Don Singleton

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Education in Massachusetts

Jay Tea blogged on Wizbang A few years ago, in a rare act of sanity, Massachusetts enacted an educational reform that actually seemed it would help students succeed. They instituted the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, a series of standardized tests that students would have to pass to graduate from the 5th, 8th, and 12th grades respectively. There was, naturally, a bit of controversy over it, but overall it's been pretty successful. Students who failed the test had to re-take it or repeat a grade until they proved they had learned enough of what was expected of them.

Sounds reasonable. When I went to school, we had to pass tests or we did not graduate.

This week, the New Bedford, Massachusetts school committee decided that "mandatory" didn't really mean that. They announced that students who met all the other graduation requirements but failed the MCAS would be awarded "general diplomas" and sent forth from their high schools as graduates. Governor Romney was not amused.He immediately called upon state education officials to hit the New Bedford School Committee where it hurts -- in the wallet. Apparently the district gets about $100 million a year (a staggering amount, to my mind), and Romney says that some or all of that should be withheld if they don't actually OBEY THE LAW.

Three cheers for Governor Romney

The Boston Globe has a bit more sympathetic version of the story, with extensive quotes from backers of the plan. (Big surprise there; as I recall, the Glob was a staunch opponent of MCAS in the first place.) One quote from New Bedford's mayor, Scott Lang, leaped out at me:
''Cutting off our funding will only exacerbate the problem," he said. ''I am not looking for a confrontation, I am looking for a solution from them."

What about teaching the kids to read, write, and do arithmetic.

One person has a solution: Representative Antonio F.D. Cabral (D-New Bedford) has filed a bill to allow communities to award diplomas to those who fail MCAS. In other words, he wants to make MCAS optional. I think that's a stupid idea, but it is at least more principled than simply ignoring the law.

I agree that it is better to change the law, rather than just ignoring it, but maybe a better idea would be to teach the kids how to read and write, and maybe they could pass the test.

Here's a suggestion, Mr. Mayor: you've got the problem, you work on a solution. Either change the law (like Representative Cabral is proposing, or live with it.

A diploma must be earned

Optimistic Patriot blogged More silly theories in education from CA:

In California, Judge Robert Freedman of Superior Court in Alameda County said in a preliminary ruling on Monday that the exams, standardized math and English tests that high school seniors have to pass to graduate, discriminated against impoverished students and students learning English.

Judge Freedman is absolutely correct. These standardize tests “discriminate” by design. They “discriminate” against people lacking the basic math and English skills needed to function in society. A diploma is not a right. It is an earned distinction. It certifies your achievements and abilities.

And with respect to this particular test, they have five chances to pass it, and only need to score 50% to pass. Anyone who cannot pass does not deserve a certificate they would not be able to read anyway.

The judge blames poverty if children do not learn, but somewhere along the line, education was badly sidetracked. Teaching the “right” things became far more important than teaching writing. Nobody was concerned that Johnny could not construct an English sentence, but they were thankful he could put a condom on a banana. Additionally, education became an exercise in building self-esteem that lead to silly experiments with New Math and Ebonics because there are no “wrong” answers.

Except when they get out into the real world, where they run smack into the need to have the education they never got.

There is no doubt millions of children deal with a lot of outside influences that make obtaining an education challenging. Nobody denies this fact; however; it is the knowledge gained in school and not the piece of paper that raises children out of poverty. Judge Freedman is not leveling the field by granting everyone a piece of paper without the underlying education.

What he is doing is devaluing the piece of paper. If one can get it without earning it, then everyone that earned it will have something that now has no value to another school or a prospective employeer.

If anything, by lowering the bar, he is insuring they stay poor because no court can give these kids the knowledge they lack even if their piece of paper says they have it. Is that fair?

Letter from Ahmadinejad to Bush

Yahoo! News reported Ahmadinejad, whose Islamic government is suspected by the West of pursuing nuclear weapons, questions whether Christ and other religious prophets would have approved of U.S. policies and actions in the Middle East. "I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (Peace be upon him) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth," Ahmadinejad wrote Bush, who has said that Christ is his favorite philosopher. "If Prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishamel, Joseph, or Jesus Christ (Peace Be Upon Him) were with us today, how would they have judged such behavior?" he wrote.

