Switched to the Blogger Currency template after having difficulties with the custom one. I may switch back...

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Hope you like the new look. It's been a slow news day, so I decided to overhaul the site after reading Meryl Yourish's post. I'm just trying to get comments working.

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UPDATE to an item I posted back in May regarding immigration policies along our borders. I had cited a news report that said that some of the September 11 terrorists may have entered the country through Canada, and was rebuked by a Canadian reader. Since I couldn't produce that source immediately, I edited the post and apologized.

However, my friend Bill O'Reilly reminded me where I saw that item. It was on 60 Minutes. However, what came out of the discussion on The O'Reilly Factor, which also interviewed Joe Bissett, former Canadian immigation director, is that none of the 9/11 terrorists came through Canada (that they know of), however, the immigration and amnesty situation is so lax that there may be a number of potential terrorists waiting to head south. The Mexican border isn't much better, as I'm three hours north of it. Anyone can cross. With those kinds of controls, people should be heading for Kansas.

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UPDATE on the Chandra Levy investigation. Who's REALLY investigating the case? I mentioned yesterday that the remains were found by investigators hired by the Levy family, and I had mentioned on Thursday that a prominent Fox News anchor had gone digging for clues in Rock Creek Park. Now, in today's Washington Post comes this revelation:

But the bone, found Thursday by investigators for the Levy family who were accompanied by a reporter for The Washington Post, was not in plain view. The bone was under a pile of leaves and embedded in the ground. Ramsey, asked to address this disparity, said his account was based on what investigators shared with him. (emphasis mine).

No reporters should have been allowed in there without the D.C. police being present. This is uncalled for, and the Post should be called to task for such actions. We live in a much different world than we did during the Watergate era, and while I know from their comments that many of these journalists are after dirt on Rep. Gary Condit, they are only hindering an actual police investigation.

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I got to watch my BoSox lose for the second day straight.

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Mike Hendrix has a fantastic obituary/tribute to Dee Dee Ramone. If you were in to the Ramones at all, you need to check this out. (link courtesy Richard Bennett)

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Prosecutors: Moussaoui Is Competent

Citing a psychiatrist's finding that Zacaraias Moussaoui is competent, the government urged a judge Friday to find the accused terrorist mentally fit to represent himself despite his courtroom speech praying for destruction of the United States. Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers, who want to stay on the case, said that if the only person charged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is allowed to be his own attorney, he would need access to classified information and permission for extensive use of a jail telephone.

This is the same guy who said that since the judge and the court-appointed attorney were all federal employees, therefore, there was no way he could get a fair trial? This is the same guy who demanded a Muslim lawyer and a Muslim judge, right? Oh yeah, sure, he's sane. But no freaking way does any person who prays for destruction of the United States get access to classified information. By condemning this country, he's also fried his own behind, due to all the post-September 11 restrictions that have been put into place. He'd be best off to take an attorney.

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Bad news, and more bad news. First of all, my beloved BoSox lose to the Diamondbacks, and to top it off, the damn Lakers won. Oh yeah, both games were televised locally.

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Charles Johnson has kind words for Lou Dobbs, as do most people that are commenting over on his site. It appears that Dobbs has finally broken the ice and said "to hell with political correctness." I was over at Charles's site earlier today. The comments are fascinating.

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Think you're a tightwad? There's likely someone cheaper than you. (link courtesy J. Bowen

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Mohamed Atta tried to get a loan from the Department of Agriculture to buy an airplane. (link courtesy Little Green Footballs)

The official, Johnell Bryant, said she told Mr. Atta that he could not have a loan of $650,000 to buy a twin-engine, six-passenger plane, which he wanted to equip with a very large tank. He then became agitated, Ms. Bryant said, and asked her what was to keep him from slitting her throat and stealing money from the safe behind the desk in her Florida office.

When she told him that there was no money in the safe and that she was trained in martial arts, he asked how he could get such training.

Later in their meeting, she said, he told her he wanted to buy an aerial picture of Washington that hung in her office. He pulled out a wad of cash and threw money on her desk, even after she said she would not sell it. He asked about the White House and Pentagon, and she pointed them out.

