Heroes

PFC Kristian Menchaca returned home to Brownsville, Texas today. The people of Brownsville showed him the respect due a hero.

June 27, 2006 — The body of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, arrived at the Brownsville airport Monday in a solemn ceremony broken only by the sobs of his young widow.

Eighteen-year-old Christina Menchaca of Big Spring, Texas received her husband’s body shortly after noon, surrounded by family, her little boy, and Rev. Carlos Villarreal.

They watched as 11 members of the 101st Screaming Eagles Military Funeral Detachment team provided full honors as they carried the varnished brown coffin from a chartered Falcon jet to a waiting hearse.

The coffin was draped with an American flag.

“He was a young man who had dreams and hopes and they just vanished,” U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz said after watching the arrival of Menchaca’s body with local officials who showed their respect at the Brownsville-South Padre Island International Airport.

“He deserves a hero’s burial,” Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, said.

Menchaca, a native of Brownsville and Houston, Army Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25 of Madras, Ore., and Army Spc. David J. Babineau, 25 of Springfield, Mass. came under fire June 16 at a traffic control point south of Yusufiyah, Iraq.

It is only right that people honor men and women such as these who protect the freedoms we have. They have served; they have paid the price for the rights and privileges we all enjoy. The people of Brownsville are doing it right. Their support will mean so very much to the family.

May the family find strength and may they find peace.

Thank you, PFC Kristian Menchaca, PFC Thomas Tucker and SPC David Babineau.

Dusk

101st Blog Of The Day

Today, my journey to visit one member of the fighting 101st each day led me over to ChicagoRay. Ray is, by his own admission, a New Jersey transplant (Oh yeah? What exit?) who now lives in Chicago. He's got an interesting post up about rebuilding the twin towers - as twin towers. I like it!

(Sorry for the gratuitous Jersey joke. I had to.It's a compulsion.)

Senate Fails To Pass Flag Burning Amendment

It was close - it failed by one vote.

The 66-34 tally in favor of the amendment was one less than the two-thirds required. The House surpassed that threshold last year, 286-130.

The proposed amendment, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, read: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

It represented Congress' response to Supreme Court rulings in 1989 and 1990 that burning and other desecrations of the flag are protected as free speech by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Senate supporters said the flag amounts to a national monument in cloth that represents freedom and the sacrifice of American troops.

"Countless men and women have died defending that flag," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., closing two days of debate. "It is but a small humble act for us to defend it."

Opponents said the amendment would violate the First Amendment right to free speech. And some Democrats complained that majority Republicans were exploiting people's patriotism for political advantage in the midterm elections.

As disgusted and enraged as I am when I hear about someone doing this, I also have said all along that we really do not need to ban it. Those that do such things defeat their own cause - because the rage and disgust is felt by most people watching the action. Need proof?

Rick Monday saved a flag from being burned. A lot of people remember that.

Anyone remember the names of the two losers who tried to burn the flag?

See what I mean?

Earlier post here.

Israel Invades Gaza

UPDATE: Yahoo News has dropped the flash alert and replaced it with this story. Israeli tanks are still inside Israel proper and have not yet crossed into Gaza. 

Palestinian security forces said Israeli tanks were moving near the Israeli village of Nahal Oz, a main Israeli staging area just outside Gaza, but that they had not yet entered Gaza.

In the Shajaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City, not far from the border fence, armed militants took up positions across from the blaring headlights of Israeli vehicles, and Israeli attack helicopters hovered overhead. The militants told residents to leave the area.

Israeli military officials said a limited operation has been authorized for southern Gaza, aimed at "terrorist infrastructure." The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

UPDATE: Jerusalem Post is now reporting a power plant has been hit as well as the bridges. Ha'aretz is running a headline ticker that say IDF forces did cross the border at 2:24 AM local time. IDF plans to take control of the Eastern sections of the Gaza strip. Whoever thought this kidnapping offensive was a good idea is definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed.

UPDATE: Ha'aretz has an article up now.

Israel Defense Forces tanks rolled into the southern Gaza Strip near Kerem Shalom before dawn on Wednesday, Palestinian sources said. The IDF intends to gain control of all open areas in the Strip east of the southern town of Rafah.

The operation is expected to put pressure on Palestinians to release abducted IDF soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit, after two days of failed mediation.

