WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation has delayed plans to open the border to long-haul Mexican trucks until at least Thursday, after earlier reports that it could happen over Labor Day weekend.

In a filing yesterday in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, government attorneys said the agency expects to get the OK from its inspector general on Wednesday that would allow it to begin the controversial cross border trucking experiment.

The agency “anticipates that the program will not begin before Thursday,” the U.S. Justice Department said in its response to a Teamsters union lawsuit that seeks an emergency injunction to block the border opening.

Attorneys for both sides said last night they had no indication of how soon the court might act.

The disclosure marks the first time the agency has publicly given a specific date when the long-delayed program might begin.

The government court filing said that on the first day of the program only two Mexican carriers operating a total of seven trucks will be granted permission to cross the border.

One is Luciano Padilla Martínez, a Tijuana-based company that said it will send five trucks into the United States.

The other firm that would get immediate operating authority is Fernando Páez Treviño, a carrier in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters in February announced plans for a one-year pilot program to test the safety of Mexican trucks in the United States. The agency now appears on the verge of commencing the project, in which up to 100 pre-approved Mexican carriers would be able to send hundreds of trucks throughout the United States for the first time since 1982.

American truckers who receive approval from the Mexican government would be able to travel in Mexico for the first time under the program.

The Bush administration is pushing to start the experiment as soon as possible as a step toward a wider opening of the border to commercial traffic, as required in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Critics, including several trucking and safety organizations and dozens of lawmakers, complain the administration has failed to guarantee the trucks will be safe.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, blasted the Department of Transportation for “demonstrating complete disregard for the safety of vehicle motorists and the security threat created by granting Mexican truckers unrestricted access into the United States.”

He accused the agency of ignoring congressional requirements.

“We feel like we have met the requirements,” said John H. Hill, who oversees the program as administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. He added that an upcoming assessment from the inspector general might identify some “issues and concerns” that the agency will have to address.

The pilot program cannot go forward until the inspector general certifies it has met congressional requirements.

Hill said the agency also must file a report with Congress responding to the assessment before it can start.

The inspector general’s office has confidentially briefed congressional staff about the upcoming report this week.

One staff member familiar with the briefings said the inspector general had some concerns but they were “not huge issues.”

The lawsuit filed by the Teamsters and a handful of other groups Wednesday alleges the agency has failed to comply with several congressional requirements – including giving U.S. carriers simultaneous access to Mexican highways and marshaling a statistically valid sample of drivers for the project.

The government responded that the project will satisfy all congressional requirements, while requiring Mexican carriers to pass pre-certification inspections and comply with the same requirements as American truck drivers.

In an interview, Hill said no Mexican trucks would be allowed to cross the border until U.S. trucks get the same privilege.

“We will not start it unless Mexico grants authority at the same time” to U.S. truckers, he said.

The agency defended its sample of up to 100 carriers, which it said is one-tenth of the number of Mexican trucking companies that applied to cross the border.

The agency estimated the 100 carriers would send 540 trucks into the United States.

The government said further delays to the program could jeopardize diplomatic and trade relations with Mexico.

Hill said up to 44 Mexican trucks would come into the United States in the first few days of the program. “And by month’s end, maybe a total of 174,” he added.

Source

"The government said further delays to the program could jeopardize diplomatic and trade relations with Mexico".  Who the hell cares about relations with an illegitimate child (Mexico)! We’re already dealing with whore’s offspring (millions of illegal aliens) and many who are driving unlicensed/uninsured on our streets…murdering and maiming US citizens. Allowing these Mexican trucks in will bring millions of illegal aliens (think these trucks won’t carry illegals across the border?) to be let loose on US citizens. 

By David Harsanyi
Denver Post Staff Columnist

While many of you have a tendency to romanticize the ’60s, clearly, there are certain events no one wants to relive: Vietnam. Assassinations. Abbie Hoffman.

This 2008 Democratic convention is beginning to shape up to be a royal pain. It has nothing to do with the Democrats - a peace-loving bunch - but rather those fringe groups demanding that the city capitulate to their whims.

The outfit making the most noise has been Re-create 68. The "68," is a reference to the violent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. This group has a call out to "all the grassroots people who are tired of being sold out by the Democratic Party."

Power to the people!

Re-create 68 claims to be anti-war, anti-racism, anti-imperialism, and though all of it is framed in boilerplate freshman-year Marxist inanity, like any other group they deserve all the protections provided by the First Amendment.

But they don’t deserve exclusive perks.

So it’s been irritating watching Re-create 68 members constantly in "talks" with the mayor’s office, or the Denver Police Department and even federal officials. Is their cause any nobler than any other protester in this city for the past 30 years? Or has the implicit threat of violence moved elected officials to take meetings?

Former Councilwoman Kathleen MacKenzie, quite pathetically, sponsored a ludicrous motion "reaffirming" the First Amendment for protesters in Denver. The document (drafted with the help of Re-create 68, incidentally) was, thankfully, spiked by council.