In their conversation, he said that Al Qaeda could use someone with her qualifications, and mentioned Osama bin Laden, Ms. Bryant said.

And this person never even thought to report this as suspicious? Of course not.

Ms. Bryant said she thought she was simply helping a new immigrant learn about this country.

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In other local news, two suspects in a triple homicide have been apprehended: link courtesy Desert Pundit)

Boggs was taken into custody by Mesa police Wednesday in east Mesa. Detectives learned that Hargrave, 21, was hiding out near Sycamore Creek, west of the Four Peaks Wilderness Area. Mesa police requested assistance from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office SWAT team and Lake Patrol deputies, who routinely patrol that area. The deputies arrived in an armored personnel carrier. (emphasis mine)

I don't doubt it. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has been known for being the best armed law enforcement unit in the state, whether it's justified or not (they also own a military grade tank), however, critics of the department and Sheriff Arpaio say it's all for show and to garner publicity. I'm waiting for him to screw up, because it's costing the taxpayers money. Meanwhile, it seems to be working.

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They caught the bar killer last night.

James Taylor Sheffield, an ex-convict and heroin junkie suspected in the murders of two Phoenix bar owners, was arrested late Thursday night, police said. Sheffield, 52, was taken into custody without resistance about 10 p.m. at a house in the 2600 block of East Winston Drive, Phoenix police Sgt. Lauri Williams said.

Police went to the south Phoenix house on a tip.

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Here's a Washington Post analysis of President Bush's homeland security proposal. (link courtesy InstaPundit)

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Usually, when something makes front page news in the U.S., it gets published overseas as well. Unfortunately, in China, they weren't paying attention to the name of the publication.

Readers of the Beijing Evening News, one of the capital's largest-circulation newspapers, learned this week that the U.S. Congress had threatened to move out of Washington unless a fancy new Capitol was built.

"Don't get us wrong. We actually love the dilapidated [old] building," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was quoted as saying. "But the cruel reality is, it's no longer suitable for use by a world-class legislature. Its contours are ugly, there's no room to maneuver, there aren't enough bathrooms, and let's not even talk about the parking."

If a new building wasn't erected, the article said, lawmakers were prepared to pack up and move to Memphis, Tenn., or Charlotte, N.C.

The story seems newsworthy enough. Trouble is, it was lifted straight from the Onion, a satirical "news" publication based in New York that has caused countless American readers to double over with laughter at its weekly spoofs on current events.

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UPDATE: Here's an ABC News story which confirms that private investigators, rather than police, found the latest evidence in the Chandra Levy case:

Investigators working for Levy's parents found the bone and twisted wire in their examination of a steep hillside in Rock Creek Park, where Arden believes Levy's remains lay for a year.

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Kennedy cousin convicted in 1975 murder

A generation after Martha Moxley was murdered, Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel was convicted Friday of beating her to death with a golf club in October 1975, when they were 15-year-old neighbors in wealthy Greenwich.

Prosecutors had no eyewitnesses and little forensic evidence. Instead they presented about a dozen people who said they had heard Skakel confess or make incriminating statements, starting the day Moxley's body was found. Among them were several former classmates of Skakel's from the Elan School, a substance abuse treatment center in Poland Spring, Maine.

One such witness, Gregory Coleman, was dead of heroin use by the time Skakel's trial began. But prosecutors were permitted to read Coleman's pretrial testimony into the record, including an allegation that Skakel once told him: "I'm going to get away with murder, because I'm a Kennedy."

Yeah, right. Have fun in the slammer.

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Not a good day for those in favor of a Cardinals stadium in Mesa, as the petition was cleared for the September ballot.

There is a lot of opposition to the stadium from all corners, and for various reasons. The reason that the petition was issued had to do with the location that the TSA proposed, as it was near a residential area. However, many people, including myself, are opposed to the funding of the project, as the tax imposed can be construed as unfair. This person shares my point of view.

Not all the tax money will come from tourists. Anyone who needs to rent a car or a hotel room, for any reason, would pay the tax, and there is no exemption for residents.