The night-time incursion came shortly after Palestinian security forces deployed near the border town of Rafah, site of Gaza's only airport, said they were ordered out by the IDF.

This is the intial flash report that has been removed :(Flash traffic on Yahoo News is saying that Israeli forces have crossed over the border into Northern Gaza. No details other than both air and ground forces are involved. Will update as soon as any details come out.)

UPDATE: Jerusalem Post reports Air assets have destroyed a bridge to stop Palestinians from moving the captured soldier, but IDF is denying that tanks have crossed - yet.  Ha'aretz is also reporting the bridge stike but is not claiming the tanks have crossed - yet.

Round One

I just got this in an email from Nanman at The Influence Peddler. Congressman J. D. Hayworth is sending a letter to the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert requesting that the New York Times' press credentials to the US Congress be revoked.

I've learned that Congressman JD Hayworth is preparing to send (or has sent) the following letter to Speaker Hastert, requesting that he rescind the Congressional press credentials of the New York Times, in response to the Times' revelation of classified details about US surveillance programs:

The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Speaker:

We are writing to ask you to use your authority to rescind the congressional press credentials of the New York Times. This request does not come lightly, but in response to the Times’ decision to repeatedly publish information detrimental to our national security.

Read the rest over at The Influence Peddler.

Brought To Justice

The murderous brutal brown bear the was terrorizing Bavaria by eating livestock and poultry all over the countryside has been brought to justice. Hunters shot him down like a - well - like a bear. Apologists and conspiracy theorists are out in force.

BERLIN (AFP) - German toymakers said they were planning to produce a teddy bear to immortalise Bruno, the roaming bear which was shot by hunters after spreading panic in the south of the country.

"It will be a cuddly tribute," Margarete Steiff Ltd said in a statement.

The company said it is planning to produce a limited edition of 2,000 bears and to start delivery before the end of the week.

The soft toy will have a small black bow around the neck and stand about 30 centimetres (one foot) tall.

There has been a public outcry about the decision to kill the two-year-old brown bear who made its way from the Adamello-Brenta nature reserve in Italy's northern Trentino to Bavaria in southern Germany in May.

Bruno wandered about the region weeks for weeks, feeding on sheep, goats, poultry and rabbits on farms, and frequently slipping across the border into Austria.

It was shot dead by members of the local hunting association on Monday at the orders of Austrian and German officials after attempts to capture it alive failed.

The Bavarian hunting association has refused to identify the shooter for fear of reprisals after it received a flood of hate-mail.

….

It was the first bear to set foot in Germany since 1835 when one was shot by hunters in Bavaria.

The press on Tuesday asked why hunters managed to kill Bruno a mere day after the government gave the order, while trackers searched for it in vain for two weeks.

The regional environment declared the bear a menace because it came too close to humans, a trait animal experts said it inherited from its mother Jurka, which is still in Italy.

He was just the start, the bears are on the march.

Score!

My blog buddy Rick over at The Real Ugly American has scored yet another great interview, this time with Mort Kondracke from Fox News. It's a pretty wide ranging interview, so I won't try to give you a capsule, just send you over to Rick's place.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Keeps Dutch Citizenship

Michael Galien at Liberty and Justice reports that Dutch lawmakers have forced Minister Verdonk to backtrack and withdraw her decision to strip Ayaan Hirsi Ali of her Dutch citizenship. The decision is reported to be permanent and final.

NOS journaal reports that, during a meeting between different ministers - that lasted until well past midnight - the Dutch Cabinet decided that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is, and will remain, officially Dutch. Although Minister Verdonk did not want to decide this last night already, her fellow ministers enforced a permanent decision. Verdonk will inform Parliament about this matter later today.

According to RTL Nieuws certain political parties, especially GroenLinks, have already announced that they will be giving Verdonk an extremely hard time during the next debate in the lower chamber about this matter. I won't be surprised if Parliament will force her to resign. Lets hope so: she damaged the Dutch reputation tremendously.

NOS Teletekst further reports that Ayaan Hirsi Magan did not break Somali law when she gave Dutch authorities a different name: Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ali is the name of her grandfather: to use that name is allowed according to Somali law.

Thank God. It was a disgrace for The Netherlands when Verdonk announced that Ayaan 'never received the Dutch nationality'. Verdonk acted way too hasty. Friday she said that Ayaan had nothing to worry about, Saturday the story changes and Monday Ayaan isn't Dutch all of a sudden. All of this within a couple of days.
After this Ayaan controversy Verdonk also lost the race to become leader of the political party the VVD.

