Civilian prisons coming soon

By Jerome R. Corsi

The U.S. Army is authorized to create civilian prison labor camps on military installations, according to a little-noticed regulation.
The camps are allowed if the request comes from the Federal Bureau of Prisons or state corrections facilities under leasing requirements defined by federal law.

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The directives loosely define "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy or government functions.

GOP Officials Say Craig May Resign

By DAVID ESPO and MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON -- Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is considering resigning, Republican officials said Friday, after days of public and private pressure stemming from his arrest in June in an undercover vice operation in an airport men's room.

As a measure of the pressure Craig faces, party officials said a statement had been drafted at Republican Party headquarters calling for the third-term senator to resign. It was not issued, these officials said, in response to concerns that it might complicate quiet efforts under way to persuade the 62-year-old lawmaker to give up his seat.

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More sugar for ethanol

By Alan Guebert

In the down-is-up world of American biofuels, success carries enormous costs.

The latest evidence of these costs is an amendment tucked into the House version of the 2007 Farm Bill: As Mexican granular sugar flows into the U.S. in 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will oversee a supply-balancing program where the extra sugar can be purchased, at government-subsidized prices, by American ethanol makers.Sweet, eh?

Moreover, if you think American corn growers are angered by seeing part of their fast-growing ethanol market legislatively handed to imported sugar, think again. Ethanol, after all, is the rabbit hole that swallowed logic and economics long ago.

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State faults teachers of English learners

Pat Kossan

Hundreds of students in Arizona are trying to learn English from teachers who don't know the language, state officials say. The kids are taught by teachers who don't know English grammar and can't pronounce English words correctly.

Last year, for example, a Mesa teacher stood in front of a class of language learners and announced, "Sometimes, you are not gonna know some." A teacher in Phoenix's Creighton Elementary District asked her kids, "If you have problems, to who are you going to ask?" A Casa Grande Elementary District teacher asked her kids to "read me first how it was before."

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Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory

Posted by Matthew_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."

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Valedictorian sues over Gospel speech

A high school valedictorian is suing a Colorado school district because she was forced to publicly apologize for declaring her Christian faith and inviting students to respond to the Gospel in a speech at her graduation ceremony.
Erica Corder, who graduated from Lewis-Palmer High School near Colorado Springs in 2006, alleges in a First Amendment lawsuit filed by Liberty Counsel that the school violated her civil rights.

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Colo. School Bans Tag

"It causes a lot of conflict on the playground," said Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school.

An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will.

Running games are still allowed as long as students don't chase each other, she said.

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Soros-linked group hit with huge fine

By: Kenneth P. Vogel

America Coming Together (ACT) raised $137 million for its get-out-the-vote effort in 2004, but the FEC found most of that cash came through contributions that violated federal limits. The group’s big donors included George Soros, Progressive Corp. chairman Peter Lewis and the Service Employees International Union. The settlement, which the FEC approved unanimously, is the third largest enforcement penalty in the commission’s 33-year history.

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Home Depot employee looking for job..............

By BRANDON PUTTBRESE

Dustin Chester is job hunting this week, after The Home Depot fired him and the general manager for thwarting a thief from running away with a pocket full of stolen cash.

He was fired Monday for violations of company policy in the incident.
"When he ran, I ran after him," he said. Chester caught the thief and restrained him in the parking lot until police arrived.

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Deported Mexican migrant mom asks to return to America

Elvira Arellano, 32, who sought refuge to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born, 8-year-old son, was arrested and sent back to Mexico on Aug. 19 after traveling to Los Angeles to attend a rally for the overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. Her son stayed in the United States.
"What I'm asking for is a diplomatic visa so that I can be an ambassador for peace and justice because I'm not a terrorist and the United States can't continue treating undocumented migrants as terrorists," Arellano told reporters after meeting with President Felipe Calderon at the presidential residence, Los Pinos

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Illegal Aliens and American Medicine

The Seen and the Unseen

PDF File click to read

The Left Loses the Vietnam War

By Robert Tracinski

In political battles--and all too frequently in war itself--victories are rarely complete, defeats are rarely final, and the real significance of a battle is often not evident for years, even decades afterward.
America's defeat in Vietnam, for example, was seemingly a triumph for the anti-war left, which had long proclaimed the war to be unwinnable quagmire. Yet the years following that defeat--the era of American retreat and "national malaise"--proved so traumatic that the American people have never wanted to repeat them.