Any local group putting on a conference or seminar would pay the tax. Visiting relatives would pay the tax - even if for weddings, funerals or other important events. That tax money does not come from tourists, and we would indeed be taxing ourselves or our families.

Besides, it doesn't matter that the tax money comes from outside our locality. It is inappropriate for the public to subsidize someone else's privately owned, multimillion dollar business.

Right on. We just got done paying for Bank One Ballpark, which had a similar tax. The difference between the tax on Bank One Ballpark and this tax is that this time the tax is permanent. That's right - if you voted for Proposition 302, you were voting to raise your taxes for good. That proposition passed in Maricopa County, and ever since I've lived here, this electorate has voted down every proposal to raise taxes in the last 17 years. (remember ValTrans? I do. It made more sense than a stadium for a billionaire.)

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The stoning sentemce in Pakistan has been overturned. Maybe Islam really is a merciful religion. Uh-huh.

I first saw this item in a local newspaper, but it seemed to insinuate that the woman's husband was appealing the decision of the Islamic court. Here's a link from the Pakistani paper with quotes from the husband, but less detail on the story.

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More Chandra Levy evidence. I caught this on the news a few minutes ago, and the story that Fox posted overlooks a few details that their own commentator mentioned on the air.

However, two private investigators found the items Wednesday afternoon in their examination of the remote area where much of Levy's remains and clothing were found.

According to the Fox report, the private investigators were hired by the Levy family and the crime scene had not yet been secured. This evidence had better be convincing, or it will be used by a lawyer to get somebody off.

Also, Greta Van Susteren, the commentator in the Fox News story, reported that she had been to the site looking for evidence and produced tape of her looking for clues. Van Susteren is a former attorney and should know better, as she's tampering with evidence. However, as a determined reporter, she's made no bones about it that she's going after Gary Condit. She may have made a bad mistake by exposing the D.C. police in this manner, particularly because she was doing it for ratings.

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Two more additions to the blogroll - The Hoosier Review and Media Minded.

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There are those that think that there is an anti-Israel bias in the American media: (link via Media Minded)

One reason the mainstream media offers such extensive reports on Israel is that the media can. Israel is an open society with a free press, which makes it easier for reporters to offer warts-and-all coverage from Israel than from, say, Iraq, Iran, or Saudi Arabia.

For clarification, my point is not that the media is pro-Palestinian, or even anti-Israeli. My point is that, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it's weird that most people assume the mainstream media is "pro-Israel." The mainstream media has consistently thrown the spotlight on Israel's brutal tactics and taken Israel to task on editorial pages. I wonder why people don't see that?

In other words, there's more news coming out of Israel because they live in a free society. Unfortunately, they've been at war for years, so it appears that all the news is bad. If you want to hear what the other side is saying, try reading the Arab News.

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Apparently Lileks was just as digusted as I was last night with Hannity & Colmes. I switched over to the NBA, but it appears Mr. Lileks delved further into the subject - and didn't like what he was seeing.

Got that? An American Muslim from Somalia who lost her husband or sister or wife or child is going to be alienated because the government wants to fingerprint a 24-year old unmarried Yemeni with an Interpol jacket as thick as a Clancy novel.

He's a tad bitter, and I don't blame him.

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Bob Owen alerted me to this one, from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Ralph Nader wants the NBA to review Game 6 of the Western Conference finals, saying the nation's confidence has been shaken enough lately by business headlines.

The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings 106-102 in the game. But Nader, a consumer advocate and former Green Party presidential candidate, and the League of Fans, a sports-industry watchdog group, sent a letter to NBA Commissioner David Stern on Tuesday asking for a review, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.

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Farewell, Dee Dee Ramone. You will be missed. I'll have to dig out my old Ramones albums and listen to them in tribute.

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UPDATE: Here's a link to a Washington Post article regarding the bishops' proposal. What's more interesting is that the Europeans think it's too strict.

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Damn Lakers won again.

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I don't know why the government didn't start this earlier.

The Justice Department will propose new regulations this week requiring tens of thousands of Muslim and Middle Eastern visa holders to register with the government and be fingerprinted, administration officials said today.

