Immigration Troubles

The Washington Post is reporting that the immigration "reform" bill pending in the Senate appears to be in peril of failing. They cite top legislative aides in both parties as saying the bill will com up short of the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture.

The Senate yesterday turned back a series of amendments from both parties aimed at substantially altering controversial immigration legislation, but the bill shed supporters as it became mired in procedural problems that left backers concerned about its prospects.

The legislation faces a make-or-break vote this morning when senators will decide whether to cut off debate and move to a final vote tomorrow. If it does not get the 60 votes necessary, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has said he will pull the bill, all but dashing hopes for any meaningful legislation this year.

Top legislative aides in both parties predicted today's vote would be very close but would fall short of keeping the proposal alive.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a key opponent, crowed last night that "they tried to railroad this through today, but we derailed the train." Another opponent, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), said, "I would say to my colleagues: Let's end this thing."

Key Democrats who were on the fence also raised questions. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said the failure of his amendment to bolster family reunification visas "makes it more difficult to vote in favor" of ending debate. The reunification provision was voted down 55 to 40.

Last night's stall came after a day that had left the bill's proponents optimistic. The defeat of provisions intended to toughen the bill or soften its restrictions suggested that the core of the "grand bargain" was holding in the Senate's second attempt to pass an immigration bill supported by the White House.

One key amendment rejected yesterday was a Republican proposal to require all adult illegal immigrants to return to their countries temporarily to qualify for a special new visa.

The provision, an amendment offered by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), was defeated, 53 to 45. But a similar amendment that would require only heads of households to return to home countries is expected to fare better if it comes to the floor, after the vote to shut off debate.

This thing is a mess. What's kind of disingenuous is that last statement "if it comes to the floor". The whole point of the convoluted rules Harry Reid put on this bill was to keep other amendments to come up other than the ones pre-approved in the agreement to bring this thing back up at all. Nothing will come to the floor if cloture is invoked. On to another bit of political peril. The Post is also reporting that John McCain appears to have destroyed his candidacy over the immigration bill. His campaign is in financial ruin because of it.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is not wavering on immigration. This week, he continued to stand firm with President Bush in seeking a Senate compromise on the issue in the face of intense opposition from core activists in the Republican Party.

His advisers refer to such a stance as one of the signatures of his political career: principled stands on tough issues.

And even they concede that, this time, it's costing him dearly.

"From a political perspective, having a candidate that takes on all the tough issues is not always the most politically expedient thing to do," said David Roederer, the chairman of McCain's campaign in Iowa. Asked what he would like to see happen on immigration, Roederer laughed and said: "Wind the clock back and forget that this issue ever came up?"

That sentiment is common among many of McCain's most ardent supporters, who admire his guts but worry about the political toll the debate is taking on their candidate.

McCain already had an uphill battle among conservatives because of his campaign finance "reform". The immigration thing isn't helping him. The Mason-Dixon polls put him in fourth place with less than 10% support. And fundraising is in the toilet for him. He'll be the first "name" candidate to fold.

The Problem In A Nutshell

The Associated Press is reporting a story that exactly illustrates what is wrong with illegal immigration and why we are in the mess we are in right now. A Florida sheriff is coming under fire from the illegal immigrant lobbies because he is trying to enforce the laws that are on the books.

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. - The sheriff's department has developed a remarkably effective — and controversial — way of catching illegal immigrants: Deputies in patrol cars pull up to a construction site in force, and watch and see who runs.

Those who take off are chased down and arrested on charges such as trespassing, for cutting through someone else's property, or loitering, for hiding out in someone's yard, or reckless driving, for speeding off in a car.

U.S. immigration authorities are then given the names of those believed to be in this country illegally.

"It's not wrong for them to run, but it's not wrong for us to chase them either," said Sheriff Frank McKeithen, who created his Illegal Alien Task Force in April to target construction sites in this Florida Panhandle county.

Here's the various stances from various players in this little drama. From an "immigration advocates":

The Mexican American Legal Defense Fund is investigating the arrests because "the intimidation factor is of great concern," said Elise Shore, regional counsel for the organization.