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Dinner Plate to Climate Change

By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

The biggest animal rights groups do not always overlap in their missions, but now they have coalesced around a message that eating meat is worse for the environment than driving. They and smaller groups have started advertising campaigns that try to equate vegetarianism with curbing greenhouse gases.
Some backlash against this position is inevitable, the groups acknowledge, but they do have scientific ammunition. In late November, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization issued a report stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.

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Customs agent sues over ‘unfair’ demotion

Jeremy Roebuck

McALLEN — Rolando Cano admits that June 28, 2003, was not his finest hour as a Customs agent. During his shift that night at the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge, officers under his command let a stolen car slip through an inspection checkpoint, released a purported terrorism suspect into the United States and helplessly watched as a wanted man escaped from custody and ran back to Mexico. Cano doesn’t deny that these incidents occurred, but they shouldn’t cost him his job, he argues in a lawsuit filed in federal court.

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Larry Craig Poll

Opinion Polls & Market Research

U.S. Senator Gets Flushed

AUGUST 28--Here's the Minnesota police report memorializing the June 11 arrest of U.S. Senator Larry Craig in an airport bathroom. The Idaho Republican was nabbed in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after he apparently sought some same-stall action from a plainclothes cop. Craig, 62, pleaded earlier this month to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge ....

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Call for Craig to resign

By ERIKA BOLSTAD AND ANNE WALLACE ALLEN

An ethics watchdog group based in Washington has asked that the U.S. Senate look into whether Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's arrest on disorderly conduct charges violated the Senate's rules of conduct.

"If pleading guilty to charges stemming from an attempt to solicit an undercover officer in a public restroom is not conduct that reflects poorly upon the Senate, what is?" Sloan said.

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Letters to the Statesman have poured in from around the country, none of them in support of Craig.

UK Gun Crimes Soar After Gun Ban

Gun crimes in England have almost doubled since 1997, when a ban on firearms began.
According to the Sunday Times of London, crimes in which guns were used numbered 4,671 in 2005-06.
Also, government officials report that most gun crime is committed by children and teenagers under 18 years old.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, told the Telegraph: "What this shows is that the majority of these crimes are committed by youngsters under 18.

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Edwards’s poverty “plague” examined.

By Robert Rector

The Census Bureau will release its annual report on poverty in America tomorrow. The report will show, as it has in recent years that around 37 million people live in official poverty. Presidential candidate John Edwards, who hopes to lead the nation in a new crusade against poverty, will, no doubt, seek to reap much publicity from the report.

In the past, Edwards has claimed that poverty in America is a “plague” which forces 37 million Americans to live in “terrible” circumstances.

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More parents pushing 'diaper-free' movement

By RODRIQUE NGOWI

Dominic is a product of a growing "diaper-free" movement founded on the belief that babies are born with an instinctive ability to signal when they have to answer nature's call. Parents who practice the "elimination communication" learn to read their children's body language to help them recognize the need, and they mimic the sounds that a child associates with the bathroom.
Erinn Klatt began toilet training her son at birth and said he has not wet his bed at night since he was 6 months old.

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Teen trades hacked iPhone for new car

SAN FRANCISCO - The teenage hacker who managed to unlock the iPhone so that it can be used with cellular networks other than AT&T will be trading his reworked gadget for a new car.

Hotz posted on his blog that he traded his modified iPhone for "a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones."
"This has been a great end to a great summer," Hotz wrote.

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Craig's future in question after sex arrest

The conservative three-term senator, who has represented Idaho in Congress for more than a quarter-century, is up for re-election next year. He hasn't said if he will run for a fourth term in 2008 and was expected to announce his plans this fall.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Senate ethics committee seeking an investigation into whether Craig violated Senate rules by engaging in disorderly conduct.

