Peggy Noonan and NYPD:
The Homegrown Jihadist Threat

We make it too easy for those who want to hate us to hate us. We make ourselves look bad in our media, which helps future jihadists think that they must, by hating us, be good. They hit their figurative garbage bin lids on the ground, and smirk, and promise to make a racket, and then more than a racket, a boom.
Peggy Noonan (Wall St Journal 8/17/07)

In the above linked article columnist Peggy Noonan takes note of the New York Police Department's Intelligence Division report on the radicalization of Muslim youth and the growth of jihadism in our homeland. (The 90 page report titled "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown threat" (PDF} can be found here ) Ms. Noonan comments on the report:

The report suggests an evolution in thinking. "We're very good at capturing these guys after a terror incident," John McLaughlin, former deputy CIA director, told me, "but in the past we haven't spent as much time at the front end--how do they get to be terrorists." He said terrorists "are changing their profile. . . . Al Qaeda knows what we're looking for. They're not dumb." The terrorists of our future will likely be more credentialed, and here legally; they will be "integrated into American life."

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told me, "I want a better understanding on the part of all law enforcement as to how radicalism takes place. This report connects the dots." It is also meant to heighten awareness. If the terror of the future is homegrown, local eyes will see it first. Cofer Black, former director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, told me that an important message of the report is similar to the signs on New York subways and in train stations: "If you see something, say something."

Here is an excerpt from the NYPD report:
The NYPD’s understanding of the threat from Islamic-based terrorism to New York City
has evolved since September 11, 2001. While the threat from overseas remains,
terrorist attacks or thwarted plots against cities in Europe, Australia and Canada since
2001 fit a different paradigm. Rather than being directed from al-Qaeda abroad, these
plots have been conceptualized and planned by “unremarkable” local residents/citizens
who sought to attack their country of residence, utilizing al-Qaeda as their inspiration
and ideological reference point.

Some of these cases include:
• Madrid’s March 2004 attack
• Amsterdam’s Hofstad Group
• London’s July 2005 attack
• Australia’s Operation Pendennis (which thwarted an attack(s) in November 2005)
• The Toronto 18 Case (which thwarted an attack in June 2006)
Where once we would have defined the initial indicator of the threat at the point where a
terrorist or group of terrorists would actually plan an attack, we have now shifted our
focus to a much earlier point—a point where we believe the potential terrorist or group of
terrorists begin and progress through a process of radicalization. The culmination of this
process is a terrorist attack.

Where once we would have defined the initial indicator of the threat at the point where
terrorist or group of terrorists would actually plan an attack, we have now shifted our
focus to a much earlier point—a point where we believe the potential terrorist or group
terrorists begin and progress through a process of radicalization. The culmination of this
process is a terrorist attack.

Understanding this trend and the radicalization process in the West that drives
unremarkable” people to become terrorists is vital for developing effective counterstrategies
and has special importance for the NYPD and the City of New York. As one
of the country’s iconic symbols and the target of numerous terrorist plots since the
1990’s, New York City continues to be among the top targets of terrorists worldwide.
In order to test whether the same framework for understanding radicalization abroad
applied within the United States, we analyzed three U.S. homegrown terrorism cases
and two New York City based cases:
• Lackawana, New York
• Portland, Oregon
• Northern Virginia
• New York City - Herald Square Subway
• New York City – The Al Muhajiroun Two

The same radicalization framework was applied to a study of the origins of the Hamburg
cluster of individuals, who led the September 11 hijackers. This assessment, almost six
years after 2001, provides some new insights, previously not fully-grasped by the law
enforcement and intelligence community, into the origins of this devastating attack.

The Real Karl Rove

Newt Gingrich at National Press Club 8/8/07

I am really deeply worried. We have two grandchildren who are 6 and 8, and I believe they are in greater danger of dying from enemy activities than we were in the Cold War. There are thousands of people across this planet who get up every morning actively seeking to destroy the United States. They are spreading their poison by sermons, by the Internet, by a variety of recruiting devices......I believe we are on the edge of a precipice. The Iranians are desperately trying to build nuclear weapons, and they will use them. This is a state — look — read what Ahmadinejad says. He writes poems about the joy of being a martyr nation. He gets to wipe out Tel Aviv; maybe the Israelis use nuclear weapons and wipe out Tehran. He would accept that in a minute because he believes everybody in Tehran goes to heaven and everybody in Tel Aviv doesn’t.....We are in trouble, and somebody had better start talking about it in a blunt way.....We are simply not prepared today to be a serious country. I’ve been at this a long time. I am genuinely afraid that this political system will not react until we lose a city, and nobody in this country’s thought about the threat to our civil liberties the morning after we decide it’s that dangerous and how rapidly we will impose ruthlessness on ourselves in that kind of a world. I think those of you who care about civil liberties had better be thinking through how we win this war before the casualties get so great that the American people voluntarily give up a lot of those liberties.

Above are a few excerpts from the Gingrich speech relating to national security and the war on terror. He also had a great deal to say about our national political discourse which I hope to cover in a later posting. Meanwhile, the entire speech transcript is here and the complete video is here. The video is a 155 MB MPEG download.

Lieberman Alone?