Habitually demanding things, as revolutionaries are wont to do, this group now wants the city to alter laws regarding protests so, I assume, they can tie up rush-hour traffic during the convention to make their point.

For me, traffic is the true measure of imperialism.

Believe it or not, the majority of Denverites won’t be attending the convention, and most sensible people won’t be watching any conventions at all.

As the parameters of demonstrating in this city are clearly laid out to protect citizens as well as protesters, police negotiations should be wrapped up in a couple sentences:

Follow the law. Protest in designated areas. Protest peacefully. Peace out.

"What stands between the people and power are the party machines," reads the Re-create 68 website, featuring a clenched fist held high. "The parties were devised as a means to represent the people. Today they represent nobody, not even party members, but only party bureaucracy. The people have been left without appropriate institutions for their representation. We intend to create those institutes!"

Now dear comrades, I’m not sure how many of you are interested in these apparatchiks re-creating our "institutions," but anyone with even a passing historical acquaintance with 1968 knows very well the group’s name implies violence. In that sense, I’m sure no decent person in Denver wants to re-create the event.

I have no idea who was at fault for the Chicago riots in 1968. (I typically blame hippies for most things, but boy, those Windy City cops were sort of quick to crack open a skull.) And obviously, I hope that Denver avoids the New York and Boston 2004 convention model, featuring high fences, barbed wire, spies and questionable arrests. Yet allowing protesters to dictate in what manner this city deals with protests is an affront to the law-abiding Denverite.

Democrats, obviously, have the most to lose from a violent confrontation. As Denver convention host committee co-chairman Chris Gates, who was at the 1968 convention, recently said, "Part of the reason (Hubert) Humphrey lost that election was because of the chaos in the streets of Chicago in 1968. So if you believe in progressive values and progressive causes, their argument doesn’t really make sense."’

No, it doesn’t make sense. Not only for progressives but for anyone.

Few things that groups like Re-create 68 espouse make much sense to me. That’s fine. I support their right to protest.

But that shouldn’t give them the license to shut down the city or inhibit your right to live in peace.

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."

Each year, the state evaluates a sampling of classrooms where kids are learning English. Last year, officials visited 32 districts and found similar problems at nine. Some teachers’ English was so poor that even state officials strained to understand them. The state also found that students learning English at all ages were being taught by teachers who did not have appropriate training or materials. At a dozen districts, evaluators found teachers who ignored state law and taught in Spanish.

Each year, fewer kids who are still learning English pass the reading, writing and math AIMS test.

For the past five years, state monitors have evaluated a sampling of language classes to help find out why.

Here are some of the problems they found inside the classrooms at the 32 districts they visited for one to three days last year.

• Teachers speak poor English. At nine districts, some teachers did not know correct English grammar or pronunciation. In one classroom, the teacher’s English was "labored and arduous." Other teachers were just difficult to understand. Some teachers pronounced "levels" as "lebels" and "much" as "mush."

At one school in Humboldt Unified, a teacher asked, "How do we call it in English?" Another teacher in Marana Unified told students, "You need to make the story very interested to the teacher." A teacher at Phoenix’s Isaac Elementary explained, "My older brother always put the rules."

• Teachers still use Spanish in the classroom. Twelve districts had to be reminded that Arizona law requires teachers to use only English in the classroom and bans all texts and materials in any language but English. Monitors found teachers who used too much Spanish translation to help students and used storybooks, textbooks, posters and bulletin boards that were written in Spanish.

State officials allow Spanish-language books only in school libraries.

At one Isaac Elementary school, children could not answer simple questions in English. Students told the monitors that much of their instruction was in Spanish. In a class at Humboldt Unified, a teacher reviewed a list of vocabulary words by reciting them in English and having the students respond in Spanish. Some schools provided bilingual education to children whose parents did not fill out state-required waiver forms or did not fill them out properly.

• Some schools shortchange language learners. Some schools hadn’t bothered to apply for tutoring grants available to help language learners, and many teachers did not have the appropriate training to teach English as a new language. One high-school teacher had only elementary-school credentials, while some had none at all.

In a classroom in Phoenix’s Cartwright Elementary District, kids still in the early stages of learning English "were found sitting, comprehending very little, and receiving almost no attention."

Deer Valley Unified provided minimal materials and teaching materials for language learners compared to other kids; it also offered little academic guidance to high-school students learning English.

At Maricopa Unified, some language learners were placed in regular classrooms with up to 29 students. The hour of English instruction for these students was provided by a teacher’s aide at the back of the class.

Arizona is revamping the way schools teach kids English. Starting this year, schools must begin putting language learners into four hours of classes each day where these students will learn English grammar, phonetics, writing and reading.

The state recently rolled out a new program to help administrators understand the changes and train teachers in a new prescriptive curriculum they will be expected to follow.

