Minnesotan Named Ambassador To Norway

Minnesotan Ben Whitney has been sworn in as the latest U.S. ambassador to Norway, joining a long line of major political donors in both parties who have been named as envoys to Western Europe and other attractive destinations."Yes, I've put my money where my mouth was, with respect to my work," said Whitney, who was sworn in Monday. "But there are a lot of reasons the president might believe I'm capable of doing this job on his behalf." Whitney, 49, of St. Paul, is not the first ambassador to make up for a lack of foreign service credentials by having close ties to the president or by writing big checks. The American Foreign Service Association reports that 30 percent of ambassadorial appointments over the past 45 years have gone to private citizens with more political clout than diplomatic experience. Last year, Whitney was the finance chair of President George W. Bush's re-election campaign and he raised at least $200,000. He also worked on Bush's 2000 campaign. Whitney and his family gave almost $190,000 to the Republican Party from 1999 to 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Further, the Whitneys and the Bushes have family ties. Ben Whitney is the son of the longtime state GOP leader Wheelock Whitney, who went to prep school in Massachusetts with George H.W. Bush. However, like many other private citizens appointed to ambassadorships over the years, Whitney has a long list of personal accomplishments. And experts note that many inexperienced ambassadors have been very successful at running embassies. Whitney, an attorney, is chief executive of Whitney Management, a financial management business. He is also the former general partner of a venture capital fund. He has an abiding interest in public policy and foreign affairs and has begun preparing for his new post by taking lessons in Norwegian. The last time a Minnesotan was ambassador to Norway was 1980-81 when former St. Olaf College President Sidney Rand had the job. Whitney replaces John Ong, who raised at least $100,000 for Bush in 2000. Bush's two presidential campaigns used "bundling" to set fundraising records. Though no individual could contribute more than $1,000 in 2000 or $2,000 in 2004, hundreds of fundraisers successfully gathered hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece. "In the past, probably $20- to $40- to $50,000 contributions put you in line for being a player for ambassadorships," said David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University. "For Bush, we're looking at way over $100,000 (in fundraising), if not even higher." Thomas Switzer, communications director for the American Foreign Service Association, said historically some noncareer ambassadors have performed well while others "were an embarrassment" because they couldn't deal with issues cross-culturally. Whitney, who said he approached the administration about an overseas posting, said he looks forward to representing America and listening to people with other perspectives. "This is something that I think will be a life-changing experience, not just for me, but for my wife and for my children," Whitney said. "That's what makes it such a great thing, and that's one of the reasons I'm so excited about it."

U.S. Troops Must Complete Mission And Shouldn't Abandon “27 Million Iraqis To 10,000 Terrorists.”

Fresh from his fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months, Sen. Joe Lieberman insists the U.S. must stay in the embattled nation and not abandon "27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists." Senator Joe Lieberman"The Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood – unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn," the Connecticut Democrat writes in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal. Pointing to economic and political progress he witnessed while in Iraq, Lieberman said: "People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it. "It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al-Qaida foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern... "We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East." Lieberman is encouraged by the numbers of Iraqis who have gone to the polls despite the threat of violence, by Sunni participation in the electoral process and by the thriving independent media in Iraq. "None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S.," Lieberman writes. "And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country. "I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead. "What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory."