A lengthy article that appeared in today's Hartford Courant attempts to point out the isolation of Lieberman. The article titled, "Alone at the Center", says in part:

"Liberated" from party affiliation, Lieberman promised last fall to stake out a role as an independent "bridge builder." But although Democratic Senate colleagues routinely praise him and work with him, outside the Beltway he has only become more isolated from the public and from many in Washington as the war becomes the most polarizing issue of the day....
But critics question how Lieberman in today's climate - and perhaps beyond - can be seen as more than a war hawk. The war evokes passions like perhaps no other since Watergate in the early 1970s - and Lieberman has been more a stick of dynamite than a balm.

"He can't lead on anything. Instead of being in the center, he's on the far right on the war and a liberal on domestic stuff," said Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, a progressive group. "He's a Democrat who's deranged on Iraq."
Source: Hartford Courant 8/9/07

Speaking of derangement I pointed out today in another forum:

"None so deranged as those Lamonters who unleashed the avalanche of vitriol against Joe Lieberman. Remember what Lanny Davis said about that:"

” I came to believe that we liberals couldn’t possibly be so intolerant and hateful….I held on to the view that the left was inherently more tolerant and less hateful than the right….Now, in the closing days of the Lieberman primary campaign, I have reluctantly concluded that I was wrong. The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony. ”
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008763 8/8/06

Wednesday Wonders!

Try explaining this one to the boss.....


HILDA MUÑOZ Hartford Courant Photo

A truck driver getting ready to leave the Marjam Supply Company in West Hartford on Wedensday morning tore down more than half of a storage building on the property, officials said.

Source: Hartford Courant 8/8/07

Bitching about the "B" word.....

“We’d be grandfathered in, I would think,” said David Frei, who has been a host of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York since 1990. The word is a formal canine label that appears on the competition’s official materials. But Mr. Frei said he worried about the word’s impact on some viewers, especially younger ones.

This was a response to the New York City Council's silly, and purely symbolic , attempt to legislate language. Seemingly having dealt with the "N" word they've moved on to the "B" word.
Souece: NY Times 8/8/07


Numbers Wonders.....

We’re seeing some slight hints of positive news for the Bush administration. For one thing, Bush’s job approval rating has stopped its downward trajectory. Bush hit bottom with his administration low point of 29% in early July..... Now – in the data just about to be released..... Bush's approval rating has recovered slightly to 34%. That’s not a big jump, but it is the second consecutive poll in which the president’s numbers have been higher rather than lower.

Source: USA Today/Gallup 8/8/07

March of the Moonbats.....
The Guardian (U.K.) and The Independent (also U.K.) are among the leading alarmist organs, constantly exaggerating and sensationalizing climate change phenomena. Here's a sample from today's Guardian:

Unlike most apparently intractable problems, which have a tendency to go away when examined closely and analytically, the climate change predicament just seems to get bigger and scarier the more we learn about it.

Now we discover that not only are the oceans and the atmosphere conspiring against us, bringing baking temperatures, more powerful storms, floods and ever-climbing sea levels, but the crust beneath our feet seems likely to join in too.

Source: The Guardian (emphasis added)

Breaking News: Wallingford Man Causes
Worldwide Internet Crash (video below)

Giving "a Hack Like That a Toehold!"
Dennis Miller on Chris Dodd
(found on you tube)

On the Kos Convention... "a loser fest, there are hookers who put an embargo on that convention"

Here is the photo cartoon that
Sen. Dodd would not criticize:


h/t Little Green Footballs


See also CT Local Politics

Romney Debates NH Diner Waitress on Health Care:
Explains Plan He Pushed Through in MA

Y'all is Po"



The John Edwards Poverty Tour

Not a Peace Process But a Surrender Process

"This is Munich all over again".."We have two choices: We can find a way to be reasonable and surrender, or we can defeat them."

Newt Gingrich from a recent speech.

Hillary and Obama: They Actually Said This:

Hillary Clinton at the 7/23/07 Democratss debate/press conference.....

"I think it is a problem that Bush was elected in 2000. I actually thought somebody else was elected in that election, but" ...(Applause.)

Perhaps Mrs. Clinton does not remember...but The Treason Times (NY Times) reported on 11/12/01:

"A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward."

Another Times article that day by Richard L. Berke said that the...

"comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots solidifies George W. Bush's legal claim on the White House because it concludes that he would have won under the ground rules prescribed by the Democrats."

B. Hussein (Barry) Obama made the following extraordinary comment at the same Democrat function. The question was: "Would you be willing....to meet....during the first year of your administration....with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

"....one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they're going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses."

Coginchaug River
Cleanup July 28

From today's Hartford Courant:

MIDDLETOWN - - The Jonah Center for Earth and Art will hold a river clean up July 28 from 9 a.m. to noon along the Coginchaug River in the North End. The goal is to remove plastic bottles, tents and tarps left by campers and other debris from the site of the Jonah Center's proposed boat launch adjacent to the city's closed landfill, and from the 20 acres of newly acquired open space on the river's floodplain. Volunteers are needed at both locations. Volunteers can reach the boat-launch site via the Middletown recycling center, at North Main and Johnson streets. Go left after entering the recycling center, park near the brush piles, and follow the access road to the north. The open space location on the Coginchaug floodplain, known as the Salafia property, may be reached from the west end of Catherine Street. Guides will be at these locations to direct volunteers..... For more information, call John Hall at 860-343-3259. Link to group's web site:
http://www.thejonahcenter.org/index.php

To help volunteers find the site here is a link to a Goggle map.






