Prince Charles (center), His wife (left) and Prince Bandar (right) at the Riyadh airport.
Absolutely stunning color coordination, don’t you think?
For the gender-challenged, Camilla is wearing the pants.
Shamelessly stolen from Instapundit.
NASA has restarted the Dawn mission to visit two of the solar system’s largest asteroids, Ceres and Vesta. The program was canceled only a short time ago due to budget overruns and technical problems. The Dawn probe will use a xenon ion propulsion system.
Obviously, I am a bit of a fan of space exploration. Can you tell?
As I have said before, I try to post about any moderate Muslim voices I can find out there. Glenn Reynolds links to this. There are some signs of hope, and I really agree with this:
"The jihadis enjoy a level of tolerance in all Muslim societies greater than they should because they couch their extremism in religious justifications. The West can have little impact on this because at best we are outsiders commenting on an internal struggle. But unless we support those who share our view that freedom of religion is a two-way street, how can we expect things to improve?"
H/T Instapundit
And sends out a bill Teddy "Enlarged Liver" Kennedy is ecstatic about. Which is an absolutely infallible indicator that it is both bad for America and bad for Americans. Michelle Malkin has the details.
Seroiusly, start writing letters, folks. I’ll be sending letters to my one sane Senator and to the other spineless tool guy as well.
UPDATE (already!): News report on the bill here. Classic line:
With his job approval rating at a low ebb, Bush is facing a new test of his political strength during a mid-term election year, weeks after Republicans deserted him on a controversial deal to allow an Arab company to manage six U.S. ports.
Rasmussen has Bush at 45% today. He’s actually increased. What does that tell you about the MSM accuracy? God, I hate the misinformation the press spews.
The ports deal wasn’t a big security threat (like the MSM wanted you to believe) but it was not a good political move. I don’t think caving on the immigration bill is, either. Something like 60% of Americans want this problem fixed.
NOOKY! A California lawyer who is in the middle of divorce proceedings is suing the web-based dating service eHarmony.com. The plaintiff says that the service’s policy of only allowing single people violates his rights.
I wasn’t aware dating while married was written into the constitution. But hey, he’s a lawyer, right?
Gee, I wonder why he’s getting divorced. Some people can’t understand why lawyers are held in such (low) esteem by the average American……
(On a side note, my spell-checker had absolutely no problem with the word nooky, but it about fainted at ‘gauge’. Weird)
Two Florida lawyers have lost their appeal to the US Supreme Court. They were appealing a Florida Supreme Court decision that the pair be disciplined for featuring pit bulls in their advertising. The ads showed a spike collared pit bull with the firms logo and the phone number 1-800-PIT-BULL.
The decision to discipline them came because the ads were deemed to be demeaning to all lawyers.
After all, we can’t stand for truth in advertising when we’re talking about lawyers, can we?
(Sorry, Sis. I HAD to.)
From Glenn Reynolds.
"The debate stinks: Most opponents of illegal immigration aren’t racists. Most supporters aren’t enemies of American civilization. The immigration problem is hard because it pits two things we care about — freedom of opportunity and control of our borders — against one another. It’s also made harder because people fear that immigrants — without the pressures of earlier eras — won’t try very hard to assimilate. Those fears may be overblown, but they’re real, and the cries of racism, plus the occasional bit of Aztlan-irredentism from the fringes (calling for the reconquest of California, Arizona, etc., by Mexico), make them stronger".
Every, single person in the US comes from immigrant stock, including the native Americans. I have no problem at all with legal immigration. I have a major problem with illegal immigrants coming to the US and demanding the same rights as citizens and legal immigrants. I frankly think the organizers of these mass protests have done more harm to the cause of the illegals than any good.
John Fund at Opinion Journal has been absolutely relentless on the story about the former Taliban minister attending Yale. Today he’s covering the story of a young woman, a legal immigrant from Afghanistan, who is ever so much more deserving of a Yale education.
