Liberty Bell

Wishing you a blessed Easter.

Although the Democrats still hold the lead in Washington politics (and have since 1980), recent events have shown their lead is not unshakeable. The 2004 race for governor between Dino Rossi (Republican) and Christine Gregoire (Democrat) was the closest in Washington State history and in any governors race in the United States. After two recounts and court battle, Rossi lost by 129 votes to current Governor Gregoire.

The Rossi/Gregoire race pointed out several deficiencies with the Washington State voting system, and led to heated debate between the different parties. In the governor’s race, Rossi narrowly led the initial count and a machine recount, but lost in the hand recount requested by the Democrat party. The Republicans questioned and sued over the number of votes from deceased people and convicted felons included in the election – particularly from King County, known to be strongly democratic. Superior Court Judge John Bridges rejected the claims saying that while the claims were significant there was no evidence of fraud or manipulation. Republicans called Democrats cheaters; Democrats insisted they weren’t.

Rossi is expected to run for Governor in 2008. Analysts in both parties agree that a rematch wouldn’t just be a rerun of ‘04. Former thinking that “Pandering to rural voters is a waste of time,”* has been abolished. Democrats have realized the weight of King County may not be enough to hold the election and have started campaigning across Lake Washington, hoping to gain more power. If Rossi runs and wins, he will end the 24-year-hold Democrats have on the governor’s seat.

* From “Better Dead Than Red,” by Dan Savage. It was printed by the Portland Mercury and The Stranger in 2004.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
— Emma Lazarus, on the Statue of Liberty

America has been a country of freedom and hope for many years. And because of that, it has drawn and continues to draw people from other nations to it. Most are longing for a better life. They believe America will provide it.

They see America as a great nation. They hear people talk of a glorious land - possibly a paradise on earth. They hear job opportunities, not shortage of jobs. They hear about food and free health care - not about the American citizens with no health insurance, and others who struggle to provide for their families.

I know many didn’t realize the problems with America. I know because the people my Dad work with (Turks) viewed America as a great nation. And when they visited, and realize how much Katrina had affected people’s lives, they were shocked. They hadn’t heard of the homeless people, the starving people, the out-of-work people…

America! America!

Now America is facing problems regarding immigration. And we see people who are in the U.S. illegally (mostly Mexicans), take jobs and get health care where U.S. citizens can’t. And we hear people talking Spanish and wonder what they’re saying - realizing that because we can’t understand them, we might be the ones out of a job.

I know another family, who moved to Washington State from California. The dad’s an out-of-work white electrician. Not because he’s lazy - he tried very hard to find work. But because when he tried to find a job, he was rejected because he couldn’t speak Spanish.

God shed his grace on thee…

There was an article on Think and Ask, called Free Los Angeles, Go Fix Mexico. It’s copyrighted - “reproduction of any kind is not permitted without written consent” - which I don’t have. But it’s a good article and I wanted to use a few paragraphs:

What is wrong with Mexico? Gotta dictator? Can’t put food on the table? No jobs to be found? Well, join the club, for life is no better in the United States for poor and middle class blacks and whites.

The only difference is now we whites and blacks have to pay socially and financially for those Mexicans who enter this country and work for cash while they avoid paying income, property, and school taxes. But Mexicans get healthcare and public school education — for free. If we tried avoiding taxes the IRS would be on our door before you could say si si. If we show up at hospital expecting free assistance we’d die while waiting in the emergency room without health insurance.

Here is one possible all encompassing answer: Life is easy for the Mexicans. It is easy to enter the United States illegally and stay under the radar. It is easy to come to the United States and pop-out a baby to gain citizenship and apply for welfare. It is easy to work here for $8-per hour cash, pile-up 20 illegals in a one-bedroom apartment to save rent and split the cost of a beer keg on the weekends. It is easy to build political clout with the sheer influx of immigrants along with the baby boom that follows with each new family.

It seems ironic that illegal aliens gathered such steam in Los Angeles to march, considering they offer no intellectual exchange to advance innovation in this nation…other than halting laws that infringe upon their own special cause. Be proud of Mexico: Go home to build a life your children can boast was the effort of their parents’ hard work and reform. Meanwhile, rest assured, we are telling our children that there is no free ride in the United States…unless one is here illegally from Mexico.

And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

President Bush Talks Immigration at Naturalization Ceremony

President Bush:

Newcomers have a special way of appreciating the opportunities of America. And when they seize those opportunities, our whole nation benefits.

In the 1790s, an immigrant from Ireland designed the White House, right where Laura and I live, and he helped build the Capitol.

In the 1990s, an immigrant from Russia helped create the Internet search engine Google.

In between, new citizens have made contributions in virtually every professional field and millions of newcomers have strengthened their communities through quiet lives of hard work and family and faith.

America’s welcoming society is more than cultural tradition; it is a fundamental promise of our democracy.