This is view a of my favorite little river, the Coginchaug, as it flows near my home in Middletown's West End. The riverbed and banks are fairly clean in my neighborhood although I have noticed quite a few cans and bottles and even one abandoned shopping cart. Conditions deteriorate rapidly, I have learned, at the area known as the city's North End peninsula near the confluence of the Coginchaug and the Mattabesset. Here debris has accumulated, carelessly discarded by campers, boaters and others. Fortunately, a group called Jonah Center for Earth and Art has put forth an ambitious plan to cleanup the area and develop it as an innovative center for ecological study and community activity. A boat launch is planned. The Jonah Center's web site offers a wealth of information about the area.

The Jonah Center for Earth and Art wants to transform the neck of land at the confluence of the Mattabesett and Coginchaug Rivers (the “North End Peninsula”) in Middletown, CT into an innovative educational facility and a major tourist destination. This property, which now appears to be urban industrial blight, is rich in educational and recreational possibilities.

The Jonah Center for Earth and Art wants to teach — by means of a truly living, evolving facility — how energy from the sun is captured and then circulated through the ecosystem, from plants to microbes to complex human culture. This learning center will be integrated with the present recycling center and evolve into a multi-faceted science and cultural center that will eventually include space for performing arts, planetarium shows, and more.

Here is an aerial view of the area from the group's web pages:

Rock Around Iraq:
Dingy Harry and the Losers



More political theater from Harry Reid and the defeatists in the Senate. Reid has announced a pajama session, an all nighter to crank out meaningless resolutions against our mission in Iraq.

"The round-the-clock debate Tuesday night through Wednesday morning was intended as a way of pressuring Republican senators as well as Bush to act sooner rather than later on a change of course in Iraq."
Source:MyWay News

Ahh, Sordid Political Notes*....

Clinton / Obama - Writing in the July 23 issue of Newsweek Anna Quindlen challenges Hillary Clinton to persuade Barack Obama to be her running mate. Saying "Your Web site says help make history. Go ahead. I dare you,".....she prefaces that with:

"He would have to decide he would be willing to coexist with a strong woman. But it seems as though he already does that at home. You would have to be willing to let a charismatic man steal some of your thunder, but you do that at home, too. This would be a political marriage of convenience, sure, but one that could excite the country. The president has driven the nation into a ditch, and the American people are standing by the side of the road with their thumbs out. Everyone is poised for big change, big ideas. Do the big thing that also happens to be the right thing."

Filling the Young Skulls With Mush - At the primary school in Funafuti, children learn about climate change from the age of six. Most expect to emigrate. "Because my home island will sink under the water, and there will be no place for me to live," explains Vaimaila Teitala, aged 12. Manuao Taloka, 13, says: "Australia and America and England don't take notice of us because we're too small, and they want to keep their factories and cars."

Ohhh, the mean, selfish industrialized nations want to keep their factories and cars! Yes, let's ban factories and cars and level the global playing field. Everyone should be poor and live a meter or two above the level of the sea.

The quoted passage above is from an article titled " S.O.S.: Pacific islanders battle to save what is left of their country from rising seas" in The Independent (U.K.)


* h/t Paul Krassner (btw, where is he now?)

Tags: climate crisis anna quindlen paul krassner

Middletown Born Artist William Ranney
Featured in New Exhibition




Self Portrait (1839)

The current issue of Antiques and The Arts Weekly (Newtown CT) contains a featured article on Middletown born painter William Tylee Ranney (1813-1857). Currently thru August 19 an exhibition of some 60 of the artist's paintings is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Titled "Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney", this exhibition was organized by Sarah E. Boehme at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody WY where its tour began.

Some 60 works comprise "Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney," on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through August 19. It was organized by Sarah E. Boehme, formerly of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo. (where it began its tour) and now director of the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas. She notes that new information about the painter and recently discovered paintings by him offer "new insights" in this "unparalleled gathering of the artist's most significant paintings."

Born in Middletown, Conn., the son of a sea captain, Ranney moved at age 13 to Fayetteville, N.C., where he lived with an uncle and trained as a tinsmith. His experiences in this bustling gateway to the West filled his imagination with a grand sense of the American character and landscape.

Moving to Brooklyn around 1833, Ranney began studying drawing and painting. Three years later, inspired by news of the siege of the Alamo, he volunteered to serve in the war for Texas independence. During his brief sojourn in Texas, he absorbed a wealth of observations about the culture, mores and landscape of the American West that would inspire his most famous paintings. His wife Margaret later observed that her husband was "so charmed by everything he saw…the wild enchanting prairies, the splendid horses," that he never would have returned East "but for the strong love he had for his mother."