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'We Are Going to Get Hit Again'

By Mark Hosenball and Jeffrey Bartholet

Aug. 27, 2007 - Al Qaeda has an active plot to hit the West. The United States knows about it but doesn’t have enough tactical detail to issue a precise warning or raise the threat level, says Vice Admiral (ret.) John Scott Redd, who heads the government’s National Counterterrorism Center. In an interview at his headquarters near Washington, D.C., Redd told Newsweek’s Mark Hosenball and Jeffrey Bartholet that the country is better prepared than ever to counter such threats. But ......

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Clinton's Cash

By BRODY MULLIN

DALY CITY, Calif. -- One of the biggest sources of political donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton is a tiny, lime-green bungalow that lies under the flight path from San Francisco International Airport.
Six members of the Paw family, each listing the house at 41 Shelbourne Ave. as their residence, have donated a combined $45,000 to the Democratic senator from New York since 2005, for her presidential campaign, her Senate re-election last year and her political action committee. In all, the six Paws have donated a total of $200,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005, election records show.

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The foreign intelligence surveillance act

By Chris Roberts

The following is the transcript of a question and answer session with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.
Question: How much has President Bush or members of his administration formed your response to the FISA debate?
Answer: Not at all. When I came back in, remember my previous assignment was director of the NSA, so this was an area I have known a little bit about. So I came back in. I was nominated the first week of January. The administration had made a decision to put the terrorist surveillance program into the FISA court. I think that happened the 7th of Jan.

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President Bush's analogy to Iraq

BY MAX BOOT

Ever since the mid-1970s, critics of American military involvement have warned that any decision to deploy armed forces abroad--in Lebanon and El Salvador in the 1980s, in Kuwait, Somalia, and Kosovo in the 1990s, and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan--would result in "another Vietnam." Conversely, supporters of those interventions have adamantly resisted any Vietnam comparisons.

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Libs Say the Darndest Things

By James Lewis

Here's a fun exercise for conservatives: Spend some time just listening to your liberal friends. Don't bother to say anything at all. You'll be amazed. I've certainly been wowed every time I've tried it.Libs believe the darndest things. They're not as cute as the things kids come out with, but having millions of adults who are stuck in false beliefs puts our society at a lot greater risk.

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Capitalism. Corporations are evil. Capitalism murders just as many people as Stalin and Pol Pot did. Every political system kills millions of people. (The mind reels.)

Will to Win

By George H. Wittman

There is a great deal that is not understood about American fighting forces in Iraq. The essence of their spirit, however, was captured best by a serving British officer referring to the average U.S. combat soldier: "These chaps really want to win."It's as simple as that. The American soldier, Marine, airman or sailor in a combat role in Iraq -- or Afghanistan -- has a burning desire to win, to beat the bad guys. It is easy to say that is what they are paid to do and what is expected of them.

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Courage, Cowardice and the Wordsmiths

Stephen Rittenberg, MD

When I served as a Navy psychiatrist during the Vietnam War, one of my weekly duties was interviewing and assessing potential draftees who were seeking to avoid service by claiming mental illness. Many of these were recent Ivy League graduates, students of the humanities, who were active protesters of what they insisted was an immoral war. They thought of themselves as idealists.
Yet they were not principled conscientious objectors. Instead, they were glib, had read up on symptoms of psychosis, and could feign the manifest behavior of any disqualifying syndrome-including homosexuality. Their efforts to dissemble were usually rather obvious. They were predicated on the arrogant assumption that they were smarter than any military psychiatrist.

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Incredible Shrinking Deficit, II

2004: $413 billion 2005: $318 billion 2006: $248 billion 2007: $158 billion
Close readers of this column may recall the top three numbers in the list above from our editorial of July 12, "Incredible Shrinking Deficit." It commented on the mid-session review released by President Bush's Office of Management and Budget, which projected the fourth number, the 2007 federal budget deficit, at $205 billion. Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its own updated estimate for 2007, $158 billion,

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It's nice to see the deficit shrink, but what about the DEBT? At present rates, Bush will have nearly doubled the national debt by the time he leaves office - from 6 trillion to 12 trillion.