Our Constitution does not limit citizenship by background or birth. Instead, our nation is bound together by shared love of liberty and a conviction that all people are created with dignity and value.

Through the generations, Americans have upheld that vision by welcoming new citizens from across the globe, and that has made us stand apart.

One of my predecessors, President Ronald Reagan, used to say this: “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Japan, but you cannot become Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in America and be an American.”

Then later on…

America is a nation of immigrants, and we’re also a nation of laws. All of you are here because you followed the rules and you waited your turn in the citizenship line.

Yet some violate our immigration laws and enter our country illegally. And that undermines the system for all of us.

America should not have to choose between being a welcoming society and being a lawful society. We can be both at the same time.

And so, to keep the promise of America, we must enforce the laws of America. We must also reform those laws.

No one is served by an immigration system that allows large numbers of people to sneak across the border illegally. Nobody benefits when the illegal immigrants live in the shadows of society. Everyone suffers when people seeking to provide for their families are left at the mercy of criminals or stuffed in the back of 18-wheelers or abandoned in the desert to die.

America needs comprehensive immigration reform. I’ve laid out a proposal for comprehensive immigration reform that includes three critical elements: securing the border, strengthening immigration enforcement inside our country, and creating a temporary worker program.

The rest of the speech contains his three guidelines and explains them. It’s worth reading.

Although it has been months since London’s July 7th bombings, and years since 9/11, people are still struggling from the effects of these terrorist attacks. British Reverend Julie Nicholson and Alexander Briley, an American Baptist minister, are still struggling.

Both have children who died during the terrorist attacks. Both are ministers and as such have had to tell others to forgive, to move on. And they struggle, as others, to practice what they preach.

Reverand Julie Nicholson, the priest-in-charge at St Aidan Church in Bristol, has decided to resign her position. Since her daughter Jenny was killed in London’s July 7 bombings she can no longer stand behind an altar preaching forgiveness when she herself cannot forgive.

While Alexander Briley has continued preaching, as the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy is approaching, he has still not come to terms with the manner of his son’s dying. “I can’t talk about it,” he says. “My life’s work is telling people that they have to go on after tragedy, but I can’t do it for myself.”

Alexander Briley is the father of the late Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old who worked in a restaurant at the top of the north tower. Jonathan had just been another victim for these years, until recently when he was indentified as “The Falling Man.”

This news has not, and cannot, be confirmed. We are left knowing what we have known all along.

Yes, Jonathan Briley might be the Falling Man. But the only certainty we have is the certainty we had at the start: At fifteen seconds after 9:41 a.m., on September 11, 2001, a photographer named Richard Drew took a picture of a man falling through the sky—falling through time as well as through space. The picture went all around the world, and then disappeared, as if we willed it away. One of the most famous photographs in human history became an unmarked grave, and the man buried inside its frame—the Falling Man—became the Unknown Soldier in a war whose end we have not yet seen. Richard Drew’s photograph is all we know of him, and yet all we know of him becomes a measure of what we know of ourselves. The picture is his cenotaph, and like the monuments dedicated to the memory of unknown soldiers everywhere, it asks that we look at it, and make one simple acknowledgment.

That we have known who the Falling Man is all along.

But as Jonathan’s sister, Gwendolyn, says: “It’s not about trying to find out who he is, but what his death says to all of us.” And what it says is … never again.

The Falling Man - one of the pictures

Terri Schiavo

Nearly a year after her death, her parents and husband are releasing opposing books that will continue the debate over the decision to remove the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo. Terri Schiavo died on March 31, 2005, at the age of 41. 13 days before, her feeding tube had been removed under a legal order granted to her husband, Michael. Terri’s death was caused by a mix of dehydration and starvation.

Michael Schiavo fought the Schindlers (her parents) in court for eight years over the removal of Terri’s life support, arguing she would not have wanted to be kept alive in what doctors called a persistent vegetative state.

The Schindlers argued that she retained some level of consciousness. “Don’t let anybody tell you that Terri did not know who was in that room,” Mary Schindler told The St. Petersburg Times in an interview published Saturday.

In their book, “A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo - A Lesson for Us All,” the Schindlers continue the debate, saying Michael Schiavo abused Terri and say she wouldn’t have wanted her feeding tube removed.

In Michael Schiavo’s book, “Terri: The Truth,” he says he was determined to carry out his wife’s wishes despite death threats and other pressures.

“Terri: The Truth” is being released Monday. “A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo - A Lesson for Us All” will be released the day after. It will be interesting to read the different sides presented by family members.

But very interesting: (h/t to Brutally Honest)

While every lost serviceman and servicewoman is certainly tragic and should be mourned, the actual statistics tell quite a different tale from the MSM and Democratic doom-and-gloom outlook. Comparing the numbers of lost US military personnel to past years, and past presidential terms, may even be a shock to supporters of the war.

Take a look at the actual US Military Casualty figures since 1980. If you do the math, you wil find quite a few surpises. First of all, let’s compare numbers of US Military personnel that died during the first term of the last four presidents.