Families Await Word On Frozen Airman's ID

When a flight crew training for combat in World War II disappeared in the Sierra Nevada on Nov. 18, 1942, four families were left waiting for a word or a body to bury -- for some end of the grief that was only partly eased when wreckage and scant remains were found five years later. Now, 63 years later, one family might get their wish. "It's been a long struggle," said Millie Ewing, the sister of pilot and Ohio native William Gamber. Military anthropologists analyzing the well-preserved body of an airman found encased in ice last month in Kings Canyon National Park have narrowed their options to four men who flew out of Sacramento's Mather Field on the mission that went astray: Gamber, 23, and aviation Cadets John Mortenson, 25, Leo Mustonen, 22, of Minnesota, and Ernest Munn, 23, of St. Clairsville, Ohio. Experts were able to read a name on a faded badge on the serviceman's clothing, but they won't reveal it until they confirm the identity through DNA. It could take weeks, or months -- but that's not long for family members who waited for decades. "What we do has to stand up to scientific and legal scrutiny, so that the family knows for sure this is their loved one," said Maj. Rumi Nielson-Green, with the Hawaii-based Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command, which identifies remains of missing service members. "These families have been waiting for a long time, and they deserve that." The details and the wait have been nerve-racking for Lois Shriver, who, like Ewing, was never able to bury her brother Munn, a cadet with slicked-back blond hair who still smiles, handsome, in a family picture. Munn, like the other three, was given a military funeral in San Bruno's Golden Gate National Cemetery, but the grave is empty -- a bitter memory for Shriver, who was 17 when the cadets disappeared. "You never forget these things," she said. The four young men left at 8:30 a.m. on an overcast day with five hours of fuel aboard the AT-7 craft for a navigational training flight through the Central Valley. The weather had been stormy and gusty. Training missions had been canceled the day before, when "it rained cats and dogs" according to a diary entry by serviceman William Bechter, who trained at Mather Field in 1942, and died in action the next year. Leonard Spivey, a friend of Bechter who graduated from the base as a navigator three days after the accident, said strong winds and poor visibility may have led the plane far off course. It crashed nearly 200 miles from home. "Imagine being in a hot air balloon on a windy day," he said. "At that time, we didn't have sophisticated navigational devices." Spivey read Bechter's diary entry from the night the plane disappeared: "The war was brought close to home tonight when one AT-7 ... failed to return from this morning's hop." Bechter wrote that flights scoured the valley for days. They gave up a month later, after 581 hours of fruitless ground and air searches, according to a 1942 military accident report. Five years later, ice climbers scaling the 60 degree slope of the Mount Darwin glacier found the first hard evidence of the crash: pieces of the motor, scattered shoes, clothing, and a piece of frozen flesh. Among them was a badge with the name of Mortenson, of Moscow, Idaho. That appears to eliminate him as the frozen airman because the uniform on the remains also bore a name tag. Forensic anthropologists in Hickam Air Force Base, in Oahu, Hawaii, have examined the body and sorted through decades-old dental records to piece together the identity of the airman who died of massive trauma in the crash. The ice tomb preserved the skin and muscle, the young man's fair hair, even the trinkets he carried in his pockets -- a 1942 calendar, coins, a fountain pen, and a comb. Physical remains weren't conclusive, so officials are gathering samples of DNA from the airmen's families to look for a match, said Nielson-Green. The news of the find generated a lot of excitement in Munn's hometown of St. Clairsville, about 110 miles east of Columbus, where most who grew up with him just "married and settled down," said Shriver. Two of her sisters still live there. The find brought back bittersweet memories of the ambitious youngster who wanted to see the world beyond his parent's confectionary store and the placid landscape of rural Ohio, Shriver said. But a phone call from military officials early in November laid her hopes to rest. "They told us they didn't think it was him," she said, without giving more details. That leaves only Gamber and Mustonen, the youngest son of Finnish immigrants who settled in Brainerd, Minn. Anna Mustonen never overcame her son's disappearance, said Marjorie Freeman, who went to school with Leo and his brother, Arvo Mustonen. Freeman lived with her mother-in-law during the war and Anna Mustonen would visit their house for coffee each day. The two older women chatted in Finnish at the kitchen table. Sometimes Mustonen broke down and cried over her missing son, said Freeman. Leo Mustonen had pushed himself through junior college and the University of Minnesota. He enlisted to pursue a goal of designing aircraft, Freeman said. Anna Mustonen died in 1968, without conclusive word of her son. But if this airman turns out to be him, Freeman said, she believes he should be buried not in a military cemetery, but in Brainerd's Evergreen Cemetery. "She would have wanted him nearby," she said. "What mother wouldn't?" Ewing, 92, and in a retirement home near Fayette in northwest Ohio, is also eager to bring her brother home. She had followed him to California when he enlisted. The two were close, and it was up to her to pick up Gamber's clothes and car from the base after he disappeared. But she waited a year, hoping for some sign of the handsome former college basketball player. When she finally returned to Fayette, their hometown, she was alone. For decades, she's ached to give the body of her 23-year-old brother a proper burial in their family plot. Being able to do it now, she said, would be "truly amazing."

