Wednesday, June 15

This Day In History

• 1215   King John put his seal to Magna Carta at Runnymede, England, granting his barons more liberty.
• 1775   The Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington head of the Continental Army.
• 1836   Arkansas became the 25th state.
• 1844   Charles Goodyear received a patent for a process to strengthen rubber.
• 1846   The United States and Britain signed a treaty settling a boundary dispute between Canada and the United States in the Pacific Northwest.
• 1849   James Polk, the 11th president of the United States, died in Nashville, Tenn., at age 53.
• 1864   Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton signed an order establishing a military burial ground, which became Arlington National Cemetery.
• 1978   King Hussein of Jordan married 26-year-old American Lisa Halaby, who became Queen Noor.
• 1992   Vice President Dan Quayle erroneously instructed a Trenton, N.J., elementary school student to spell potato as ''potatoe'' during a spelling bee.
• 1993   Former Texas Gov. John Connally died at age 76.
• 1994   Israel and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations.
• 1995   During his murder trial, O.J. Simpson struggled to don a pair of gloves that prosecutors said were worn by the killer of Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
• 1996   Singer Ella Fitzgerald died at age 79.
• 2003   A jury in Houston convicted accounting firm Arthur Andersen of obstruction of justice.

Happy Birthday To

• 1767   Rachel Jackson (Donelson Robards) (U.S. First Lady, wife of 7th President Andrew Jackson; died Dec 22, 1828)
• 1922   Morris (King) Udall (politician: U.S. Congressman from Arizona; died Dec 12, 1998)
• 1932   Mario Cuomo (politician: governor: state of New York)
• 1954   Jim Belushi (actor: Saturday Night Live)
• 1963   Helen (Elizabeth) Hunt (Academy Award-winning actress)
• 1964   Courteney Cox (actress: Friends)

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In-flight Wi-Fi

USATODAY reports U.S. airlines continue to flirt with high-speed Internet access on flights, but financial and technical obstacles may block it from becoming a routine travel feature. Last week, United Airlines, partnering with Verizon Airfone, said it plans to offer in-flight Wi-Fi starting in mid- to late 2006. United would be the first — perhaps the only — domestic carrier to offer passengers the ability to buy in-flight Internet access. A growing number of foreign carriers, using a satellite-based system pioneered by Boeing, are offering Wi-Fi. United, in bankruptcy-court protection since December 2002, is pursuing a newer, different method, called "air-to-ground" technology. Using ground towers, the technology would be less expensive to install and provides less-spotty coverage, particularly on short-haul flights, than the satellite system, says Brownlee Thomas, an analyst at Forrester Research.... In-flight Wi-Fi, particularly on long-haul flights, could be a sizable business for airlines. About 38% of business travelers surveyed by Forrester said they'd use the service even at a $25 flat fee per flight. Connexion customers now pay a flat fee of $29.95 per flight or $9.95 per half-hour. Bill Pallone, president of Verizon Airfone, anticipates that up to 20% of all travelers will want in-flight wireless access. Whether it can contribute to an airline's bottom line is uncertain. Airlines are cutting back on many in-flight goodies, and Wi-Fi is an expensive perk requiring "millions in outlay," said Forrester's Henry Harteveldt. Germany's Lufthansa, which last year became the first airline to offer in-flight Internet, said the service still isn't profitable. The rest of the U.S. airline industry is decidedly more tentative than United. Before Sept. 11, 2001, United, Delta and American had planned on investing in Connexion, but they backed out when travel slumped after the terrorist attacks. Now, Delta is "looking at (Wi-Fi), but there's nothing active going on," said Benet Wilson, a spokeswoman. Northwest Airlines and Southwest Airlines say they have no plans for it.

Because of my health problems I doubt if I will ever fly again, but if I could, InFlight WiFi sounds interesting to me. For earlier discussion of InFlight WiFe see this.

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New Planet

Yahoo! News reported A planet that may be Earth-like — but too hot for life as we know it — has been discovered orbiting a nearby star. The discovery of the planet, with an estimated radius about twice that of Earth, was announced Monday at the National Science Foundation. "This is the smallest extrasolar planet yet detected and the first of a new class of rocky terrestrial planets," Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution in Washington said in a statement. "It's like Earth's bigger cousin." Though the researchers have no direct proof that the new planet is rocky, its mass means it is not a giant gas planet like Jupiter, they said. They estimated the planet's mass as 5.9 to 7.5 times that of Earth. It is orbiting a star called Gliese 876, 15 light years from Earth, with an orbit time of just 1.94 Earth days. They estimated the surface temperature on the new planet at between 400 degrees and 750 degrees Fahrenheit. Gliese 876 is a small, red star with about one-third the mass of the sun. The researchers said this is the smallest star around which planets have been discovered. In addition to the newly found planet the star has two large gas planets around it. Butler said the researchers think that the most probable composition of the planet is similar to inner planets of this solar system — a nickel/iron rock.

