Photo of the Day

 

This is Casa Grande National Monument. It's located between Phoenix and Tucson, and historians still aren't quite sure why it was built where it was and on a scale seldom seen for this type of structure. The structure was built by the Hohokam people, who lived in the Gila Valley. No one quite knows why the Hohokam abandoned the site around 1450.

The structure shielding the remains from the elements was actually the second such structure built. The original protective roof was built by the Federal General Land Office at the turn of the 20th Century and it literally rested upon the Hohokam structure. It was removed and replaced by the present distinctive roof in 1932 by famed architect Fredrick Law Olmstead, who also happened to design Central Park in New York City.

This National Monument makes a great side trip if you're going between Phoenix and Tucson, and is located in the town of Coolidge, Arizona.

Guest Post: Some Thoughts on Politics and the Election

This is yet another guest posting from chicagodudewhotrades.

Here is how he thinks the next few months and the election will shake out. If you want to comment/argue/whatever on this post this, feel free to contact him at chicagodudewhotrades@gmail.com or post in the comments here.


Hillary: She will not drop out. She is in this until the convention. This is her only chance to make it to the White House and she knows this. She is ambitious. She has been working to get to the White House since she pushed Bill to run for Governor of Arkansas. She is still a viable candidate for the Dem nomination. Neither she or Obama can win the nomination without resorting to super delegates. I have been watching some of the TV pundits show surprise today about why she is still campaigning. They are wondering why she won't drop out and help unify the party for November. I can answer that question. She only gives a damn about herself. If she has to burn down the party to get the nomination, then she burns down the party. The Clintons have only ever given a damn about themselves. Anybody who thinks Hillery won't go full out to get the nomination doesn't understand the Clintons.

Obama: If Obama gets the nomination, I think he will be this generation's McGovern. He will win Illinois and a few other states and that will be it. I think the man is radioactive. I think there are more Rev. Wright/Bill Ayers/Tony Rezko people and stories out there. One of the reasons he got elected to the Senate was because his GOP rival dropped out due to a sleazy sex/divorce scandal. Obama has never really been tested. He has never run a national campaign. I don't think this nation is going to elect a 1-term Senator President in a time of conflict. Obama's hard core base is the African-American community. He can not win with their support alone. I hate to be cynical, but he won't get the youth vote either, They never show up on Election Day. Remember 'Obama Girl'? She sang songs about him, but she didn't even vote for him because she was too busy at a party when NY/NJ voted months ago.

Denver: This convention will teach the Dems not to crawl in bed with the loony left. Move-On, Daily Kos, Code Pink , etc may be loud, but that is it. Joe Lieberman warned his party about following the far left. The Dem party responded to Joe by kicking him to the curb. He will have the last laugh on this matter. It seems like every group with more than 5 members will be outside the Denver convention center this summer. Some of the radical groups are promising violence in the streets. With Hillery fighting for the nomination inside the convention and possible violence out in the streets, Denver could be ugly. I think people will see the problems in Denver and realize the Dems are not the answer for the country and pull the lever for McCain. Whoever wins the Dem nomination will anger the hard core supporters of the loser, and those folks will either sit on their hands on Election Day or even vote for McCain. A friend of mine thinks Hillery and Obama will reach a impasse on the nomination and somebody like Al Gore gets to run for the Dems (I'm rooting for the Gore Option because that would be fun as hell)

McCain: Honest truth, he is not my first choice to be the GOP standard bearer, But I'll take a luke-warm GOP'er over a Dem any day of the week. I think Conservatives who don't like McCain much will do the same. I hope he picks Michael Steele as his VP. Steele will take off the board the Dem's ability to say they have the only African-American in the race . Plus, Steele will go a long way to bring the conservatives back to the fold.

Bottom line: John McCain will be the next president of the United States of America

Slim Shady Sharpton Still Owes Back Taxes

Once again, Al Sharpton shows that he's not willing to play by the rules and pay taxes like everyone else. This time, it's to the tune of more than $1.5 million:

Government records obtained by The Associated Press indicate that Sharpton and his business entities owe nearly $1.5 million in overdue taxes and associated penalties.

Now the U.S. attorney is investigating his nonprofit group, a probe that an undeterred Sharpton brushes off as the kind of annoyance that civil rights figures have come to expect from the government.

"Whatever retaliation they do on me, we never stop," he told the AP. "I think that that is why they try to intimidate us."

Over the past year, Sharpton's lawyers and the staff of his nonprofit group, the National Action Network, have been negotiating with the federal government over the size of his debt, which they dispute. The group has also been trying to pay off tens of thousands of dollars it owes for failing to properly maintain workers compensation and unemployment insurance.

Charlie King, the organization's interim executive director, said both Sharpton and the group he leads were unprepared for their rise in stature in recent years and had trouble dealing with big jumps in donations and income.

"The infrastructure was trying to keep up with that pace, and it was not a perfect fit," he told the AP on Friday. "The National Action Network may not have been perfect, but nothing was going on that was untoward."

He said the organization has new accountants and a new administrative team, and the group recently finally filed long-overdue tax returns.

Sharpton's own debts include $365,558 owed in New York City income tax and $931,397 in unpaid federal income tax, according to a lien filed by the Internal Revenue Service last spring. His for-profit company, Rev. Al Communications, owes the state another $175,962 in delinquent taxes.

As for Sharpton's personal tax debt, King said Sharpton has started paying it off but contends that faulty record-keeping by the National Action Network led the government to overestimate his tax liability.

Tax headaches are nothing new for Sharpton. The 53-year-old minister has been assailed over his career for running up big tax debts and failing to abide by rules governing his charities and election committees. He is perpetually being sued for failing to pay his bills.

He and his cronies are brushing it off as nothing more than the Man trying to keep him down, and that he and his organization were unprepared for the growth in donations to his group. Rubbish. Record keeping is straight forward.

He's known that he's had to repay state and federal taxes, and done nothing to repay both.

He's made it a habit to flout the rules and not pay taxes. And yet, he's managed to avoid serious convictions. That explains his nonchalance over the latest investigation, but overconfidence may end up working against him.

Photo of the Day

 

The red rocks of Sedona, Arizona.

Olmert Says He'll Resign If Indicted

How nice of him to consider resigning under those conditions. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who took over the Kadima party when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was stricken with an incapacitating stroke, has been a serious failure ever since. His waffling led to serious failures to deal with the Hizbullah threat in Lebanon. His refusal to deal decisively with the rocket war has meant that Southern Israel lives under the shadow of kassams and rockets fired on a near daily basis. That's the normalcy that Olmert has projected.

Through it all, Olmert has remained in power. This, despite the failure to deal with Hizbullah and the failure to deal with the Palestinian rocket war against Israel wasn't sufficient. If a criminal indictment against him personally is filed, then he'll go.

I guess we have yet more evidence that the only thing he cared about was his own skin, and no more.

How Is Reuters Getting This Photo?

How is Reuters managing to get photos of Hizbullah terrorists in action? Are they embedded?

It also begs the question of Reuters reporters and photographers being in the line of fire. A journalist could find themselves dead if they're that close to terrorists who are rampaging through the city engaging in firefights all over the place. Journalism in a war zone is dangerous business, and one has to call into question the wisdom of working in such close proximity to Hizbullah terrorists, especially with the death of a Reuters photographer in Gaza just a few weeks ago under circumstances that still aren't entirely clear.

As Michael Totten pointed out in his experiences with Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hizbullah controls the media in areas they operate in, which means that the photographer quite likely needed and received permission to take those photos. They watch every move made in areas they control. If they didn't want the photographs taken, they would have likely put a stop to it.

