Bush: Port Deal Collapse Sends Bad Message from the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush said Friday he was troubled by the political storm that forced the reversal of a deal allowing a company in Dubai to take over take over operations of six American ports, saying it sent a bad message to U.S. allies in the Middle East.

Bush said the United States needs moderate allies in the Arab world, like the United Arab Emirates, to win the global war on terrorism.

…

“I’m concerned about a broader message this issue could send to our friends and allies around the world, particularly in the Middle East,” the president said. “In order to win the war on terror we have got to strengthen our friendships and relationships with moderate Arab countries in the Middle East.”

No Mr. President, we need honest allies who share our core values. We do not need allies that say one thing when facing west and another when facing east. Those types of ‘allies’ are simply pandering for their own benefit.

As you might have noticed, I’ve had a few posts on the situation in Belarus, the last outwardly communist and dictatorial state in Europe.

This month, on the 19th, there will be an ‘election’ in Belarus. The election will not be free and will not be fair. If there are protests following the elections I imagine that many of the protesters will be killed. You see, security forces in Belarus many not refuse any order, even if it is unlawful, at least according to a ‘law’ enacted by the current ‘president’ Alexander Lukashenko.

Here is a little bit of background.

From The Hill:

McCotter commits fashion crime in Speaker’s Lobby

It may not be the worst fashion faux pas in the world, but Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) broke the dress code last week by appearing in the Speaker’s Lobby and on the House floor in denim. McCotter is a repeat offender, according to a Capitol employee, as is Rep. Butch Otter (R-Idaho).

…

But McCotter spokesman Bob Jackson maintains that wearing jeans was appropriate considering what else the congressman was doing that day. Jackson explained that McCotter was taking part in a friendly protest called the —Blue Jean Revolution— at the Belarus Embassy near Dupont Circle in support of the pro-Democracy movement in Belarus.

—What happened was he was scheduled to appear at 11 a.m. and then was called for the vote, so he zipped straight over to the vote,— he said. —I know the fashion police probably frowned upon it, but the congressman was expressing support for freedom in Belarus.—

From the NY Times as reprinted by Data —“ The Independent Belarusian Web-site:

Bringing Down Europe’s Last Ex-Soviet Dictator

On March 19, Aleksandr Milinkevich will not be elected the next president of Belarus. He campaigns anyway, but with something else in mind. Through the winter he has traveled from city to city in clattering rented vans, meeting would-be voters in the bleak cold, gathering signatures and speaking about the social, economic and, above all, political neuroses that afflict this small nation at the eastern edge of a new Europe. “I am Aleksandr Milinkevich,” he recently assured a worker outside an auto-parts factory in Borisov, a gritty industrial city northeast of the capital, Minsk. The man seemed genuinely stunned to find this stranger greeting him.

Members of the opposition group Zubr distribute strips of blue jeans, their symbol of resistance.

“It is impossible to win at the elections, because there are no elections,” Milinkevich told me the first time I met him in a dim, three-room apartment in Minsk in October. “Nobody counts the votes.” It was my first realization that a presidential campaign in Belarus, a former republic of the Soviet Union, operates with a logic outside any traditional notion of democracy.

…

Lukashenko is prepared for unrest. Last year he eliminated a legal provision that allowed members of the police force and security services to disobey what they considered an unlawful order. A new law pushed through Parliament late last year makes organizing a public protest – or making statements that discredit the state – punishable by three to five years in prison. Lukashenko’s interior minister recently ordered new measures to increase security before the election. A European diplomat told me that if Milinkevich’s supporters gather in numbers in Minsk to protest an electoral result that is already a foregone conclusion, Lukashenko will not hesitate to disperse them forcefully. “There is no doubt Lukashenko will issue the order,” he said.

…

Zubr’s newest project is to organize protests on the 16th of each month. The date commemorates the night – Sept. 16, 1999 – that Viktor Gonchar, once a deputy prime minister and election commissioner who became a popular opposition leader poised to challenge Lukashenko, disappeared along with a businessman who financed the opposition. On that night the two men went to a banya, the public bathhouse that is a ritual part of Slavic life. They were evidently abducted and probably murdered. The idea is to remind Belarussians of the darker episodes in Lukashenko’s rule.

Please join with me in prayer for those fighting for freedom.

WorldNetDaily reports: Student under fire for yelling: ‘Remember Chappaquiddick!’ Self-described liberal hollers phrase as Kennedy begins on-campus speech

A community college student in Massachusetts faces possible disciplinary action for shouting “Remember Chappaquiddick!” during an on-campus speech by Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy yesterday.

Paul Trost, 20, a student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton, Mass., says he was upset by an introduction of Kennedy given by Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., in which the congressman noted how the long-time senator overcame hardship in life on his way to success.

“Lynch said Kennedy had overcome such adversity to get to the place he was, and that’s a bunch of bull,” Trost said of the introduction, which occurred in the school’s student center yesterday morning.