For comparison, the temperature on the part of Mercury facing the sun is 800 degrees Farenheit. Venus is hotter (875 degrees Farenheit) because the cloud cover traps the heat of the sun (the greenhouse effect).

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Military Blogging Rules

mediabistro blogged A new memo by Lt. Gen. John Vines, the commander of day-to-day operations in Iraq, lays out new rules for websites and soldier-written blogs. While the current policy only applies to soldiers in Iraq, if they are proven effective at balancing military concerns over privacy and classified information with soldiers' desire for First Amendment protections, they may be adopted across the military. Dated April 6, the four-page memo addresses several controversies that have arisen about soldiers blogging about their time in Iraq, and decrees that soldiers may keep and publish personal online journals as long as they don't publish "prohibited information," including classified information, notes on casualties before next-of-kin have been notified, and other information not generally released under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Those seem to be reasonable restrictions

Under a threat of court martial, soldiers must register with their unit commander any blog or unofficial website, including the hosting company, IP address, and the webmaster's name. "Risks of the release of information must be weighed against the benefits of publishing to the Internet," the memo explains. An Army Web Risk Assessment Cell (or, in military jargon, AWRAC) will be tasked with checking to ensure that prohibited information does not end up on the web, and unit commanders will have to check websites and blogs under their command quarterly for compliance. Military blogging has grown in popularity since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and estimates say that several hundred soldiers now have blogs--including one who landed a book deal thanks to his writings--and the Webbys recently established a new award category for "Best Military Weblog." You can download the PDF memo here.

Hat tip to Steve Rubel

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Anti-Lynching Legislation

Black female blogger La Shawn Barber blogged A liberal commenter wanted to know what I thought about yesterday’s Senate debate on the failure to pass anti-lynching laws 100 ago. In light of the serious problems we face in the world and our own country, I think this apology is one of the dumbest, emptiest, most politically correct pile of rubbish I’ve heard about in a long time. We’ve got fanatics trying to kill us all in the name of their god and hiding among us. We’re being taxed to death taking care of deadbeats and criminals, while President Bush is sending even more of our money to brutal dictators in Africa. And the Senate apologizes for failing to pass anti-lynching laws 100 years ago?

Well said, LaShawn. What happened in the past was certainly wrong, but the Senate has a lot of important current items to focus it's attention on.

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Happy Birthday Michelle

Michelle Malkin blogged This blog turned one last week!

Happy Birthday Michelle. I urge you to check out her post for some very interesting statistics.

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The Madrassa Myth

Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey editorialized in NYT It is one of the widespread assumptions of the war on terrorism that the Muslim religious schools known as madrassas, catering to families that are often poor, are graduating students who become terrorists. Last year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell denounced madrassas in Pakistan and several other countries as breeding grounds for "fundamentalists and terrorists." A year earlier, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld had queried in a leaked memorandum, "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?"

I would believe those two before I would believe two people I never heard of before from New America Foundation (which I also never heard of before).

While madrassas may breed fundamentalists who have learned to recite the Koran in Arabic by rote,

Do they teach the entire Koran, or just selected portions, and what version of the Koran?

such schools do not teach the technical or linguistic skills necessary to be an effective terrorist.

No there are other training camps for that, once they have been brainwashed to believe that their path to Paradise is through killing Americans.

Indeed, there is little or no evidence that madrassas produce terrorists capable of attacking the West. And as a matter of national security, the United States doesn't need to worry about Muslim fundamentalists with whom we may disagree

A Christian Fundamentalist may yell at someone that does not believe as he does, and a Jewish Fundamentalist may ignore someone that does not believe as he does, but Muslim fundamentalist wants to kill everyone that does not believe as he does.

, but about terrorists who want to attack us.

K. J. Lopez blogged It's just hate, don't worry. I'm sure lessons in glad anti-American fundamentalist hate would never sow the seeds for terrorism

Orrin Judd blogged Then how do we blame the Sa'uds?