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Found this on the Democratic Underground discussion board;

Dear Ted,
I was suitably impressed by your recent brandishment of a "machine gun" to embellish a few back-handed threats against several Democratic politicians. Damn, we could have used a stud like you in the A Shau back in ‘70 and ‘71. God knows, there were times when I looked over my shoulder hoping to see a little outgoing 50 cal, but it’s funny, every time I looked, you were never there. Hey, you were probably still busy stateside trying to launder those shit-encrusted jeans you wore down to the draft board.
Trust me, Dude, if crapping your drawers was the intent, based on what I know about you, we could have accomodated you in the first 30 seconds of any of the repeated firefights we engaged in during Operation Lam Son 719 and Operation Texas Star.
I hear you’re a big hunter, Teddy. Surely you’ve heard that man is the ultimate game. Of course, you’re probably wired a little differently than I am. You see, Teddy, 35+ years after the fact, I still wake up every now and then haunted by the faces of the two men whom I am certain that I killed. I try not to think about the fact that over my months in the bush there were almost certainly more than two, but these particular NVA grunts were only 50 meters outside our perimeter, and after I lit them up, their comrades were unable to retrieve them. We dragged the bodies in the next morning. I’ve got no problem with rationalizing that it was me or them, Teddy. But, unlike you and every other chickenhawk drum-pounder I’ve ever heard of, I refuse to celebrate their deaths.
Now, why don’t you piss off and blow up a few more animals on a canned hunt? Maybe that’s what you need to get it up with the under-age girls that your own daughters claim you relish. But please remember, you once had a chance to lock and load against someone able to shoot back. You chose to shit yourself instead.

11 Bravo

 Of course, 11 Bravo probably didn’t write a like-minded letter to Bill Clinton for his draft dodging bullshit either. Then again,  Moscow’s Red Square might not have had incoming mail service at the time.  Well, alrighty then!

 U.S. forces killed 12 al-Qaida insurgents and destroyed their two vehicles on Wednesday near the town of Karmah, west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Friday.

    Backed by airstrike and artillery fire, U.S. Marine troops at northeastern Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, killed 12members of al-Qaida in Iraq network, the military said in a statement.

    "The Marines called for air support and a section of AV-8BHarrier jets dropped two precision-guided bombs, destroying the initial two cargo trucks. Marines called for artillery fire on the dismounted enemy personnel immediately following the air attack," the statement said.

    "Twelve members of al-Qaida were found dead upon investigation of the scene. Numerous weapons and roadside bomb making materials were also found," it added.

    The area in the Anbar province is part of Sunni insurgents’ stronghold, which stretches from the western edges of Baghdad to the Saudi, Jordanian and Syrian borders.

Source

BEIRUT: The Sunni Clerics Council expressed concern on Thursday over the turbulence being caused by uncertainty ahead of presidential elections set to be held in Parliament in mid-September. Presided over by Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani at Dar al-Fatwa, the council released a statement warning that the dispute between the opposition and the majority should not go beyond the Constitution, and should not reach the extent of obstructing the election process.

The council also expressed worry about the tone used by politicians, which it said sabotages the image of Lebanon.

"It is not acceptable to spread offensive accusations through the media with the aim of belittling others politically," it said.

The council also complained that the continuing opposition sit-in in Downtown Beirut was exposing the country to economic and social pressures.

In addition, the council expressed it support for the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and denounced reported threats recently made against the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The body also expressed gratitude to the Lebanese Army for its efforts in combating Fatah al Islam militants at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan, vice president of the Higher Shiite Council, said Thursday during a ceremony of the 29th anniversary of the disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr: "We demand a government of national unity, and demand a president by agreement. We hold no veto against anyone; the important thing is that the Lebanese people as a whole agree to the president."

"The liberation of Lebanon comes through unity and agreement," he added.

Sheikh Qabalan also congratulated the army for it efforts in fighting Fatah al-Islam  at Nahr al-Bared and called on the remaining militants to turn themselves in.

Source

Islamabad: The pastor of a Christian church and his American wife were shot dead in their home in the Pakistani capital, police said yesterday.

The bodies of Arif Khan, a Pakistani-American citizen in his 50s, and his American wife Kathleen Khan, 45, were found late on Wednesday at their home in a residential neighbourhood of Islamabad, said Munawar Hussain, the local police chief.

Hussain said police had arrested their suspected killer and his wife and that they were also Christians.

The arrested man, Honey Haveed, said during questioning that Khan had an affair with his wife and that he had shot him "for honour", Hussain said.

Police were searching for another man suspected as an accomplice.

Hussain said Khan was the pastor of a small church set up in a private house in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital. He didn’t know the denomination. US Embassy spokeswoman Liz Colton said American privacy laws prevented officials from discussing such crimes.

Source

A Border Patrol agent who was arrested last year on bribery charges and who fled to Mexico while out on bond has been arrested in Mexico, officials with the U.S. Marshals said.

