I have noticed that at least one site that links to this one notes that I use pop-up ads. I'll get a better host as soon as finances allow. In the meantime, please either employ the use of a freeware pop-up killer program or be patient for the time being. I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Blogrolling (in no particular order): Mike Hendrix, Meryl Yourish, Juan Gato and Ye Olde Blogge.

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I always thought that these homeowners associations restrictions on flagpoles were a bit ridiculous. Apparently, so does Jeb Bush.

Former Marine George Andres got support Friday from Gov. Jeb Bush, who flew in to give Andres $100 toward his legal fight and help him raise a new American flag on the white flagpole that a court has ordered him to take down.

It is a classic homeowner's dispute. Andres wants to fly his flag from a pole planted in the left front corner of his yard. The association insists that flags must be flown from a pole attached to a wall.

Andres will have none of it. ''The U.S. Supreme Court has said that I can fly my flag,'' he said.

So far state courts have disagreed. They say he is willfully violating homeowner association rules. His defiance has cost him $30,000. The association says it has spent $21,000 in legal fees and court costs fighting Andres, and they want him to pay it. No one is budging.

After hearing about the flag fight, Bush signed legislation in April that says homeowners can fly the flag in a ''respectful way'' regardless of association rules. But the court ordered Andres to take down his flag nearly two years ago, and the association argues that Andres must pay for his defiance prior to the new state law.

It appears that HOAs are a bit more stringent in Florida than they are in Arizona. We had a similar flap here late last year, but it died down after considerable pressure from the media. Before the Persian Gulf War, not too many people even bothered to fly the Stars and Stripes. Now we have a large wave of patriotism in this country after 9/11, however, there are a select few who forget what patriotism is all about.

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MEMRI has posted this article from the Kuwaiti Al-Watan daily which states that Yasser Arafat has been stealing money meant for humanitarian purposes and keeping it for his own needs:

"Yesterday, Al-Watan received documents from private sources in the Cairo branch of an Arab bank showing that Yasser Arafat had deposited in his name $5.1 million into a personal account. According to sources, this is theft of Arab aid funds allocated to the Palestinians through an arrangement between Arafat and his Cairo office head Ramzi Khouri."

"The sources added that according to the documents, these funds were deposited in the personal accounts of President Arafat to cover some of the president's personal expenses, including the costs of his wife Suha and their daughter who live in Paris and Switzerland."

"The sources added that nobody knows of this theft, with the exception of some of Arafat's closest cronies, including his Cairo office head Ramzi Khouri and Khaled Slam, originally from Iraq, whose real name is Muhammad Rashid and who is one of Arafat's top 'and most influential' advisors."

"The sources added that some weeks ago Muhammad Rashid had bought, on Arafat's instructions, 14% of the shares of the Jordanian Cement Company for the PSCS(1) with funds received by Arafat from the Arab Gulf states, 'to increase the profits of Arafat's investments abroad,' in light of the increase in cement prices following increased demand due to the reconstruction of what the Israeli forces destroyed in their recent incursion into the West Bank cities."

"The sources added that the funds that reached the Palestinian Authority from Kuwait and the other Gulf states [meant] for the Committee for the Reconstruction of Hebron Homes, [which were to be distributed to residents of homes] destroyed by Israeli bulldozers during the Intifada, did not reach the people entitled to them. Rather, they were distributed to the PA leaders close to Arafat and to several top officials of the Fatah movement, headed by Arafat."

"The sources added that the citizens entitled to these funds appealed to the head of the committee, a Hebronite from the Al-Qawasmeh family, but received nothing."

"The sources added that most of the food aid sent to the PA was sold in Palestinian and Israeli markets without being distributed to the poor and needy, and the latter began to shout 'at the top of their lungs' that a popular committee must be established for aid distribution, since they had lost all faith in the PA and its apparatuses."

I'm sure that something will come out in the Arab News that this story was a Mossad plant or a Zionist plot, but for a newspaper from an Arab country to come out with allegations against their #1 hero is comparable to a similar story here in the States coming out against Rudy Guiliani.