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Tuesday, June 14

This Day In History

• 1775   The United States Army was founded.
• 1777   The Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Stars and Stripes as the national flag.
• 1841   The first Canadian parliament opened in Kingston.
• 1846   A group of U.S. settlers in Sonoma proclaimed the Republic of California.
• 1881   The player piano was patented by John McTammany, Jr. of Cambridge, MA. It was patent number 242,786.
• 1919   Lindbergh did it all by himself; but the true, first, nonstop transatlantic flight took place on this day. Actually, it took two days for Captain John Alcock and Lt. Arthur Brown to fly their Vickers Vimy bomber to Ireland from St. Johns, Newfoundland. The 1,900-mile flight ended in a crash landing in a peat bog in Clifden, County Galway, Ireland.
• 1922   Warren G. Harding became the first president heard on radio, as Baltimore station WEAR broadcast his speech dedicating the Francis Scott Key memorial at Fort McHenry.
• 1940   German troops entered Paris during World War II.
• 1940   The Nazis opened a concentration camp at Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland.
• 1943   The Supreme Court ruled schoolchildren could not be compelled to salute the flag of the United States if doing so would conflict with their religious beliefs.
• 1954   President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an order adding the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.
• 1985   A 17-day hijack ordeal began when a pair of Lebanese Shiite Muslim extremists seized TWA Flight 847 shortly after takeoff from Athens, Greece.
• 1989   Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills police officer.
• 2002   American Roman Catholic bishops meeting in Dallas adopted a policy to bar sexually abusive clergy from face-to-face contact with parishioners but keep them in the priesthood.

Happy Birthday To

• 1811   Harriet Beecher Stowe (author: Uncle Tom’s Cabin; died July 1, 1896)
• 1864   Dr. Alois Alzheimer (psychiatrist, pathologist: first to describe the disease named after him: Alzheimer’s Disease; died [of a severe cold complicated by endocarditis] Dec 19, 1915)
• 1906   Margaret Bourke-White (photojournalist: LIFE magazine; 1st woman photojournalist attached to US Armed Forces in WWII: covered Italy, siege of Moscow, U.S. Forces crossing into Germany, concentration camps; division of India, Mahatma Gandhi; Korean War correspondent; book [w/husband Erskine Caldwell]: You Have Seen Their Faces; died Aug 27, 1971)
• 1921   Gene Barry (Eugene Klass) (actor: Bat Masterson)
• 1925   Pierre Salinger (White House press secretary to President John F. Kennedy, journalist, author: P.S. a Memoir, John F. Kennedy, Commander in Chief : A Profile in Leadership)
• 1946   Donald Trump (tycoon; real estate mogul)
• 1969   Steffi (Stephanie) Graf (tennis champ: Australian Open [1988, 1989, 1990, 1994], French Open [1987, 1988, 1993], Wimbledon [1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993], U.S. Open [1988, 1989, 1993])

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I can't believe it

I can't believe it, but Michael Jackson was found not guilty on all counts. I guess it pays to be a celibrity. If you are O.J. Simpson you can kill your wife and another man and get off. If you are Robert Blake you can kill your wife when you can't find someone to do it for you, and you will get off. If you are Michael Jackson, you can molest children and not get convicted.

But if you are not a celibrity and you kill your wife and unborn child, you go to death row.

For cartoons click here

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Why are environmentalists like a watermelon?

Professor Stephen Bainbridge blogged The National Park Service plans to reduce the size of a cell phone tower near Old Faithful, as well as camoflauging it. But that hasn't stopped the whining from the institutionalized environemtal left:

... an activist group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, based in Washington, D.C., wants the Old Faithful tower removed.
"The towers are being put up for commercial reasons, not for public safety," said Jeff Ruch, the group's executive director. (Link)

Does that give you a hint as to the answer to my titular question?

No? It's because they're green on the outside but red on the inside.

Nothing could better illustrate the fundamentally anti-growth, anti-capitalist mind-set of the environmental left than that rather blunt quote from Mr. Ruch.

I agree completely. The environment is important, but so is growth and capitalism, and there needs to be a balance.

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Military action won't end insurgency

Knight Ridder reports A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,300 U.S. troops during the past two years. Instead, officers say, the only way to end the guerilla war is through Iraqi politics - an arena that so far has been crippled by divisions between Shiite Muslims, whose coalition dominated the January elections, and Sunni Muslims, who are a minority in Iraq but form the base of support for the insurgency.

Gee, maybe that is why the bombings have ceased, why we were so happy when they held their election in January, and why we are working on training Iraqis and encouraging them to involve the Sunnis in the writing of a constitution.