The painting "Portrait of Margaret Ranney", the artist's wife is at the Cromwell (CT) Historical Society. Some additional biographical information and images follow:

RANNEY, William, artist, born in Middletown, Connecticut, 9 May, 1813; died in West Hoboken, New Jersey, 18 November, 1857. Tile name that was given him at baptism was William Tylee, but he never used the latter. At the age of thirteen he was taken to Fayetteville, North Carolina, by his uncle, where he was apprenticed to a tinsmith, but seven years later he was studying drawing in Brooklyn. When the Texan struggle began, Ranney enlisted, and during the campaign became acquainted with many trappers and guides of the west. After his return home he devoted himself mainly to portraying their life and habits. Among his works are" Boone's First View of Kentucky," " On the Wing," " Washington on his Mission to the Indians" (1847), " Duck-Shooting," which is in the Corcoran gallery, Washington, "The Sleigh-Ride," and "The Trapper's Last Shot." Many of these have been engraved. He was a frequent exhibitor at the National academy, of which he was elected an associate in 1850.
Source: Virtualology.com

William Ranney Veterans of 1776 Returning from the War

William Ranney Duck Shooters (1849)

William Ranney Advice on the Prairie (1853)

In this, his late "Self-portrait,” circa 1856–1857, Ranney presented himself as a thoughtful, intense, mature figure, whose profession is indicated by the barely visible end of a paint brush at the bottom of the picture. Private collection.

Chertoff and Gut Feelings:
Summer of Risk?

Gut Feeling, Summer of Risk....
I believe we're entering a period this summer of increased risk. We've seen a lot more public statements from Al Qaeda. There are a lot of reasons to speculate about that but one reason that occurs to me is that they're feeling more comfortable and raising expectations. In the last August, and in prior summers, we've had attacks against the West, which suggests that summer seems to be appealing to them. I think we do see increased activity in South Asia, so we do worry about whether they are rebuilding their capabilities. We've struck at them and degraded them, but they rebuild. All these things have given me kind of a gut feeling that we are in a period of increased vulnerability.
Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Director (Chicago Tribune 7/10/07)


On Voters' Gut Feelings....
But this is a democracy. You vote, you do the best you can with the choices presented, and you show the appropriate opposition to the guy who seems most likely to bring trouble. (I think that is one reason for the polarity and division of politics now. No one knows in his gut that the guy he supports will do any good. But at least you can oppose with enthusiasm and passion the guy you feel in your gut will cause more trouble than is needed! This is what happens when the pickings are slim: The greatest passion gets funneled into opposition.)
Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal 7/13/07)


Just the Facts Please, Cut the Gut Feelings....
The other day, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said he has “kind of a gut feeling that we are in a period of increased vulnerability.”
Let me say this in the vernacular of my youth in New York: Gut feelings I can get from the very nice lady who takes in my shirts at the cleaners. From the Secretary of Homeland Security I expect facts.
From Luke Skywalker I expect to hear there may be a “disturbance in the force.” From Michael Chertoff I expect oversight of the Transportation Safety Administration.
Rich Galen, Mullings (7/13/07)

Big Al: The Goracle and His Lies

Thanks to Paul Atroshenko , an Australian artist for the above image of the all knowing, all seeing Albert Gore. The always controversial, but mostly liberal, Camille Paglia had this to say about the image in a recent posting:

"This is wonderful! I burst out laughing at the self-divinizing apotheosis of that egregiously pulpit-pounding, wannabe preacher, the Rev. Al Gore."


She opines further in answer to a reader's take on human caused climate crisis:

"Bravo for your invigorating deconstruction of current propaganda! I too am very concerned about the potential damage to Democrat credibility coming from the grab-bag Gore crusade, with its wild exaggerations and hypocritical sanctimony. It does make liberals look like ditzes -- the last thing the party needs in a presidential campaign where no-crap national security issues will be paramount. Environmentalism is of vital importance to our future, but it cannot be based on lies."

Bob Parks: To Our Americans Serving in Iraq

This is a "must watch" 10 minute video which sticks it to Pelosi, Reid, the Clintons et al!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Yc3wYJOtI

Also visit Bob Parks at: http://blackandright.mensnewsdaily.com/

My country, 'tis of Thee,
Sweet Land of Liberty
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountain side
Let Freedom ring.

Samuel F. Smith 1832

Kaziah Hancock, Extraordinary American

This extraordinary woman has painted 100's of portraits of fallen U.S. soldiers and sent them home to their families. Unable to have children of her own these fallen heroes become part of Kaziah Hancock via her paintings of them.She lives on a goat ranch in Utah.These portraits are given to the families; she does not accept any money for them although she is an accomplished artist who has sold works for thousands of dollars.

Tagged: kaziah hancock

S 1639 is Dead!

Thanks to the hundreds of thousands who responded in opposition to this ghastly bill which would have bankrupted our nation. A special thanks to Dan Sargis for his forceful writings about this hastily prepared and secretly drawn legislation. Ted Kennedy, who has been wrong on immigration for over 40 years, is proven wrong again. Too bad Joe Lieberman voted to let this fiasco continue!

Bush's Betrayal.....How a President desperate for a legacy pushes all the wrong buttons and totally succumbs to "amnesty dementia".

In the harshest possible words Connecticut writer Dan Sargis dismisses President George W. Bush as a hypocrite and a liar who, in collaboration with Ted Kennedy, Mel Martinez, and John McCain, stubbornly persists in the pursuit of comprehensive immigration reform which would spell ruin for our nation. Some excerpts from the Dan Sargis June 21, 2007 column:

How is W going to secure our borders when he can’t even secure Walter Reed Hospital which is less than 5 miles from the White House? ....