I suspect that all of them, knowing how Saddam treated his neighbors (Iran and Kuwait) and his own people (the Kurds in the North, and the Shia in the South), needed to be removed, and they would have approved of what we did. How do you think they would have approved of your developing nuclear weapons so that you could wipe Israel off the map?

Muhammed (pbuh) might have approved if he just focused on the narrow idea of removing Israel, but if he realized that the response would likely remove not just all of Iran, but much of the rest of Muslim countries, and bring the return of Jesus Christ and not the 12 imam, and that rather than a global caliphate Christ would rule for 1000 years, I doubt if even he would approve.

Michael Slackman wrote in NYT Locked in a conflict with the West over its nuclear program, the Iranian, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made the observations in a letter on Monday that the Iranian government said "raised new ways of solving problems."

And I am sure you like the idea of atomic weapons, but there is no way you would hold off using them once you got them, and the response would destroy you.

The 18-page letter, whose text was made available to The New York Times by United Nations diplomats on Tuesday, did not offer any concrete proposals for dealing with the crisis, but suggested that the United States give up its liberal, democratic, secular system and turn more toward religion.

I actually agree with him, if everyone was completely free to choose his own religion, but not if one religion wanted to take over by force, and that if anyone wanted to leave that religion if they would be killed.

"Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems," Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote.

Are you hearing voices, in addition to those imagined sounds?

State Department officials said there was nothing in the letter relevant to current talks with Iran about its nuclear programs.

Of course not, because he has no intention of stopping.

.... The letter was framed entirely in religious terms but also laid out a populist manifesto of anti-Americanism, offering illustrations of what has won the Iranian a following among many ordinary people throughout the Middle East. He presented himself as the defender not only of Muslims but of all oppressed people, including those in Africa and Latin America.

He envisions being the next Caliph.

.... "My basic question is this: Is there no better way to interact with the rest of the world? Today there are hundreds of millions of Christians, hundreds of millions of Muslims, and millions of people who follow the teachings of Moses. All divine religions share and respect one word, and that is monotheism, or belief in a single God and no other in the world."

And if you would like to focus your efforts at reforming Islam, and bringing it into the 21st century, respecting equally all three of those faiths, rather than focusing on getting 21st century weapons to use in an eighth century desire for world domination, then I would be more interested in what you have to say.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

A Different Sort of Radical Muslim

Joel C. Rosenberg wrote in National Review Online As Osama bin Laden and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continue to breathe their murderous threats against Christians and Jews, and attempt to incite Muslims around the world to annihilate the U.S. and Israel, another Muslim leader made the rounds in Washington last week offering a radically different vision. Topping his agenda were under-the-radar peace talks with Israel, religious classes to teach Imams the history and virtues of the West, and dramatic new initiatives to build ties to Rabbis and evangelical Christians.

This sounds like someone with ideas that should be encouraged.

Were Dr. Ahmed Abaddi merely a soft-spoken, gentle-mannered professor of comparative religion in his native Morocco, his views would certainly be welcome, but not particularly newsworthy. However, Abaddi is actually in a position of some influence. As Morocco’s Director of Islamic Affairs and senior advisor to King Mohammed VI, he is responsible for overseeing his country’s 33,000 mosques. And he’s not just talking about a new approach to Muslim relations with the West. At the direction, and with the blessing, of his King, Abaddi has already taken a number of concrete—and controversial—steps.

Abaddi recounted to House and Senate leaders, Bush administration officials, journalists, and business leaders the changes he and his colleagues have brought about in recent years: They embarked upon a campaign of interviews, speeches, and sermons that condemn al Qaeda’s teachings and violence. This accelerated after 9/11 and a series of suicide bombings that ripped through Morocco’s Muslim- and Jewish-owned restaurants, as well as a bombing at a Jewish community center on May 16, 2003, that left some 45 dead and more than 100 wounded.

Fantastic

They helped mobilize more than one million Moroccans to take to the streets of Casablanca in May 2003 to denounce radical Islamic terrorism—a march in which 1,000 Moroccan Jews openly participated and were warmly embraced by the Muslim community.

They launched a theological training program for Imams to teach them how to promote moderation within Islam, to teach them more about Western history and the importance of Christianity and Judaism to Western social and political development, and to help them identify and oppose extremist forces and trends within Islam. Participants take 32 hours of instruction per week for a full year. The first class of 210 just graduated, and included 55 women.

That is much better than having Saudi Arabia sending radical Wahabbists to run the mosques.