Elvira Arellano Says U.S. 'Broke The Law First'

Click to watch Video

Silver surfers

By PAUL REVOIR

Pensioners surfing the internet are spending more time online than their younger counterparts.
So-called "silver surfers" dedicate an average of 42 hours a month to the World Wide Web, compared with 37.9 hours among 18 to 24-year-olds.
A greater interest in hobbies, news and local issues among the elderly is believed to be driving the trend, which sees over-65s account for nine per cent of all time spent online in the UK.

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The soapless experiment: Six weeks without a wash

by NATASHA COURTENAY-SMITH

Exfoliating scrubs, nail varnishes and cellulite-busting creams are often thrown into the mix, too. It is a ritual that not only sets Nicky up for the day but one she has always believed was essential to keeping her looking good and feeling well.
But over the past six weeks, Nicky, 42, has cut this daily routine, and all the products associated with it, out of her life altogether. Yes, for 40 days and 40 nights, there has been no showering, no hair washing, no teeth cleaning and no deodorant.

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Mexican Senate sides with mom

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican Senate committee passed a measure Wednesday urging President Felipe Calderon to send a diplomatic note to the United States protesting the deportation of an illegal migrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year.
The committee also approved a scholarship to help her 8-year-old U.S.-born son, Saul, who is an American citizen and stayed in the United States.

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Poll Question

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Global Temperatures

Tribes Offer Membership to Immigrants

By OSKAR GARCIA

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - For prices starting at $50, two nonfederally recognized Indian tribes are offering membership to thousands of illegal immigrants, claiming they can achieve legal status by joining the groups.
But immigration authorities insist becoming a tribe member gives no protection against being deported. And immigration advocates condemn the practice, saying it defrauds immigrants of money and gives them false hope.
"You can't just decide to become a member of a tribe and all of a sudden legalize your status," said Marilu Cabrera, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

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Nuclear terror drill sparks conspiracy scare

By Joseph Farah

WASHINGTON – A U.S. military drill designed to enhance homeland security in the event of a nuclear terrorist attack has some officials and media outlets funded by billionaire George Soros warning it may be a "false flag" operation leading to the detonation of a real nuclear device to set the stage for martial law.
The exercise, part of the "Noble Resolve" program of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, is set for tomorrow through Friday in Portland, Ore. Like other previous drills, it involves coordination with local officials in a model nuclear attack.

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Family Ties Key to Youth Happiness

By JOCELYN NOVECK and TREVOR TOMPSON

So you're between the ages of 13 and 24. What makes you happy? A worried, weary parent might imagine the answer to sound something like this: Sex, drugs, a little rock 'n' roll. Maybe some cash, or at least the car keys.
Turns out the real answer is quite different. Spending time with family was the top answer to that open-ended question, according to an extensive survey—more than 100 questions asked of 1,280 people ages 13-24—conducted by The Associated Press and MTV on the nature of happiness among America's young people.

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Sue the "sexperts"

Is there evidence of fraud perpetrated against the Catholic Church?

Susan Brinkman gives the details in her book, The Kinsey Corruption (Ascension Press). Certain Catholic Church administrators hired sexuality educators who taught Kinseyan values. This employment pattern held as well for some selected psychologists who screened aspiring seminarians, many of whom were rejected because they were said to be too sexually “orthodox,” not “tolerant” of homosexuality. Bishops sent pedophile priests for treatment to therapists who accepted pedophilia as an “orientation.”

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9/11 Demonstrators Are Criminals

A quote from Freddy Thielemans, the Mayor of Brussels, in an op-ed piece in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard, 20 August 2007: I decided to forbid the September 11 demonstration “against the islamicisation of Europe.” […] Since 2001 I have allowed over 3,500 demonstrations. This is only the sixth one which I forbid. […] The right to demonstrate exists only inasmuch as it does not cause a disturbance of the public peace and order. […] First and foremost the organizers have chosen the symbolic date of 9/11. The intention is obviously to confound the terrorist activities of Muslim extremists on the one hand and Islam as a religion and all Muslims on the other hand. […] Such incitement to discrimination and hatred, which we usually call racism and xenophobia, is forbidden by a considerable number of international treaties and is punished by our penal laws and by the European legislation.