Form the ACLU:

Benjamin Stevenson, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, said he finds the tactic troubling.

"Why are they sending out six or seven agents to investigate a paper crime, and are they causing them to run in the first place through intimidation?" he asked.

And a real estate developer:

Developer Louis Breland is finishing the first phase of a $750 million beach condo project.

"Subcontractors could not function without immigrant laborers for painting, rebar and steel work. They are the best workers," he said. "Without them, the cost of construction would be 10 times as much and nothing would get built."

And the AP throws in a tear-jerker about an illegal worker who can't get a job because of the crackdown because employers are having to check papers - in accordance with the law that has been on the books for years.

And you wonder why we have a problem? People who are supposed to be officers of the court who ridicule the laws as mere paper. Advocates for illegal immigrants worried that the laws are being enforced and using the highly loaded - and ridiculous - term "intimidation". And greedy developers who want maximum work for minimum wage. And who have obviously been knowingly violating the laws for quite some time. Oh, and Senators who don't appear to care what the citizens of this country want - or in this case, don't want.

That's it in a nutshell.

Killed By Kindness

I can't make this animal story humorous, folks. There simply isn't anything to laugh about here. A bunch of people in suburban Chicago apparently thought it would be a really keen idea to feed and pet a deer in the area. They made him a sort of community pet. And this Disney-fied view of nature and how to interact with it led to an inevitable result.

The deer had to be killed.

A male deer with 4-inch antlers that obviously had been raised around people and had been busy this spring visiting various neighborhoods and parks in Mundelein where kids would pet it and approach it, was euthanized by police last week.

Some people said the deer was named "Lucky" or "Darwin," but for police and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, it was becoming a dangerous threat. It was living in the Colony and Long Meadows Estates neighborhoods.

Mundelein Chief Raymond Rose said that the problem with this deer was that it was still part wild animal.

"The problem with this one is as they get older and get into rutting season, they get very aggressive. Wild animals are meant to be wild. . . They never lose that instinct," Rose said Tuesday.

"We had seven calls about this deer. People were afraid of it when it started to go towards them aggressively. We actually had one guy tussle with the deer because it went after his 2-year-old daughter. Then it attacked him when he defended his daughter," Rose said.

He called the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and was told the deer would have to be taken out because it had been "imprinted" and lost its fear of humans. The IDNR offered to have its people come in, track and kill it if police could not find the animal and euthanize it.

"It was a safety concern, especially males when they start rutting," Rose said, referring to the periods when male deer become sexually aggressive and will fight for territory and female deer.

The IDNR also pointed out that deer ticks, the size of a "period," carry Lyme disease, a serious disease, and they can also harbor fleas, lice, rabies and round worm.

"They are cute until someone ends up getting hurt,"

Here's a tip to bonehead "animal lovers": leave the animals alone. Do not feed them, do not pet them, just leave them alone. If you want to pet an animal get a dog or go to a petting zoo. Because when you interfere with a wild animal like this, you are habituating them to humans - and virtually guaranteeing that they will need to be put down or will simply get killed in some other way. I remember one jerk back in Illinois who "loved" deer so much that he put salt blocks out for them in his backyard so he could watch them out his windows. There were always a large number of car-deer accidents every year in front of his house. These inevitably resulted in the deer dying, sometimes quickly, sometimes in slow agony.

Leave the animals alone.

Goodbye, Tony

Tony Blair has been replaced by Gordon Brown as Prime Minister of Britain.

Gordon Brown entered No 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister for the first time this afternoon promising to be a force for change.

Prime Minister Brown quoted his old school motto, "I will try my utmost", as he posed for photographs with his wife Sarah.

Mr Brown sounded unexpectedly nervous even though he had finally achieved his lifelong ambition to lead the Labour party and govern the country.

He had been driven to Buckingham Palace - after being cheered out of the Treasury, his political home for the past decade - to meet the Queen at 1.52pm today, just minutes after his predecessor Tony Blair had tendered his resignation.