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The Mexicans have done it again:

A Chevrolet Suburban with at least 23 illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central and South America was hit by gunfire near the U.S.-Mexico border yesterday, leaving eight wounded.

The shooting may have been the work of a Mexican army patrol.

"There are preliminary reports that this vehicle challenged the military in Mexico," said Miguel Monterrubio, a spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. " . . . Mexican authorities in the area are doing an investigation to find out what happened."

No independent confirmation of this account was available yesterday from the Mexican army. The army rarely comments on shootings involving soldiers.

The army still hasn't fully explained a January incident at the Otay Mesa border crossing, when a soldier sprayed bullets into a line of cars waiting to cross into the United States. Three people were injured in that incident.

Yesterday's shooting comes as Border Patrol agents and Washington politicians are becoming alarmed over increasing reports of incursions into U.S. territory by Mexican soldiers and federal agents. Since the late 1990s, Mexican infantry and cavalry units have taken a larger role in patrolling the border for drug traffickers and migrant smugglers.

It was unclear whether the gunmen's vehicle was in the United States or Mexico when the shots were fired.

Mexican incursions into the United States have been occurring for years along the border, which in several areas is either poorly marked or not marked at all. The units, which often operate at night, are armed with assault rifles, submachine guns and even grenade launchers.

On the other side of the border, Mexican human-rights advocates also voiced concern.

"It is worrisome that the army is being used to patrol the border since this is not their job," said Raul Ramírez, who heads the Baja California Human Rights office. "Doing so creates an atmosphere which can lead to human rights abuses."

If Mexicans wouldn't cross the freaking border in mass quantities, they wouldn't have to patrol the damn thing the way they do. Human rights abuses is a cop-out. The army is (allegedly) there to prevent drug trafficking. I agree that human rights should be protected, however, should there be a lapse, anyone that is on the receiving end of any abuse at the Mexican border is a criminal, either an illegal border crosser or a drug runner.

That may not be the Mexican view of things. According to a Zogby poll, 58 percent of Mexican citizens believe that the territory of the U.S. Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico. Furthermore, 57 percent of them believe that Mexicans should have the right to enter the United States without U.S. permission.

Americans, on the other hand, disagreed. 58 percent said we should admit fewer immigrants, 65 percent were opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants, and 68 percent agreed that the military should be deployed along the border. Hey, we're at war. It's no time to open our borders.

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Meryl Yourish speaks out in defense of reading, and asks everyone to turn off the television and read a good book.

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Some University of Illinois students have concluded that Pat Buchanan is Deep Throat, the source that broke open the Watergate scandal. (link courtesy Global News Watch)

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A couple of days ago, I had suggested in this forum that Jose Padilla and those like him be tried under Islamic law if that's the way they want to live. I was asked, ostensibly by someone on the far left, if I believed in civil liberties. I answered his question in the context of war, and haven't heard back. However, now John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban, is asserting that he was never read his Miranda rights. Read InstaPundit or Eugene Volokh if you want a good legal opinion on this, as I'm sure both men have formed one. However, The Last Page has the prevailing opinion on this subject. (link courtesy Susanna Cornett)

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While we're on the subject of the Catholic Church and the technicalities of their decision, Rod Dreher questions the makeup of their review board:

Isn't it, like, perfect that the American bishops put President Clinton's lawyer on their review board? How do you say in Latin, "That depends on what the definition of 'is' is"?

This "hapless bench of bishops," as Bp. Bruskewitz called them tonight, couldn't even agree that the role of dissent and homosexuality in this catastrophe was worth studying. The conclusion is obvious: if reform is to come, it's not going to come from the bishops.