They helped organize the “World Congress of Rabbis and Imams for Peace” in Brussels (January 2005) and Seville (March 2006) where some 150 Muslim and Jewish leaders “sit beard to beard” to explore common ground, denounce extremists, and “write declarations of peace.”

Good

They launched an initiative to build a “bridge of friendship” to evangelical Christians in the U.S., including on-going dialogues with Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council, and Josh McDowell of Campus Crusade for Christ, among others. Abaddi and his colleagues have also invited pastors and evangelical business leaders to Morocco for conferences and high-level inter-faith talks, and have even helped organize a series of concerts in Marrakesh where Christian and Muslim rock bands perform together for thousands of Moroccan young people.

Good

They published a book about the importance of encouraging religious freedom within Islam and even suggested that “Muslims have the right to change their religion” if they so desire.

Fanatstic

Abaddi also confirmed rumors swirling about in the Arab press that his government is quietly laying the groundwork with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to hold a new round of high-level peace talks in the Kingdom in the near future. He noted that King Hassan II—the late-father of the current monarch—opened secret talks with the Israelis as far back as the early 1970s and that Morocco was the first Arab government after Egypt to welcome an Israeli Prime Minister for a public visit (Shimon Peres in July 1986).

“We need our people to know the real West…to understand that the West ain’t no angel, but it ain’t no demon either,” Abaddi said, attempting a Western accent, at a private dinner in a Washington, D.C., suburb last week. “[This effort] is not a luxury. We are not being pressured to do it. We are trying to train responsible people to live in dangerous times.”

“Our world is threatening to destroy itself,” he noted, citing apocalyptic rhetoric coming out of Tehran, Iran’s nuclear program, radical Islamic terrorism, AIDS, and severe global poverty.

Bringing Islam into the 21st century is certainly preferable to taking it back to the Middle Ages.

“Morocco can help bring about peace. I think the Moroccan model is practical and helpful. It communicates an entirely different concept of Islam to the rest of the world….I personally can’t sit back and do nothing. After all, there is an Arab proverb that says, ‘Don’t be a mute Satan.’ I feel compelled to do everything I can to make a better world.”

Abaddi’s refreshing vision notwithstanding, Morocco still has a way to go to insure religious liberty for all of its citizens. “The Government places certain restrictions on Christian religious materials and proselytizing,” noted the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report 2005. “The Government permits the display and sale of Bibles in French, English, and Spanish,

At least that is better than Saudia Arabis.

but it confiscates Arabic-language Bibles and refuses licenses for their importation and sale despite the absence of any law banning such books.” What’s more, in March 2005, “authorities expelled a South African pastor of a Protestant church in Marrakech for not having lucrative employment, although authorities had renewed his temporary residence permit annually for five years…The deportation followed a series of news and opinion articles in the local press concerning the presence of foreign Christian missionaries in the country [and] the Government’s invitation to American Christian leaders to visit and meet with political and religious officials.”

Still, the efforts by King Mohammed VI and advisors such as Abaddi are impressive, and should be encouraged by the administration and congressional leaders, as well as by Jewish and Christian leaders in the U.S., Israel, and elsewhere. Better still, the Moroccan model is being mirrored by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who has consistently denounced sectarian violence, delivered the keynote address at the evangelical-organized National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in February, and just held the Iraqi Islamic Reconciliation Summit in Amman on April 22 to “call for an end to bloodshed and religious tension in Iraq” and “promote moderation and harmony among Muslims.” The world needs more people who dream “God-sized dreams,” said Abaddi—dreams of peace and reconciliation, not just bigger houses and another Lexus. To that we should all say a hearty “Amen.”

U.S. tipping Mexico to Minuteman patrols

DailyBulletin reported While Minuteman civilian patrols are keeping an eye out for illegal border crossers, the U.S. Border Patrol is keeping an eye out for Minutemen -- and telling the Mexican government where they are.

We should find out who is doing this, and they should be prosecuted for treason.

According to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site, the U.S. Border Patrol is to notify the Mexican government as to the location of Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups when they participate in apprehending illegal immigrants -- and if and when violence is used against border crossers.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure meant to reassure the Mexican government that migrants' rights are being observed.

Arrest the S.O.B.

"It's not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be," Mario Martinez said Monday.