But W may be the all-time best hypocritical liar...or the dumbest.

He frames himself as a Conservative and then stabs Conservatives in the back. He says he loves America and is currently trying to give it its biggest screwing in history with his Amnesty bill. He says he is a man of God and then uses God like a Beltway lobbyist. ....

He frames himself as a Conservative and then stabs Conservatives in the back. He says he loves America and is currently trying to give it its biggest screwing in history with his Amnesty bill. He says he is a man of God and then uses God like a Beltway lobbyist.

The only real friends or support that W ever had came from the Conservative base that took him at his word and now...he has decided to eat his own.

In the 2004 election, a Pew Hispanic Center analysis indicated that Bush received 40% of the Hispanic vote. I wonder how many Conservatives voted for Kerry that year?

In the 2006 midterm election, national exit polls for the House of Representatives and Senate showed that 69% of Latinos voted for Democrats and 30% for Republicans.

How many Conservatives voted for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in 2006?

Yet Bush is eager to drown his base in the Rio Grande for the love of his illegal immigrant “supporters”....and Teddy Kennedy. ....

If he ever recovers from his Amnesty dementia and looks around...well, maybe his mommy will still love him.

And that goes for every RINO Senator riding his coattails across the border.

Obama's Speech at UCC in Hartford (Update-Read It Here pdf)





Above are five important paragraphs from Barack Obama's speech yesterday at the United Church of Christ Synod. His main points:

As Americans....we know....we cannot have....more than 2000 people cross our borders illegally every day....we have a right and a duty to protect our borders

Our conscience cannot rest until we.... secure our borders (and) give the 12 million undocumented immigrants....a chance to earn their citizenship by paying a fine and waiting in line behind all those who came here legally.

Religious Hijacking..........

A.P. Photo


HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday that some right-wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.

``But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart. Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us,'' the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute speech before a national meeting of the United Church of Christ. (emphasis added)
Source: AP via WTIC

Exactly who is sowing division here? Barack Hussein Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ was recently interviewed on radio and television about his church's 12 point vision shown below; (since removed from the church web site)

1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness"
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.

The above 12 points have apparently been withdrawn from the web site and have been replaced by the following statements:

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community. (emphasis added)

The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:

1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.

Unexpected Lightning...........

New advisory issued to protect you from lightning strikes: At the first rumble of distant thunder scurry indoors and hide under your bed!

A recent tragic story of a lightning death in Florida prompted this advice from Dan Dixon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami:

''They (thunderstorms) are very unpredictable and very dangerous. We urge people to stay indoors even if you hear thunder only faintly in the distance,'' Dixon said. ``If you're close enough to hear thunder, you're close enough to be struck by lightning.''

The alarmists strike again, providing us with yet another reason to be afraid. Chalk it up to "Man Made Global Warming"

Bernstein: Clintons Would Operate Joint Presidency

To which WSJ's Best of the Web Today added this tag line:
But Only She Would Inhale

Anyway, the above mentioned Bernstein is Karl Bernstein who is quoted in The Sun via The Daily Telegraph with these observations on a possible Clinton co-presidency:

If Americans elect Senator Clinton as president next year, they will also be re-electing her husband, according to the author of a new biography of the former first lady.

Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters who broke the Watergate scandal which brought down President Nixon, told the Daily Telegraph that the couple would operate a joint presidency in which President Clinton would advise on policy and tactics as well as act as troubleshooter.

"There is no question in my mind it would be a co-presidency because he has better judgment than she does on most political matters. He would be a constant presence," Mr. Bernstein said.

On the campaign trail to win the Democrat Party's nomination, Mrs. Clinton has said she would use her husband as a global ambassador for America. But his real role would go much further, Mr. Bernstein believes.
Source: http://www.nysun.com/article/56928

Father's Day 2007.........
The posting below is reprinted from Steady Habits of 8/31/06. I return to this subject reluctantly but wish to keep interested folks updated and encourage others in similar situations to never give up hope. "A" this day coincidentally, entered a detox facility for the umpteenth time; this time as a means to get a spot in a long term residential program. She has been waiting several months for a spot to open up without any luck. However, by entering through a detox program she anticipates being able to go within a few days to a long term facility. "A" was in a residential program for several weeks last year but yielded to temptation during a short out of house trip and left with another woman to get high. She was dismissed from the program. Since then she has remained clean, as far as I can tell, been living with friends and going regularly to meetings. Her mother and I are somewhat buoyed by her attitude that it's now or never; that she can finally beat this demon. This Father's Day finds me encouraged and tentatively hopeful.

THE SCOURGE OF HEROIN:
A DAUGHTER'S STRUGGLE,
A FATHER'S DILEMMA

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My 30 year old daughter has been a heroin addict for around 10 years. Of course, she's had some periods of time when she was clean. I think she started mainlining in Seattle (no surprise, bad heroin scene there) and got badly strung out there. We, her mom and I, got her back to Massachusetts where she did really well for a while, had a good job etc. She's been in de-tox several times and until recently was in a program with weekly meetings and medical help with a heroin antagonist (not methadone but a newer one, bupenephrine (sp?)I think). But the last 2 years she has been sliding back into the abyss; was arrested a couple of times for possession and, most recently, was last week arrested for violation of probation. (she had tested dirty). Anyway, now she is jailed without bail with her first court appearance on 9/18. Her public defender thinks she will probably get a mandatory 30 day drug treatment program plus assignment to a halfway house deal. But, she could also get a prison sentence.

