Here's the latest:
Anna Nicole Smith is still dead.
The father of her baby is still unknown.
The disposition of her remains is still undecided.
And, most importantly, I still don't give a damn. The media could stop covering this story tomorrow, and I'd be just fine with that. But somehow, I suspect they won't.
In related news, the diapered astronaut is quite happy with the whole Anna Nicole saga. After all, Miss Smith's "untimely" passing knocked her right off the media's radar screen.
As the 2008 Presidential campaign heats up, and the debate over whether we should have gone into Iraq continues, a little historical perspective might be useful.
Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998." This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers.
Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are: The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.
The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.
My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.
In the meantime, while the United States continues to look to the Security Council's efforts to keep the current regime's behavior in check, we look forward to new leadership in Iraq that has the support of the Iraqi people. The United States is providing support to opposition groups from all sectors of the Iraqi community that could lead to a popularly supported government.
(emphasis mine)
-President William Jefferson Clinton, 1998
Judge postpones court-martial in Esposito slaying
A military judge has postponed the court-martial for a soldier charged with killing Capt. Phillip Esposito of Suffern and another officer in Iraq two years ago.
Opening statements for the trial of Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez were to begin June 4. But Col. Patrick Parrish acquiesced to a defense motion for a delay and set an Aug. 13 deadline for empaneling a jury.
The trial would begin soon after that, said Thomas McCollum, a spokesman for Fort Bragg, N.C., where preliminary hearings in the case are being held. The trial is expected to be held there as well.
"The defense is being afforded every opportunity so that this case is tried completely fairly," McCollum said.
He announced no firm date for the court-martial.
Martinez has been charged with two counts of premeditated murder in the deaths of Esposito, 30, who was his company commander, and Lt. Louis E. Allen, 34, of Milford. Pa., second-in-command of the 42nd Infantry Division's headquarters unit.
Both men were wounded in an explosion June 7, 2005, at Forward Operating Base Danger near Tikrit. They died the next day.
Well isn't this nice:
Bank of America launches credit card for illegal immigrants
Bank of America, the country's second-largest bank, "has quietly begun offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers -- typically illegal immigrants," according to the Wall Street Journal.
Customers can qualify for a credit card if they have had a checking account at the bank for at least three months. They are required to leave a deposit and pay a relatively high interest rate, according to the paper.
The program is controversial. Bank of America says it will help undocumented workers build good credit. But critics say one of the USA's largest financial institutions should not be helping people who violate the country's immigration laws.
Well, this pisses me off. How do you feel about it? Oh, and you might be interested to know that BofA is the vendor for government travel cards. That's right, our tax dollars are helping to subsidize these illegal immigration-enablers. Wonderful.
Address given at Gettysburg, PA on November 19, 1863:
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war...testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated...can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate...we cannot consecrate... we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom...and that government of the people...by the people...for the people...shall not perish from the earth.
Well this isn't encouraging:
Giuliani says gun control helped reduce N.Y. crime
SACRAMENTO -- Rudy Giuliani addressed a potentially troublesome issue with conservative voters, saying his policies as mayor to get handguns off the street helped reduce crime in New York.
"I used gun control as mayor," he said at a news conference Saturday during a swing through California. But "I understand the Second Amendment. I understand the right to bear arms."
He said what he did as mayor would have no effect on hunting.
(emphasis mine)
No effect on hunting? Sorry Rudy, but the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. And it's worth noting that NYC has had strict gun control laws for years, even when the crime rate was rising. It looks to me like Rudy just doesn't get it.
h/t: Drudge
He's no Al Gore, but Dr. Timothy Ball is a former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg. Consequently, he may know something about the current hysteria over man-made global warming, even though he hasn't ever been nominated for an Oscar. Check out his column "Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?" over at the Canada Free Press website.
h/t: Drudge
Well this is surprising. From WTEN:
Budget Controversy Sparked by Just Two Little Lines
The Governor calls it a tax break - a tax break worth a couple of hundred dollars. But the people who teach your kids call it bad public policy.
The idea that parents who send their kids to a private or parochial school get a tax deduction was a surprise for many in the budget plan Governor Spitzer laid out. And some are saying it was snuck in, in the five-volume budget.
And the proposal makes up just two lines. NEWS10's John McLoughlin explains why those two little lines could be what many people will care the most about.
The Governor never even mentioned it during his budget briefings - but there it was, a new personal income tax deduction of up to one-thousand dollars for each kid in private or parochial school.
"Were you surprised when you saw this in the budget?" McLoughlin asked Steve Allinger, the Legislative Director of the New York State United Teachers Union.
"Yes, we were surprised," Allinger said.
Allinger, the lobbyist for NYSUT, says tax deductions for religious schools not only harm public education - he says they are simply wrong, "to use the public's tax expenditures or appropriations to support narrow private sectarian uses."
"They've got a lot of nerve complaining," says Dennis Poust, Legislative Director for the New York State Catholic Conference.
Poust says NYSUT's got a lot of nerve after Spitzer pledged a record seven-billion dollars in new school aid, while the private and parochial schools are educating half-a-million youngsters for a lot less money.
This is something I didn't expect from Spitzer. Most Democrats are so tight with the teachers' unions that they wouldn't even dream of proposing such a thing. Of course NYSUT's response was exactly what I expected. Their rep makes it a point to mention that money would go to "sectarian" schools. No one ever seems to remember that millions of dollars in government financial aid and student loans goes to private religious colleges and universities every year. I guess we owe this oversight to the lack of a powerful union for professors at the state instititions of higher education. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and all that.
It'll be interesting to see if our new Governor has the stones to stand up to them. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I'm not holding my breath.