"This ... simply makes two basic statements -- that we will not allow any lawlessness of any type,

Does that include Mexicans crossing the border without the proper paperwork?

and that if an alien is encountered by a Minuteman or arrested by the Minuteman, then we will allow that government to interview the person."

Fine, but since that is not happening, why are you telling them where they are?

Iranian President's Letter to Bush Emerges

NYT reported In his letter to President Bush, Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared that Western-style democracy had failed and that the use of secret prisons in Europe and aspects of the war in Iraq could not be reconciled with Mr. Bush's Christian values

What does he know about Christian values?

.... Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has said that Israel should be wiped off the map, again questioned the Holocaust and the basis upon which Israel was created, asking whether support for such a "regime" by the United States government was in line with Christian teachings.

Christ was a Jew, and he certainly never said anything bad about Judiasm.

"Again let us assume that these events are true," he wrote about the Holocaust. "Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state?"

Yes, Europe was embarrased they had not done something earlier to stop the Holocaust, and they felt Israel deserved a homeland in the area promised by God.

"A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison," the letter says.

Children are killed in Israeli retalliations because the terrorists surround themselves with women and children hoping to hide, Israel always gives the homeowner an opportunity to leave a house before it tears it down, and it would not be tearing it down if a resident had not attacked Israel. And targeted retaliation against Palestinian terrorists are certainly better than homicide bombers killing everyone in a restaurant.

Mr. Ahmadinejad also calls the 9/11 attacks a "horrendous incident" in which the killing of innocent people was "deplorable." But he asks: "Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?"

I dont know of anything about the 9/11 attacks that are still secret, and while some perhaps should have been fired, we dont put people on trial for just doing a bad job.

The letter provides at times a striking insight into the Iranian president's vision of double standards in American foreign policy, criticizing what he portrays as a lack of support for elected Palestinian and Latin American governments.

Does Iran support all governments equally, regardless of whether it agrees with them or not?

Mr. Ahmadinejad also portrays himself as having his finger on the pulse of the Middle East region. "As you are well aware," Mr. Ahmadinejad says, directly addressing President Bush, "I live amongst the people and am in constant contact with them — many people from around the Middle East manage to contact me as well.

If Iran did not control information flow in its country so severly, more people, including his own citizens, might be contacting him asking for changes.

They do not have faith in these dubious policies either."

Gays are brain damaged

USAToday Homosexuals' brains respond differently from those of straight men and women when exposed to sex hormones, but researchers now say the difference is less pronounced in lesbians than in gay men. Lesbians' brains reacted somewhat, though not completely, like those of heterosexual men, a team of Swedish researchers said in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A year ago, the same group reported findings for gay men that showed their brain response to hormones was similar to that of heterosexual women.

Do they have any recommendations on how to cure the brain abnormalities?

Iranian Leader Says Democracy Has Failed

Yahoo! News Iran's president declared in a letter to President Bush that democracy had failed worldwide

By failed he means that Islamic countries are considering it, rather than violent Islam and Sharia Law, and he is very worried that the Iranian people might ge the same idea.

and lamented "an ever-increasing global hatred" of the U.S. government. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swiftly rejected the letter, saying it didn't resolve questions about Tehran's suspect nuclear program.

Palestinian Says Ban Could Lead to Chaos

WaPo reported The Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, warned Monday on the eve of a key international donors meeting that the Palestinian Authority, cut off from most foreign aid since his Hamas movement took office five weeks ago, could founder unless new money arrives. "If the siege continues, the whole authority will be facing collapse,"

That is the general idea.

Haniyeh said in an interview in his office here. "And if there is a collapse, there will be chaos in the region."

There is chaos in the region right now. And Hamas is responsible for most of it.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Bush's Appointees Not As Diverse as Clinton's

WaPo reported President Bush's crop of political appointees includes fewer women and minorities than did President Bill Clinton's at comparable points in their presidencies, according to a new report by House Democrats.... What the report does not mention, however, is that Bush has established a record of diversity in his Cabinet. Bush's Cabinet, which includes the vice president and the heads of 15 executive departments, currently has two Hispanics, two African Americans and two Asian Americans. Three departments -- State, Education and Labor -- are headed by women, and a fourth, Interior, has an acting secretary who is a woman.

Before Bush took office, no minority had occupied any of the four highest-profile Cabinet positions -- attorney general and the secretaries of the Defense, State and Treasury departments. Now, Alberto R. Gonzales, a Hispanic, is attorney general. Condoleezza Rice is the first African American woman to be secretary of state; her predecessor, Colin L. Powell, was the first African American named to that post.