The tightly-choreographed transfer of power came after an emotional final appearance at Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons for Mr Blair, who brandished his P45 and told MPs: "That is that. The end.''

He received an unprecedented standing ovation from MPs, and Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, was in tears.

After his audience with the Queen, which lasted almost an hour, Mr Brown went to 10 Downing Street to put the final touches to his Cabinet and make introductory telephone calls to foreign leaders.

One of his first conversations was with George W Bush, a Downing Street spokesman said.

I can't say as I have thought too well of a lot of the internal things going on in Britain under the labor government, but Tony Blair at least stood tall for trying to fight the war on terror and for democracy. That counts for a lot.

Riots in Iran

The Telegraph is reporting widespread protests, including rioting and the burning of cars and gas stations (by "youths", just as it is reported when discussing France, incidentally) over the government's sudden imposition of gasoline rationing. Ahmadinejad's regime announced the strict controls three hours before they were put into effect.

Angry Iranians have torched petrol stations in protests against the sudden imposition of fuel rationing in one of the world’s most oil rich nations.

The rationing was announced on Tuesday only three hours before it was due to begin at midnight, leading to long queues at service stations as Iranians rushed out to fill up before the clampdown kicked in.

In the capital, youths set a car and petrol pumps ablaze at a station in the residential Pounak area of northwestern Tehran, throwing stones and shouting angry slogans denouncing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who came to power in an election based largely on his promises to improve the Islamic republic’s faltering economy.

He has been facing growing criticisms over his economic policies, which a group of economists claimed earlier this month were fuelling inflation and hurting the poor.

The Iranian government had been planning for weeks to implement rationing, which was supposed to begin May 21, but has repeatedly held off from making the move.

In a country where citizens are used to having cheap and plentiful gas the issue is a sensitive one.

Lines of more than a half a mile long snaked out of some stations in Tehran, while riot police were in some streets to disperse the demonstrators.

Iran is pouring money into its nuclear weapons program and financing proxy wars all over the region. The money only goes so far and something had to give. Ahmadinejad chose to shaft his own people.

Running The Asylum

The Times of London takes a look at the farm stolen by Francis Nhema, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Environment, who also happens to be chairman of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. Nhema ended up with the farm after driving off the white farmer who had been running it quite productively. It isn't productive any longer.

It looks as if no one has lived here for years. Tall, dense elephant grass grows everywhere. There is a rutted track that passes a nearly empty dam where a truck has broken down and been left to its own fate.

Sheds and barns for curing tobacco are deserted. Gates hang open and there is scant fencing. A fallen tree lies across the track. The only sign of activity is a flock of sheep owned by a neighbouring white farmer who leases the unused grazing.

This is the farm of Francis Nhema, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Environment, who became chairman of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development last month. He occupied Nyamanda farm, just south of the small town of Karoi in northern Zimbabwe in 2003, a year after its owner, Chris Shepherd, and his family were driven out by lawless ruling party militias.

On its 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres), Mr Shepherd had planted 80 hectares of high-grade tobacco and 200 hectares of maize. Cattle grazed on 300 hectares.

All that is a lead-in for the real meat of the story. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum issued a report recently that charges that crimes against humanity were performed against the evicted farmers and their workers by the Mugabe regime and the people who stole the farms. And guess who is running the UN commission? Neat, huh?

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum says this week in a report – the first detailed study on the human rights violations against white farmers and their black workers during the land grab – that there is “a plausible case for crimes against humanity” having been committed in the past seven years by Mr Mugabe’s regime.

“There is a compelling need for these to be investigated and the perpetrators to be charged and tried,” it says.

More than a million people living on commercial farms suffered incidents of assault, torture, being held hostage, illegal detention and death threats, it estimates. More than 10,000 farm workers are believed to have died after their removal and the consequent loss of employment, housing, nutrition and access to health-care on the farms.