Arturo Arzate Jr., 47, is accused of waving drug loads through the checkpoint on Highway 62/180 east of El Paso, federal court documents state. He had been a Border Patrol agent for 20 years.

Officials said he was arrested by Mexican officials on Aug. 16 in Torreon in the state of Coahuila. He had been a fugitive since February, officials said. He will be extradited back to the United States.

Source

We keep telling you folks that until we stop hiring Mexican nationals/loyalists, the border will continue to be a problem.

HOUSTON—A school district police officer has been suspended as the district investigates his distribution of a "Ghetto Handbook" and a three-month lapse before top district officials were informed about it.

The eight-page booklet, subtitled "Wucha dun did now?", was handed out to about 15 Houston Independent School District police officers at a May roll call meeting, spokesman Terry Abbott said.

A supervisor immediately collected the booklets, Abbott said, but district officials said they didn’t learn about the incident until someone made a complaint to the district’s Equal Employment Opportunity Office in mid-August.

"This publication was completely reprehensible and HISD condemns it in the strongest possible terms," Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra said in a written statement Thursday.

He said he has "mounted a very aggressive investigation."

District Police Chief Charles Wiley "is not doing any interviews because of the fact that it’s an ongoing investigation," Abbott said.

The booklet billed itself as a guide to Ebonics, teaching the reader to speak "as if you just came out of the hood." It included definitions such as "foty: a 40-ounce bottle of beer"; "aks: to ask a question"; and "hoodrat: scummy girl."

The booklet names six district officers "and the entire day shift patrol" as contributors. Abbott said a preliminary investigation has cleared those officers of involvement.

Last year, almost 30 percent of the district’s 202,000 students were black and almost 60 percent were Hispanic.

Carol Mims Galloway, president of the Houston NAACP chapter, said the officer who created the book should be severely punished or fired.

"It was really a slap in the African-American community’s face," said Galloway, who’s running for the school board.

"We’re paying their salaries with our tax dollars," Galloway said of the district police. "It does reflect on the district."

School board member Larry Marshall said the document was inappropriate, even if it was meant to be a joke.

"These are very racially sensitive times," he said. "It was a huge mistake in judgment."

Source

Warsaw: Poland and the United States may be nearing a breakthrough in talks to locate parts of a US anti-missile shield on Polish soil, Poland’s deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying yesterday.

Witold Waszczykowski, who represents Poland in the talks, said a deal could be clinched within weeks after Washington signalled a compromise was possible on a Polish request for Patriot missiles or similar air protection to defend its cities. "I will try to finalise the text of the document within a few, maybe a dozen or so, weeks," Waszczykowski told the Dziennik daily.

"The Americans will promise that if a threat appears, they would give Poland the necessary equipment, including the Patriots (missiles)."

Another round of talks is due early next month.

Washington wants to place up to 10 ground-based interceptor missiles in northern Poland to protect against attacks from what it calls "rogue states" such as Iran and North Korea.

Source

Manila: The Philippines military raised the alert level for retaliatory attacks as President Gloria Arroyo praised the arrest of the founding chairman of the Philippine Communist Party in The Netherlands for allegedly ordering the murder of two former allies in Manila.

"It is a step toward peace and a victory for justice and the rule of law," said Arroyo after the Dutch police arrested Jose Maria Sison, the founding chairman of the 38-year-old Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

"This is history catching up with Mr Sison. This is the long arm of the law catching up with Mr Sison," said Lt Col Bartolome Bacarro, spokesman of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

He gave assurance that the military is prepared for attacks from the 7,000-strong New Peoples Army (NPA), the armed wing of the CPP. Senator Aquilino Pimentel said that Sison’s arrest was "Holland’s way of pressuring the CPP to seriously pursue peace talks with the Philippine government".

"Efforts are now underway to ask the leftists to return to the negotiating table," said Jesus Dureza, of the government’s peace process commission. He did not say if the government is pursuing peace talks with another faction of the communists in the Philippines.

Sison was accused of ordering the killing of Romulo Kintanar, who was shot dead in a restaurant on January 23, 2003, and of Arturo Tabara and his son-in-law Stephen Ong, who were gunned down in a parking lot on September 26, 2004. The NPA admitted responsibility for the assassinations.

Ordering the death of ex-allies is considered a crime in the Netherlands, said officials from The Netherlands. Kintanar was a CPP Central Committee and Politburo member, and an NPA chief until his arrest in 1988. Tabara was former head of CPP’s command in central Philippines.

FALLOUT
Detention threatens peace negotiations

The Philippines braced yesterday for a fallout of the arrest of Jose Maria Sison, a top communist leader as his colleagues vowed to intensify their 39-year-old insurgency.

The National Democratic Front, the Marxist umbrella, condemned the arrest and raids on Sison’s office and at least seven other addresses in Utrecht and the nearby town of Abcoude.