So Clinton had more women (probably to service him) and minorities in low level, unimportant, positions, and Bush named many more to top cabinet positions.

This corresponds to the way the parties treat people. Democrats pretend to care, but certainly dont want minorities to succeed, because they might cease to vote Democratic, and Republicans give everyone a chance to succeed, regardless of race or gender.

Michelle Malkin blogged In other words, Bush is an enemy of progress and civil rights because he has appointed too many minorities and women to top Cabinet positions--and not enough to lower, less important jobs! Snort.

Betsy Newmark blogged The quota of politics, in their view, only counts when it favors the Democrats. We need to get beyond this labeling. They can't argue that Bush has been antagonistic to women and minorities in appointments, so they have to resort to arguments by pie graphs.

John M. Martin blogged If anything, House Democrats should be incensed at the Clinton Administration for doling out appointments to minorities and women only at lower level, lower paying positions and totally ignoring them at the Cabinet level. Hasn't the claim of a "glass ceiling" been the diversity knock on Corporate America for a number of years? If so, the same criticism should hold in the government sector under the Clinton Administration.

During the Bush Administration, the glass ceiling has been broken. Nevertheless, House Democrats are sifting through the shards to find evidence that this White House is less diverse than its predecessor, only to be cut to pieces in the process.

The Unalienable Right blogged This silly report says nothing about President Bush’s commitment to equal opportunity for all Americans; it says much about the obsession of the Democrats with judging people first by the color of their skin, or their sex, not by the content of their character. Of course all that is par for the course for the party of Jim Crow.

Incidentally, when 90%+ of black voters choose to be Democrats, are they going to be likely to apply for positions in a Republican administration? We’re sure the Democrats took that sort of thing into account when they did their ridiculous “study”, right?

What's Wrong with a Military Man as head of the CIA?

Betsy Newmark blogged Both Republicans and Democrats are all upset at the idea of a military man, Michael Hayden, being put in charge of the CIA. I just don't get what the big deal is. When we're at war, is it so bad to have a military man in charge of intelligence gathering at the CIA? What was okay about having him be in charge of the NSA, but now is suddenly a problem at the CIA?

And why was it ok to have him second in command of all of the intelligence agencies, but not in charge of one of them.

Isn't it a good thing to have a man with such extensive experience in charge there?

John Ham of the John Locke Foundation wonders if any of those in Congress or in the media grumbling about Hayden's military background have ever heard of Admiral Stansfield Turner.

The effect of airbrushing Turner out of the story is to give credence to the argument that appointing a man with a military background as CIA director is the first step on the slippery slope to tyranny, that there’s a James Mattoon Scott in the Pentagon just waiting to take over the government.
Really what the senate is ticked about it is that they were working on a bill that would have required civilian leadership of the CIA, and just because they never got around to passing it, they still think it should be considered as if it had passed both houses and been signed by the President. Senators are idiots.
There is one glaring difference between the Turner appointment and the Hayden choice, however. Hayden actually knows something about intelligence.
That is a good reason for the Senate to oppose him.
As Edward Jay Espstein wrote in a commentary in 1985:
Although Turner had had little previous experience in intelligence, he viewed it simply as a problem of assessing data, or, as he described it to his son, nothing more than "bean' counting."
By all accounts, Hayden is an acknowledged expert on intelligence. As the Associated Press wrote on Sunday: “Hayden is widely respected in both parties for his long experience with intelligence, and many lawmakers said he could be a good candidate for some other job.”

The Democrats are licking their chops at the idea of pressing Hayden on the NSA surveillance program. I'm looking forward to hearing, and having the nation hear, Hayden's defense of that program.

I agree. The Democrats are going to make such fools of themselves opposing a Terrorist Surveilance Program that the general public supports, and there is no one better to explain it than Hayden.

Sarcasm and Da Vinci

Jay Tea sarcastically wrote on Wizbang As the release date of the filmed version of The Da Vinci Code draws nearer, a lot of Catholic officials are getting more and more disturbed. In fact, one Cardinal is urging that Catholics around the world not only boycott the film, but take legal action against the film's creators, distributors, and theatres. Once again, the Catholic Church is showing just how out of date and behind the times it is.

After all, we have seen how Muslims respond when a few cartoons are published; just think what they would have done if someone had written a book that said the entire basis for its faith was wrong.