Special Glasses for Jodi and Joe:
Not Too Rosy We Hope

The Governor and Senator appeared at a rally at Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford to support the company in its competition to build the engines for the Boeing 767, an aerial refueling tanker aircraft. The airplane can also be used as a cargo, passenger, and medical facility aircraft.

Senator Lieberman used the occasion to repeat his call "for the United States to use “limited military action” against Iranian camps suspected of being used to train and equip terrorists who are killing coalition troops in Iraq." He continued:

"Military action should be limited to halting Iranian training of terrorism, not to eliminate possible nuclear sites, though force could also stem Iran's nuclear ambitions, he said."
Source: The Day

In the photograph above Gov. M. Jodi Rell, left, and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., both wearing special glasses, try out controls Friday in a flight simulator that duplicates air-to-air refueling controls of the proposed Boeing KC-767 Advanced Tanker Aircraft at the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft jet engine plant in East Hartford.

"New Best Buddies": A Bloomberg-Schwarzennegger Action Team?




Featured in the latest Time is a combined profile of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger calling them the new action team on national issues. Might this combination of the ultimate business man and the ultimate salesman presage a new era in U.S. politics? The article concludes:

That love of action is the real link between Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg, and the real source of the recent Bloomberg-for-President buzz. There's no obvious niche for a candidate who supports gay marriage and gun control while opposing the death penalty and deadlines for withdrawing troops from Iraq. But there is an obvious appeal to a businessman who can work across party lines to get things done — and could drop $500 million on a campaign without even noticing it was gone. (Fellow billionaire Warren) Buffett thinks it's a great idea, and when he first heard it, he turned to the Constitution. "I wanted to see if Schwarzenegger could be his Vice President," Buffett said. "I think he could." It states that the President must be native born, but it's silent on the Vice President. "That would be one hell of a team, wouldn't it?"
Read Time article here.
Also see "..."New Best Buddies"; NY Times 10/17/06

New Computer Simulation of Events at N. Tower WTC 9/11/01

In a project, partially financed by the National Science Foundation, scientists at Purdue University have used massive computer power to visually recreate the 1/2 second event when the aircraft sliced through the World Trade Center North Tower on the morning of September 11, 2001.

The simulation represented the plane and its mass as a mesh of hundreds of thousands of "finite elements," or small squares containing specific physical characteristics. In the visualization, these scientific data points are used to show how airplane components swept through the building and out through the other side as the fuel ignited.

"The aircraft moved through the building as if it were a hot and fast lava flow," Sozen says. "Consequently, much of the fireproofing insulation was ripped off the structure. Even if all of the columns and girders had survived the impact - an unlikely event - the structure would fail as the result of a buckling of the columns. The heat from an ordinary office fire would suffice to soften and weaken the unprotected steel. Evaluation of the effects of the fire on the core column structure, with the insulation removed by the impact, showed that collapse would follow whatever the number of columns cut at the time of the impact."
Source
The Video

Lieberman Urges Tough Action On Iran:
On Face the Nation Today



The United States should launch military strikes against Iran if the government in Tehran does not stop supplying anti-American forces in Iraq, Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday on Face The Nation.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman told Bob Schieffer. "And to me, that would include a strike into... over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."



Audio file Here (MP3)

Michelle Malkin Takes on Wall Street Journal Elites





Despite its otherwise excellent complement of reporters, op-eders, and editorialists the Wall Street Journal has, since 1984 anyway, been on the wrong side of the illegal immigration issue.On July 3, 1984 the WSJ wrote:

If Washington still wants to “do something” about immigration, we propose a five-word constitutional amendment: There shall be open borders........and

The nativist patriots scream for “control of the borders.” It is nonsense to believe that this unenforceable legislation will provide any such thing. Does anyone want to “control the borders” at the moral expense of a 2,000-mile Berlin Wall with minefields, dogs and machine-gun towers? Those who mouth this slogan forget what America means. They want those of us already safely ensconced to erect giant signs warning: Keep Out, Private Property.

The above was written when Congress was crafting the Simpson-Mazolli bill, the earlier amnesty that was Reagan's biggest blunder. Ms. Malkin has taken on the WSJ effete with a gorilla film that eviscerates their elitist rantings.
Text of July 3, 1984 editorial here.
Video Here

D-Day, Normandy, June 6, 1944

For Today's Liberals, an Inconvenient Truth:

FDR Confronted Evil With Faith

Franklin Roosevelt was the most successful liberal Democrat of the 20th Century. But today, many liberals would be shocked to discover that when the United States and her allies began the liberation of Europe by landing at Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, President Roosevelt went on national radio and led the American people in six minutes of prayer for our young men who were risking their lives to save our freedoms.