"Contrary to the claims of Mrs Arroyo, the arrest of Prof Sison and the raids conducted are bound to terminate the ongoing peace negotiations," said NDF official Fidel V. Agcaoili, who called the allegations against Sison "trumped-up charges".

Source

Canberra: In the world of international diplomacy, the best chosen words or phrases can leave an audience laughing, bewildered or simply lost in translation, if the experience of Australia’s former top diplomat is any guide.

A new book by Richard Woolcott, who ran Australia’s foreign service for four years, points to the pitfalls of translating thoughts into different languages.

Take the Australian diplomat in France who tried to tell his French audience that as he looked back on his career, it was divided in two parts, with dull postings before life in
Paris.

"When I look at my backside, I find it is divided into two parts," Woolcott quotes the diplomat as telling his highly amused audience.

Extracts from Woolcott’s book, Undiplomatic Activities, have been published in the latest Bulletin magazine, although the book has yet to be formally launched.

Woolcott recalled a speech he gave on a visit to Palembang shortly after he had arrived on a posting in Indonesia.

"Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my wife and myself, I want to say how delighted we are to be in Palembang," he said in English. The interpreter said something entirely different.

"Ladies and gentlemen, on top of my wife, I am delighted to be in Palembang."

Woolcott said former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke left his Japanese audience bewildered when he used the Australian colloquial phrase "I am not here to play funny
buggers" to dismiss a trivial and pesky question from Japanese lawmakers.

"For Japanese interpreters, however, this was a real problem. They went into a huddle to consult on the best way to render ‘funny buggers’ into Japanese," Woolcott wrote.

The interpreters told him they had then told the audience: "I am not here to play laughing homosexuals with you".

Australia’s Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd is regarded as a master of Mandarin. But his language skills were far from perfect as a young diplomat in 1984, when he interpreted his ambassador’s speech on the close relationship enjoyed by Australia and China.

"Australia and China are enjoying simultaneous orgasms in their relationship," Woolcott quoted Rudd as telling the audience in Mandarin.

Woolcott said the best interpretations sometimes involved no translation at all, such as the unnamed Asian minister who told a long joke at a banquet in Seoul.

"The Korean interpreter was lost, but did not show it. He uttered a few sentences and the audience laughed and applauded," Woolcott wrote.

After later being complimented on his translating skills, the the interpreter confessed to the real reason for the laughter.

"Frankly, minister, I did not understand your joke so I said in Korean that the minister has told his obligatory joke, would you all please laugh heartily and applaud."

Source

The Blake Prize entry titled "Bearded Orientals: Making the Empire Cross" by artist Priscilla Bracks is exhibited in Sydney August 30, 2007. The "double vision" print, which depicts both Jesus Christ and Osama bin Laden, in a Christ-like pose, depending on which side the viewer looks at the artwork, has been criticised by Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard for undermining Australians’ religious beliefs.

The Blake Prize entry titled "The Fourth Secret of Fatima" by artist Luke Sullivan is exhibited in Sydney August 30, 2007. The statue of the Virgin Mary, wearing a burqa, has been criticised by Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard for undermining Australians’ religious beliefs.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Artworks depicting Osama bin Laden in a Christ-like pose and a statue of the Virgin Mary covered in a burqa have caused a stir in Australia after they were showcased in a prestigious religious art competition.

"Bearded Orientals: Making the Empire Cross" by Priscilla Bracks is a "double vision" print that depicts both Jesus and bin Laden.

Luke Sullivan’s "The Fourth Secret of Fatima" is a statue of Mary, her head and torso obscured by a blue burqa like the one Afghan women had to wear under the militant Taliban.

The artworks were among more than 500 entries in the Blake Prize for Religious Art, and have been included in an exhibition at the National Art School in Sydney.

"The choice of such artwork is gratuitously offensive to the religious beliefs of many Australians," Australian Prime Minister John Howard told Thursday’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Opposition Labor leader Kevin Rudd also criticized the artwork. "I accept you know people can have artistic freedom, but I find this painting off, off in the extreme. I understand how people would be offended by it," he said.

Australia’s 20 million population is overwhelmingly Christian and the print was condemned by the Australian Christian Lobby.

"It’s really unfortunate people take liberties with the Christian faith they wouldn’t take with other religions," Lobby spokeswoman Glynis Quinlan told reporters.

Cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammad in European newspapers in 2006 sparked violent protests by Muslims around the world, who saw them as an affront to Islam.

GOOD VS EVIL?

A debate about the Australian artworks attracted almost 400 comments on the news.com.au Web site.

"One could only compare Osama with Saddam or Hitler, but Jesus came to Earth not to terrorize, but to save mankind," wrote a blogger named Shirley.

Another blogger, Marc, praised the artworks’ shock value. "Art is supposed to provoke thought and debate…to offend you and make you think," he wrote.

"As for Osama being depicted in a Christ-like pose, the image of Christ as a white Anglo-Saxon male is incorrect anyway, if anything he would have looked very much like Osama and less like a European man (he was after all Jewish and born in the Middle East)," he said.