I wrote about the farce of the UN appointing this man from what is arguably the worst run country in Africa back in May. Obviously, Nhema isn't capable of taking care of a potted plant. The lunatics are running the asylum.

Once A Marine

Always a Marine. A 72-year old Michigan man felt someone trying to pick his pocket. The former Marine - who also was a Golden Gloves boxer years ago - grabbed the hand trying to rob him and turned around and beat the tar out of the thief attached to it.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Bill Barnes says he was scratching off a losing $2 lottery ticket inside a gas station when he felt a hand slip into his front-left pants pocket, where he had $300 in cash.

He immediately grabbed the person's wrist with his left hand and started throwing punches with his right, landing six or seven blows before a store manager intervened.

"I guess he thought I was an easy mark," Barnes, 72, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story Tuesday.

He's anything but an easy mark: Barnes served in the Marines, was an accomplished Golden Gloves boxer and retired after 20 years as an iron worker.

Jesse Daniel Rae, the 27-year-old Newaygo County man accused of trying to pick Barnes' pocket, was arraigned Monday in Rockford District Court on one count of unarmed robbery, a 15-year felony.

I just love stories like this. Young thug gets huge surprise when "old geezer" turns out to have never accepted being either old or a geezer! Note to criminal masterminds: there is a lesson here.

Giant Pygmy Bigfoot

The words just fit together, don't they? First: Giant Man-Eating Penguins!

WASHINGTON - Giant penguins as tall as 5 feet roamed what is now Peru more than 40 million years ago, much earlier than scientists thought the flightless birds had spread to warmer climes. Known mostly for their presence in Antarctica, penguins today live in many islands in the Southern Hemisphere, some even near the equator.

But scientists thought they hadn't reached warm areas until about 10 million years ago

Now, researchers report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they have found remains of two types of penguin in Peru that date to 40 million years ago.

One of them was a 5-foot giant with a long sharp beak.

Ok, technically, man hadn't been exactly invented back then. But the penguins would have eaten them if they'd been available. Next up: A Pygmy Hippo!

PARIS - Aldo looks, eats and lazes like a hippopotamus — but he's only about as big as a human baby, at 21 inches. The pygmy hippo, born this month at the Paris Zoo, is one of only a few dozen in Europe, bred in a special program to boost the rare species.

There are no more than 3,000 around the world, mostly concentrated in west African countries such as Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau or Liberia, said Juliane Villenain, a biologist at the zoo in the Bois de Vincennes, a park on Paris' eastern edge. According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, pygmy hippos have already disappeared from Nigeria.

Pygmy hippopotamuses are, unlike their bigger brethren, lonely animals, except during reproduction season. The female takes care of the newborn by herself, as little Aldo's mother Anais did, Villenain said.

One question: How do you tell if it's a runt? Last but not least, we got Bigfoot!

MANISTIQUE, Mich. - Researchers will visit the Upper Peninsula next month to search for evidence of the hairy manlike creature known as "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch."

The expedition will center in eastern Marquette County, following the most recent Bigfoot eyewitness account, said Matthew Moneymaker of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.

"We'll be looking for evidence supporting a presence. … We hope to meet local people who might have seen a Sasquatch or heard of someone else who had an encounter," Moneymaker told the Daily Press of Escanaba.

Most experts consider the Bigfoot legend to be a combination of folklore and hoaxes, but there are a number of authors and researchers who think the stories could be true.

Meanwhile, the locals - in the way locals always do - are fine-tuning their very best sincere faces. That way they won't bust out laughing until after the researchers leave the room. We'd still like to see a giant pygmy bigfoot, though.

Something (Bad) Happening Here

Stanley Kurtz over at NRO points out the bad vibration coming from the Senate immigration "reform" bill that has reared its ugly head again. Something isn't working.

Something about this immigration battle doesn’t sit well. For all the bitterness of our political battles, there’s at least the sense that the government responds to the drift of public opinion. The Republicans in Congress turned into big spenders and the war in Iraq went poorly. As a result the Democrats prospered in 2006, if narrowly. That’s how democracy works. Our politics are often angry and ugly (and that’s a problem), but this is because the public is deeply divided on issues of great importance. Deep down, we understand that our political problems reflect our own divisions.