I'm glad a bit of sanity broke out over there. It looks like Verdonk is going to pay a hard price for her little bit of grandstanding.

Spain Goes Bananas

Spain's Parliament is set to pass legislation calling for rights for apes.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's parliament is to declare support for rights to life and freedom for great apes on Wednesday, apparently the first time any national legislature will have recognized such rights for non-humans.

Parliament is to ask the government to adhere to the Great Ape Project, which would mean recognizing that our closest genetic relatives should be part of a "community of equals" with humans, supporters of the resolution said.

The move in a country better known for bull-fighting would follow a string of social reforms which have converted Spain from one of Europe's most conservative nations into a liberal trailblazer.

Backers of the resolution expect support from the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose government has legalized gay marriage and reduced the influence of the Catholic Church in education.

"With this, Spain will make itself a world leader in protection of the great apes," said Pedro Pozas, general secretary of the Great Ape Project's Spanish branch.

The resolution, presented by a Green Party parliamentarian, prompted criticism and some ridicule at first.

We were among the first to ridicule it, too! Well, then, if they get the rights, they have to get the responsibilities, too. When is the Spanish Parliament going to pass the banana tax? Hmmmm? When are the apes going to be subject to the same taxation as the rest of us?

A sure sign of a civilization in decline is when they get sidetracked off into addressing silly issues instead of dealing with realities.

Do They Get Together To Work Out Their Stories?

One has to wonder what is going through Dean Baquet's head when he writes stuff like this. Baquet is the editor of the LA Times and today he writes a letter explaining why they published the story on the money-tracking program.

And he regurgitates the same, old shopworn anecdote that Keller from the NYT used: Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs reporting.

We are not out to get the president. This newspaper has done much hard-hitting reporting on terrorism, from around the world, often at substantial risk to our reporters. We have exposed terrorist cells and led the way in exposing the work of terrorists. We devoted a reporter to covering Al Qaeda's role in world terrorism in the months before 9/11. I know, because I made the assignment.

But we also have an obligation to cover the government, with its tremendous power, and to offer information about its activities so citizens can make their own decisions. That's the role of the press in our democracy.

The founders of the nation actually gave us that role, and instructed us to follow it, no matter the cost or how much we are criticized. Thomas Jefferson said, "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." That's the edict we followed.

This was a tough call for me, as I'm sure it was for the editors of other papers that chose to publish articles on the subject. But history tells us over and over that the nation's founders were right in pushing the press into this role. President Kennedy persuaded the press not to report the Bay of Pigs planning. He later said he regretted this, that he might have called it off had someone exposed it.

In addition to re-writing the constitution, of course. Nowhere in my well-thumbed copy of that document do I see any mention of the press having an oversight role on the government. I must not have the Media Standard Revised Edition™. That's the one that says the Times makes the rules, I think.

Another Election, Another Call For Energy Independence

John "The Man In The Yellow Hat" Kerry called for energy independence in yet another predictable election year mantra.

The Kerry plan includes mandates to reduce U.S. consumption of oil by 2.5 million barrels a day by 2015. He said that amount equals what the United States currently imports from the Middle East.

To meet the target, he called for incentives to produce more ethanol and vehicles capable of running on alternative fuels, as well as a significant increase in automobile fuel-efficiency standards.

Kerry would pay for his proposals by rolling back tax breaks for the oil industry and recapturing them into a dedicated fund, and he called on the government to renegotiate existing oil leases.

Of course, Kerry was more than willing to demonstrate the cornerstone of his proposal - wind power! Fortunately, our photographer from Magic 8-Ball Photography and Roadkill Rendering, Inc. was able to elude the dragnet long enough to snap this candid picture, taken just as Kerry was winding up for the demonstration.

Not A Good Idea

In today's Washington Post, Dana Milbank goes into full sarcasm mode over the Senate debate over a constitutional amendment to bar flag burning. At times crossing into bitterness, Milbank still hits a few good points.

The naive among us may have trouble appreciating how four flag-burning episodes would constitute a constitutional crisis. But the men and women of the Senate, ever alert to emerging threats, are on the case.