If they REALLY wanted to garner the respect of the world and silence its detractors, here are some of the things they should have done first:

1) Issue a death sentence against Dan Brown, the book's author.

A death sentence would just take care of this world. Why not excommunicate him so he will go to Hell in the next world.

2) Hold massive riots against the book and movie.

3) Issue death threats against Tom Hanks and everyone else involved in the film.

4) Kill several people, such as book store employees who sold the novel, by beheading or some other gruesome manner.

5) Burn down book stores that stock the book.

Once they have created a suitable climate of fear around their wrath, THEN you have the authority to issue demands like those in these lawsuits. But those Catholics are just too dumb or too stubborn to recognize that Islam has proven the one true, sure-fire method for a religion to gain enough respect (or fear) to get its way around the world.

I suppose I should be glad the Catholics are as clueless as they are. After all, Dan Brown is a fellow New Hampshirite, and as a co-citizen of his, I could easily be lynched in his place.

Jimmy Carter is an idiot

Jimmy Carter wrote in International Herald Tribune Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals,

Who is treating them like animals? The Hamas that they foolishly voted for? Call PETA to see what they think.

with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life.

All we have done is stopped paying the Palestinian government. But why should we be paying them anyway. That is the job of the weathly Islamic Governments, and we see that their clerics agree

Overwhelmingly, these are school teachers, nurses, social workers, police officers, farm families, shopkeepers, and their employees and families who are just hoping for a better life. Public opinion polls conducted after the January parliamentary election show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace agreement with Israel based on the international road map premises.

Then they should not have voted for a terrorist organization that is totally uninterested in anything but killing Israelis.

Although Fatah party members refused to join Hamas in a coalition government, nearly 70 percent of Palestinians continue to support Fatah's leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as their president.

Hamas certainly doesn't. They want to kill him

It is almost a miracle that the Palestinians have been able to orchestrate three elections during the past 10 years, all of which have been honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers. Among the 62 elections that have been monitored by us at the Carter Center, these are among the best in portraying the will of the people. One clear reason for the surprising Hamas victory for legislative seats was that the voters were in despair about prospects for peace.

And so they elected a terrorist group that does not want peace, and have turned their backs on a President that does want peace.

With American acquiescence, the Israelis had avoided any substantive peace talks for more than five years, regardless of who had been chosen to represent the Palestinian side as interlocutor.

The day after his party lost the election, Abbas told me that his own struggling government could not sustain itself financially with their daily lives and economy so severely disrupted, and access from Palestine to Israel and the outside world almost totally restricted. They were already $900 million in debt and had no way to meet the payroll for the following month.

That is the real reason they abandoned Fatah. It had stolen most of the money the US and the EU had been sending to the Palestinian Authority.

The additional restraints imposed on the new government are a planned and deliberate catastrophe for the citizens of the occupied territories, in hopes that Hamas will yield to the economic pressure.

With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary cease-fire, or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me that this "can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will reciprocate."

Why just a "temporary cease-fire? Why not enter into peace talks? Could it be because Hamas does not want peace?

Although Hamas leaders have refused to recognize the state of Israel while their territory is being occupied, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for peace talks between Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel.

But even if they come up with something, Hamas will not honor it because they dont support Abbas.

He added that if these negotiations result in an agreement that can be accepted by Palestinians, then the Hamas position regarding Israel would be changed.

The only thing Hamas would accept is destruction of the state of Israel.

Regardless of these intricate and long-term political interrelationships, it is unconscionable for Israel, the United States and others under their influence to continue punishing the innocent and already persecuted people of Palestine. The Israelis are withholding approximately $55 million a month in taxes and customs duties that, without dispute, belong to the Palestinians. Although some Arab nations have allocated funds for humanitarian purposes to alleviate human suffering, the U.S. government is threatening the financial existence of any Jordanian or other bank that dares to transfer this assistance into Palestine.

There is no way to predict what will happen in Palestine, but it would be a tragedy for the international community to abandon the hope that a peaceful coexistence of two states in the Holy Land is possible. Like Egypt and all other Arab nations before the Camp David Accords of 1978, and the Palestine Liberation Organization before the Oslo peace agreement of 1993, Hamas has so far refused to recognize the sovereign state of Israel as legitimate, with a right to live in peace. This is a matter of great concern to all of us, and the international community needs to probe for an acceptable way out of this quagmire. There is no doubt that Israelis and Palestinians both want a durable two-state solution, but depriving the people of Palestine of their basic human rights just to punish their elected leaders is not a path to peace.