The initiative, the subject of intense debate within the administration, is designed for "individuals from countries who pose the highest risk to our security," including most visa holders from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and many other Muslim nations, officials said. More than 100,000 foreigners, including students, workers, researchers and tourists, all foreigners from designated countries who do not hold green cards, would probably be covered by the plan, an official said.

The crybaby liberals that are screaming discrimination are missing one thing - it's been the law for 50 years - they just stopped enforcing it.

The authority for proposing the new registration requirements rests in a long-dormant provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, administration officials said.

A section of that law requires all foreign visa holders to register with the government if they remain in the United States for 30 days or longer. The law also required the fingerprinting of virtually all foreigners who were not permanent residents, except for diplomats.

The law remained on the books, but enforcement fell off in the early 1980's when the volume of visa holders climbed rapidly and the immigration service's budget and staffing dropped.

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If the government, either in the United States or Mexico, would enforce the immigration laws, there wouldn't be these types of problems. Until then, however, I fear that these incidents may be on the uprise. (link courtesy Zonitics)

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Desert Pundit reminded me why I never got involved in state or local politics. Mainly, it's because they come up with stupid ideas. In this legislative column, Arizona Republic columnist O. Ricardo Pimentel wonders why the following proposal is stalling:

A bill by Reps. Carlos Avelar, Bobby Lugo and Richard Miranda and Sen. Linda Aguirre would have removed the requirement that license applicants prove citizenship or legal residency. Licenses would allow undocumented immigrants to more readily get insurance and have their cars registered.

Our Legislature, however, is clueless to a few glaring facts. These migrants are here doing work no one else is willing to do. They will drive to work with or without licenses and registrations.

But, on everything from making sure we have enough money to function to treating residents fairly, our Legislature has been more interested in special interest than public interest. This session, unfortunately, was no exception.

Sorry, Mr. Pimentel, but I'm not buying it. If a person is here illegally, he or she should not be given preferential treatment. After September 11, anyone found in the United States illegally should be subject to deportation. Period. And I hope that my representative in the Legislature was against that measure, because if it had passed, I'd be screaming to high heaven that my tax dollars were being misused.

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The Hoosier Review has reported that The Boston Phoenix is linking to the infamous Daniel Pearl video. The article cited does not link to the video, however, I was able to find it. You can access it here.

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UPDATE, or may I say a comment that I should have made when I originally posted this article.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops posted their charter entitled "Draft:Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People." You can find it here. It was supposed to state the bishops' view on sexual abuse by priests. When it came out Tuesday morning, I gave it a quick glance, and it looked like it was worded fairly strongly, so I just linked straight to the document. I heard on a local radio station that the document is a farce, and that's what the bishops wanted the public to think. If you read the last portion of the document, you will find that the bishops are proposing a "two-strike, zero-tolerance" policy. Do they think the laity is foolish?

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R. Kelly indicted on child pornography charges

R&B superstar R. Kelly was indicted and arrested today on 21 counts of child pornography for allegedly soliciting and enticing a 14-year-old girl to perform sex acts with him that he videotaped. Kelly was arrested in Florida late Wednesday. Polk County sheriff's spokeswoman Kim Garrett said deputies arrested Kelly near a house he rents in Haines City, about 35 miles southwest of Orlando. She said he was being held on $750,000 bond.

Kelly will have an initial court appearance between 1 p.m and 3 p.m. Thursday in Bartow, a Polk County Jail spokeswoman said.

The indictment covers seven acts performed in the videotape, a copy of which the Sun-Times gave to prosecutors after the tape was sent anonymously to the newspaper. For each act, he was charged separately with soliciting the girl to do the act, videotaping the act and producing the tape.

Kelly has denied having sex with underage girls and maintained in a recent TV interview that he’s not the man on the tape. But Chicago Police Supt. Terry Hillard said FBI forensics experts examined the tape and “they’ve told us it’s authentic.”

I'd like to know what kind of forensic evidence they have on the tape that leads them to believe this is authentic. Hrm...

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UPDATE: The wrestling site has been shut down.

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More proof that Islam is a merciful religion:

Shiraka says her daughter was repeatedly raped and gave birth to a baby. But the law offered no protection and as she was unable to prove rape by producing the required four male or eight female witnesses, she was instead found guilty of adultery.