Somehow this immigration battle feels different. The bill is wildly unpopular, yet it’s close to passing. The contrast with the high-school textbook version of democracy is not only glaring and maddening, it’s downright embarrassing. Usually, even when we’re at each others’ throats, there’s still an underlying pride in the democratic process. This immigration battle strips us of even that pride.

I’m still stuck on the way this bill was going to be pushed through without a public airing of crucial provisions, in the two or three days before Memorial Day recess. But I should be stuck even further back–on the way this bill was cooked up in a backroom deal that bypassed the ordinary process of public hearings. We take them for granted, but those civics textbook fundamentals are there for a reason. We’re going to pay a steep price for setting the fundamentals aside.

Kurtz is right. This thing stinks of a smoke-filled back room deal. There is a crisis of confidence in the Congress in general and passage of this bill will deepen that. I'm one of the people who happen to believe that the whole situation can be solved if they fix the border first. But I don't think this bill does that and I don't think it's good for the country. Kurtz is right: this bill has a bad feeling to it.

Solving Tunguska?

Italian researchers believe they may have found an impact crater that would help explain the Tunguska mystery. In 1908 something happened in that remote area of Siberia that flattened 800 square miles of forest. Up until now, however, scientists have been at a loss to explain what caused the event.

In late June of 1908, a fireball exploded above the remote Russian forests of Tunguska, Siberia, flattening more than 800 square miles of trees. Researchers think a meteor was responsible for the devastation, but neither its fragments nor any impact craters have been discovered.

Astronomers have been left to guess whether the object was an asteroid or a comet, and figuring out what it was would allow better modeling of potential future calamities.

Italian researchers now think they've found a smoking gun: The 164-foot-deep Lake Cheko, located just 5 miles northwest of the epicenter of destruction.

"When we looked at the bottom of the lake, we measured seismic waves reflecting off of something," said Giuseppe Longo, a physicist at the University of Bologna in Italy and co-author of the study. "Nobody has found this before. We can only explain that and the shape of the lake as a low-velocity impact crater."

Should the team turn up conclusive evidence of an asteroid or comet on a later expedition, when they obtain a deeper core sample beneath the lake, remaining mysteries surrounding the Tunguska event may be solved.

The findings are detailed in this month's online version of the journal Terra Nova.

They even found an anomaly that may actually be part of whatever hit the region almost 100 years ago.

Down The Slippery Slope

Even though the Democratic leadership has declared all-out war on the war in Iraq, they always have insisted that the war in Afghanistan was a "good" war. Even though they have played games with a funding bill that was not just for the Iraq war but for the "good" war as well, they have demanded we refocus on the "good" war.

Yeah, right.

When they won control of Congress in November, Democrats pressed their case to withdraw troops from Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan, but some are growing impatient with U.S. operations in Afghanistan as well.

A few congressional Democrats go so far as suggesting that the Pentagon should pull out of Afghanistan now, while others say that troop withdrawal will be addressed after the military is out of Iraq.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), a senior defense authorizer, wants the U.S. out of Afghanistan immediately, calling operations there “futile” in trying to effect political change in a country with a tangled history. 

Most other Democrats want to focus on Afghanistan, with the goal of withdrawing the military down the road after the country is stabilized and any new Taliban resurgence quashed. 

With a few exceptions, congressional Democrats no longer show any hesitation about withdrawing the military from Iraq. But they are more circumspect about Afghanistan, saying that the Bush administration let the situation worsen by shifting attention onto a protracted conflict in Iraq.

“We should have never gone to Iraq, because we would have been out of Afghanistan [by now],” Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) said in a brief interview.

Murtha, the chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee and a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said that by September, when he takes up the fiscal 2008 war supplemental funding, he would have a better sense of how to handle Afghanistan. 