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Now that the Catholic Church has passed a proposal to bar abusive priests, the question remains, will Rome approve the measure? Lane Core over at A View from the Core says no. (link courtesy Susanna Cornett)

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This Baptist preacher really made himself, as well as his faith, look foolish. I saw the tape on Fox News yesterday, as well as a response from an American Muslim representative. Here's the story from the New York Times regarding the incident:

A prominent Southern Baptist pastor caused protests this week with a speech condemning American religious pluralism and calling the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, a pedophile.

Critics said the remarks by the Rev. Jerry Vines, pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., and a past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, illustrated how hate speech against Muslims had become a staple of conservative Christian political discourse. The speech also briefly united Muslim and Jewish groups in outrage over what they called the Baptists' intolerance of other religions.

Mr. Vines called Muhammad a "demon-possessed pedophile," asserting that his 12th and final wife was a 9-year-old girl, and declared that Muslims worshiped a different God than Christians.

If he hadn't used the word "pedophile," he wouldn't be in the hot water he's in now. However, I think that the preacher was trying to make Islam look "perverse" in the eyes of Christians, and especially considering what's going on with the Catholic Church right now, he's seizing upon an opportune moment. However, it may be backfiring on him.

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The Saudis don't support terror, now do they? Reading stories like this and knowing what the Saudis are doing with their money sickens me. However, if the U.S. stopped importing oil from Saudi Arabia, a large source of income would be cut off. Because, by giving them a continuous source of income, the United States is, in effect, supporting the very causes it is trying to defeat. (link courtesy Zonitics)

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UPDATE to a story I posted yesterday about a local school district granting a diploma to a student after the family got an attorney. The school district is issuing an apology, but they are blaming the media.

Peoria School District officials on Friday apologized for the public furor caused when a high school student graduated after retaking a test she had failed. But they stood behind their decision.

The Arizona Republic on Monday reported that the girl was allowed to take the test hours before the May 23 graduation, a day after her lawyer wrote a threatening letter to English teacher Elizabeth Joice.

Superintendent Jack Erb said the district will develop guidelines to handle future grade appeals. Mistakes were made, district officials said, but they blamed the media for the barrage of criticism.

Will they again blame the media when further similar decisions are made allowing students to graduate into society that may be unable to even read a newspaper?

Desert Pundit has a great spin on this story as well.

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Just got commenting and linking working correctly. Everything should be hunky-dory now.

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Since I've been gone for the past few days, I haven't gotten a chance to blog my view of what happened regarding the girl who threatened litigation to get her diploma. It's already been posted on InstaPundit, but there's a little more to the story. The attorney didn't only threaten the teacher with a lawsuit. It was the nature of the threat, as the letter was published in the local newspaper:

Of course, all information regarding your background, your employment records, all of your class records, past and present, dealings with this and other students become relevant, should litigation be necessary.

What this indicates is that the student is hardly the victim, as she and her parents state, but rather the teacher and the profession. The teacher also says in her letter, "It seems in our popular culture today, people, including a past President, are no longer willing to accept any responsibility or consequences for their actions or choices they make."

I've been sitting in a hospital waiting room for the past three days while this story has been unfolding, and a member of the other families works for the Peoria School District. I guess nobody can believe this decision was made. I think the teacher will get over it and life will go on. I almost think that this might be a one-shot deal if the media decides to keep its mouth shut. However, I'm worried about the student. She's an adult now, and hasn't learned much from her high school education. Well, she did learn one thing. When in trouble, litigate. However, that may get a little expensive if that's your mantra.

Links:
6/11 cartoon

6/11 Arizona Republic editorial

6/12 Arizona Republic editorial

6/12 AZ Republic story

6/12 azcentral.com story

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Posting will gradually pick up, as the ill family member is recovering. The last three nights have been hectic.

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Eric Raymond lists the top ten liberal and conservative values, and why he doesn't subscribe to any of them. (link courtesy Richard Bennett)

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Police dog accused of racial profiling

A Pennsylvania councilwoman has accused her borough's lone police dog of racial profiling, leading to calls that the canine be killed.

Dolpho, a 5-year-old German shepherd, can sniff out the difference between marijuana, heroin and cocaine. The dog came from Europe two years ago and is trained in drug detection and patrol.