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New filibuster strategy

WT reports Senate Democrats are in the early stages of several filibusters against executive nominees that they hope will be more effective than those they have abandoned in recent weeks against President Bush's judicial appointments. The new filibusters are not based publicly on ideologies

Notice it said publicly. They will still be based on ideologies, they just think they have come up with a lie their buddies in the MSM can say is the reason they are doing it

-- as with several of the nominees to the federal bench -- but on demands for additional information from the administration. Already stalled under that strategy is John R. Bolton, Mr. Bush's pick to be ambassador to the United Nations.

Who should be recess appointed the next time the Senate adjourns.

Also, Democrats led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts stopped a federal appeals court nominee last week by demanding that more of his unpublished legal opinions be provided to them.

How can they produce an unpublished opinion. Isn't the Romulan Thoght Extractor against the Geneva Convention?

Hugh Hewitt blogged It seems like the "deal" cut by the McCain Caucus was a slapped together convenience destined to fall apart sooner rather than later. It doesn't say much for Senator McCain's competency as a negotiator, or Senators Graham's, DeWine's and Warner's etc poker skills that they managed to leave Bolton on the table and Kavanaugh, Haynes, and Boyle hanging.

Jayson @PoliPundit blogged They used to hold in excess of 270 U.S. House seats and in excess of 65 U.S. Senate seats. They were the “Party of the People.” And they ran this country (nearly into the ground at one stage) like the Tsars of Mother Russia. Now? They’ve been reduced to this: Sniffing around for political crumbs. And that’s despite the fact the GOP’s fickle voter base literally has been giving away elections to them for decades! Un-freakin’-believe-able. Boss Tweed, “Landslide” Lyndon, Tip O’Neill, Edwin Edwards, Vincent Cianci, and Robert ("the Torch") Torricelli are all rolling over in their graves, even if they’re not yet dead! It sure ain’t your father’s Democrat Party anymore.

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Content Thief

Duncan Riley at The Blog Herald and raving lunacy both blogged about a scam artist offerring to sell for $297 a system that would steal another blogger's content from their RSS feed and post it in your blog. This is a direct quote from one of the screens in this product "Gather Content Takes articles from RSS and ATOM feeds to use for content on your blog." The product even says "And, if you prefer, you can even add your own content." Gee, isn't that nice. A blogging program that lets you insert your own content, if you prefer. And "Each time an article is posted, ***** pings the 14 major Blog and RSS directories to “wave” at the Search Engines, which sends their Spiders running to your site. Total time at this stage, less than 2 minutes." Gee. it tells all of these other sources you posted something, even if you were asleep.

Note I have blanked out the name of their product, and am not linking to it. I don't want this post to add anything that would increase the visibility of this product.

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Immigration Law as Anti-Terrorism Tool

WaPo reports Soul Khalil woke with a start. Her split-level home in Burke was shuddering, and the oppressive hum of a helicopter filled the room. Then she heard the pounding on the front door. "Police!" the voices yelled. She shook her husband. "Hassan! You hear that banging?" she later recalled saying. Her husband, in his shorts, stumbled into the hallway. At the end of it was a masked agent, his gun drawn. "Get down!" he yelled, according to the husband's recollection. The Lebanese immigrant dropped onto his stomach, and the officers cuffed his hands behind his back. The charge: lying on his immigration documents.... Khalil's arrest is part of a broad anti-terrorism effort being waged with a seemingly innocuous weapon: immigration law.

Al Capone was eventually convicted of tax evasion. The important thing is that they finally were able to convict him. And if immagration law violations are easier to prove, and don't require making public information that would compromise National Security, I say go ahead. At least get them out of the country. Now while you are at it, how about defending our borders?

In the past two years, officials have filed immigration charges against more than 500 people who have come under scrutiny in national security investigations, according to previously undisclosed government figures. Some are ultimately found to have no terrorism ties, officials acknowledge. Whereas terrorism charges can be difficult to prosecute, Homeland Security officials say immigration laws can provide a quick, easy way to detain people who could be planning attacks. Authorities have also used routine charges such as overstaying a visa to deport suspected supporters of terrorist groups.

Mark Krikorian blogged The Post today explores how immigration violations are being used as an anti-terrorism tool. Obviously, the usual suspects hate the idea, but for investigators it's a no-brainer -- proving that you moved money for Osama can be hard, but proving that you held a job in violation of your student visa, or that you lied about being a U.S. citizen, or some other immigration-related infraction, is a lot easier.