Spokesperson for the Blake Prize, Reverend Rod Pattenden, defended he controversial selection for this year’s competition, saying the aim of the prize was to encourage discussion about spirituality in society — the goal of both artists.

"It poses the question of what’s the future of religion. They are hegemonic in their nature, they can be all encompassing and powerful," Sullivan, who created the statue, told the Telegraph.

Bracks said she hoped some viewers might see this as a juxtaposition of good and evil, and realize her concerns about bin Laden’s possible glorification as a cult figure.

"I’m interested in having a discussion, and asking questions about how we think about our world and what we accept, and what we don’t accept," Bracks told Australian radio.

This year’s A$15,000 ($12,300) Blake Prize was awarded on Wednesday to Shirley Purdie for her "Stations of the Cross".

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Iraqi insurgent Dahlia Wasfi currently living in the US travels with Code Pink and other Marxist anti-US military organizations encouraging support for the Iraq insurgency. On August 25^th in Kennebunkport Maine Wasfi once again calls the Iraq insurgency legitimate and encourages support for the Iraqi resistance. Let’s be clear; Wasfi is encouraging support for those that kill US soldiers.

"If ever there were legitimate resistance to illegal occupation, it is in Iraq.

If ever there were a people struggling for democracy and independence, there are Iraqis.

If ever there were a people who have known suffering at the hands of bloodthirsty American imperialism, there are Iraqis".

Dahlia Wasfi–Kennebunkport Maine August 25th 2007

Source

Nuff said.

Iraqi security forces have arrested 72 gunmen following clashes in the city of Kerbala this week that forced hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to flee a religious festival, the Defence Ministry said on Thursday.

A ministry statement said a number of weapons had also been confiscated during a search of homes across the southern city.

Yet, a return to calm was witnessed in the city of Kerbala.

The gunbattles appeared to pit Iraq’s two biggest Shi’ite groups against each other — followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army, and the rival Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), whose armed wing controls police in much of the south.

Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who visited Kerbala on Wednesday, blamed "outlawed armed criminal gangs from the remnants of the buried Saddam regime" for the violence.

Up to 52 people were killed in day-long fighting around two revered Shi’ite shrines.

In the wake of the chaos, Sadr suspended all armed activity by his Mehdi Army to remove rogue elements from the militia, several aides said on Wednesday.

But violence by unidentified militants against SIIC offices continued. An army source said they attacked a SIIC building overnight in the town of Haideriya, south of Kerbala.

That followed attacks against several SIIC buildings in Iraq on Tuesday night.

Analysts have said the test of Sadr’s six-month suspension order would be whether his fighters obeyed because it was no longer clear how much authority he exercised over the militia.

Source

The Afghan Defence Ministry claimed Thursday that a senior Taliban commander was killed in an international forces’ airstrike in southern Afghanistan.

Afghan army soldiers were ambushed by a group of insurgents while the troops were on their way from Sangin district of volatile Helmand province to Sarwan Qalah area on Thursday morning, the defence ministry said in a statement.

It said army forces fought back and called in close air support, which killed several insurgents.

‘Mullah Brodar, one of the famous Taliban commanders, was among the dead insurgents,’ the statement said, citing army forces on the ground.

Mullah Brodar was one of the prominent military commanders during the radical Taliban regime that was ousted by US-led campaign in late 2001. He then joined the insurgency against international forces in the provinces of Uruzgan and Helmand, according to Waheed Muzhda, a political analyst who had worked as a foreign ministry official in the Taliban government.

Brodar had very close ties with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, Muzhda said, adding, ‘If the news is true, it is another blow to the Taliban movement.’

Also Thursday morning in the same province, Afghan and US-led coalition forces battled a group of Taliban militants in Musa Qalah district of the province, the statement said, adding that Afghan army hit an insurgents’ vehicle with rocket-propelled grenade, killing all the insurgents riding in it.

No Afghan or coalition forces were hurt in either combat, it added.

Source

A coalition of labor and illegal immigrant rights groups sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday to block the agency’s planned crackdown on employers who hire undocumented workers.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, contends that the rules would lead to mass firings of workers who are U.S. citizens and to discrimination against employees who look or sound foreign. It also names the Social Security Administration as a defendant.

The suit asks for a court order preventing the federal government from enacting the changes, which are part of a blitz of immigration enforcement actions announced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this month.

An agency spokesman said that the lawsuit was "completely without merit" and that the agency would fight it "vigorously."

Social Security plans to begin sending so-called no-match letters Tuesday to companies where employees’ names do not match their Social Security numbers. Initially, about 15,000 letters will be sent out each week for eight to 10 weeks, potentially affecting millions of workers.

Chertoff has said that businesses that don’t act on the letters within 90 days could face fines.

The rules are likely to reduce employment in the construction, janitorial and landscaping industries, analysts have said, and leave farmers without workers to pick crops, restaurants without cooks and dishwashers and small businesses without a ready source of casual labor.