I see absolutely no evidence that the Palestinians want that.

Kim Priestap at Wizbang blogged First, the international community hasn't abandoned hope that peace can happen between Israel and the PA. The Palestinians essentially did with its selection of Hamas. Second, why is it the "way out of this quagmire" rests only on the shoulders of the international community and not on the shoulders of the Palestinians?

The Palestinian people chose the terrorists of Hamas as their leaders. Hamas uses assassination and suicide bombings to eliminate their political and religious opponents* instead of compromise and diplomacy to work with them as the rest of the civilized world does. If this is what the Palestinian people want for their government, fine; the US government will respect their choice. It just won't fund it.

Andrea Clarke Has Died

Freedom Watch reported Melanie Childers sent me this email regarding her sister Andrea Clarke who passed yesterday at approximately 3:00 P.M.(CST). I know no further details surrounding Andrea's passing at this time other than what Melanie wrote, which better sumarizes the agony Andrea and her family suffered at the hands of the Texas medical community.

I blogged earlier May 3 and Apr 29 and Apr 28 and Apr 25

We don't know at this time whether St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital is responsible for her death, or whether what they did contributed to it, or whether God just decided it was time to call her Home, but certainly she is in a better place than St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston

Jacksonville man fatally shoots robber

AP Wire reported A father fatally shot a man who tried to rob his family as they waited early Saturday in their sport utility vehicle for a summer camp enrollment to open, authorities said. the alleged robber approached the driver's window, pointed a gun at the father and demanded money, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spokesman Ken Jefferson told The Florida Times-Union. He then ordered the family of five to unlock one of the SUV's doors, Jefferson said. "The father, sensing something was wrong,

How did he "sense somethng was wrong"? Did it have anything to do with having a gun pointed at him?

decided to defend his family ... pulled out a gun and he shot and killed the suspect on the scene," Jefferson said. It was not clear if the father was licensed to carry a gun, Jefferson said.

Was the robber he shot licensed to carry a gun?

The father's 10-year-old son was somehow wounded during the shooting. Brevon Ricks remained hospitalized in critical condition late Saturday, officials said. The names of the other family members and the alleged robber were not released.

Must protect the "alleged" robber's privacy.

The family had been parked at the entrance of McGirts Creek Park, waiting to enroll their children in a summer camp, authorities said. Under a Florida law that took effect in October, people don't have to retreat before responding to an attack, and can use deadly force as long as they're in a place they legally have a right to be. It also gives immunity from criminal or civil charges to a shooter as long as the person shot is not a police officer.

Danny Carlton blogged Will the bullet riddled bodies of criminals prove a deterrent to crime? Liberals think not, but then again I think that's the whole problem—Liberals think not.

That is a very good point. Liberals think not. I believe they are so filled with hatred at not being in control that they are incapable of thought.

Allah Takes Over Church

The Brussels Journal reported The Belgian Bishops have opened their churches to illegal immigrants in order to pressurize the Belgian authorities to allow the immigrants to stay in the country. Most of the immigrant squatters in the churches are Muslims. They display banners in the church showing the name of Allah (picture taken in the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Brussels). The Belgian Bishops are so ignorant that they do not see what is going on: their churches are being turned into mosques before their very eyes.

What will these stupid bishops think when the Muslim squatters kick them out and install their own Muslim clerics and start insisting on Sharia law.

The Muslim squatters hold Islamic prayer services in the church. The altar has been moved and the statue of Our Lady covered by a cloth to hide her from the eyes of the Muslim believers.

Rove Is Using Threat of Loss to Stir G.O.P.

NYT To anyone who doubts the stakes for the White House in this year's midterm Congressional elections, consider that Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the Democrat who would become chairman of the Judiciary Committee if his party recaptured the House, has called for an inquiry into the possible impeachment of President Bush over the war in Iraq. Or listen to Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who would run the Senate Judiciary Committee if the Democrats took the Senate. Mr. Leahy vowed in a recent interview to subpoena top administration officials, if he got the chance, to answer more questions about their secret eavesdropping program and what he considers faulty prewar intelligence. The prospect of the administration spending its last two years being grilled by angry Democrats under the heat of partisan spotlights has added urgency to the efforts by Karl Rove and Mr. Bush's political team to hang on to the Republican majorities in Congress.