George W. Bush . . . . . 5187 (2001-2004)
Bill Clinton . . . . . . . . . 4302 (1993-1996)
George H.W. Bush . . . . 6223 (1989-1992)
Ronald Reagan . . . . . . 9163 (1981-1984)

Even during the (per MSM) utopic peacetime of Bill Clinton’s term, we lost 4302 service personnel. H.W. Bush and Reagan actually lost significantly more personnel while never fighting an extensive war, much less a simulaltaneous war on two theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan). Even the dovish Carter lost more people duing his last year in office, in 1980 lost 2392, than W. has lost in any single year of his presidency.

From Expose the Left: President Bush spoke to military and civilian families in Wheeling, West Virginia this afternoon about the War in Iraq. As usual, he spent a long period of time with the audience to answer the questions they may have. One woman, a military wife, told President Bush about her husband’s career as a military broadcast journalist and the footage he got about how great things are going in Iraq. She told the President that many cable news channels are just not reporting good news and only the bad news. She wanted to know what people could do to see the good happening in Iraq. President Bush’s answers: The blogs and the internet:

WOMAN: This is my husband who has returned from a 13 month tour in Tikrit.

BUSH: Oh yeah, thank you buddy. Welcome back!

WOMAN: His job while serving was as a broadcast journalist and he has brought back several DVDs full of wonderful footage of reconstruction, of medical things going on, and I ask you this from the bottom of my heart for the solution to this. Because it seems that our major media networks don’t want to portray the good, they just want to focus –

[tremendous applause from audience]
——on another car bomb or they just want to focus on the more bloodshed, or they just want to focus on how they don’t agree with or what you’re doing when they don’t even probably know how you’re doing what you’re doing anyway. But what can we do to get that footage on CNN, on FOX, to get it on Headline News, to get it on the local news because you can send it to the news people, and I’m sorry I’m rambling on like I have –

BUSH: So was I though, for like an hour –

[laughter]

WOMAN:——can use this and it’ll just end up in a drawer because it’s good and it portrays the good and if people could see that, if the America people could see it, there would never be another negative word about this conflict.

BUSH: Well I appreciate that. No it’s –

[applause]

BUSH: Before I come out and speak, I’ve spoken in Cleveland, gave press conference yesterday. Spoke in Cleveland Monday, press conference yesterday, here today. I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing to try make sure people can here there’s – why I make decisions and as best as I can explain why I am optimistic we can succeed. One of the things that we have to value is that that we do have a media, free media that’s able to do what they want to do and I – you ask me to say something in front of all the camera here [laughter]. Help over there will ya? I just got to keep talking and word of mouth, there’s blogs, there’s internet, there’s all kinds of way to communicate which is literally changing the way people get their information and so if you’re concerned I would suggest that you reach out to some of the groups that are supporting the troops, that got internet sites and just keep the word moving.

Keep it moving…

The Rune of St Patrick

At Tara today in this fateful hour
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And fire with all the strength it hath,
And lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness
All these I place,
By God’s almighty help and grace,
Between myself and the powers of darkness.

The Rune of St. Patrick is a variation on the much longer Lorica. Tradition tells us that Patrick said this protection prayer as he walked from the Hill of Slane to Tara to confront the High King who he believed to be representing the powers of darkness. Also according to legend, St. Patrick and his followers were turned into deer when they were being pursued by the king’s men early one morning. As the Lorica of St. Patrick–a lorica being a type of prayer of protection (literally meaning “breastplate”), which was popular in Celtic countries–it is used not only as a morning prayer, but as a prayer of protection.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Agora brought the following information to my attention. (Thanks!)

Death Threat against signers of Manifesto

By Jørgen Ullerup, Correspondent to Jyllands-Posten

Warning against Islamic totalitarianism brings death threats. On a website an Islamic group has made death threats against the 12 intellectuals, including Salman Rushdie, who recently signed a Manifesto against Islamic Totalitarianism.

/Paris/

According to one of the signers, the French writer Caroline Fourest, the threat was made this Saturday on the website ummah.net. It mentions a who’s who guide and a list of targets scheduled for termination.

The group urges its adherents to take their time but says it should happen soon. It adds that it isn’t necessary to first have a Fatwa from a religious leader, such as the one Ayatollah Khomeini issued in 1989 against Salman Rushdie’s life for having offended the religion.

“The threat is simply not acceptable. Our Manifesto urges to resistance by means of ideas. But the Islamists have answered with threats of violence. A proof - if such was necessary - of their rejection of democratic debate and of their totalitarianism,” Caroline Fourest says.

She adds that the Manifesto isn’t against Islam but against Islamism and the Islamists’ using the religion politically to oppress, for example, Freedom of Speech. She emphasises that the signers will not be subdued by threats.

To read the Manifesto: MANIFESTO
To show your support: Petition Spot - MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism There are over 1,300 signatures so far. The goal is 100,000.