The coalition of plaintiffs, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union and the AFL-CIO, said the changes would have a devastating effect on legal workers because the Social Security database is full of errors. Mistakes can occur, for example, if someone gets married or divorced but does not report a name change to Social Security.

"Tens of thousands of workers are going to lose their jobs right before the holidays," said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, one of the plaintiffs.

Labor groups also say they believe employers will use the no-match letters to exploit workers or to retaliate against those who are trying to organize into unions.

"Employers have used no-match letters in the past to basically quash worker organizing," said Ana Avendaño, director of the AFL-CIO’s immigrant worker program.

"The Bush administration is giving unscrupulous employers another union-busting tool."

Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke defended the regulation Wednesday, saying that employers were responsible for ensuring that their workers were authorized and that employers had sufficient time under the rule to deal with no-match letters. Those who disregard the letters "should expect serious consequences," he said.

"This lawsuit is an obvious attempt to impede the department’s ability to enforce our immigration laws," Knocke said.

The regulations come after Congress failed to reach a compromise on comprehensive immigration legislation.

Business associations also have expressed concerns about the regulations and the accuracy of the Social Security database. In a letter dated Monday, dozens of business groups — including the National Restaurant Assn. and the Associated General Contractors of America — asked Chertoff and the Social Security commissioner to delay implementation for six months.

"Employers will be overwhelmed with paperwork as the government seeks to make employers responsible for the decades-old administrative problems," the letter read. "The regulation also jeopardizes vital U.S. industries and the U.S. economy as a whole by needlessly creating uncertainties, disruptions and dislocations throughout broad swaths of the workforce."

Knocke said the government expected some resistance.

"Still, we’re going to restore public credibility on enforcement," he said.

The Homeland Security Department will face challenges enforcing the regulation because Social Security is restricted from sharing certain information. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) is expected to introduce a bill in coming weeks that would allow for more information sharing.

Illegal immigrant-rights groups said Wednesday that the employer enforcement wouldn’t result in the deportation of millions of undocumented workers. Employers either will fire them and hire a new batch of illegal immigrant workers — or they will simply take the workers off the books and force them further underground.

"It is really not effective immigration enforcement," Avendaño said. "It’s just smoke and mirrors."
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"Illegal immigrant-rights groups said Wednesday that the employer enforcement wouldn’t result in the deportation of millions of undocumented workers. Employers either will fire them and hire a new batch of illegal immigrant workers — or they will simply take the workers off the books and force them further underground." "It is really not effective immigration enforcement," Avendaño said. "It’s just smoke and mirrors."

 Avendaño is correct on all his points above and in the end, it’s all just smoke and mirrors. It’s Homeland Security’s attempt to appease angry US citizens.

An appeals court has upheld the ban of an anti-Islam protest planned for Sept. 11 in Belgium’s capital, six years after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

The organizers — an alliance of Europeans opposed to the "Islamization" of Europe — failed to prove the ban causes them "irreparable damage," the Council of State, an administrative appeals court, ruled late Wednesday.

Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans banned the demonstration Aug. 9 fearing it would disturb public order and calling the Stop Islamization of Europe alliance an inflammatory group.

In a secular democracy "it cannot be that women and men are … suspected of having committed the worst crimes" simply because they are Muslims, said Thielemans.

Since 2001, Thielemans has approved more than 3,500 demonstrations in the Belgian capital and banned six, including the one of SIOE which calls itself "an alliance of people across Europe with the single aim of preventing Islam becoming a dominant political force in Europe."

The group’s origins lie in anti-Muslim organizations in Denmark, Britain and Germany. It called for the Brussels protest to commemorate the victims of 9/11.

A posting on the SIOE web site Thursday suggested the Sept. 11 protest will go ahead as planned.

"Well! Mayor Thielemans believes he has the final say!" it read. "Thousands of people believe otherwise."

WILLS POINT — Entomologists are debating the origin and rarity of a sprawling spider web that blankets several trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard stretch of trail in a North Texas park.

Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park say the massive mosquito trap is a big attraction for some visitors, while others won’t go anywhere near it.

"At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland," said Donna Garde, superintendent of the park about 45 miles east of Dallas. "Now it’s filled with so many mosquitoes that it’s turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs."

Spider experts say the web may have been constructed by social cobweb spiders, which work together, or could be the result of a mass dispersal in which the arachnids spin webs to spread out from one another.

"I’ve been hearing from entomologists from Ohio, Kansas, British Columbia — all over the place," said Mike Quinn, an invertebrate biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department who first posted photos online.

Herbert A. "Joe" Pase, a Texas Forest Service entomologist, said the massive web is very unusual.

"From what I’m hearing it could be a once-in-a-lifetime event," he said.

But John Jackman, a professor and extension entomologist for Texas A&M University, said he hears reports of similar webs every couple of years.