No action has been taken against her alleged attacker and Zafran has challenged her conviction in the federal Shariah court, the highest Islamic court.

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And these are the guys in charge.

While few would decline an invitation to dine with the president and first lady, Robert Kirkpatrick has no choice but to say no thanks. The dinner is June 19; he will be in prison until 2004.

The Stark County native received a fund-raising letter from Vice President Dick Cheney, asking him to "join the president and Mrs. Bush for a private dinner here in Washington, D.C." The May 8 invitation to the $2,500-per-plate dinner was addressed to Kirkpatrick in prison, complete with his inmate number - 408-905.

Cheney asked Kirkpatrick "to serve as a representative of St. Clairsville" - home to the Belmont Correctional Institution, where he is serving 35 months for drug possession and escape. "A special place of honor has already been reserved for you to recognize your steadfast support of President Bush," the letter said.

Kirkpatrick says he has never given Bush a dime.

"I'm going to tell him that I'd be happy to attend, but he's going to have to pull some strings to get me there," Kirkpatrick said.

A White House spokesman referred questions to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, saying, "It's their event." The committee did not return calls seeking comment.

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My former congressman, Sam Coppersmith, blasts the East Valley Tribune for its position regarding the Arizona Cardinals stadium. For those of you reading this who are not from here, this is a BIG mess. (link courtesy Desert Pundit:)

I don't agree with everything Rep. Coppersmith says, in fact, I'm totally opposed to the new stadium, mainly because I don't trust the people that sold the package to us. We were told during the television spots that a money from Proposition 302 (the law used to approve the tax to build this stadium) would also go to Cactus League baseball and youth sports. After voters narrowly approved the measure (I still voted against it), it came out in the press that it was a "trickle down" effect type thing and that the kids wouldn't see a cent until the Cardinals' stadium was built. Furthermore, the lion's share of that cash went to - you guessed it - the Cardinals.

Then the site selection process went down. It appeared for all practical purposes that a site in Glendale was all but chosen. A local land developer had offered 90 acres of free land. The Cardinals, who had previously said they were going to stay out of the site selection process, all of a sudden kicked in money behind a site that wasn't even on the list, and an 11th hour decision was made to put the stadium in Tempe. Why did they want it there? The Bidwills, owners of the franchise, wanted development rights near the stadium. In other words, greed.

Unfortunately, the Cardinals didn't do their homework, and it was determined that the stadium was in a flight path. A number of studies were done, and there was political arguing between Phoenix, Tempe and the FAA, but the FAA made the final determination that the stadium would indeed be in a flight path if built where the Cardinals intended it to be. So the site selection process began again.

This time around, the political push was to get the stadium built in downtown Phoenix, but there was some opposition to the site from the residents to the area, and also the city couldn't find a feasible way to foot the bill, so that site was scrapped. By then, several other sites had dropped out of the running, and the front runners seemed to be either one on the Gila River Indian Reservation or one in Mesa. The Maricopa County Attorney made a ruling which effectively ruled out the Gila River site, and it was awarded to Mesa.

But of course, this gets better. The people who live near the site don't want the stadium there, and have created a petition to have the stadium built elsewhere. In the meantime, the Legislature has passed a bill that would allow the stadium to be built on tribal land. That's what's going on, in a nutshell. For more information, go here, as my facts may be inaccurate. Like I said, this stadium thing has been a mess.

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Here's the draft of the bishops' report.

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I guess the L.A. riots got people worried about police brutality. Now the L.A.P.D is thinking that the nonlethal ammunition that they use is too dangerous.

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Bishops to issue draft policy today

America's Roman Catholic bishops on Tuesday will reveal a first official glimpse of a proposed national policy on clergy sexual abuse that will include a mandatory reporting requirement opposed by several Vatican officials, according to bishops familiar with the proposal.

The draft document, prepared by a committee of bishops, also calls for the removal of priests involved in any new cases of molesting minors but doesn't set automatic penalties for some older cases, the bishops said. The policy would include lay involvement in helping to decide the fate of priests involved in older cases that involve single accusations of abuse.