UPDATE:
Brian at Snapped Shot weighs in both with a comment here, and at his blog. Definitely worth a read.

UPDATE:
AP seems to have a similar embed working for it in Gaza, as it caught a terrorist firing off mortars towards Israel. One mortar slammed into Israel, killing an Israeli and wounded several others:

A 48-year-old Israeli man was killed late Friday afternoon when four mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip landed in Kibbutz Kfar Aza in the western Negev. The victim has been identified as father of four Jimmy Kedushim, a resident of the kibbutz. He was killed in the front yard of his house.

Three others were wounded in the attack, one moderately and two lightly. Magen David Adom teams at the kibbutz treated a number of people for shock, Israel Radio reported.

A number of buildings in the kibbutz were damaged in the barrage.

. (HT: Ben Hur at LGF)

Fossella's Folly

If you're going to run as a family values candidate, make sure that your own family values are up to snuff. Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY) didn't heed that warning, and we're now learning of his love child and extramarital affair after a DUI arrest in Virginia.

Embattled Staten Island Rep. Vito Fossella finally came clean yesterday - admitting he's been living a double life and has a love child through a longtime extramarital romance.

"I have had a relationship with Laura Fay, with whom I have a 3-year-old daughter," the married Fossella acknowledged in a statement after days of evasion.

Nice. Stay classy Vito.

UPDATE:
Fossella's hometown paper, the Staten Island Advance is calling on him to resign.

Hizbullah Seizes Swaths of Beirut

Guess who's the occupying force now. It happens to be Hizbullah, the Islamic terrorist group that operates with the support and blessings of Tehran and Syria. The terrorists have seized large areas of the capital city of Beirut, and its thugs are continuing their campaign of terror and mayhem.

Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah took control of large areas of Beirut on Friday, tightening its grip on the city in a major blow to the U.S.-backed government after three days of intense fighting.

Security sources said at least 11 people had been killed and 30 wounded in three days of battles between pro-government gunmen and fighters loyal to Hezbollah, a Shiite political movement with a powerful guerrilla army.

The fighting, the worst internal strife since the 1975-90 civil war, was triggered this week after the government took decisions targeting Hezbollah’s military communications network. The group said the government had declared war.

The fighting was initiated by Hizbullah, and the government's response has been far too restrained. The government is clearly not willing to go toe to toe with the terrorists, despite the mortal threat posed by Hizbullah to the continued survival of the government and the country.

All this comes at a time when Iran is getting hemmed in by continued US and Iraqi operations in Iraq, which has seen Iranian influence there reduced significantly. It is no coincidence that the fighting in Lebanon has broken out at a time when Iranian supporters, including Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq are getting rounded and Iraqi authority imposed over Basra and expected within a short time within Sadr City in Baghdad.

From Beirut to Beltway notes that the Dark Age of Hizbullah is upon Lebanon. He's absolutely right. This is a tremendous blow to democracy and the rights of Lebanese people to live freely and without the tyranny of jihadis in their midst. Fighting continues to rage throughout Southern Lebanon.

I'm not nearly as optimistic as Bob's blog is. While it is true that a bunch of terrorist thugs can't hold on to Beirut against a military force, the military has thus far been absent from the field of battle.

Beirut Spring notes that the Hizbullah thugs and their supporters took over the Future TV offices and tore down the photos of Hariri, replacing them with Assad. Figures. Just remember - the media has been reluctant to tell you like it is - that Hizbullah is operating at the behest of Tehran and Damascus.

UPDATE:
Complicating matters even further, Lebanese Prime Minister Siniora is resigning. Apparently, it's a quid pro quo for Hizbullah to withdraw from Beirut.

Somehow, I doubt Hizbullah will actually keep up their end of the bargain. I can understand Siniora's decision to spare the country of further bloodshed and a potential civil war, but by making this decision, he's effectively handed over power to Hizbullah and now makes the security situation even more precarious, especially in South Lebanon and Israel.

UPDATE:
Some Lebanese understand what Hizbullah is doing. They see taking Beirut as the first step to taking Tel Aviv.

Lebanese Sports Minister Ahmed Fatfat slammed Hizbullah during an interview with Al Arabiya network.


Fatfat said that "Iran is responsible for what is happening in Lebanon. The subject now is the Iranian attack on Lebanon. They want us to surrender totally without any compensation. Hizbullah has turned from an opposition party into a militia attempting to impose its control. I think Hizbullah believes that the way to Tel Aviv passes through Beirut."

Hizbullah and its Amal allies are laying siege to Lebanese institutions and effectively shut down the country.

If Hizbullah succeeds in this coup - and I don't mince words on that point, they'll be in a position to tell the UN to take a hike from South of the Litani, and it frees them up to resume the war with Israel at a time and place of their choosing.

UPDATE:
Gateway Pundit is following the crisis closely, and has video of the fighting, which clearly shows Hizbullah fighting in and among civilian populations.

The Catastrophe in Burma/Myanmar Continues

Now, the UN is suspending its humanitarian aid shipments to Burma because the junta is now seizing supplies provided.

Myanmar's junta seized U.N. aid shipments Friday meant for a multitude of hungry and homeless survivors of last week's devastating cyclone, forcing the world body to suspend further help.

The aid included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits and arrived in Myanmar on Friday on two flights from Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.

"All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated," U.N. World Food Program spokesman Risley said.

"For the time being, we have no choice but to end further efforts to bring critical needed food aid into Myanmar at this time," he said.

At least 62,000 people are dead or missing in Myanmar, entire villages are submerged in the Irrawaddy delta and aid groups warned that the area is on the verge of a medical disaster.

The U.N. has grown increasingly critical of Myanmar's military rulers' refusal to let foreign aid workers into the country while the junta appeared overwhelmed and more than 1 million homeless people waited for food, medicine and shelter.

The junta is more concerned about its own survival than that of the citizens of Burma.

And the death toll will only continue growing as the junta continues down this path. The seizures were from aid delivered by the World Food Program, which could have fed 95,000 people. The Thai government is trying to play intermediary to get the junta to allow humanitarian relief workers access to the country so that the relief and recovery efforts can begin in earnest.

The Thai leader is acting as a go-between for Britain and the United States, as well as major aid donors which have been frustrated by the Burmese military's insistence that it alone control the distribution of relief supplies.

So far only 11 regime-approved aid fights have landed in Rangoon.

But Thailand's foreign minister says Burma's position on international aid is becoming "more flexible" and he is sure Burma's government will welcome foreign humanitarian assistance.

He made the statement after a telephone conversation with his Burmese counterpart.

The Burmese government has deported a number of foreign aid workers, including two United Nations disaster experts.

It says it wants cash and supplies, not personnel.

Cash and supplies can very quickly disappear into the ether. Personnel on the ground can make it more likely that the aid goes where it is supposed to - the victims of the cyclone.

The idea that the Pentagon might consider food drops into Burma without permission is a very sticky subject as they do not have permission to conduct such operations. While the US military has airlift capabilities in the region, conducting any air drops without permission is not something being considered at this time.

'I cannot imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government,' Gates said at a Pentagon press conference with Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Asked if it would be helpful to victims for the U.S. to drop supplies, Mullen said: 'We could. Typically, though, it's sovereign airspace and you'd need their permission to fly in that airspace.'

'It's all tied to sovereignty, which we respect whether it's on the ground or in the air,' Mullen said.

Luu told a State Department press conference earlier that air drops are often inefficient, could have broader international legal implications and that the best option would be for Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, to accept the aid.