"There are a lot of folks that don’t realize spiders do that," said Jackman, author of "A Field Guide to the Spiders and Scorpions of Texas."

"Until we get some samples sent to us, we really won’t know what species of spider we’re talking about," Jackman said.

Garde invited the entomologists out to the park to get a firsthand look at the giant web.

"Somebody needs to come out that’s an expert. I would love to see some entomology intern come out and study this," she said.

Park rangers said they expect the web to last until fall, when the spiders will start dying off.

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LAREDO, Texas—Two Texas National Guard soldiers have admitted that they helped smuggle illegal immigrants through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in South Texas, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.

Sgt. Julio Pacheco and Sgt. Clarence Hodge Jr. pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants.

Both soldiers face up to 10 years in prison. A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled.

Pacheco, a 25-year-old Laredo man, admitted he recruited 36-year-old Hodge, of Houston, and Pfc. Jose Rodrigo Torres to help smuggle 24 immigrants past a Border Patrol checkpoint the soldiers were helping secure. Torres, 26, of Laredo, pleaded guilty to the same charge Aug. 16

Hodge admitted in court that he helped the smuggling effort by waving through a van carrying the immigrants that was driven by Torres.

When they were arrested, the soldiers were working along the border in Laredo as part of President Bush’s Operation Jump Start.

The ring was uncovered on June 7 when Torres was arrested, in uniform, after the National Guard-leased van he was driving was pulled over along Interstate 35, north of Laredo, and 24 illegal immigrants were found inside. Torres implicated both Pacheco and Hodge and said he expected to be paid about $3,000 for the smuggling trip, according to court records.

Torres also told investigators that the day he was arrested was not the first smuggling trip and detailed several previous trips in May and June, according to court records.

Pacheco’s sister and brother-in-law have also been accused of helping in the smuggling ring. The status of their cases was unclear Wednesday.

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Authorities found the body of Spc. John R. Fish on Wednesday afternoon after more than 1,000 soldiers spent almost three days looking for the missing soldier in the camp and the surrounding training area, which is north of the Texas-New Mexico state line off War Road.

The news that Fish had been found dead was relayed through the Las Cruces office, said Lt. Rick Anglada, a New Mexico State Police spokesman. Military officials would not confirm that information Wednesday evening, and Anglada said he had no further details.

Wednesday morning, a camouflage hat bearing the name "Fish" was found about 2.5 miles north of the camp, officials said. Dogs were brought in to try to find a scent trail, and the area was closed off for at least the entire morning — even to soldiers searching for their missing comrade.

Fish reportedly walked away from the training camp Monday morning after being there about a week. He was carrying only an unloaded automatic rifle and 2.5 quarts of water.

"We just hope he’s OK because it’s a very unforgiving terrain out there," Lt. Col. Ina Yahn said Wednesday morning before heading out to walk alongside 158 of her soldiers, who had fanned out across the desert northeast of the camp. Yahn commands the 589th Brigade Support Battalion to which Fish belonged.

The search for Fish, 19, of Paso Robles, Calif., was kept mostly within the 230,000-acre Doña Ana Range Complex because he had left his wallet, which included his bank cards and identification, in his barracks. Officers in the brigade said it wasn’t unusual for Fish to carry his weapon because he had been trained never to leave it behind.

Fish left a note saying he had to take care of some things and wouldn’t be coming back. Friends and fellow soldiers were concerned, but they also said that, although he mostly kept his feelings to himself, he didn’t seem depressed or angry in recent days.

Friends described Fish as a man who liked to hike off by himself. But his mother, Cathy Fish, who lives in Paso Robles, said her son only recently had acquired a car, so he was in the habit of walking places so that he didn’t have to bother people for rides.

"He’s basically a normal, average person," Cathy Fish said when she was interviewed by telephone Wednesday afternoon before her son’s body was found. "I’d ask him if he wanted a ride and he’d say, ‘No.’ We live in a small town, so it’s not that difficult to get around. He’s a good soldier. He had no reason whatsoever to leave his unit."

She said it made sense that he might have become disoriented after deciding to walk somewhere.

Friends in Fish’s unit — the 41st Fires Brigade from Fort Hood, Texas — said they were surprised that Fish had apparently walked away. Although he had served for a year in Baghdad, his time was mostly spent "behind the wire" in Camp Liberty, they said, and he had never shown signs of battle fatigue. A fellow soldier was killed about a month ago in a car accident, an event that affected many in the unit, Yahn said.

Fish wrote short stories that tended toward science fiction and fantasy with the usual dark and apocalyptic tones. However, those who read the stories said it revealed a talented writer, not a tortured soul.

Cpl. John Carter, a friend of Fish’s, scared up lizards and rabbits as he beat the bush with others in the search line.

"I wish I had spent more time with him, talked to him," Carter said when asked what was going through his mind as he walked the dunes, avoiding thorn-filled brush. "Let him know how much you care in case he has doubts that you do."

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