Just as Kennedy began speaking, Trost was walking out of the room when he shouted, “Remember Chappaquiddick!”

“Most of the crowd gasped,” Trost said. “Then I walked out of the student center.”

…

“One of my teachers called me ignorant and told me this was an embarrassment to the school,” Trost told WND. “She said to me, ‘Can’t you forgive him after all these years?’ And I said, ‘No, he killed somebody.’

“If it had been me or any other person, we’d be in jail,” Trost says he told his instructor.

I guess being rich beyond all belief, having a pampered existence your entire life, getting away with murder, and having the blood of millions of murdered babies on your hands without any consequence belies a difficult life and hardships that must be overcome.

Will somebody please not re-elect this disgusting cow.

And thank you to the young Mr. Trost. It’s good to know that you believe in and stress accountability, even in the face of the passing of time.

From LifeSiteNews: Supreme Court’s Ginsburg Offended by “Outrageously Anti-Abortion” Homily at Mass

WASHINGTON, February 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The February edition of the Jewish bimonthly magazine, Moment, carries an excerpt from a book by Abigail Pogrebin, Stars of David; the book details conversations Pogrebin had with 62 famous Jews. The excerpt features Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of Pogrebin’s subjects. What Ginsburg had to say about Christianity was noted by Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

“In the January 30 edition of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger, Abigail Pogrebin was asked which Jewish persons have left a ‘profound impression’ on her. She answered, ‘I will never forget Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg saying, ‘Don’t put a [Christmas] wreath on this door.’ Indeed, Ginsburg admits to putting a gold mezuzah on her office door’s frame as a way of saying, ‘This is my space, and please don’t put a wreath on this door.’ To observant Jews, the mezuzah reminds them of their connection to God. To Ginsburg, who is not observant, it is a symbol of protest.

So Ms. Ginsburg has equated herself to God? I guess being on the Supreme Court makes you the source of all justice —“ equal to God.

For those who do not know, the mezuzah is a sort of metal tube containing scripture that is placed on the doorpost of Jewish homes in accordance with scripture. It is a mitzvah (blessing) to place mezuzot on the doorposts of Jewish homes in accordance with Deut. 6:4-9, a passage commonly known as the Shema (Hear, from the first word of the passage). In that passage, G-d commands the Jewish people to keep His words constantly in their minds and hearts.

The words of the Shema are written on a tiny scroll of parchment, along with the words of a companion passage, Deut. 11:13-21. On the back of the scroll, a name of G-d is written. The scroll is then rolled up placed in the case, so that the first letter of the Name (the letter Shin) is visible (or, more commonly, the letter Shin is written on the outside of the case).

By this action the Jewish person recalls God before all and dedicates his home to God.

So Ginsburg placed the mezuzah on her door to state —This is my space—. How nice, she recalls her own name and her dedication to herself.

“Ginsburg used to attend the annual Red Mass, a Catholic Mass that honors lawyers, but then she had a bad experience: ‘I went one year and I will never go again, because this sermon was outrageously anti-abortion.’ So much for respect for diversity. Just imagine how it would go down in the Jewish community if a Catholic Supreme Court Justice were to say that he would never again attend a particular Jewish event because he had to endure a talk that was ‘outrageously pro-abortion.’

…

And you expected? Just because Ms. Ginsburg has washed God out of her life does she expect the rest of us to do the same? The answer to that is an unequivocal yes.

She must have been looking for some good symbolism for her door. Unfortunately she could not use the ever popoular Hebrew symbol Chai on her door. That would be impossible because Chai stands for life.

Judaism as a religion is very focused on life, and the word chai has great significance. The typical Jewish toast is l’chayim (to life). Gifts to charity are routinely given in multiples of 18 (the numeric value of the word Chai).

By the way, רשע transliterated is rasha —“ meaning the guilty as in an evil or wicked (wo)man. In Jewish thought this is the most extreme type of sinner.

Ms. Ginsburg, every sin against man is a sin against God. Go, see a Rabbi and pray:

“O may it be Thy will, O Lord my God, and God of my fathers, that I may sin no more; and as to the sins I have committed, purge them away in Thine abounding mercy.”

Special thanks to Judaism 101 for info on the mezuzah and the Chai symbol.

Christopher Hitchens has an interesting article at Slate.

While Mr. Hitchens is not one of my favorite people when he rambles on about the non existence of God (last time I saw him on Hardball he was apoplectic), he occasionally, and in a well done way, musters a few good thoughts into a coherent chain.

In general I tend not to care an awful lot about what happens in Israel/Palestine. It’s a way over covered story. In comparison to the Russia that is trying to re-emerge it is far less dangerous to us.

I think the only thing that will eventually straighten up the situation is a solution posed from outside, primarily by the United States. Let’s say internationally redrawn borders with the Israelis to the left and the Palestinans to the right and international enforcement in between.

I think even proposing such a solution would scare both parties into reaching their own settlement.

All parties can now have fun hating me.