At least one commenter on this blog wondered about whether we could do airdrops into Burma along the lines of the Berlin airlift. The key difference between the situations is that Berlin was an international city divided between the Soviets and the West with established air corridors. The planes could fly through those corridors without violating sovereignty. Here, we would be flying into Burma violating the sovereignty of the country.

UPDATE:
The UN now says that relief flights will resume tomorrow, as more bad weather is expected in the region. That's despite the fact that negotiations are continuing over the tons of relief aid seized by the junta.

Photo of the Day

 

A rock formation at Saguaro National Park, along with some of the famous saguaro cacti.

Happy Birthday Israel

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Jewish State of Israel. It was born under fire and threats of throwing Jews into the sea, and through it all, Israel has survived.



Trust me when I say this, Israelis would much rather spend time at the beach working their tan, creating new technologies or medical advances, or building the economy than serving in the military, but that service is critical to the nation's continued survival in the face of the ongoing existential threat posed by Palestinians who refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist and terror regimes who make daily threats against Israel threatening Armageddon and genocide.

Israel has had to fight every step of the way to make it to it's 60th anniversary, and it's a fight worth fighting. More than 22,000 Israelis have given their lives so that Israel can live on.

The terrorists resist at every turn and the media willingly spins for Palestinian propagandists undermining Israel's standing. Israel's own resolve is continually tested, its leadership wanting, and it's restraint against incessant attacks by terrorists are considered to be a sign of weakness to be exploited by terrorists.

Through it all, Israel has not only survived, but thrived in a region that sorely seeks its destruction and is angered and resentful of Israel's successes while the Arab countries in the region can't come up with a single technological achievement of their own that they haven't begged, borrowed, or stolen from someone else (suicide bombers - those the Arab regimes can have for themselves).


President Bush will be in Israel to celebrate the anniversary on May 18 as part of his second sweep through the region this year.

Others celebrating Israel's 60th:
The Conservative Movement,

Rather Reaching

"If at first you don't succeed, file another lawsuit" appears to be the mantra of Dan Rather and his "legal team." After getting their first suit tossed, they're back at it trying to claim that CBS blackballed Rather in the industry after his Rathergate fiasco. The judge had allowed Rather to resubmit a case against CBS, but this one will fare no better than the first.

Again, this all goes to credibility. If this ever makes it to discovery, Rather will have to face discovery requests by CBS and depositions that cut to the fact that he purposefully used bogus documents to make a hit-piece against President Bush on the eve of the elections with the hope of causing voters to vote against Bush. He claimed that the documents were substantiated by experts when none ever viewed originals, and they were clearly exposed as fraudulent and bogus by bloggers, including Charles Johnson who put together a handy-dandy flashing image showing how miraculously the supposed documents created in the early 1970s matched precisely a standard Microsoft Word document created with default settings - down to the font, kerning, and margins.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 30

The news relating to Ground Zero these days isn't exactly cheerful. The worst news is that the Star Ledger is reporting that 360 people who worked on the recovery efforts at Ground Zero and Fresh Kills landfill where materials from Ground Zero were taken after being excavated have died. Lawyers are trying to link those deaths to exposure at the site. People have been claiming that their ailments are due to exposure to Ground Zero air, and some of them may have a valid case, but the emotional pull and politicization of the situation makes it extremely difficult to separate the claims from the facts. Still, it's my hope that we do all that we can to keep the workers from being the American version of the Chernobyl liquidators.

Meanwhile, construction costs are continuing to chip away at the Santiago Calatrava PATH terminal. The architect and planners are trying to work within a cap of $2.5 billion for the project, and it's leading to compromises that may threaten the original vision for the plan.

At the same time, construction is progressing along the eastern portion of the site as excavations have progressed under the MTA's 1 line that was restored in 2002. That work is making it possible to advance construction and use every available inch of space within the site for development and related infrastructure.

The Junta Still Drags Its Feet After Deadly Cyclone

While the junta continues to drag its feet to deal with the overwhelming devastation to Myanmar (Burma), a UN delegation finally arrived in the country to survey the damage.

Meanwhile, the US Navy and Marine Corps are positioning ships and equipment for providing assistance once it is requested and the junta provides its approval.

The U.S. military is stepping up preparations for a humanitarian mission to Myanmar.

Though the country's military junta has not accepted the offer of help, the U.S. Air Force is moving more airplanes to a staging area in neighboring Thailand.

And a U.S. defense official says the Navy has started sending helicopters to be closer to Myanmar as well, should approval come.

The Navy and Marine Corps happen to have ships and thousands of service members in the area this week for a multinational exercise on humanitarian missions.

An official said that because it would take the ships several days to get there, some of their helicopters are being sent ahead. When the ships are finished off loading their helicopters, they will get under way later Thursday.

The junta has refused to grant permission for US forces to provide humanitarian aid. Every day that the junta continues to drag its feet means more Burmese people die. It's really that simple. The US military has three ships in the region that were engaging in humanitarian relief exercises that could be deployed to provide immediate assistance and several heavy airlift planes positioned in Thailand to provide additional assistance and airlift of materials from around the region.

The junta has stonewalled and backtracked on outside assistance days after saying that they needed help. That's what you get when you have a corrupt and incompetent government operating during a natural disaster.

UPDATE:
One has to wonder what the junta is really afraid of. Are they afraid that they're going to lose power because foreign countries, including the US will provide aid and that they aren't going to be the ones distributing it to their cronies or withholding it from perceived opponents? Or, is it because the world will know about the corpses floating in rivers and streams because there's simply no place to bury them? Or maybe it's the rotting stench of death that overwhelms much of the coast?

The junta's clearly trying to hold onto power, and the cyclone has dealt them a blow that the opposition groups couldn't when they were protesting several months back. Fear is governing what the junta is doing, and that means that the Burmese people will continue suffering.

UPDATE:
A bird's eye view of the devastation - before and after photos of Burma. Another set of comparison photos is here.

UPDATE:
500,000 dead? That's what the Sun is reporting.

THE death toll in cyclone-ravaged Burma could hit 500,000 – more than TWICE the total killed by the Boxing Day Tsunami.

Last night’s warning came as it emerged that 17 Britons, including ex-pats and backpackers, were still missing.

Sources said 200,000 people were already dead or dying.

But the figure could rise to HALF A MILLION through disease and hunger if the nation’s hardline army rulers continue to block aid for the devastated lowlands of the Irrawaddy Delta.

I'm not sure how much to believe that figure, but it is plausible, and could explain why the junta isn't quite willing to let in foreign countries to see the devastation. It would expose the utter failure of the regime.

Rangoon is a complete wreck. The UN says that 1.5 million Burmese were affected by the storm, which makes the half a million dead seem out of proportion, but then again, villages were simply wiped away by storm surge, so anything is possible. The junta hasn't updated its figures today, but holds to a figure of 22,980 dead with 42,119 missing as of Tuesday.

Hizbullah Rampaging Through Beirut

Gateway Pundit has the photos and video of Hizbullah's latest offensive against the Lebanese people. Of course, the Islamic terrorists, a proxy of Iran, is blaming the government for Hizbullah's rioting.

UPDATE:
Nasrallah wants your sympathy, even as his Hizbullah terrorists busy doing what they do best - terrorizing and blowing stuff up around Beirut causing mayhem, misery, and a sense of foreboding that the worst is yet to come.

The fighting raging on around the city has pretty much paralyzed Beirut. Clashes between the Shi'ite Hizbullah and Sunni factions have resulted in a number of injuries.

Thursday's violence has spread outside the capital of Beirut, with rival groups exchanging gunfire in the village of Saadnayel in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

The area is on a major crossroads linking the Shiite areas of Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold, with central Lebanon and Beirut. Security officials say four people have been injured.