That's right. For the liberals today who don't understand what is at stake in Iraq, FDR would normally be their guiding light, if it weren't for this inconvenient truth: Roosevelt understood that there was evil in the world. And he understood that it was the moral duty of the United States of America to defeat that evil.

So when things grew tough at Guadalcanal, when there were great difficulties in North Africa, when there was enormous frustration in the battle of the North Atlantic, Roosevelt knew that the job of a free people was to find more resources, to acquire more courage, to innovate in more ways, and to never flinch -- to never contemplate a Congress legislating defeat -- but instead to be sure that the cause of freedom would win.

And he appealed to our faith as a nation to do it.

Audio of FDR's prayer here.

Text of FDR's D-Day Prayer here.

h/t Newt Gingrich

A Green Card in Every Pot

In her May 30 rant Ann Coulter pretty much sums up the feelings and frustrations of most conservatives regarding the immigration reform act:

Until the recipient culture is capable of doing an effective job of Americanizing immigrants, it's preposterous to talk about a massive influx of Hispanic immigrants accomplishing anything other than turning America into yet another Latin American-style banana republic. And it is simply a fact that no one is trying to turn immigrants into Americans.

To the contrary, Democrats are trying to turn new immigrants into wards of the state -- and with some success! -- so they will be permanent Democratic voters. Rich Republicans and their handmaidens in Washington are trying to turn immigrants into a permanent servant class.

She quotes Louis Brandeis, an immigrant and first Jewish Supreme Court justice:

(Brandeis)said that Americanization required that the immigrant adopt "the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here" and that he adopt "the English language as the common medium of speech."

But, Brandeis said, this is only part of it. "(W)e properly demand of the immigrant even more than this -- he must be brought into complete harmony with our ideals and aspirations and cooperate with us for their attainment. Only when this has been done will he possess the national consciousness of an American."

Or as George Bush would call it, "empty rhetoric." And as Linda Chavez would call it, "racist."

Pam at Blogmeister USA has an interesting post on the immigration debate.

"The only thing worse than bombing Iran is allowing Iran to get the bomb."


John McCain above, as quoted by Norman Podhoretz in an astonishing new piece on WSJ online today. A very long article but worth reading.Some excerpts:

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush made a promise:

We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.

In that speech, the president was referring to Iraq, but he has made it clear on a number of subsequent occasions that the same principle applies to Iran. Indeed, he has gone so far as to say that if we permit Iran to build a nuclear arsenal, people 50 years from now will look back and wonder how we of this generation could have allowed such a thing to happen, and they will rightly judge us as harshly as we today judge the British and the French for what they did and what they failed to do at Munich in 1938. I find it hard to understand why George W. Bush would have put himself so squarely in the dock of history on this issue if he were resigned to leaving office with Iran in possession of nuclear weapons, or with the ability to build them. Accordingly, my guess is that he intends, within the next 21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby..... and

Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

Memorial Day 2007: The View From My Place

View brushbin's map

Taken in (See more photos here)

Mountain Laurel: Our Connecticut State Flower

View brushbin's map

Taken in (See more photos here)

A walk in the woods today revealed this ancient specimen. Not yet in bloom, or did we miss it? Supposedly these bloom in late May or early June so perhaps we were a week or two early. This photo taken 5/25/07 in Wadsworth Falls State Park, Middletown/Middlefield.

Immigration Bill Portends Disaster for America!

Newt Gingrich tears into the proposed immigration reform act with passion and facts. In his latest newsletter he calls the present shenanigans in D.C. "An Immigration Shipwreck in Sight". Some excerpts:

The announcement last week that the White House and a group of senators have reached an agreement on "comprehensive immigration reform" should have the same effect that the word "iceberg" had on the passengers and crew of the Titanic.

This proposed agreement is a disaster of the first order, and it will severely cripple America for the foreseeable future.

You can tell how bad this bill is by the Senate Democratic leadership's announced goal of trying to pass it before the Memorial Day weekend....

When the FBI arrested six terrorists in New Jersey two weeks ago it turned out that three of them had been in the U.S. illegally for at least TWENTY years.

These three had crossed our unprotected border and had been living in New Jersey.

But here's the even more outrageous part: The police had filed 75 (SEVENTY-FIVE!) charges against them, including drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In 75 interactions, the police never once learned that these three people were here illegally.

The government failed twice: First, by failing to secure the border, and second, by failing to determine that these people were here illegally. The result was that more than five years after 9/11 we were saved from a mass killing at Fort Dix only because of the patriotism and courage of a clerk at an electronics store.

Compare the 75 charges made against the would-be Fort Dix terrorists with how we rounded up German spies in World War II. In June 1942, it took a total of 15 days to track down and arrest eight German spies who landed in Florida and New York from submarines. We executed six of them and gave one life in prison and the other thirty years. We were serious about winning that war). Go here for a more detailed comparison and a list of the 75 charges against the Fort Dix terrorists.

Faced with this level of failure of bureaucracy, how could anyone believe for a minute that this new immigration bill will work? The fact is it can't and it won't. It will rely on the same failed bureaucracy and produce more years of failure.

James Calvin Tillman: One Happy Fella!

A joyful James Calvin Tillman speaks with reporters outside Superior Court in Hartford. (BOB MACDONNELL) Jul 11, 2006

State legislators tried to calculate the incalculable Wednesday, voting to award $5 million to compensate an innocent man who spent 18 years in prison.