My Apologies

Due to computer & internet problems my blogs will TEMPORARY be out of commission. I hope to have all the bugs worked out early this week

World Must Face 'Dark Vision' Of Islamo-Fascists

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld joined the Bush administration's attack on Iraq war critics, quoting Clinton administration officials who contended in the late 1990s that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was a security threat to the United States and its allies. At a Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld noted that Congress in 1998 passed the Iraq Liberation Act, making it U.S. government policy to support efforts to remove the Saddam regime from power. He noted that President Bill Clinton ordered four days of bombing in December 1998. President Bush on Monday hurled back at Democratic critics the worries they once expressed that Saddam was a grave threat. "They spoke the truth then and they're speaking politics now," Bush charged. Rumsfeld continued Bush's assault on war critics, citing the words of Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger, Clinton's national security adviser. Rumsfeld quoted Berger as having said of Saddam in 1998, "He will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983." Democrats have accused Bush of manipulating and withholding some prewar intelligence and misleading Americans about the rationale for war. Shortly before Rumsfeld spoke, the Republican-controlled Senate defeated, on a 58-40 vote, a Democratic effort to pressure Bush to outline a timetable for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It then overwhelmingly endorsed a weaker, non-binding statement calling on the administration to explain its Iraq policy and declaring that 2006 "should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty." Iraq and a host of other problems, from the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina to the indictment of a senior White House official in the CIA leak investigation, have taken a heavy toll on Bush. Nearing the end of his fifth year in office, Bush has the lowest approval rating of his presidency. In AP-Ipsos polling, a majority of Americans say Bush is not honest and they disapprove of his handling of foreign policy and the war on terrorism.Referring to the current situation, Rumsfeld said, "We are in the midst of a war that threatens free people across the world," as evidenced by terrorist attacks in the United States, London, Madrid and other cities. He said the world must face up to the "dark vision" of a network of "Islamo-fascists" and extremists. "They seek to build in Iraq what they once had in Afghanistan - a safe haven," he said. "And then to expand throughout the region and beyond." While noting that many Americans want to know when U.S. troops will leave Iraq, Rumsfeld said it would be a grave mistake to leave prematurely. "We must be careful not to give terrorists the false hope that if they can simply hold on long enough, they can outlast us," Rumsfeld said. There are about 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Bruce Willis Offers $1 Million To Fight Terrorism

Actor Bruce Willis has offered $1 million to anyone who turns in al-Qaeda terror leaders. Bruce WillisThe patriotic "Die Hard" star will pay out for information on the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden, Aymen Al-zawahiri or Abu Musab Al-zarqawi, the alleged brains behind the 9/11 atrocity. Willis announced his reward on the TV show "Rita Cosby: Live And Direct," where he also denounced biased media coverage of the Iraq war. "I am baffled to understand why the things that I saw happening in Iraq, really good things happening in Iraq, are not being reported on," Willis said.

Iraqi Woman So Stupid And Inept She Couldn't Even Blow Herself Up Like The Muslim Children Do!

Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi: Words of a would-be killer
A transcript of the televised confession, broadcast on Sunday night"On November 5, I accompanied my husband to Jordan with a forged Iraqi passport, under the name of Ali Hussein Ali and Sajida Abdel Qader Latif. We waited and a white car arrived with a driver and a passenger. We rode with them and entered Jordan (from Iraq). My husband arranged our trip from there, I don't know. Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, FAILURE"In Jordan, we rented an apartment. He had two explosive belts. He put one on me and wore the other. He taught me how to use it, how to pull the [primer cord] and operate it. "He said it was to attack hotels in Jordan. We rented a car and entered the hotel on November 9. My husband and I went inside the hotel, he went to one corner and I went to another. "There was a wedding with children, women and men inside. My husband detonated [his bomb], I tried to explode [my belt] but it wouldn't. People fled and I ran with them."

Washington School Rescinds Ban On Rosary

A high school has rescinded a rule that prohibited students from wearing rosary beads a week after administrators prohibited them as symbols of potential gang involvement. Officials at Chelan High School said they acted too hastily when they imposed the ban after a training session with a police officer, who warned rosary beads worn around the neck can be a sign of gang activity, particularly among Latinos. But several students challenged the new dress code, sparking debate among school officials, parents and members of the clergy. "We need to do a better job of communicating when we make changes," Principal Tim Berndt said. "I didn't go through all the proper steps of notification." The district dropped the rosary rule Monday, as well as bans on other symbols, including an owl, the numbers 13, 14 and 18, and several sports jerseys of famous players.