Hezbollah supporters have also kept the road to the country's only airport blocked, effectively closing the airport for a second day.

Lebanon's political deadlock exploded into violence Wednesday when supporters of the Hezbollah-led opposition blocked roads in the capital to enforce a strike called by labour unions protesting the government's economic policies and demanding pay raises.

The strike quickly escalated into street confrontations between supporters of the rival camps. About a dozen people were injured, mostly by stones, but no deaths were reported.

Lebanon's national carrier, Middle East Airlines, said it was canceling flights until Thursday afternoon because of the road closures and would reassess the situation later.

That's right folks, Hizbullah wants the world to think that they're the good guys in all this by closing the international airport, clashing with the sovereign and duly elected government of Lebanon, and pushing a separatist agenda that benefits Hizbullah and its terror masters in Damascus and Tehran.

UPDATE:
Hizbullah's Nasrallah says that it's a war. Who am I to argue. He wants war, the Lebanese military should oblige him - targeting him personally and not letting up until it has destroyed the terrorist infrastructure that the group and its terror masters have cultivated for far too long. Nasrallah wants to wrap his terror minions up in the flag of Lebanese nationalism, but they're the ones who provoked this fight, and they're the ones who are purposefully interfering in Lebanese sovereignty. They are the threat to Lebanon's survival as an intact nation.

UPDATE:
Other Lebanese-centric blogs include: From Beirut to Beltway, Beirut Spring, and Lebanese Political Journal among others.

UPDATE:
Michael Totten has a bunch of guest posters providing analysis of the ongoing situation in Lebanon. Their work is better than what you'll find in the dead tree media like the NY Times or WaPo.

Carla Katz in the News Again

Carla Katz, a major domo at the CWA Local 1034 who also happened to be a one-time squeeze of Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey (D), has apparently found enemies within her union who are not above pointing out potential wrong-doing by making improper donations to another Democrat, Newark Mayor Cory Booker in his campaign to win that office.

The battle between state labor leader Carla Katz and opponents in her own union has escalated again with allegations Katz used union money to make an improper $20,800 donation to the 2006 campaign of Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

The Communications Workers of America has appointed a union investigator to determine whether Katz, president of CWA Local 1034, made the donations without authorization from her local's governing board, according to internal correspondence from CWA's national president.

The document says the Booker donation was among hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions authorized by Katz, and it questions whether she may have approved it because of a "close personal relationship" with the chief executive of the state's largest city.

Booker said he was not aware that a donation to his campaign was being scrutinized and said the matter is "not a big deal to me." He said Katz "like many great women in our state, has been, in my opinion, overly vilified."

If Katz made those donations without authorization, it could mean she could be ousted from her position for a violation of union rules. Apparently, such donations would not be illegal, though I wonder why considering that there is a fiduciary responsibility and if she misappropriated funds without authorization, criminal charges could be found.

The Sean Bell Demonstration at Houston and Varick

As promised, here are the photos of the Sean Bell demonstration at Houston and Varick Street taken around 3 pm this afternoon. [click on the photos for enlargements]

 

That's the intersection of Houston Street and Varick Street as shot from the NW side of Houston. There's a bit of construction going on Houston Street, and the building is undergoing renovations, so there's a sidewalk shed running for about half the block.

That bit of information will come in handy later.

 

That's a view of the demonstrators, who managed to completely fit underneath the sidewalk shed. Guess it was too warm for them to try and walk out in the open. Folks who wanted no part of the demonstration were forced to scoot around the edges. Media types and the police were all along the fringes.

 

The police were mulling around across the street and easily matched or exceeded the number of demonstrators. They looked bored.

 

So was the media.

 

 

 

I'm not sure who the guy with the armband was, but it said legal observer. He must have been cataloging who was involved in the demonstration for the eventuality of when the police arrested someone. In the time I was viewing all this, no arrests.

 

And Marcellus Wallace was in the crowd.

 

It's lovely to have preprinted signs that show just how ignorant you are. Two of the three cops who were involved in the Bell shooting were black, as was Bell.

 

More flora and fauna from the demonstration. That poster is the flip side of the one calling the shooting racist and this side has nothing to do with the stated purpose of this demonstration, but rather to call for the end of all deportations and raids.

 

Like I said, the media was definitely bored.

 

After all, the crowd was busy showing everyone that they knew how to count to 50 - representing the 50 bullets used by the three NYPD officers involved in the shooting, and then repeated the chant We Shall Overcome.

 

I know this banner is difficult to read because of the angle, but it says Stop the Brutality - Fight Back Against the NYPD.

 

After a while of seeing that Sharpton had failed to show up by 3:20 or so, I headed back to the office. By the time I left work for the day, I figured that the demonstrators would have completely tied things up at the Holland Tunnel, just as they promised. Well, I was wrong. They didn't stick around, though a lonely news truck was still hanging out. In fact, they apparently all headed downtown closer to the entrance of the Holland Tunnel as I could see the gaggle of helicopters hovering over Lower Manhattan.

 

Apparently 190 of the protesters overall were arrested, including Sharpton, Bell's fiance, and other leaders of the demonstration. They were arrested once they started blocking off the bridges and tunnels. As I suspected, those legal observers were part and parcel of Sharpton's crew to keep things organized.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the real juicy photos of Sharpton and his gaggle getting arrested. There's always a next time.

UPDATE:
There was one other photo I wanted to include in this post. It shows that a good portion of those demonstrating were members of SEIU Local 32BJ, which is apparently the building workers union.





All photos were taken by lawhawk © 2008.

UPDATE:
The NY Times has more on the demonstrations, including a breakdown of where arrests were made. Apparently reports claiming that Sharpton would be at the Houston and Varick site were wrong - as he apparently went to One Police Plaza instead. There's no word on the total number of demonstrators involved, nor can one discern how many protesters were involved at the Sharpton-led protest, but if you have a close cropping of the photos, you can be assured that the numbers weren't all that great. Oh, and the NYT roundup totally misses the Houston and Varick demonstration site altogether and the comments to that effect are pretty funny.

UPDATE:
Gothamist actually has a photo of the Varick Street contingent blocking the street as they marched downtown. That photo conveys just how big the crowd really was, which is to say that it wasn't all that impressive at all as most of those mulling about were gawkers, media, or police.

Demonstration Time

I just got back from observing the startup of the Sean Bell demonstrations at Houston and Varick St., in NYC, which began at 3:00. I was there for only a short time, and may go back out there again in about an hour, as the demonstrations head towards a climax and rush hour. As of a few minutes ago, the crowd was about 100 people, there were no disruption to traffic, and the media easily matched the number of demonstrators 1 for 1. Police also had similar numbers. I think there were as many gawkers as there were protesters.

The protesters were marching up and down a segment of the block of Varick Street between Clarkson and Houston. There was a chant of 50 bullets - counting up from 1 to 50. Then, they sang we shall overcome... or at least repeated we shall overcome over and over.

A few signs were present, including one that had nothing to do with the incident considering that race played no role in the shooting - two of the cops involved were black, but when you get pre-printed signs, what do you expect - facts and logic?

I'll post more in the 6pm hour, including photos.

UPDATE:
WCBS880 and 1010wins have stories running about the demonstrations in other parts of the city. Also, a single news helicopter has been hovering over the area hoping for some action.

Hizbullah Goes On Offensive Against Lebanese Government

Is this the first step in arranging the stage for the fight against Israel to come?

Explosions and gunfire rang out across Lebanon's capital. The cause of the explosions was not immediately known and there was no word on casualties.