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Islam Needs an Age of Reason

Love and religion do not always mix. No wonder the most common question sent to my website these days comes from young Muslims in America and Europe. They desperately want to know if they can marry non-Muslims.
Their parents and imams tell them that Islam forbids marriage outside the faith. But that is not necessarily true. Dr. Khaleel Mohammed, a progressive American imam educated at traditional universities in the Middle East, has written a clear defense of inter-faith marriage from an Islamic perspective.

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Immigration Activist Deported to Mexico

By PETER PRENGAMAN

Elvira Arellano was arrested Sunday afternoon outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Los Angeles. She was deported several hours later, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had taken refuge.
"She has been deported. She is free and in Tijuana," said Coleman, who said he spoke to her on the phone. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."

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'Evil of Islam' Warning to West

Richard Kerbaj

Syrian-born Wafa Sultan secretly met both sides of federal politics and Jewish community leaders, warning them that all Muslims needed to be closely monitored in the West.
He insisted that Australia and the US have been duped into believing there is a difference between the religion's moderate and radical interpretations. In an interview with The Australian, Dr Sultan -- who shot to recognition last year following an interview on al-Jazeera television in which she attacked Islam and the prophet Mohammed -- said Muslims were "brainwashed" from an early age to believe Western values were evil and that the world would one day come under the control of Sharia law.

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Conservatives Denounce Bush on 'North American Union'

By Nathan Burchfiel

"George Bush and his daddy [former President George H. W. Bush] have both used the term 'New World Order.' It was used by Woodrow Wilson. It was used by Adolf Hitler. It was used by a number of people, and the New World Order relates to the desire of many people in the world to submerge national sovereignties to international institution."

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President Bush is meeting with other world leaders in Canada this week to establish, in part, a "New World Order" that subverts national sovereignty, according to some leading American conservatives who have taken a hard stance against the president over the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

NEA lists its goals.... Democratic Party agrees

By Phyllis Schlafly

Democratic presidential candidates did sound off with their pro-federal government, pro-spending policies at the annual convention of the National Education Association, and the nation's largest teachers union liked what they heard.
U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., told delegates that she will fight school vouchers "with every breath in my body."

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New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson wants to "raise teacher's average minimum wage to $40,000 a year."

Jane Fonda’s Radio Network Tanks

When the talk-radio network, called GreenStone, officially launched in September 2006, NewsMax reported that it was a "new left-wing radio network that plans to appeal to women listeners and counter the dominance of conservative talk radio.”

The "feminist” radio company whose founders include Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem failed to attract an audience and it signed off the air for good on Friday.

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Mother forced to give birth alone in toilet

By ANDREW LEVY

A young mother had to deliver her own baby in the lavatory of a flagship hospital because there were no trained midwives available.
Surveyor Catherine Brown had made the agonising decision to undergo a chemically-induced abortion after being told her 18-week pregnancy was risking her life.
But when the time came to give birth she was on an ear, nose and throat ward and had only her mother to help her through the ordeal. Her premature son Edward died in her arms minutes later.
The traumatised mother-of-one said: "I just howled and howled. I remember sitting there looking at him and thinking, 'What do I do next?'. I just sat there on the toilet looking at my dead baby.

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Sizzling study concludes: Global warming 'hot air'

A major new scientific study concludes the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on worldwide temperatures is largely irrelevant, prompting one veteran meteorologist to quip, "You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide."

"Of course it's going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we're coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we're putting more carbon dioxide into the air."

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Dispatch from the Department of Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

By Mark Finkelstein

You're the New York Times and its minor-league subsidiary, the Boston Globe. You obtain government data showing that Americans' incomes have risen every year since 2002. So how do you spin it in your headline?

If you're the Times: Average Incomes Fell for Most in 2000-5.

The Globe had its own gloomy take: More Americans making ends meet with less money.

What-t-t? How did the papers manage this statistical shell game? How did they transform income growth into income decline? Read the opening sentence of the Globe article:
Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year they had to make ends meet with less money

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