Cori Dauber blogged The claim that the Muslim and Arab community are being treated differently when it comes to immigration violations is probably not technically true -- it isn't the entire community in a blanket sense that's at risk here -- but it's clearly true that it's members of that community who are subject to this, when, say, all those illegal Irish immigrants needn't worry.

On the other hand, I don't know how persuasive an argument that is at the end of the day. Everyone agrees there are millions of illegals living inside the United States. Unless you just believe in de facto amnesty, just shrugging and giving up, then the immigration laws need to be enforced. Well, there clearly aren't enough resources to start investigating all those cases simultaneously. You need some criteria to guide the order in which you go. What do you suggest? Chronology? alphabetical by name? alphabetical by ethnic or religious group or country of origin? or something that holds out the merit of having a bit more potential for practical value?

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Knighted Muslim vows to speak out

BBC NEWS reported The Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain says he will not dilute criticism of the establishment because he has received a knighthood. Sir Iqbal Sacranie told Sky's Sunday with Adam Boulton the honour would not make it more difficult for him to speak out over issues such as the Iraq war.

Does he intend to speak out about the Muslims killing other muslims as is happening in Iraq? Does he intend to speak out about Muslim's hatred of Christians and Jews, when the Koran says "We believe in Allah, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) prophets from their Lord: We make no difference between one and another of them"

He said the knighthood, awarded in the Queen's Birthday Honours, recognised "the work of the community at large". Sir Iqbal also welcomed plans to make inciting religious hatred an offence.

Does that include efforts like the ACLU, or whatever it's counterpart in Britain is, against Christians and symbols of their faith, or just Muslims?

He said: "As a Muslim we work in community work, charitable work, for the sole purpose of seeking pleasure from your creator.

Arthur Chrenkoff blogged What would Saladin think? We have certainly gone a long way since the Crusades. Still, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this phenomenon is too widespread. Many Europeans have attained high recognition throughout the Muslim world in the past, but only after conversion to Islam, and I don't imagine many Muslims have been ennobled or awarded high honors throughout the West. All I can say is, thank God that knighthood no longer entails feudal obligations.

Marc @USSNeverdock blogged The appeasement of Muslims in Britain continues. The election of George Galloway over the Labor candidate by Muslims must have shocked the British establishment. So, what do they do? They give a knighthood to the "Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain", Iqbal Sacranie. You may remember Sacranie's more infamous quote: "There is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist. This is deeply offensive." And Sacranie "...welcomed plans to make inciting religious hatred an offence." But of course he does, because Sacranie says "Saying Muslims are terrorists would be covered by this provision'." There you have it. According to Sacranie if you call bin Laden a terrorists you could be locked up under the proposed legislation. Britain has already begun adopting Islamic law. Now they want more Islamic laws and have a Knight of the Realm to champion their cause. Better get out your Korans folks, it's going to be a long struggle. And just in case we lose the struggle you might want to read Robert Spencer's "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats non-Muslims." That would be the infidels - you and me. Until it's banned under Britain's proposed Islamic law, you can buy the book here.

Daniel Pipes has more with links and note this:

Sacranie has been one of the most important advocates of radical Islam in the United Kingdom – so what could be more appropriate than to reward him with a hoary English title?

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Minors at Guantanamo

NYT reported Lawyers representing detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, say that there still may be as many as six prisoners who were captured before their 18th birthday

So what? We have juveniles committing murder in the US, and they are treated as adults. The Supreme Court now says they can't be subjected to the death penalty, but no one has been executed at Guantanamo.

and that the military has sought to conceal the precise number of juveniles at the prison camp. One lawyer said that his client, a Saudi of Chadian descent, was not yet 15 when he was captured and has told him that he was beaten regularly in his early days at Guantánamo, hanged by his wrists for hours at a time and that an interrogator pressed a burning cigarette into his arm.

As we have seen in the Al Qaeda Training Manual, they are trained to make false claims about how they are treated

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UN Reform

NYT reported A Congressionally mandated panel will report this week that the United Nations suffers from poor management, "dismal" staff morale and lack of accountability and professional ethics but will acknowledge the broad changes proposed for the organization by Secretary General Kofi Annan and urge the United States to support them.

We certainly should support changes at the UN, and Kofi is one of the first things that needs to be changed.

Among its recommendations, the panel says the United Nations should put in place corporate style oversight bodies and personnel standards to improve performance. It also calls on the United Nations to create a rapid reaction capability from its member states' armed forces to prevent genocide, mass killing and sustained major human rights violations before they occur.