The violence deepened tensions in a country already mired in a 17-month-old political crisis pitting the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah against the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. The troubles have left the country without a president since November.

Labor unions had called for the strike after rejecting a last-minute pay raise offer by the government. Instead, it turned into a showdown between Hezbollah and the government.

The clashes began when government and opposition supporters in a Muslim sector of Beirut exchanged insults and began throwing stones at each other. Witnesses said security forces intervened and gunshots were heard, apparently troops firing in the air to disperse the crowds.

A cameraman for Hezbollah's al-Manar television was beaten by a soldier, the station reported. The state-run National News Agency reported that he was struck in the forehead during the clash.

Bystanders wrapped a shirt on his head to stop the bleeding before he left on his motorcycle.

A soldier was hit in the mouth by a stone and two other news photographers also were hurt by stones, according to witnesses and television reports.

I suspect that it is precisely the situation. Hizbullah needs to get control over the Lebanese government or sufficiently cow it into submission so that it can operate even more freely than it has to date. The UN is spineless and gutless in its ongoing oversight of UNIFIL and UN SCR 1701 that demands Hizbullah's disarmament. Hizbullah's very actions show that the UN has no will to fight to impose the resolution, which was meant to provide security for Israel.

In fact, Hizbullah has effectively engaged in acts of war against the Lebanese people and its civilian government by blockading Beirut.

The Hizbullah militia and its supporters spent a good part of the day terrorizing Beirut citizens, blocking major roads, and dumping dirt along the airport road, blocking access to the airport.

Flights to and from Beirut's Rafik Hariri airport have been canceled.

Hooligans on motorcycles are touring Beirut neighborhoods, throwing insults and beating residents. Clashes between Hizbullah/Amal and March 14 supporters erupted in several mixed neighborhoods in the city.

The media is reporting heavy gunfire and use of rocket propelled grenades. The pro-Hizbullah labor unions, meanwhile, have called off today’s strike, which LBC said, quoting government sources, was used by Hizbullah as an excuse for unleashing violence and exact revenge after Monday's cabinet decision to crack down on Hizbullah's spy network in the country.

Hizbullah has decided that now is the time to unleash hell on the Lebanese people and it shows once again that Hizbullah is not interested in peace or simply ridding Israel's presence from territory claimed for Lebanon, but rather to institute its own power over Lebanon so that it can engage in a wider conflict with Israel at a time and place of its choosing.

Once again, the failure to fight Hizbullah with the full power and effect of the Israeli military and a reluctance of the UN to fulfill its own mission has left the door open to a wider conflict that will be far more damaging.

New Jersey Imam Facing Deportation

Mohammad Qatanani is one of the most prominent Muslim leaders in New Jersey and was singled out to lead the Legislature in the opening prayer back in 2005. Of course, his background is far more complicated than that. He's alleged to have lied on his Green Card application and faces deportation under federal law.

Qatanani, his wife and three children are facing deportation for his alleged failure to disclose on his green card application a 1993 arrest by Israeli authorities. Israeli military officials told the Associated Press he confessed to being a member of Hamas, a known terrorist organization. Qatanani denies the charge.

Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will begin presenting the case before an immigration judge in Newark on Thursday.

Qatanani's case will be decided by Judge Alberto J. Riefkohl of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, an administrative court system within the U.S. Department of Justice.

The hearing is expected to last three days. Riefkohl can issue an order of deportation or grant either legal permanent residency or a green card to the imam, his wife and three foreign-born children. The couple also have three children who are U.S. citizens.

First of all, note that the link to the Star Ledger's blog says the following: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/05/keep_the_imam_in_america.html What a way to maintain an objective stance on the story. Stay classy Star Ledger.

It's not that his arrest by Israel requires the deportation, but that he did not disclose the arrest on his Green Card application. By lying on his application, he committed a crime and should be deported under federal law. There's no excuse for this, especially since it's alleged that Qatanani tried to hide his ties to the terrorist group Hamas.

Myanmar-Burma Cyclone Death Toll Climbs Past 60,000 100,000

It's a far cry from the 351 acknowledged by the junta a day after the cyclone came ashore on Saturday as the death toll soared past 60,000. Thousands remain unaccounted for and the death toll will continue climbing, not only directly from the storm, but from the failure to provide adequate food, shelter, and medical care to the survivors.

The number of dead and missing in the Burma cyclone soared past 60,000 Tuesday amid signs the toll will rise even higher, as much of the disaster zone remained flooded by seawater, threatened by disease and out of reach of an international relief operation that is taking shape.

President Bush offered to send U.S. Navy units to help in the operation, and sharply criticized Burma's military-run government for delays in approving visas for emergency teams. Burmese dissident groups took issue with the timing of the administration's criticism, suggesting it could complicate the relief effort.

Emergency supplies began arriving by air in wind-battered Rangoon, the largest city in Burma. But little or no aid reached the Irrawaddy Delta, a vast and low-lying rice-producing region that absorbed the storm's worst fury. Satellite photos showed catastrophic flooding of fields and villages as far inland as 35 miles.

A tidal wave that accompanied the cyclone was more deadly than the winds, Minister for Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe told reporters in Rangoon. "The wave was up to 12 feet high, and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," he said. "They did not have anywhere to flee."

The fact is that the junta is simply overwhelmed by the disaster and they're still trying to do things the way that they've always done them - limiting access to the country and that means that aid will continue to be delayed in getting to those most in need of assistance. Still, the fact that the junta has actually asked for some international assistance is a sign that they're beginning to realize just how badly damaged their country has become.

Of course, none of this would be complete without the requisite bashing of the Bush Administration and their demands that the junta speed up their approval process to enable relief efforts, along with First Lady Laura Bush's criticism that the junta didn't provide sufficient warning to those living in low lying areas.

The junta and their mouthpieces turned around and criticized the Administration over its handling of Hurricane Katrina, despite the fact that the Administration was bound by the Posse Comitatus Act to not send in federal assistance without state approval, which Gov. Blanco was late in providing, to say nothing of the massive failures of the Louisiana state and local officials who did not evacuate their most vulnerable citizens in a timely fashion or provide emergency assistance (Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool anyone?).

The junta's response is merely a lame attempt to try and deflect attention from its massive failures - to place blame elsewhere than on the junta. Opposition groups have also criticized Mrs. Bush's statements, and that is somewhat understandable since they want to make sure that aid arrives swiftly, but if anything, they need to be putting even greater pressure on the junta to open up and waive their visa requirements so that aid can be delivered promptly.

UPDATE:
The death toll continues rising, and it's now believed that more than 100,000 perished in the cyclone and resulting storm surge.

"The information we are receiving indicates over 100,000 deaths," the U.S. Charge D'Affaires in Yangon, Shari Villarosa, said on a conference call.

The U.S. figure is almost five times more than the 22,000 the Myanmar government has estimated.

The U.S. estimate is based on data from an international non-governmental organization, Villarosa said without naming the group. She called the situation in Myanmar "more and more horrendous."

Villarosa also said about 95 percent of the buildings in the delta region were destroyed when Cyclone Nargis battered the area late Friday into Saturday.

Based on the same data, 70,000 people are missing in the Irrawaddy Delta, which has a population of nearly six million people, Villarosa said. The official Myanmar government figure for the missing is 41,000.

Little aid has reached the area since Nargis hit, and on Wednesday crowds of hungry survivors stormed reopened shops in the devastated Irrawaddy delta.