"Intrigued, I later called her up to get her full story. She left a refugee camp in Pakistan with her mother, Maroofa, and her four younger siblings in 2002. Like Mr. Hashemi she has only a high school equivalency degree, because schooling in the refugee camp was limited. Her mother can’t work and knows only basic English, so she and her sister Rona are the only means of support for the family beyond food stamps and $600 a month in housing assistance from the state.
I asked her what her life was like. "It’s hard, but certainly better than Pakistan," she told me. "I am very grateful, but I must work 50 hours a week and also go to class. Sometimes, I am so tired I can’t attend." She earns $8 an hour as a clerk in a local retail store.
I asked what she thought about Mr. Hashemi attending Yale with the help of a Wyoming foundation and a discount from Yale of 35% to 40% on tuition. "It’s like a nightmare that you can’t believe when you wake up," she told me. "This is a good country, but I think some people in New Haven are so complacent they don’t know what officials like Hashemi did to my people."
Fund reports that Yale’s president, Richard Levin has taken full control of the decision as to whether to admit Hashemi as a regular student. Apparently, pressure from students and alumni have begun to be felt.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Fund. Keep up the pressure.
ANOTHER person went on a shooting rampage on the Left Coast yesterday. California this time.
The suspect shot his first victim in the head as he sat in his car with his wife and children. The suspect tried to flee in his own car but crashed. He then strolled down the street shooting people. Two (female) deputies confronted the man. One of the deputies placed herself between the shooter and an already wounded victim to prevent the victim from being shot again. The deputies shot the suspect when he refused to drop the weapon.
Whatever they are paying that deputy, the sheriff should double it. That is pure, selfless courage.
Crime, Insanity | Gaius | 
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Mike said if he saw one more of these he was going to scream.
Commence Screaming!
Humor, Legal, Politics | Gaius | Comments (3)
Abdul Rahman has requested asylum in another country, the UN reports. This is still preliminary and Rahman has yet to be released from the notorious Afghan prison he was sent to.
The House of Representatives passed a little bill that has gotten almost no publicity.
In other words, it is taking away the abilty of States to impose stricter limits than the FDA. The food industry lobby argues that a single standard helps keep costs down.
Uh huh. I think that means "keeps profits up". While not a huge fan of government regulation in general, I also don’t like Congress deciding what’s right for all 50 states on something like this. I agree that the FDA is simply too slow to respond. I think placing extra requirements, in addition to the federal rules, should remain within the state’s purview. Time to write a letter to your US Senator, folks. The FDA rules should be a floor, not a ceiling.
The Federal Elections Commission has voted 6 to 0 not to impose regulation on most political activity on the internet. Certain paid advertising on another person’s website (not your own) will be regulated.
I’m rather glad the FEC decided to actually follow the constitution. Aren’t you?
He also admitted he had lied to keep the plot secret so it could go forward.
His lawyers were not pleased.
"As always, we come back to the words of Osama bin Laden: ”When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” That’s really the only issue: the Islamists know our side has tanks and planes, but they have will and faith, and they reckon in a long struggle that’s the better bet. Most prominent Western leaders sound way too eager to climb into the weak-horse suit and audition to play the rear end".
****
"Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet. What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection?
In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
”You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
India today is better off without suttee. If we shrink from the logic of that, then in Afghanistan and many places far closer to home the implications are, as the Prince of Wales would say, "ghastly."
I read something today (no link, I’d as soon not send him traffic) in which the author said that Western Civilization was no different the Islam in that we used to also kill apostates.
Western civilization also used to own slaves, fight to gain empires and mandate a single religion. Back in my family tree, some of my forebears used to raid and burn villages just to have something to do. Then the settled down.
He sort of misses his own irony - we used to. We grew up.
Are we perfect? Hell no. But we are getting better. I would prefer not to go back to the seventh century.
Observations, Politics, Religion | Gaius | Comments Off
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