Councilwoman [Wanda] Dixon told the city council she has received six complaints about Dolpho in the past year. Three of the people who complained were involved with drugs. Three others were blacks who believe the dog jumped at or attacked them because of their race.

"I had received complaints from African-Americans saying they believe the dog only attacks African-Americans," councilwoman Dixon said Monday. "I think the dog makes the distinction."

A national expert on animal behavior at Tuft's University School of Veterinary Medicine said dogs not only can determine race, but can develop prejudices similar to humans. Dr. Nick Dodman said that prejudice can be based on a lack of exposure to different people or because of a bad experience.

Give me a break. This is political correctness at its worst. To condemn a police dog for doing its job and playing the race card is ludicrous. We need more instruments to fight crime, not fewer, and if the "P.C. crowd" takes them away from us, we will be leaving this nation defenseless.

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More words of wisdom from Bill O' Reilly regarding four steps that America should take to start protecting ourselves:

Number one. Put the U.S. military on the border to stop illegal immigrants from coming into the U.S.

Number two. Order the CIA and special forces to begin assassinating terrorist leadership and financiers.

Number three. Demand that Mexico and Canada tighten up their immigration policies so the terrorists cannot filter through those countries into ours.

And number four, allow federal authorities to incarcerate illegally in this country and deport them under the War Powers Act.

That would be simple enough and would get us started, but I'm sure it's the "Washington way" to do it bureaucratically by creating a superagency and calling it the Agency of Homeland Defense or whatever.

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This is kind of an odd page, with a reactionary tilt, but it shows a view of what has happened as a result of poor border policies. There are a couple of links that have moved; I was able to chase them down. The author of this essay and collection of links has a theory that Mexicans plan to take over the American Southwest and make an independent country. They are not necessarily my own views, but it's an eye-opening read. (Link courtesy Cruel Site of the Day)

The following links have moved:

Mexican official in El Paso
Mexico Has a Plan for the U.S. Guess What It Is...
Corruption Index

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I'll be watching The Godfather in honor of the late John Gotti, who passed away today at 61.

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We're still not getting any rain out here.

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'Dirty bomb' suspect arrested

Attorney General John Ashcroft said today that American authorities had arrested an American citizen involved with Al Qaeda who was part of a plot to launch a radioactive-bomb attack.

"We have captured a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or `dirty bomb,' in the United States," Mr. Ashcroft said in a televised announcement from Moscow.

The attorney general said that as an American citizen with a United States passport, the suspect had been able to travel more freely than other suspected terrorists.

If he's a CITIZEN and is found guilty, I say strip him of his citizenship and make him live in some Islamofascist country and see how he likes it. If he was caught doing that king of crap in PAKISTAN, for example, he'd get what Danny Pearl got. We are far too nice to these guys. If they want to be Islamists, we should give them the penalties that are cited in the Qu'ran. The death penalty is extended to a lot more crimes in Islamic law, so I've been told. I may come up with a whole essay on that one, and send it to John Ashcroft.

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What's up with Ariel Sharon? Talk about changing face. On Sunday an op-ed ran in the New York Times written by Sharon. The article could have come out of Arab News, only written by a Jew. This is not the work of a man of peace, speaking for the only democracy in the Middle East, as American leaders are quick to remind us. However, Sharon changed his tune today.

"Israel is a peace-seeking country," Mr. Sharon said today. "We believe in peace. We are committed to peace."

That's not what you said yesterday. Read that editorial. It reads as if Israel is not going to settle this dispute reasonably without a fight. Military defeat then diplomacy, that's the Israeli way. It's also cost you a lot of friends in the international community, Mr. Sharon, and to continue to do so will only worsen your chance of getting back into the global arena.

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Limited blog action today. A family member has fallen ill.