I'll have the link to the actual draft when it gets released online.

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FBI Search Warrant Policy Changed for Terror Cases

The director of the FBI will personally review all applications for search warrants related to terrorism investigations under a policy change quietly put into effect weeks ago in response to the furor over obstacles that hindered agents here investigating Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker."

Note the use of the words "personally" and "quietly." I have full faith in the men and women in the field. It's their bosses that I don't trust.

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And it goes on and on...

U.S. intelligence overheard al-Qaeda operatives discussing a major pending terrorist attack in the weeks prior to Sept. 11 and had agents inside the terror group, but the intercepts and field reports didn't specify where or when a strike might occur, according to U.S. officials.

Some of the clues lie buried in 350,000 pages of documents turned over by the CIA for the hearings:

I guess if our agents had been able to search the Internet like average Americans, they wouldn't have blown this, either?

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I'm surprised this hadn't happened sooner:

In a research paper published a few days ago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Andrew Huang detailed the procedure by which he retrieved the software "keys" that a game disc must contain for the Xbox to recognize its contents as legitimate code. Using the key, hackers presumably could write Web browsers, MP3 players and other sought-after applications for the console.

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Dallas Morning News:

Harris County prosecutors expect to try death row inmate Calvin Burdine for murder again, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, Monday. The high court rejected an appeal from Texas authorities, who argued that even though Mr. Burdine's defense lawyer dozed during Mr. Burdine's trial in 1984, that did not mean he received an unfair trial. Mr. Burdine now must be tried again or be granted his freedom.

Jurors and a court clerk described how court-appointed lawyer Joe Cannon slept for up to 10 minutes at a time during the 1984 trial and sentencing phase that followed.

Burdine, now 49, lost several rounds of appeals before a federal district judge in Houston agreed Cannon's performance violated Burdine's constitutional right to an effective lawyer. A federal appeals court panel first reversed that finding in a highly criticized ruling in 2000. The full appeals court then agreed to hear the case, and agreed with the first court that Burdine did not get a fair chance to defend himself.

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The Mickster and I see eye to eye on the whole issue of local police being able to enforce immigration laws, and how it's bunk that the White House is playing the Hispanic vote card at this late time. I posted my view yesterday, he names names.

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As if this wasn't inevitable:

Napster Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, seeking court protection from creditors as music industry heavyweight Bertelsmann AG follows through on a plan to take over what's left of the company.

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I know this is kind of an ego thing, but I'm the #1 "Brian Sinclair" on Google. Funny thing is, I never tried. Curiously enough, I also have the #7 entry for a mailing list I was on years ago.

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U.S. "told to get ready for another attack"

The pan-Arab daily al-Hayat published on Sunday what it said was a statement from an al Qaeda spokesman warning the United States to get ready for another attack.

"What is coming to the Americans will not, by the will of God, be less than what has come," the paper quoted al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman bu Ghaith as saying in a statement.

"So beware, America. Get ready. Get prepared. Put on the safety belt," he said in a statement al-Hayat said was published on the www.alneda.com Web site.

NOTE: I found the site. It was spelled wrong. It's at www.al-neda.com, and here's a quote lifted off the site: "Osoma (Usama) Bin Laden, IMAD-MUGHNIYEH, AHMAD-WALI-MASSOUD, AL-ZAWAHIRI, and others with-in the Al-Qaeda terrorist network will be discussed as well as threats involving treats by Anthrax disease and Smallpox virus as bio-warfare and possible chemical warfare as well as "Dirty Bombs". Alneda , nuclear threat by 'suitcase nukes' will be dialoged also." P.S. Whomever may be reading this, I'm only quoting the site, and have no association with those types of people. I even reported the existence of the site to my local FBI office. I didn't even enter the message board, only looked at the front page. Scary stuff.

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Further damaging information comes from the CIA:

The CIA possessed disturbing information about one of the Sept. 11 hijackers months before it was previously disclosed and could have used that knowledge to prevent him from renewing his visa to enter the United States prior to the attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, a senior administration official said yesterday.