And any rapid reaction capability should not include rape of the people being protected, or even use of food or other needed supplies to buy sexual gratification of the UN personnel dispatched

Newt Gingrich, a Republican former speaker of the House of Representatives, and George J. Mitchell, a Democratic former majority Senate leader, are co-chairmen of the bipartisan task force. It includes former diplomats, military and intelligence officials and leaders of conservative and liberal political institutes. It was created by Congress in December to suggest measures to make the United Nations more effective and ways in which the United States can spur needed changes. The United States is the biggest donor to the United Nations, contributing 22 percent of the regular operating budget and nearly 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget.

One of the most important reforms needed is getting Bolton confirmed and in place to see what else we need, and as discussed earlier, both Congress and the Executive Branch need the ability to withhold US payment of dues until such reforms are in place.

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Monday, June 13

This Day In History

• 1789   Mrs. Alexander Hamilton served a new dessert treat for General George Washington. The highlight of the dinner party was ice cream!
• 1886   King Ludwig II of Bavaria drowned in Lake Starnberg.
• 1900   China's Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Chinese Christians erupted.
• 1921   Babe Ruth connected for a 460-foot home run deep into the center-field bleachers at the Polo Grounds in New York City. It was the longest homer in the career of ‘The Sultan of Swat’.
• 1927   Aviator Charles Lindbergh was honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York City.
• 1967   President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
• 1971   The New York Times began publishing the ''Pentagon Papers,'' a secret study of America's involvement in Vietnam.
• 1981   A teen-ager fired six blank shots at Queen Elizabeth II during a parade in London.
• 1983   The U.S. space probe Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system as it crossed the orbit of Neptune.
• 1986   Benny Goodman, the clarinet-playing ''King of Swing,'' died at age 77.
• 1994   A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blamed recklessness by Exxon Corp. and Capt. Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the nation's worst oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.
• 1996   An 81-day standoff ended as 16 members of the anti-government Freemen group surrendered to the FBI and left their Montana ranch.
• 1997   A jury voted unanimously to give Timothy McVeigh the death penalty for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
• 2000   The presidents of South Korea and North Korea opened a summit in the northern capital of Pyongyang with pledges to seek reunification of the divided peninsula.
• 2000   Italy pardoned Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Happy Birthday To

• 1865   William Butler Yeats (Nobel Prize-winning poet & dramatist [1923])
• 1892   (Philip St. John) Basil Rathbone (actor: The Mark of Zorro, Captain Blood, The Last Hurrah, The Hound of the Baskervilles, House of Fear, David Copperfield, Last Days of Pompeii, Many Faces of Sherlock Holmes, A Christmas Carol, The Comedy of Terrors; passed away July 21, 1967)
• 1926   Paul Lynde (comedian, actor)
• 1951   Richard Thomas (Emmy Award-winning actor: The Waltons [1973])
• 1953   Tim Allen (Timothy Allen Dick) (comedian, actor: Home Improvement)

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States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest

CNN reported The smartest state in the union for the second consecutive year is Massachusetts.

There is obviously something wrong with the test.

The dumbest, for the third year in a row, is New Mexico. These are the findings of the Education State Rankings, a survey by Morgan Quitno Press of hundreds of public school systems in all 50 states. States were graded on a variety of factors based on how they compare to the national average. These included such positive attributes as per-pupil expenditures, public high school graduation rates, average class size, student reading and math proficiency, and pupil-teacher ratios. States received negative points for high drop-out rates and physical violence.

Oklahoma came in 40th place.

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A snap shot from operation lightning.

Free Iraqi blogged Operation lightning seems to be going better than what I expected in terms of reducing violence in Baghdad. I think everyone who's following the news must've seen that the attacks in Baghdad these days are getting less than before, and here on the ground we can see the same thing. Not just terrorist attacks that has been reduced but even regular crimes, as it seems that part of the operation is focusing on capturing regular criminals who are in addition to their usual criminal activities do form, in my mind, the right hand for the Ba'athists.

Glad to see things are getting better. Read Ali's long post for further details on Operation Lightning

One of my greatest worries about operation lightning just as the whole war on terror is that it would give those in charge a more than needed and accepted power. In a place like Iraq where all our miseries came from unlimited power, that is certainly a huge concern. Still I know and feel that most Iraqis won't accept something like this to happen. It's not easy at all to explain where this feeling come from but it's there and I have full faith that most Iraqis will clench their teeth on every bit of freedom they gained through America's help and that we will and are ready to sacrifice to gain more; the type of freedom that even America cannot grant us.

Glad to see that Ali is ok and back to blogging.

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