Wal-Mart Cancels Christmas

Wal-Mart officials say they meant no disrespect when a company e-mail described Christmas as a mix of world religions and suggested that its employees say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." But the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is calling for a customer boycott until the world's largest retailer apologizes. Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman says the e-mail, which describes Christmas as a combination of world traditions from Siberian shamanism to Visigoth calendars, has been taken out of context. He says Wal-Mart encourages its employees to say "Happy Holidays" to be inclusive of celebrations from Thanksgiving to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's as well as Christmas.

Australia Says Two Cells Were Competing

Two Islamic terrorist cells were competing to become the first to stage a major bombing in Australia, a prosecutor said Tuesday after police arrested 17 suspects in a series of coordinated pre-dawn raids in two cities.Prime Minister John HowardAbout 500 police arrested nine men in the southern city of Melbourne and eight in Sydney, including one man critically injured in a gunfight with police. Police said they expected more arrests in coming days and weeks, but Prime Minister John Howard on Wednesday assured Muslims they were not being targeted. "People who support terrorism are as much their enemies as they are my or your enemies," Howard told Sydney Radio 2GB. "There is nothing in our laws, nor will there be anything in our laws, that targets an individual group, be it Islamic or otherwise." Ameer Ali, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, said the country's nearly 300,000-member Muslim community was shocked at the number of arrests and that all the suspects appeared to be Muslims. Some of their supporters clashed violently with news cameramen in Melbourne and Sydney on Tuesday. One of the suspects, Abdulla Merhi, wanted to carry out attacks to avenge the war in Iraq, police said in a Melbourne court. Howard was a strong supporter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has sent hundreds of troops to the country. Norm Hazzard, who heads the state's counterterrorism police unit, said the suspects were followers of the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. "I think you can go back to Osama bin Laden and those who follow his philosophy -- that is what terrorism in its modern form is all about and there's no doubt that this group followed that same philosophy," he said. Police said the alleged plotters apparently had not settled on a target. Adam Houda, a defense lawyer, said the Sydney suspects were innocent. "There's no evidence that terrorism was contemplated or being planned by any particular person at any particular time or at any particular place," he said. The raids came less than a week after Howard strengthened counterterrorism laws and said intelligence agencies had warned of a possible terrorist attack. He went on national TV Tuesday to say the risk was not over, despite the arrests. "This country has never been immune from a possible terrorist attack," he said. "That remains the situation today and it will be the situation tomorrow." Ali traveled to Canberra on Wednesday to appeal to the government to abandon plans to pass additional counterterrorism laws by Christmas. Muslims were concerned that provisions preventing terror suspects from discussing their detentions and interrogations and the media from reporting it could conceal abuses in the system and lead to racial profiling. "Under the existing laws, they have averted a disaster from taking place in this country; they have arrested the people who have been conspiring ... so we don't need new laws," Ali said. Both cells were led by one of the detainees, the 45-year-old firebrand cleric Abu Bakr, an Australian who was born in Algeria, a prosecutor said. Bakr made headlines earlier this year by calling bin Laden a "good man." The suspects were stockpiling the same kind of chemicals used in the deadly July 7 transit bombings in London, prosecutor Richard Maidment said at a hearing for the nine people arrested there. "Each of the members of the group are committed to the cause of violent jihad," he added, saying they underwent training at a camp northeast of Melbourne. Bakr was charged with leading the terrorist group while the Melbourne suspects were charged with membership of a terror group. Two of the men were denied bail on Wednesday. The seven men arrested in Sydney were ordered jailed until another session Friday on charges of preparing a terrorist act by manufacturing explosives. The man shot by police was under guard in hospital and was not immediately charged. Detective Sgt. Chris Murray told the court that police surveillance had picked up one suspect, 20-year-old Merhi, pleading for permission to become a martyr. Murray said Merhi appeared impatient and it was clear to police he wanted to die in a way "similar to the nature of a suicide bomber." Maidment said the Melbourne cell appeared eager to be first to stage an attack. "There has been discussion amongst the Melbourne group that the Sydney group were further ahead of them and they were anxious to do something themselves," he said.