Yet making the argument that the U.S. needs to get out of Iraq and stay in Afghanistan can be politically challenging. While Democrats regularly note that the war in Iraq has now gone on longer than World War II, the U.S. has been in Afghanistan longer than it has been in Iraq. And arguments that Iraqis need to take control of their own country can be applied to Afghanistan as well.

The Afghanistan effort enjoys much more support among the American public, and Democratic leaders have sought to burnish their homeland security credentials by presenting an unwavering backing of the war there.

They are out in the open now. It's full retreat as soon as they can arrange it. This is the trial balloon, make no mistake.

(Via AllahPundit)

New Alpine Troops

Alert citizens of Italy have given early warning about a new menace from the Animal Uprising™. Fresh alpine troops are being prepared for a winter offensive against Europe.

MILAN, Italy - Forest rangers in the northern Italian Alps have confirmed for the first time the existence of an albino mountain goat — and named him "Snowflake."

Rangers took photos of the albino capra ibex climbing with its mother Sunday at about 10,000 feet above the Les Laures valley in the northwestern Val d'Aosta region, said Christian Chioso, a regional wildlife official.

"This is the only one ever documented, the only one ever seen," Chioso said by telephone on Monday. He said albinism is rare in any species and has not been previously documented among the capra ibex, a type of wild mountain goat with large curved horns that lives in mountainous areas.

Chioso estimated the albino animal is about a year old.

This is like rats or roaches. If you see one, you have thousands! Come winter, there will be white clad goats butting their way across Italy.

Senatorial Suicide

Rasmussen Reports informs us that the immigration "reform" now back in front of the Senate will be tantamount to political suicide for any Senator up for reelection next year. Only 22% of the public supports it.

As the Senate prepares to resume debate the “comprehensive” immigration reform bill, the legislation continues to face broad public opposition. In fact, despite a massive White House effort, public opinion has barely moved since the public uproar stalled the bill just over two weeks ago.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 22% of American voters currently favor the legislation. That’s down a point from 23% a couple of weeks ago and down from 26% when the debate in the Senate began. Fifty percent (50%) oppose the Senate bill while 28% are not sure.

Among the public, there is a bi-partisan lack of enthusiasm for the Senate bill. It is supported by 22% of Republicans, 23% of Democrats, and 22% of those not affiliated with either major party. It is opposed by 52% of Republicans, 50% of Democrats, and 48% of unaffiliateds.

From an ideological perspective, the bill is opposed by 59% of conservatives, 54% of liberals, and 45% of political moderates. Among those for whom none of the traditional ideological labels apply, just 20% are opposed.

Support is found from 20% of conservatives, 32% of liberals, and 18% of moderates.

This is the best indication that the Senators who vote for this thing better be ready for serious repercussions at the ballot box. Voters are mad as heck about this. And a few folks on Capitol Hill might really want to get their resumes up to date if they pass this.

When The Circus Comes To Town

There are always clowns. But in this case, the clown lost. The judge who filed a $54 million lawsuit over a pair of pants not only lost, but he is getting hit with the legal fees for the people he sued. And he may lose his job as a judge over the ridiculous lawsuit.

In a verdict that surprised no one, except perhaps the plaintiff himself, a D.C. Superior Court judge denied Roy Pearson the big payday he claimed was his due.

Delivering her decision in writing, Judge Judith Bartnoff wrote 23 pages dissecting and dismissing Pearson's claim that he was defrauded by the owners of Custom Cleaners and their "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands or to accede to demands that the merchant has reasonable grounds to dispute," the ruling said. " . . . The plaintiff is not entitled to any relief whatsoever."

It was a pointed rebuke of Pearson's claim, and came with an order to pay the cleaners' court costs. But even bigger troubles may loom for Pearson.

Financially, he could soon be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees incurred by the owners of Customer Cleaners. Attorneys for the Chungs have said they will seek such payments, as well as sanctions against Pearson for bringing the lawsuit. Bartnoff said in her ruling that she would decide those issues after both sides have filed their motions, counter-motions and legal briefs.