Sharpton's Plans For Disrupting the NYC Evening Commute

Al Sharpton and his friends are hoping to completely disrupt New York City commutes this afternoon by engaging in demonstrations at key points around the city. He and his group have not obtained the necessary permits, so they are clearly hoping to goad the police into making mass arrests and/or get the police to overreact.

This is all part of Sharpton's plan to put pressure on the City over the verdict in the Sean Bell shooting against three New York City cops. The three cops were acquitted of the charges of

Union officials are meeting with federal investigators to try and stave off a federal civil rights action against the officers. Bell's supporters argue that New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman’s acquittal was unjust. Cooperman ruled that Detectives Gescard Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper were justified in firing the 50 bullets that killed 23-year-old Bell and wounded his two friends, Trent Benefied 23, and Joseph Guzman, 31.

The locations for the demonstrations are as follows:

LOCATIONS OF BELL VERDICT PROTESTS
Wednesday, May 7 at 3 p.m.

# Third Avenue at 125th Street
# Park Avenue at 34th Street
# Third Avenue at 60th Street
# Varick and Houston Streets
# One Police Plaza
# 415 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn

I may get over to the Varick and Houston Street demonstration, which is near the entrance of the Holland Tunnel and a stop on the 1 train. This is also the location where Sharpton, New York NAACP President Hazel Dukes and Bell's relatives will demonstrate. I fully expect a circus atmosphere with the media in full force, to say nothing of the thousands of drivers trying to simply get home. We'll see just how many demonstrators actually show up, but I also expect a significant police presence to keep the intersection clear.

I don't quite understand how and why Sharpton thinks that pissing off commuters is a way to get justice in this case. He's only inconveniencing those who might be sympathetic to the cause and it would appear to be counterproductive. Besides, the feds are looking at opening a possible civil rights case against the officers, and an internal investigation is still pending against the officers.

Photo of the Day

 

As promised, here's a close up of a prickly pear cactus flowering - complete with the pollen grains and interior details. The photo was taken at Saguaro National Park outside Tucson, Arizona.

This post will also serve as my call for the best and brightest from around the web.

Save the Date

I will be making another appearance on Joe Salzone's Blog Bunker show on Sirius Radio Channel 110 this coming Friday. My segment will air live from 5:30 to 6:00PM. Legalbgl might also join in if he can make it.

Unfortunately, Sirius suits have decided that people can't receive transcripts and that the only records available are audio tapes of the segments and those can't be provided to those appearing on the show either. Silly policy. It's called advertising and if you want to expand your exposure, you want to make it easier to get people hooked on your product that way.

As a matter of fact, on our recent trip to Arizona, we rented a Dodge Avenger from Enterprise, and it came equipped with free Sirius radio. It's pretty neat to get a solid channel of rock music that Mrs. Lawhawk and I could both enjoy without annoying commercials and that was available throughout our entire 1,000+ mile drive.

So, if you want to hear my appearance, you'll have to get your hands on a Sirius radio and tune in to channel 110.

Indiana and North Carolina Primaries Spark Usual Nonsense From Media

MSNBC asks the hopeful question whether today's primaries will end the race for the Democrat Party nomination and that the real story will be the race for both Obama and Clinton to woo the superdelegates ahead of the convention in Denver. I'm here to say that it will do no such thing.

Is today the last day on the campaign trail? Sure, there are six more contests beyond these two in Indiana and North Carolina. But after today, there will be more undeclared superdelegates (264) and more disputed delegates (366 in Florida and Michigan) for the campaigns to fight over than there will be delegates earned in the remaining primaries (217). Indeed, there's an argument to be made that after today, there are more delegates to be had INSIDE THE BELTWAY than out on the trail. So for all intents and purposes, today is the last shopping day of the primary season for the two Dems to impress the superdelegates on their issues.

Neither candidate will score the knockout blow today, and neither candidate will gain enough votes - either the popular tally or the delegates - to win the nomination or make a clear case that they've won the right to represent the party.

And that situation will repeat itself in the remaining elections before the convention, which means that the situation is going to a brokered convention regardless of the outcome - a situation that has been developing ever since Super Tuesday.

Obama continues to show that he can't win the big states, while Hillary continues to do poorly everywhere else.

It will get very ugly in Denver at the convention; mark my words.

UPDATE:
As I expected, North Carolina went to Obama and Clinton won Indiana. How does this result change anything? It doesn't. Onwards to the convention people and a brokered mess where back door deals will mean that one candidate's supporters will find themselves cast aside as the party is torn asunder by competing partisan hacks.

Of course, none of this will change the need for both parties to spin the results to their advantage. It's what the candidates pay their consultants millions of dollars to do. Hillary tried to play up that she was going to lose big in North Carolina so that when the results showed an improvement over her polling data, it will appear as though she did better than expected when in reality the results were entirely predictable. The same goes with Indiana where Obama was trying to manage expectations of losing yet another big state to Clinton.

The fact is that both candidates knew that they were going to win those states and planned their victory celebrations well in advance - Obama was going to celebrate in North Carolina while Clinton will be spending the night in Indiana.

UN Complicity in Terror

We've repeatedly seen that the UN operations in Gaza have been thoroughly penetrated by Palestinian terrorists, and this week witnessed yet another UNRWA official outed as a terror master.

In this most recent case, the person involved was a teacher at a UN-run school, and he happened to be a terrorist in charge of designing and building rockets used to attack Israel on a near daily basis.

United Nations officials say they're shocked - shocked! - to learn that the headmaster at one of their top prep schools in Gaza was also the chief rocket-maker for Islamic Jihad.

Thankfully, Awad al-Qiq, for the past eight years a science teacher at schools run by the UN's Relief and Works Agency, won't be assembling any more weapons: An Israeli airstrike last week took out his bomb-making operation - plus him.

Now the UN agency, which Israel has long accused of complicity with terrorists, must explain how it let a high-ranking terrorist take charge of its Rafah Prep Boys School.

He was guilty, of course: Islamic Jihad actually ID'd him as "chief leader of the engineering [i.e., bomb-making] unit." His home was bedecked with Islamic Jihad posters - and an Islamic Jihad flag was draped over his body at his funeral.

Indeed, Islamic Jihad gave him the ultimate sendoff tribute: firing a barrage of his rockets into Israel in mourning.

So much for UNRWA's self-proclaimed "zero-tolerance policy toward politics and militant activities."

Of course, that policy was pretty well shown up as a joke when a UNRWA teacher named Saeed Seyam was named interior minister of the Hamas-led government in Gaza and immediately vowed never to arrest any Palestinian for "resisting the occupation."

The UNRWA is a complete and utter joke as it serves as a cover for Palestinian terrorism and its very existence exacerbates the Palestinian suffering. The Palestinians do not take responsibility for their own situation, instead blaming Israel for every ailment and situation facing the Palestinians. Note that the Palestinians are claiming that Israel is withholding fuel shipments to Gaza, but ignore the fact that the same Palestinian terrorists were busy trying to attack and blow up the fuel depot from which Gaza obtains its fuel. The Palestinians want Israel to provide them with the fuel and energy Gaza needs to support its ongoing war against Israel.

$2 Billion UN Renovation Underway

An ambitious $2 billion project to refurbish the aging U.N. building was launched yesterday with the ground-breaking for a temporary building on the northern lawn of the U.N. campus, east of First Avenue.

The project, scheduled to be completed by 2013, is designed to modernize the landmark headquarters, which first were occupied in 1952 and have not been refurbished since. Hazardous substances, including asbestos, are to be removed, while new safety features, updated telecommunications systems, and environmentally oriented devices will be installed.

Staffers will move for the duration of the construction project to several nearby office buildings, while the temporary building will host U.N. meetings.