Khalid Almihdhar, who was on Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, could have been put on a watch list earlier, a government official said. The list is used by the government to hold up visa applications or prevent individuals from entering the United States.

The CIA in late 2000 or early 2001 received information from another intelligence service that would have deepened their suspicions about Almihdhar and likely caused them to decline his visa extension.

It has been previously reported that the CIA knew Almihdhar had attended a January 2000 meeting of suspected terrorists in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. At that time there was not enough information to put him on the watch list, used by the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to screen visa applications.

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From today's N.Y. Times:

Two leading conservatives have joined a chorus of police officials and immigrant rights advocates in opposing a Justice Department proposal to allow state and local law enforcement agencies to track down illegal immigrants as a way to fight terrorism. The two conservatives, David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, wrote President Bush on Friday to complain that the plan under review by Attorney General John Ashcroft would set a dangerous precedent by empowering local jurisdictions to enforce many federal laws.

The proposal has exposed a rare rift between Justice Department officials and White House aides, who previously have supported Mr. Ashcroft's aggressive efforts to combat terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. Some White House aides complain that unless modified, the proposal could lead to racial profiling and lawsuits resulting from police abuses, as well as strain relations with Latin American nations and alienate Hispanic voters, whom Republicans are courting for the midterm elections in November.

The two conservatives that are opposing this issue must be closet liberals. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is powerless in its role to stop the flow of illegal immigration, regardless of the reason for it. It is not allowed by statute to cooperate with local law enforcement to stop illegal immigration. However, under this new proposal, the resources available to us locally could be used to help stem immigration cases that could be related to terrorism. If we are going to broaden the powers of the FBI, it only makes sense that we broaden the powers of local law enforcement as well. Otherwise, we may as well give them carte blanche to wreak havoc on our country.

However, the White House aides that are whining really tick me off. Even President Bush himself has said that national security is not a political issue, and it sounds from the tone of this article that the White House is trying to parlay it into votes. Maybe that's why I can't get a straight answer from my Republican congressman or my Republican senators about the incursions into U.S. territory by the Mexican army.

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Damn. I have to put up with the Lakers for one more series. Go Nets!

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From The Smoking Gun comes a story of a Catholic priest who operates a knock-off of the World Wrestling Federation. You probably get the idea. Link courtesy Cruel Site of the Day:

If we didn't know better, The Smoking Gun might think Junior Professional Wrestling Association products were geared towards an audience other than amateur wrestling aficionados.

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After seeing a few links that mentioned that the popular press may have been trolling the blogs for news, I decided to put up Terms of Use. Just in case. The places I've seen it were at Richard Bennett's site, who linked to Bill Quick and The Hoosier Review, who also pointed it out.

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Zonitics reports that Sen. John McCain may be backing Betsey Bayless in the Arizona governor's race:

Of course, political signs on front yards are usually no biggie. But this sign, touting Secretary of State Betsey Bayless for guv, was on Sen. John McCain's property. So immediately, being the brilliant wags that we are, an obvious question popped into our heads: Does this mean McCain, Arizona's most popular pol, is supporting Bayless in the GOP primary? His endorsement, unlike 99 percent that don't mean squat, would be huge. Bayless trails former U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon in recent polls by double digits.

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Dan Bickley, like me, is a Jason Kidd fan. He wouldn't mind seeing the former Suns star taking it to the Lakers. I'm hoping it doesn't get that far. I'm pulling for the Kings to win today, and I'll have the game tuned in. I was on assignment in L.A. during the 2000 playoffs, and was surrounded by the hysteria that accompanied the Lakers' championship. Laker fans are the most pompous and arrogant fans in American professional sports, and that includes the New York Yankees. May they go down hard.

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From today's Arizona Republic:

Officials found two Mexican men who apparently died of dehydration in the desert near Sells. The dead men were among several groups of illegal immigrants found in the desert Friday, said U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Ryan Scudder.

Scudder said the groups were abandoned by smugglers after crossing the border. Rescuers also helped 30 people who were traveling in five or six groups near Sells on Friday. Eleven of the illegal immigrants were treated for dehydration and four were taken to local hospitals.

Hate to sound unfeeling, but they kind of asked for what they got.

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