Professionally, Pearson could find himself out of his $96,000-a-year job as an administrative law judge for the District government.

All that is certain right now is that he won't be getting the multi-million dollar payout he demanded when he filed suit in 2005 against Soo Chung and her husband, the owners of Custom Cleaners.Originally, Pearson had asked for $65 million, but by the time the case went to trial two weeks ago, Pearson had lowered his demand to $54 million.

Frankly, I hope he does lose his job. This guy is  disgrace to the legal profession. Even trial lawyers are seriously angry with this guy according to reports. He's giving an already loathed profession an even worse name - and that really takes some doing.

Paving The Road

The old saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' has been around for a long time. Nobody appears to be quite sure where is came from, however. (Many old sources put it as 'hell is paved with good intentions'.) Regardless, it captures a real truth. Bad things can and do happen even when people don't intend anything but good come from their actions. Joshua Muravchik take up that very topic today in the Opinion Journal.

Several conflicts of various intensities are raging in the Middle East. But a bigger war, involving more states–Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the Palestinian Authority and perhaps the United States and others–is growing more likely every day, beckoned by the sense that America and Israel are in retreat and that radical Islam is ascending.

Consider the pell-mell events of recent weeks. Iran imprisons four Americans on absurd charges only weeks after seizing 15 British sailors on the high seas. Iran's Revolutionary Guard is caught delivering weapons to the Taliban and explosives to Iraqi terrorists. A car bomb in Lebanon is used to assassinate parliament member Walid Eido, killing nine others and wounding 11 more.

At the same time, Fatah al-Islam, a shady group linked to Syria, launches an attack on the Lebanese army from within a Palestinian refugee area, beheading several soldiers. Tehran trumpets further progress on nuclear enrichment as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeats his call for annihilating Israel, crowing that "the countdown to the destruction of this regime has begun." Hamas seizes control militarily in Gaza. Katyusha rockets are launched from Lebanon into northern Israel for the first time since the end of last summer's Israel-Hezbollah war.

Two important inferences can be distilled from this list. One is that the Tehran regime takes its slogan, "death to America," quite seriously, even if we do not. It is arming the Taliban, with which it was at sword's point when the Taliban were in power. It seems to be supplying explosives not only to Shiite, but also Sunni terrorists in Iraq. It reportedly is sheltering high-level al Qaeda figures despite the Sunni-Shiite divide. All of these surprising actions are for the sake of bleeding the U.S. However hateful this behavior may be to us, it has a certain strategic logic: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."………

……The apparent meaning of all of this pointless provocation and bullying is that the axis of radicals–Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah–is feeling its oats. In part its aim is to intimidate the rest of us, in part it is merely enjoying flexing its muscles. It believes that its side has defeated America in Iraq, and Israel in Gaza and Lebanon. Mr. Ahmadinejad recently claimed that the West has already begun to "surrender," and he gloated that " final victory . . . is near." It is this bravado that bodes war.

A large portion of modern wars erupted because aggressive tyrannies believed that their democratic opponents were soft and weak. Often democracies have fed such beliefs by their own flaccid behavior. Hitler's contempt for America, stoked by the policy of appeasement, is a familiar story. But there are many others. North Korea invaded South Korea after Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared that Korea lay beyond our "defense perimeter." Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait after our ambassador assured him that America does not intervene in quarrels among Arabs. Imperial Germany launched World War I, encouraged by Great Britain's open reluctance to get involved. Nasser brought on the 1967 Six Day War, thinking that he could extort some concessions from Israel by rattling his sword.

Read the whole thing. I have said for a long time that the current actions (or inactions) of the West are making a general war more, not less, likely in the Middle East. And yet the good intentions continue to be laid out, paving more and more of the superhighway. The media is locked in their mutually beneficial spiral of death with the terrorists and the extremists and are exacerbating the problem even further. The political pandering to the left fringe is sending exactly the wrong message to the extremists in Tehran. As Muravchik puts in in his closing sentence: "In the name of peace, they are hastening the advent of the next war."