Al-Qaeda Runs Into Rage In Morocco

Thousands marched through Morocco’s biggest city today to protest al Qaida’s decision to kill two Moroccan hostages in Iraq.Holding banners and chanting “Muslims are brothers. A Muslim does not kill his brother” and ‘“Yes’ to freedom, ‘No’ to terrorism and barbarity”, the protesters marched through Casablanca, a city of 6 million and Morocco’s financial capital. Al Qaida has said it decided to kill the Moroccan embassy employees, Abderrahim Boualem and Abdelkrim al Mouhafidi, because of Morocco’s support for the US-backed Iraqi government. Top Moroccan officials, ministers, pro-government and Opposition party leaders and trade unions and rights groups, led the protest to put pressures on al Qaida to free the two men. Morocco’s influential organisation of Islamic schol- ars, known as the High Council of the Ulema and the Councils of Ulema in the Moroc-can Kingdom, dismissed al Qaida’s argument that its verdict to kill the two embassy employees was “God’s judgment”.

CBS Commentator States Negro Is A Perfectly Good Word

Veteran CBS commentator Andy Rooney says he has a problem with the frequent use of the term "African-American" and suggests people use the word "Negro" instead to refer to blacks.Andy Rooney
"I object every time I hear the words 'African-American,' you know?" Rooney told radio host Don Imus this morning. "The word 'Negro' is a perfectly good word. It's a strong word and a good word. I don't see anything wrong with that. Mostly it's not necessary to identify anyone by skin color. But I don't care for 'African-American.'" The remarks came as Rooney was appearing via telephone on Imus' show, which is simulcast on MSNBC. Imus had referenced a frequent guest, Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., and noted that Ford is African-American.
Rooney: "I object every time I hear the words 'African-American,' you know? I don't know why we have gotten caught with that."
Imus: "Yeah, I don't either."

Rooney: "I mean, am I an 'Irish-American?'"

Imus: "Yeah, I know what you mean. What should I say, just 'black' right?"

Rooney: "Well, I don't think there's anything wrong with 'black.'"

Imus: "I don't either."

Rooney: "Growing up, it's funny how words get to be opprobrious. The word 'Negro' is a perfectly good word. It's a strong word and a good word. I don't see anything wrong with that. Mostly it's not necessary to identify anyone by skin color. But I don't care for 'African-American.'"

Imus: "I won't use it anymore."See the interview CLICK HERE

Michael Moore Owned Halliburton Stocks

Filmmaker Michael Moore has made a career out of trashing corporations and said he doesn't own any stocks due to moral principle. How then did author Peter Schweizer uncover IRS documents showing that Moore's very own foundation has bought stocks in some of America's largest corporations – including Halliburton, other defense contractors and some of the same companies he has attacked? In his blockbuster new book "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy," Hoover Fellow Schweizer reveals the glaring contradictions between the public stances and real-life behavior of prominent liberals including Al Franken, Ralph Nader, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. But he reserves some of his sharpest barbs for Moore. In his first documentary "Roger & Me," Moore skewered General Motors, Schweizer points out.

* In "The Big One," he went after Nike and PayDay candy bars.

* "Bowling for Columbine" was an attack on the American gun industry.

* Oil companies played a major role in "Fahrenheit 911."

* His upcoming film "Sicko" pillories drug companies and HMOs.