"I think of the flag as a symbol of what veterans fought for," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said as he opened the debate yesterday, "what they sustained wounds for, what they sustained loss of limbs for and what they sustained loss of life for."

….

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) saw the calculus somewhat differently.

"They say that flag burning is a rare occurrence; it is not that rare," he told the chamber. An aide hoisted a large blue poster detailing 17 incidents of flag desecration over three years. Hatch, citing "an ongoing offense against common decency," read them all. "That's just mentioning some that we know of; there's a lot more than that, I'm sure," he said.

Never mind that, in most cases, the perpetrators could be prosecuted for theft or vandalism. For Hatch, this was sufficient evidence of the need for an amendment. "Now, I have to tell you," he vouched, "the American people are aggrieved."

….

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) countered with a different set of figures. "There have been only seven acts of flag desecration annually in America in the last six years, so to argue that we have this growing trend toward desecration and burning our flag defies the facts," he said. "In fact, it rarely, if ever, happens. And so why are we about to change the handiwork and fine contribution to America of Thomas Jefferson?"

Next on the floor, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) presented yet another set of statistics. "Exceedingly rare," he concluded. "Two hundred cases in 215 years. Less than 10 cases over the last 10 years."

But Durbin and Dodd were in the minority in their inability to recognize the threat to the flag. Nearly two-thirds of the senators — tantalizingly close to the number needed to pass the amendment — are expected to vote for the flag-burning amendment this week, including Sen. Harry Reid (Nev.), the Democratic leader.

I have mentioned before that I think this amendment is unnecessary and is a waste of time to pursue. As outraged as I get when one of these events actually occurs, it is not a good idea to begin altering the constitution over this. It also opens the door to other prohibitions on speech and I would rather we as a nation do not go down that path.

We should be able to see that the actions of a few jerks cannot take away the symbolic power that the flag has. In fact, their actions reinforce that power and demeans any person or cause that resort to such an action.

Congratulations Are In Order

For Peter Daou. In an indication of how important blogs are already and will be in the future, the Hillary Clinton campaign has hired Daou as their web consultant.

WASHINGTON, June 26 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has hired Peter Daou, one of the most prominent political bloggers in the nation, to help disseminate her message in a forum that has not always been that hospitable to her.

The move underscores the degree to which bloggers — the authors of Web logs, or blogs — have begun to transform American politics. In many cases, candidates have even set up their own blogs, with staffers answering questions, presenting policy proposals and posting campaign literature and videos.

Mrs. Clinton, who is up for re-election this year and is a possible presidential candidate for 2008, has been a frequent target of bloggers, particularly liberals who are angry over her refusal to disavow her vote in 2002 to authorize President Bush to use force in Iraq.

The Clinton camp is clearly counting on Mr. Daou, who directed blog outreach and online rapid response for Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004, to help improve Mrs. Clinton's image among liberal bloggers, who are fast becoming a constituency in their own right and may thus play a significant role in selecting the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

First the Baltimore Examiner realizes the need to get bloggers on board, now the Clinton campaign sees the same thing. Smart move. Daou has linked to Blue Crab Boulevard in the past. He does seem to try to present both left and right bloggers fairly when he links using relevant quotes and not taking things out of context.

Congratulations, Mr. Daou.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

Researchers have accidentally discovered the newest weapon in the animal uprising conspiracy. With this early warning we may be able to defend ourselves! The reptile legion has come up with a new twist on an old trick: stealth snakes. 

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Researchers scouring swamps in the heart of Borneo island have discovered a venomous species of snake that can change its skin color, the conservation group WWF announced Tuesday.

The ability to change skin color is known in some reptiles, such as the chameleon, but scientists have seen it rarely with snakes and have not yet understood this phenomenon, the group said in a statement.

"I put the reddish-brown snake in a dark bucket," said Mark Auliya, a reptile expert and a consultant for the group. "When I retrieved it a few minutes later, it was almost entirely white."

Reptiles typically change color to camouflage themselves from predators.

The 1.6-foot-long snake was discovered last year in wetlands and swamp forests around the Kapuas River in the Betung Kerihun National Park in the Indonesian part of Borneo island.

Oh, sure. They're trying to tell you these villainous creatures are confined to Borneo, but you have to ask yourself one simple question: If there are already stealthy, slithering sidewinders that can change colors to blend in moving into your neighborhood, how would you know?

Have a nice day!