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Saudi voyeurs like new cell phone-cameras (link courtesy Drudge Report)

Saudi Arabia is being urged to ban a new cellular phone that can be used to take digital photographs. The reason: Saudi men have been reported to use the high tech phones to surreptitiously photograph women. Religious police have already confiscated shipments of the new cellular phones. Officials said Saudi women had complained that young Saudi men were slipping the devices into facilities reserved for women and secretly taking photographs, Middle East Newsline reported.

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I have to stop watching sports. The Red Sox lost this morning and the accursed Lakers won as well.

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I had seen several references to and discussions about some kind of imagined debate that was going on among bloggers. It appeared that everyone had read the article but me, as there had been several mentions of it, but no links. Apparently, it showed up in the print version of the metro edtion, which we don't get on the Left Coast. Thanks to Max Power, I have now read the article, but from what it appears, it did not have the desired effect. It seems as if it drew the "warring factions" closer together.

As I re-read this article, one thing that Dave Winer says strikes a chord with me:

Veteran bloggers say they are happy that blogs are catching on with a wider audience, but some challenge the idea that war blogs are somehow more relevant than other kinds. "I talk about things Glenn Reynolds doesn't understand, but that doesn't mean they're not important things to talk about," said Dave Winer, founder and chief executive of UserLand Software, whose Scripting News (scripting.com) is one of the oldest blogs.

Dave, as a techie with a journalism degree, I can assure you that the difference is the audience. The general public doesn't catch on as quickly to technospeak. You and I might revel in it, but my wife, for example, tunes me out immediately. Warblogs, for lack of a better term, speak out to a wider audience. People are more interested in current affairs, and are looking for another voice aside from the television news.

In the meantime, I'm sure that we all can live in harmony. There's plenty of room for all of us in cyberspace.

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Susanna Cornett's cut on the bias site has a new home. (link courtesy Patio Pundit)

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The Bear doesn't get Sex and the City, and lets us know why. I'm inclined to agree, and am glad I don't have HBO. When I was on a contract in L.A., I had HBO, and I caught it for the first time. All I could think was, "What do these people DO?" Must be a guy thing. There are many "non-guy" shows that I'll sit through, but that's not one of them. I just hope to hell that reruns don't show up on Lifetime.

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Juan Gato and Ye Olde Blogge have both updated their site designs.

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Richard Bennett has a beef with the quality of the writing in the blogsophere.

There's been a lot of exceptionally crappy writing in the Blogosphere lately, so I'm going to do my little bit toward improving the quality of expression by reminding my peers of one simple little principle that will help you make your musings more palatable to others: keep it brief.

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Jagger 'to be knighted'

Mick Jagger is to receive a knighthood for services to music in the Queen's Birthday Honours next weekend, according to newspaper reports. Earlier this year, the Rolling Stones singer claimed Prince Charles was shocked he had not even received an MBE while Paul McCartney, Elton John, Cliff Richard and Bob Geldof had already been knighted. But the 58-year-old was put forward for the honour by Tony Blair, says the News of the World.

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The Hoosier Review is reporting that students at Stanford are protesting Condeleezza Rice giving the commencement speech.

Graduates who object to Rice's actions and policies will be wearing red flyers on our caps. We intend to distribute pamphlets (on matching red paper) to as many of the attendees of graduation as possible explaining why we are protesting and providing the text of the petition. When Rice speaks, many of us will hold up our caps (with the flyers) towards her in order to symbolically confront her on these issues.

The protesters are saying that the administration had prior knowldege of the September 11 attacks, and have drafted a petition. Wasn't Dartmouth protesting Mr. Rogers? Heck, I don't recall who my commencement speaker was, but I went to a pretty big school. If there's anyone from the Arizona State class of 1993 reading this who remembers who our commencement speaker was, send me an e-mail.

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I'm a native of Providence, Rhode Island, and it's good to see that the city is in the news again. Unfortunately, it seems as if it makes headlines for bad things.

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Okay, now comments do work. It appears to be ready.

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I'm back to the old/new look. I needed to do some tweaking. Comments still don't work, though.

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