One of the party favors handed out yesterday to guests — among them top U.N. officials and ambassadors, and Mayor Bloomberg's sister, Marjorie Tiven, a liaison between the city and the United Nations — was a gold-colored lapel pin in the shape of a shovel inscribed with the letters "U" and "N."

It's all well and good that the building gets necessary technological, safety, and security upgrades, but the cost is eye-popping considering that just a few years ago, the costs to do the same work were well under $1 billion. In fact, as I had noted in December 2006, the cost for the UN renovation of the Secretariat was going to exceed the construction cost for the brand new 7WTC. One has to wonder where all the money is going as US taxpayers foot a significant portion of the UN annual budget. Previously, I'd reported on the contracting for office space near the UN building for staffers.

Another Opportunity to Play Name That Party

Clyde Haberman takes note of the long list of New York politicians who have felt the sting of handcuffs, investigations, and convictions in the past several years as part of a story noting the most recent addition to the rogue's gallery - Rep. Vito Fossella, who was arrested for DUI in Virginia over the weekend.

He makes special note to mention that Fossella is a conservative Republican, while leaving out the party affiliations of all the other crooked politicians listed.

The latest entrant in the rogues’ gallery is Representative Vito J. Fossella of Staten Island and Brooklyn, who was arrested a few days ago in a Virginia suburb of Washington and charged with driving while intoxicated. His blood-alcohol level, the police said, was 0.17 percent, more than twice Virginia’s legal limit for drivers.

He was so sloshed, they said, that he had trouble reciting the alphabet. That’s pretty drunk. But perhaps, to be charitable, he had not been put to a fair test. The officers who stopped him say that he blew it when he was asked to rattle off the letters from D to T. But it could be that the congressman, a conservative Republican, was thrown off his stride by being ordered to start with the letter D. No doubt, D automatically meant Democrat to him. The demand probably unnerved him. Hey, it could happen to anyone.

Mr. Fossella could be jailed for five days if convicted. Not good. Perhaps worse for him, his future political life may be in peril. It is generally not considered advisable for a politician to be identified in tabloid headlines as Vino Fossella.

What could happen to anyone who isn't a Republican is that a story listing other disgraced politicians leaves out the party affiliations of all those other characters. Fossella deserves whatever criminal sanctions warranted as driving under the influence can have deadly consequences but New York Times readers deserve better than what was reported.

Hollywood Hypocrites

None of this is shocking to say the least, as a Daily Mail report notes the Hollywood hypocrites who say that they're out to save the planet, but whose jet-setting ways spew forth thousands of times the amount of greenhouse gases as the average Joe.

I'd suggest that the Daily Mail piece doesn't go nearly far enough. For people like Leonardo DiCaprio, who claims to have gone green with his home purchases, one has to wonder just how green it is to have multiple homes - and multiple vehicles. To produce those homes it takes a whole lot of carbon emissions, and the carbon tithing offsets are nothing so much as a scam to make it appear that they're doing something to save the planet when they in actuality do nothing more than line the pockets of the shysters who run those scams - and that includes none other than Al Gore.

Speaking of the former Vice President, he was no where on that list, despite his own jet setting ways. He's taken private jets to fly to Bali and to receive his Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo when he could have just as easily teleconferenced to participate. If he really thought the problem was so serious, he should start making real sacrifices, but that isn't going to happen because there's a trip to exotic and remote destinations to be had.

Myanmar Cyclone Death Toll Continues Climbing

The people of Burma-Myanmar continue to suffer horrendously as the official death toll continues climbing, and the real toll may be far higher. It appears that at least 10,000 people died in one town alone, and the toll is likely to exceed 30-40,000.

The death toll from a powerful cyclone that struck Myanmar three days ago rose to 22,500 Tuesday, with a further 41,000 people still missing, the government said, and foreign governments and aid organizations began mobilizing for a major relief operation.
Shaken by the scope of the disaster, the authorities said they would delay a vote in the worst affected areas on a new constitution that was meant to cement the military’s grip on power.

The death toll was the latest in a steadily escalating official count since Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar early Saturday, devastating much of the fertile Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon, the nation’s main city.

At a news conference in Yangon, the minister for relief and resettlement, Maung Maung Swe, said 41,000 people were still missing in the aftermath of the cyclone, which triggered a surge of water inland from the sea.

“More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself," he said, in the first official description of the destruction. “The wave was up to 12 feet high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages. They did not have anywhere to flee.”

A spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program said that as many as one million people might have lost their homes and that some villages were almost totally destroyed.

Recall that on Sunday the government claimed that only 351 people died. Only yesterday did government officials admit that the death toll was several magnitudes larger - that up to 10,000 were killed.

Even that figure was low-balling, and now the government is looking to postpone a constitutional referendum, which was meant to further insulate the military junta from opposition.

The failure of the government to deal with the natural disaster is only going to feed opposition to the junta and may prove to be the spark that finally gets the Burmese people to rid themselves of the repressive and totalitarian regime.

UPDATE:
The Bush Administration is calling on the junta to allow foreign assistance as Red Cross workers are waiting for visas to be approved. With the US Navy operating in the Indian Ocean, it wouldn't be long until US Navy ships were operating offshore and assisting in relief operations should the junta allow it. Of course, the sight of those US helicopters ferrying supplies into the devastated areas would be a tremendous blow to the junta, whose insular and repressive methods have enabled them to remain in power but at the tremendous cost in Burmese lives.

UPDATE:
Reports indicate that the Indian government gave the junta two days of lead time to prepare for the landfall of the cyclone. Looks like they were just as effective as the Louisiana government and are now flailing about hoping that someone else will bail them out.

Meanwhile, Al Gore is using this tragedy to claim that it's a sign that global warming is causing the destruction. What a tool - and fool. The failure to respond to warnings did more to cause the death toll and devastation than global warming. The failure to improve the wealth and well being of the citizens did more to cause the devastation in Burma than global warming. Or that the scientists at the IPCC have had to admit that the global climate temps have been flat since 1998.

UPDATE:
Via CNN:

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it had released $190,000 to help with the aftermath of the storm, the U.S. has pledged $3.25 million, the European Commission $3.1 million, Canada $2 million, China $1 million in aid including relief materials worth $500,000 and Thailand $100,000.

That's a paltry amount to assist in the relief and recovery efforts, but considering that the junta is busy dragging its feet, one can understand why countries are reluctant to send aid - as it may end up never being used by the junta at all.

Photo of the Day

 

A flower budding on a prickly pear cactus in Saguaro National Park outside Tucson, Arizona. After flowering, the cactus develops a fruit that has been prized by both man and animal to sustain them in the harsh Sonoran Desert.

UPDATE:
This posting will serve as my call for the best and brightest from around the Web.

Bordering on Craziness

As you are aware, I recently visited Arizona for a week. Part of the time, we were in the Tucson area, and did a day trip to the town of Tubac. It's home to a boatload of art galleries and shops about 50 miles South of Tucson and 22 miles North of the border town of Nogales, Arizona. The art galleries were quite interesting, but that isn't what piqued my interest.

Several miles north of Tubac, we came across a Border Patrol checkpoint where they stopped vehicles heading North along I-19. It looks like it's a semi-permanent affair as they have speed bumps in the area along with a trailer and signage that suggests that they are regularly checking vehicles going through the area.

Mrs. Lawhawk suggests that they are probably doing those checks in that area because they figure that they might catch illegal aliens who made it past the border and had let down their guard.

That's certainly possible, but one has to wonder why the Border Patrol and Congress aren't doing more to secure our borders at our borders. It's a sentiment that was echoed at several of the galleries, where signs made that point clear.

