sting operation in which they coded some documents and confirmed they were missing when Berger left. The documents were classified Code Word, the highest security classification, above Top Secret. The commission report makes clear that Berger had a habit of writing candid notes in the margin of memos, sometimes flatly rejecting plans for action. He nixed a plan to capture Osama bin Laden with one word: "No." |
"See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..." After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud. And then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster. I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose - "Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want? Something with its own inexhuastible power supply? Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water? Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it? Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies? Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier? Well "Franz", us peasants in America call that kind of ship an "Aircraft Carrier". We have 12 of them. How many do you have? Oh that's right, NONE. Lucky for you and the rest of the world, we are the kind of people who share. Even with people we don't like. In fact, if memory serves,once upon a time we peasants spent a ton of money and lives rescuing people who we had once tried to kill and who tried to kill us. Do you know who those people were? that's right Franz, Europeans. Theres is a French Aircraft carrier? Where is it? Right where it belongs! In France of course! Oh why should the French Navy dirty their uniforms helping people on the other side of the globe. How Simplesse... The day an American has to move a European out of the way to help in some part of the world it will be a great day in the world, you sniggering little f**knob..." The room fell silent. My hindi friend then said quietly to the Euros: "Can you let your hatred of George Bush end for just one minute? There are people dying! And what are your countries doing? Amazon.com has helped more than France has. You all have a role to play in the world, why can't you see that? Thank God for the US Navy, they dont have to come and help, but they are. They helped you once and you should all thank God they did. They didnt have to, and no one but them would have done so. I'm ashamed of you all..." He left the room, shaking and in tears... |
| Most Islamic studies professors and Islamist groups in America exercise their freedom of speech given to them by America, but only when speaking against America, Judaism, Christianity, President Bush and Pat Robertson. However, they never dare to criticize their culture of origin and some even still have respect for the tyranny of the old country. They leave the job of ridding the Muslim world of terror to the victims of terror, namely America and Israel. Whenever they criticize the Muslim world it is in the context of blaming America for supporting dictatorships. However, when America attempts to bring democracy and get rid of Arab dictators they turn around and accuse America of occupation or empire building. No matter what America does, they voice criticism. That can only mean they do not seem to be serious about reformation in Muslim countries. They are, however, very serious about embarrassing, criticizing and hurting America.
Many Muslim groups and Middle East studies professors are aligning themselves with the liberal ‘hate America’ crowd in Western academia and media. Three days after the Tsunami in South Asia, I saw an Arab-American leader criticize America’s response as “slow and too little, too late” on CNN. They have the audacity to criticize America and give a free pass to the oil rich Arab countries that should be the first to respond financially to save their poor Muslim brothers and sisters in Indonesia. Islamism and the old defeated and failed ideology of pan-Arabism is what many Islamic groups in America are advocating. They are silent in the face of Muslim poverty, corruption, neglect of human rights, oppression of women, honor killings and the brutal and unusual punishments such as cutting off limbs, flogging and stoning. They are not using American freedoms as an opportunity to change their countries of origin, but as an opportunity to influence and change America to be like the countries they came from. Their goal is also to keep Muslim-Americans under their control and the control of Muslim world mullahs, sheiks and dictators they should have left behind. How can any one take them seriously when they do not lift a finger to protect human rights in Muslim countries, but are militant in turning Arab-Americans into yet another voting block to influence American politics? They take no stand to protect the life of the Muslim woman being stoned and explain away such atrocities and beheadings while crying ‘profiling’ in America by the FBI. |
| BERLIN -- Islamic extremists accused of plotting to kill Iraq's prime minister in Germany are smuggling fighters from Iraq to Europe, raising a potential new terrorist threat on the continent, according to German officials.
More than 20 alleged supporters of Ansar al-Islam have been arrested in Europe in the past year as authorities move against the group linked with Al Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been leading attacks in Iraq. Ansar al-Islam is suspected of spiriting dozens of young Muslims to Iraq to join the insurgency, but the latest raids in Germany heightened concerns that the organization also could pose a menace outside Iraq. |
Mark Steyn on the Democrat’s protesting the electoral vote certification:
Indeed, on Thursday, one Democrat senator and 31 Democrat House members voted to decertify Ohio’s electoral votes and disenfranchise 62 million people who voted for President Bush. Among the “honorable” members of Congress who took this outrageous action were: Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), former presidential candidate Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), son of former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson These aren’t just kook grassroots Democrats. They’re high-ranking elected officials who would hold significant sway over public policy if the Democrats ever managed to take back the House or Senate. |
Plastination was invented by Dr. Gunther von Hagens at the Institute for Anatomy at Heidelberg University in 1977. Most plastinated bodies have been donated by people who declared while living that they want to advance human knowledge. The exhibit includes about 200 "plastinates," including individual organs, body parts, transparent slices and whole body plastinates. It travels next to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, where it will go on display starting Feb. 4. In plastination, reactive polymers (such as silicone rubber, epoxy resins or polyester) replace water and fat content and then harden to retain tissue structures. For a full body, the process takes about 1,500 hours... |
| SPECTER: And now with three individuals who are more, perhaps, academicians or at least in part academicians, we could explore a subject which we have not taken up, a delicate subject, and that is the issue of the so-called ticking bomb case on torture. There are some prominent authorities -- and I do not subscribe to this view but only set it forth for purposes of discussion -- that if it was known, probable cause, that an individual had a ticking bomb and was about to blow up hundreds of thousands of people in a major American city, that consideration might be given to torture.
...Dean Koh, start with you. Are considerations for those tactics ever justifiable, even in the face of a ticking-bomb threat? KOH: Well, senator, you're a former prosecutor, and I think that my approach would be to keep the flat ban, and if someone -- the president of time of the United States -- had to make a decision like that, someone would have to decide whether to prosecute him or not. But I don't think that the answer is to create an exception in the law, because an exception becomes a loophole, and a loophole starts to water down the prohibition. I think what we saw at Abu Ghraib is the reality of torture. |
| SPECTER: Dean Hutson, what do you think? Ever an occasion to even consider that?
HUTSON: I agree with, uh, with Dean Koh that it is always illegal. Now, you may decide that you are going to take the illegal action, ummm, because you have to. |
| JOHNSON: On the specifics of the -- of the ticking time bomb, I think that it's very overblown in our imaginations, and -- and it's very ripe with what I would...could only call fantasy and mythology. |
I heard Sharansky give a talk about his [latest] book at the American Enterprise Institute, and I was very moved... Sharansky made three points.
Having experienced life under the cruelly repressive Soviet regime, including spending 9 years in the gulag, Sharansky spoke passionately and powerfully from personal experience. He had a wonderful turn of phrase too--"free societies and fear societies" and "weapons of mass construction" stick in my mind. It was a fantastic speech, and I'm looking forward to reading the book. The Bush Doctrine sounds very much like this Sharansky Doctrine, and while I don't know if Bush was aware of Sharansky's case for democracy (which he has been making for years) when he formulated his post-9/11 foreign policy, he certainly is now--both Bush and Condi Rice met with Sharansky in the White House last month to discuss his book. Sharansky told Bush:
What a breathtaking compliment. It makes me proud to have Bush as my president. |
| CNN has announced plans to snuff Crossfire. The Wall Street Journal reports that Crossfire "averages 447,000 viewers each weekday, down 21% from the previous season." I hadn't realized the show had fallen so far. That's the sort of number you get from patients in hospitals who can't change reach the remote and airport lounge prisoners. It wasn't the format that killed the show, it was Begala, who is unwatchable except by the Michael Moore left. |