* On his television shows "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth," he criticized HMOs and defense contractors.
He once said that major defense contractor Halliburton was run by a bunch of "thugs," and suggested that for every American killed in the Iraq war, "I would like Halliburton to slay one mid-level executive." Publicly, Moore has claimed he wants no part of these companies and won't own stock. In his book "Stupid White Men," he wrote: "I don't own a single share of stock." He repeated the claim in a 1997 letter to the online magazine Salon, saying: "I don't own any stock." Privately, however, he tells the IRS a different story, Schweizer discloses in his book. The year that Moore claimed in "Stupid White Men" that he didn't own any stock, he told the IRS that a foundation totally controlled by Moore and his wife had more than $280,000 in corporate stock and nearly $100,000 in corporate bonds. Over the past five years, Moore's holdings have "included such evil pharmaceutical and medical companies as Pfizer, Merck, Genzyme, Elan PLC, Eli Lilly, Becton Dickinson and Boston Scientific," writes Schweizer, whose earlier works include "The Bushes" and "Reagan's War." "Moore's supposedly nonexistent portfolio also includes big bad energy giants like Sunoco, Noble Energy, Schlumberger, Williams Companies, Transocean Sedco Forex and Anadarko, all firms that 'deplete irreplaceable fossil fuels in the name of profit' as he put it in ‘Dude, Where's My Country?' "And in perhaps the ultimate irony, he also has owned shares in Halliburton. According to IRS filings, Moore sold Halliburton for a 15 percent profit and bought shares in Noble, Ford, General Electric (another defense contractor), AOL Time Warner (evil corporate media) and McDonald's. "Also on Moore's investment menu: defense contractors Honeywell, Boeing and Loral." Does Moore share the stock proceeds of his "foundation" with charitable causes, you might ask? Schweizer found that "for a man who by 2002 had a net worth in eight figures, he gave away a modest $36,000 through the foundation, much of it to his friends in the film business or tony cultural organizations that later provided him with venues to promote his books and film." Moore's hypocrisy doesn't end with his financial holdings. He has criticized the journalism industry and Hollywood for their lack of African-Americans in prominent positions, and in 1998 he said he personally wanted to hire minorities "who come from the working class." In "Stupid White Men," he proclaimed his plans to "hire only black people." But when Schweizer checked the senior credits for Moore's latest film "Fahrenheit 911," he found that of the movie's 14 producers, three editors, production manager and production coordinator, all 19 were white. So were all three cameramen and the two people who did the original music. On "Bowling for Columbine," 13 of the 14 producers were white, as were the two executives in charge of production, the cameramen, the film editor and the music composer. His show "TV Nation" had 13 producers, four film editors and 10 writers – but not a single African-American among them. And as for Moore's insistence on portraying himself as "working class" and an "average Joe," Schweizer recounts this anecdote: "When Moore flew to London to visit people at the BBC or promote a film, he took the Concorde and stayed at the Ritz. But he also allegedly booked a room at a cheap hotel down the street where he could meet with journalists and pose as a ‘man of humble circumstances.'" That's hypocrisy with a capital H!

Civil Liberties Hypocrites

Hypocrisy is on show in a Manhattan courtroom today. The New York Civil Liberties Union will argue for the second day before Judge Richard Berman that the city's subway bag search policy is an "unjustifiable erosion of the privacy rights of the American public." Yet take a walk into the NYCLU's Manhattan headquarters - which it shares with other organizations - and you'll find a sign warning visitors that all bags are subject to search. One of the city's lawyers, Jay Kranis, pointed this out yesterday in court while cross-examining a witness. Either the NYCLU believes its headquarters are at greater risk of a terrorist threat than the city's subway system, or it believes ordinary New Yorkers don't deserve the same safety precautions that they do. As reporters wrote back in July - when the police first announced random searches - the supposed civil liberties champions would do well to spend less time shouting through megaphones and more time reading the Fourth Amendment of which they've proclaimed themselves the defenders. The only searches it forbids are "unreasonable searches." The July attacks on London's transit system put New York's on higher alert, and Commissioner Kelly - about whom reporters wrote that they doubt he "has ever done anything unreasonable in his entire career" - decided the searches were necessary.

Australia Warned Of Home Grown Muslim Terrorists

Australia's security organization warns some Australian-born Muslims may have become a terrorist threat. The warning, the first of its kind, was in the organization's annual report, The Australian reported Wednesday. John Howard, Australia's Prime MinisterThe report said that some Muslims have begun to perceive the world as locked in conflict between their co-religionists and western infidels. Investigators suggested several hundred people hold this view and about 80 Australians are believed to have spent time in terrorist training camps. "This perception engenders a sense of isolation and rejection, which is difficult for moderate elements in the Australian community to counteract, and the moderates are perceived to be part of the problem by the extremists," the report said. The government of Prime Minister John Howard has proposed new anti-terrorist legislation that would allow control orders on the movements of some individuals.