My daughter works as a genetic engineer. Now sometimes things come out okay, and other times, well,

Borowitz reported that after Mrs. Kerry’s public gaffe, she has been moved to a secure location. He failed to note that it was also Dick Cheney’s secure location.

Reportedly the two exchanged words:

Mrs. Kerry: “Shove it!”

Mr. Cheney: “F*** you!”

Both were said to be feeling much better after the exchange.

The Boston Globe reports:

BOSTON (AP) Two civil rights groups filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority from randomly inspecting passengers’ bags, saying it’s an unconstitutional violation of personal privacy.

A judge scheduled an emergency hearing for Tuesday afternoon in the case filed by National Lawyers Guild and American Anti-Discrimination Committee.

The random inspections began Thursday, just in time for the Democratic National Convention, which started Monday at the FleetCenter. The policy is the first of its kind in the country.

The groups say the searches violate the Fourth Amendment because they don’t require information that the person searched is suspected of criminal activity. They’ve urged customers not to consent to the searches.

”There is no way the MBTA can implement this policy in a constitutional manner,” said National Lawyers Guild national president Michael Avery.

Showing once again that “civil liberties group” really means “People Who Don’t understand Terrorism,” two groups want to insure that those wanting to blow up innocents on Boston’s public transit can do so with minimal disruption. Don’t they remember that two of the 9-11 aircraft took off from Boston’s Logan Airport? How about the Madrid train bombings?

Then there’s the question of why it’s okay for airport personnel to check bags but not for train personnel. Their arguments are nonsense.

This is spillover from a discussion on Roger L. Simon’s fine blog…

I said, on the subject of social conservatism

I haven’t read all the comments, but there is one thing jumping out at me: this freedom/non-freedom dichotomy.

I’m a social conservative. I suspect that would put me in the non-freedom category. And yet I see only one non-freedom view associated with social conservatism, and that is drug prohibition. Drug prohibition is widely popular and for almost any politician it is political suicide to oppose it.

I oppose it, as does the National Review, which I think is the primary journal of social conservatism.

So, what freedoms do I suppress?
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When Libya turned over its nuclear material, complete plans for a nuclear weapon were found - in Chinese. This leads to an obvious suspicion that China is encouraging nuclear proliferation. Which leads to the question: why would they do that?
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I was raised a Presbyterian. It used to be a pretty normal, midwestern style church. I attended in Albuquerque and in Lawrence, Kansas, sang in the choir and in general found it a very ordinary sort of church. It sponsored Boy Scouts, had Sunday School and had various communitarian activities.

Then the leftists took over, and the national Church (which barely qualifies for the name) has done one outrageous thing after another.

Now the national church has taken a major antisemitic step: they have chosen to divest their investments in Israel. In other words, they are economically attacking the Jewish homeland. This is happening around the same time that the Catholic Church formally recognized anti-Zionism as antisemitism.

This is what happens when the left takes over an organization. First, it starts promoting all sorts of trendy causes, no matter what the official mission is. Then it starts supporting the hatred agenda of the hard left.

I am ashamed of this organization. I would hope individual congregations would leave the national organization. It is no longer behaving as a Christian organization, but rather as one more arm of the morally backwards left wing world of hate.

“Mainstream” protestant denominations in America have been captured by the left. This is probably a result of Vietnam era draft deferments for seminarians. As a result, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Churches are gaining in membership, as the “mainstream” churches slowly wither away.

For the Presbyterian Church, withering away cannot happen fast enough.

Bruce Schneier is a cryptologist and security “expert”. He’s generally a very smart guy, but he seems to let his passion for privacy and distrust of government get in the way of reason. His latest Cryptogram publication is an example. It analyzes the three Supreme Court rulings on war detainees and finds all appropriate from a security standpoint. In other words, the granting of habeas corpus rights to foreign illegal-combatant prisoners at Guantanamo magically improves our security.

Yeah, I didn’t believe it either.

Counter arguments are below, followed by an argument for the pre-emptive involvement of civil liberties sensitive technicians in the design of some inevitable systems.
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You don’t have to be a Vietnam Vet to make a donation to VVT. We need your help!

VIETNAM VETS FOR THE TRUTH NEEDS YOUR HELP!

Recently an ad hoc group of Vietnam veterans, Vietnam Vets for the Truth (VVT), broke a story that the Internet samizdat has broadcast across the nation. It was the account of the esteem in which the Vietnamese communists hold John Kerry because of the efforts he made on their behalf during the Vietnam War. Focal point of the article was a photo of Senator Kerry conversing with the chairman of the Communist Party of Viet Nam, a photo which hangs in a room honoring foreigners who contributed to the communist victory in Vietnam.

A courageous American visiting Vietnam was responsible for taking these fascinating photos, making several trips back to the “War Crimes Museum” at the request of VVT. His activities aroused the suspicion of the Vietnamese authorities sufficiently for them to assign an agent to follow him on his travels. Upon his return to the States, this Vietnam veteran will provide more detail about what he saw.

VVT is involved in a number of activities besides the “Saigon Photo” story. Its centerpiece operation is the planning and execution of the “Kerry Lied Rally,” an event that will draw the attention of all Americans to the lies John Kerry told about US servicemen and –women during the Vietnam War. Featured in the Rally will be a number of speakers whose lives were directly affected by Kerry’s lies.

Another activity is “Operation Kerry Lied,” an effort in which local activists are assisted in assembling and displaying information in their hometowns about the lies Kerry told. In most cases, those activists are Vietnam veterans.

Jeffrey M. Epstein, VVT’s Media Affairs Director, notes that the organization has initiated a major fund-raising campaign to enable it to accomplish its mission of exposing John Kerry’s lies to the American public. Says Epstein: “It would be a tragedy of monumental proportions if the truth about John Kerry is not told because of a lack of funds. VVT’s effectiveness will be in direct proportion to the financial support we receive. We encourage all Vietnam veterans to hold Kerry accountable by contributing any amount, large or small.”

Vietnam Vets for the Truth, LLC, is an IRS- and FEC-designated “527 Political Action Committee” incorporated in the State of Delaware.

Contributions may be mailed to:

Vietnam Vets for the Truth, LLC
Box 49
Mt. Vernon, VA  22121

Mr. Epstein may be contacted at jepstein2@snet.net. The VVT website, which currently features the “Saigon Photo” story, may be viewed at http://kerrylied.com/.

A Microsoft Word form of this document can be downloaded from here.

From WND:

A Swedish court has sentenced Ake Green, a pastor belonging to the Pentecostal movement, to a month in prison, under a law against incitement, after he was found guilty of having offended homosexuals in a sermon, according to Ecumenical News International.

What this guy said was fairly nasty, but in the US nobody would send him to jail. But in Sweden, offending homosexuals is worth a month in prison. Since just about anything goes in Sweden, it’s interesting that offending homosexuals (in a church sermon) is a crime.

One more reason that the European superior attitude towards the United States is so wrong.