Democrats, who don't have any plan except to attack the President, are trying to stir their base with promises of endless investigations. Where is the difference?

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Hamas armed force readies for action

Jerusalem Post Hamas's new security force is expected to start operating in the Gaza Strip next week, sources in the Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry said on Saturday. Meanwhile, Hamas leaders warned over the weekend of a new intifada and said they would "chop off" the head of anyone who works to bring down their cabinet.

Does that include campaigning against or voting against Hamas in the next election?

Israel foils plot to kill Palestinian president

Sunday Times A Hamas plot to assassinate Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has been thwarted after he was tipped off by Israeli intelligence.

Obviously this will tick Hamas off even more, but I wonder whether it will make Abbas more willing to work with Israel.

Hamas’s military wing, the Izza Din Al-Qassem, had planned to kill Abbas at his office in Gaza, intelligence sources said. Abbas, who became president of the Palestinian Authority last year after the death of Yasser Arafat, was formally warned of the danger by the Israelis and cancelled a planned visit to the territory. The murder plan is the clearest sign yet of the tensions inside the Palestinian Authority between Hamas, which swept to power after elections in January, and Abbas’s Fatah movement.

The murder of Atwar Bahjat

Sunday Times reported Even by the stupefying standards of Iraq’s unspeakable violence, the murder of Atwar Bahjat, one of the country’s top television journalists, was an act of exceptional cruelty. Nobody but her killers knew just how much she had suffered until a film showing her death on February 22 at the hands of two musclebound men in military uniforms emerged last week. Her family’s worst fears of what might have happened have been far exceeded by the reality.

Bahjat was abducted after making three live broadcasts from the edge of her native city of Samarra on the day its golden-domed Shi’ite mosque was blown up, allegedly by Sunni terrorists. Roadblocks prevented her from entering the city and her anxiety was obvious to everyone who saw her final report. Night was falling and tensions were high. Two men drove up in a pick-up truck, asking for her. She appealed to a small crowd that had gathered around her crew but nobody was willing to help her. It was reported at the time that she had been shot dead with her cameraman and sound man. We now know that it was not that swift for Bahjat. First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than her father and brother.

It sounds like she was a good Muslim. I wonder if the men who killed her ever read Surat an-Nisa,093 (Quran 4.93) which says "If a man kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell, to abide therein (For ever): And the wrath and the curse of Allah are upon him, and a dreadful penalty is prepared for him."

Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television cameras must have been removed at some point — it is nowhere to be seen in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror. By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded with a white bandage.

It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be inflicted is unclear. Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.

A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side. Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.

Do they think that by saying “Allahu akbar” they will avoid the penalty called for by Quran 4.93?

Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat. Her executioner suddenly stands up, his job only half done. A second man in a dark T-shirt and camouflage trousers places his right khaki boot on her abdomen and pushes down hard eight times, forcing a rush of blood from her wounds as she moves her head from right to left. Only now does the executioner return to finish the task. He hacks off her head and drops it to the ground, then picks it up again and perches it on her bare chest so that it faces the film-maker in a grotesque parody of one of her pieces to camera. The voice of one of the Arab world’s most highly regarded and outspoken journalists has been silenced. She was 30.

Robert Spencer blogged Anyone who thinks that God's greatness is established by such acts of barbaric cruelty must be resisted at all costs. Yet those who hold to the same ideology, and who think that God Himself will grant Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Him (Qur'an 9:111), are streaming into Western countries, by the design and forethought of Western leaders, with no attempt whatsoever made to determine whether or not they approve of such slaughters and the ideology that motivates them. This is insane.

Greyhawk blogged Regardless of which side in the conflict killed her (and I have my own thoughts on that - in the eyes of her killers her greatest crime was most likely being a woman outside of a kitchen) the London Times reporter can't resist a mild apology for their act:
Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.
In truth, it represents a depth of depravity achieved over centuries. From the description, her killers hadn't just conceived or improvised their method execution on the spot - they seem to have been well practiced. But such is the nature of the enemy in this war, and perhaps this is their most sacred and well honed knowledge: if a brutality can be inflicted that exceeds all human ability to comprehend, the humans will find a way to deny it. Or excuse it. Or simply look the other way.

Michelle Malkin blogged Insanely evil.

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