The House and Senate unanimously approved the settlement with James Calvin Tillman, 45, who was freed a year ago after DNA evidence exonerated him of a rape in Hartford.

Source: Hartford Courant 5/17/07

GOP Debate II (5/15/07)
My take:

Rudy: Seems too anxious to become President; he did get a round of applause when he countered Ron Paul's (sort of) conspiracy theories.

Mitt: Very suave and urbane and articulate; well prepared; stands tough on his governorship in MA as a con in a blue/black state.

McCain: He leaned hard on his military background, as well he should. His experience as a POW strongly informs his views on interrogation and whether forms of "enhanced interrogation" could be used in extreme national security emergencies. He claimed that military people are the ones most opposed to extra legal methods of intel extraction.

Hunter: The clear winner if one includes clarity of vision with determination to do whatever is necessary to preserve this nation against foreign enemies, illegal immigration, out of control spending.

Paul: Not quite the Dennis Kucinich of the right, but close.


Republican strategist Rich Galen's take on last night's debate:(excerpts)

Shorthand: Giuliani helped himself. McCain performed well. Huckabee did well enough so that the big three is now the big three and a half. Giving Romney the kindest review, he came out where he started, but I suspect he may have hurt himself by appearing too pre-programmed in his answers.....

The Giuliani campaign has signaled a major strategic shift. They will no longer attempt to portray him as a Conservative - which he is not - but will attempt to show that he is a center-right candidate running in center-right country. (emphasis added)

That is, of course, a gamble in a Republican primary campaign.....

Throughout, Giuliani demonstrated he will stay on the issue of national security. When Ron Paul said that, in essence, it was the US presence in the Middle East which invited the September 11th attacks, Giuliani demanded that Paul take it back. He refused.
Read Rich's column "Mullings" here.
Labels: GOP Debate Republican Presidential Candidates Rich Galen

Corpse Flowers are Bursting Out All Over!

Several locations are reporting the blooming of this rare plant on this Mother's Day weekend. Our own Amorphophallus titanum* (titan arum) at the UCONN greenhouses is blooming at this moment; it's last blooming was in 2004.

The plant pictured above is in the arboretum at Gustavus Adolphus college in St. Peter MN. The culmination of this plant was widely heralded with the announcement "Perry is Open". (Perry must be the plant's name) Another plant 'Ted the Titan", bloomed at UCAL Davis in June 2003.

UCONN experts say:

Once fully opened, the bright red bloom smells like three-day old road kill. It will even look like rotting meat, a perfect scenario for the insects that pollinate it _ flies and carrion beetles.

When the plant first bloomed at UConn in 2004, more than 20,000 people dropped by for a whiff.

School officials say it will be at its stinkiest in the first hour after it blooms tonight. After that, visitors will have about 72 hours, or until Sunday night, to take in the aroma.

Interesting quote:

“It smells just like a rotting corpse. In 2004, there was a medical examiner here who came to see it and confirmed that it smelled exactly like a corpse. It has the compounds that a rotting corpse has." -- Clinton Morse, plant growth facilities manager for UConn's ecology and evolutionary biology department.

Latest from UCONN website

The example below bloomed in Seattle last year.



*(the name hardly needs translation!)
Tagged: UCONN Gustavus Adolphus College Corpse Flower

What if the Shoe Bomber Had Succeeded...........
The chilling photo sequence above demonstrates the horrific power of the small quantity of high explosive hidden in Richard Reid's shoe. Had alert passengers not spotted his attempt to ignite the bomb the entire aircraft would had been destroyed with the loss of 197 lives. The still photos above were taken from an FBI video of test conducted at Quantico VA to duplicate the scenario with Reid and his shoe bomb. The full account of the experiments and video can be seen at News of the World (UK) site. An excerpt from the News of the World story follows:

This is what Reid's bomb would have done to a plane full of passengers flying at 30,000ft, if the detonator had not been faulty.

We showed the video to top anti-terror cop Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman who said: "It's only when you see the bomb going off inside a pressurised air cabin that you really see the catastrophic results. The plane is split in two.

"The video shows the shot from inside, it's taken to show you what it would look like if you were a passenger on that flight.

"You can see the plane shake and then it goes dark. I have seen this footage again and again and each time I still find it chilling."

Mr Hayman added: "What this video shows is the ingenuity and the ruthlessness that these people possess, the same ingenuity and ruthlessness you saw in the Crevice trial.

"And they're constantly refining their techniques, developing new methods of mass murder. Sometimes they sound outlandish — just like a bomb in a shoe sounds far-fetched.

"But look at the result in this video. This is what we're fighting against."

The footage is now to be used by Scotland Yard to train its officers. Reid, 33, who was born in Kent, pleaded guilty to attempting to blow up Flight 63.

The court was told he was overpowered by passengers and crew as he attempted to light a fuse protruding from one of his shoes. He is serving a life sentence in the U.S.

Mr Hayman agrees with the News of the World that the public should see the shocking simulation of what he could have done as he says another attack is "highly likely".

Tags: Richard Reid Shoe Bomber FBI War On Terror Scotland Yard