At a similar checkpoint outside San Diego, more than 60 illegals were found crammed into a big rig.

This comes at a time when Sen. John McCain, who represents Arizona is busy pandering to the open borders crowd and claiming to try to woo Hispanics. He clearly doesn't get it. He wants people to think that those who oppose amnesty and open borders are racist or somehow opposed to immigration. McCain has it all wrong. We're opposed to illegal immigration and giving citizenship to those that do not deserve it because they clearly chose the path of least resistance and violated federal law to enter the country illegally. The rule of law is there for a reason, and amnesty stands it on its head.

McCain appears to be out of touch with many of his own constituents, but that's not all that surprising since he's in a pandering mood. Of course, such pandering puts Americans at risk because insecure borders are open borders.

A FARC'in' Mess

[T]hugo Chavez may have complained bitterly about the fact that Colombia took out a bunch of FARC terrorists and captured a treasure trove of intel along the way, and then stated that any information provided by Colombia was invented, but Interpol sees things a wee bit differently.

Interpol confirms what Colombia has been saying all along.

The information found in the computers of the deceased leader of the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), Raúl Reyes, was not manipulated by Colombian authorities, according to an Interpol's report to be released next May 15, as disclosed by Bogota El Tiempo daily newspaper.

The report stated that a committee comprising computer science experts from Korea, Australia, and Singapore working for the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) completed last May 2 the investigation into the three computers found in Reyes' camp in Ecuador, Efe reported.

"The first finding was that Reyes' files were not manipulated and that security agencies and citizens who had the computer in their hands kept them safe," the Colombian newspaper stated.

Colombia has been blaming Venezuela for supporting the FARC terrorists, and the intel gleaned from those computers backed up their assertions.

It remains to be seen what Chavez will do in light of this. I expect him to complain that Interpol is out to get him and is simply another tool of the imperialist Americans to subjugate Venezuela or other such blathering.

UPDATE:
Gateway Pundit runs down a partial list of items found on those laptop computer files, and it's pretty damning:

-- FARC connections with Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa
-- Records of $300 million offerings from Hugo Chavez
-- Thank you notes from Hugo Chavez dating back to 1992
-- Uranium purchasing records
-- Admit to killing the sister of former President Cesar Gaviria
-- Admit to planting a 2003 car bomb killing 36 at a Bogota upper crust club
-- Directions on how to make a Dirty Bomb
-- Information that led to the discovery of 60 pounds of uranium
-- Letter to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi asking for cash to buy surface-to-air missiles
-- Meetings with "gringos" about Barack Obama
-- Information on Russian illegal arms dealer Viktor Bout who was later captured
-- FARC funding Correa's campaign
-- Cuban links to FARC
-- Links to US Democrats
-- $480,000 of FARC cash in Costa Rican safe house
-- $100,000 to President Correa's campaign for election

Still, we'd love to know who they purchased the uranium from; which US Democrats were involved, and who those gringos were with whom FARC discussed Barack Obama.

Taking the Rivalry Too Far

I have no problem with baseball rivalries and fans showing their pride for their teams. However, this is completely inexcusable and I hope and expect this woman to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

After a Red Sox-Yankees argument spilled outside a bar, a Yankee fan aimed her car at a group of people to scare them and didn't brake, hitting and killing a man, authorities and witnesses said.

The Yankees fan, Ivonne Hernandez, was arraigned Monday on reckless second-degree murder and drunken driving charges and was held without bail. She did not enter a plea.

Hernandez, 43, was speeding early Friday toward a small group that included the man, Matthew Beaudoin, 29, and never hit her brakes, a prosecutor said Monday.

"She accelerated at a high speed for about 200 feet. She went directly at this group of people," prosecutor Susan Morrell said. "She indicated to police that she wanted to scare this group of people. She thought they would get out of the way."

Beaudoin died of massive head trauma at a hospital, Morrell said.

It doesn't matter that Yankee fan Ivonne Hernandez wanted to just scare those Red Sox fans. She got behind the wheel in a drunken state, and used the vehicle as a deadly weapon. She killed Matthew Beaudoin, who died of his injuries at the hospital.

UPDATE:
Ace links. Thanks!

Same Old Song and Dance

US Secretary of State Condi Rice is busy trying to get Israel to make more concessions, particularly on the issue of settlements in the West Bank. This is the same issue that crops up every few years. The Palestinians complain, whine and seethe over Israel's construction of housing settlements on areas captured from Jordan in 1967 saying that they're an impediment to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

It's utter bunk, since the Palestinian terrorists, including Fatah and Hamas, seek all of Israel for their own thugocracy. They don't want to limit their demands to just areas captured by Israel in 1967, but seek all of Israel.

And while Rice is busy trying to force Israel to stop construction of housing projects, the diplomats are busy ignoring the incessant rocket barrages fired by the Palestinians against Israel. The latest kassam barrages injured one Israeli. Oh, and there were mortar attacks as well. Despite all this, Egyptian officials are claiming that a ceasefire agreement between the terrorists and Israel may be concluded in days.

We've heard this before, and it will only provide the terrorists with an opportunity to regroup and rearm. Again.

Meanwhile,
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert continues talking with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, discussing permanent borders, despite the fact that Abbas and his Fatah thugs don't control Gaza and are barely in control of Palestinian Authority areas in the West Bank.

"These were the most serious talks the sides have ever conducted," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the PM's Office. A senior Israeli official added that major progress was achieved mainly on the issue of the permanent borders of a future Palestinian state and the security arrangements such a development would entail.

However, no progress as reported on the core issues of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Olmert's meeting with Abbas was held just a few hours after the PM met Condoleezza Rice for the second time during the US secretary of state's 2-day visit to the region. Rice left Israel a short while later.

Considering that the Palestinians want to divide Jerusalem and demand that the Palestinians have a right to return to land within the borders of Israel and have never wavered from those points in decades of demands, nothing will change unless and until the Palestinians give up the ghost and recognize Israel's inalienable rights to Jerusalem and recognize that the right of return for Palestinians will not happen.

The Palestinians are hoping to use those two issues to get the media to portray Israel as the party that stands in the way of peace, despite the fact that these issues go to the core of Palestinian long term plans to undermine Israel's right to exist and Israel's identity as a Jewish state. What they cannot win in war, they hope to change through negotiations and demographics. The Palestinians hope to use the issue of refugees - grossly inflated numbers of Palestinians who were displaced in 1948 and 1967 and who the UN now considers all their descendants as refugees despite never having lived in Israel - as a wedge against Israel with no concessions on their part.

Once again, we're watching the Palestinians make demands on Israel with Israel getting no concessions from the Palestinians other than lip service to carrying out previously agreed-to obligations that they've failed to carry out for years.

The Israeli Shas party says that they will resign from the government should Olmert make any concessions over the status of Jerusalem, but I wonder just how dedicated they are to that proposition since we know that the issue of Jerusalem continues to come up in negotiations and discussions between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians want to make Jerusalem their capital despite the fact that Jerusalem was never a Palestinian capital and the Palestinians want to redivide the capital.

The UN, for its part, continues to play lackey for the Palestinians, claiming that they can't deliver food shipments in Gaza because Israel is not allowing fuel shipments. It's utter bunk, and the responsibility for the situation in Gaza resides wholly on the shoulders of the Palestinians - it is their ongoing war against Israel, including attacks against the very same Israel fuel depots that supply Gaza with fuel that has resulted in the shortages in Gaza when combined with Hamas thugs taking their customary cut of whatever aid enters Gaza plus hoarding by those terrorists.