From the Washington Times:

From left are, Imam Omar Shahin; Ibrahim Ramey, Director of Civil and Human Rights with the Muslim American Society; Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, with the National Black Leadership Roundtable; Mahdi Bray, Director of the Muslim American Society; and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia walk at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport, Monday, Nov. 27, 2006. Imams, ministers and a rabbi staged a “pray-in” demonstration at the airport and demanded an apology from US Airways for barring six Muslims from a Minneapolis to Phoenix flight last week.

How the imams terrorized an airliner

By Audrey Hudson

November 28, 2006

Muslim religious leaders removed from a Minneapolis flight last week exhibited behavior associated with a security probe by terrorists and were not merely engaged in prayers, according to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials.

Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted "Allah" when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix.

"I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud," the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department.

Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks — two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.

"That would alarm me," said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. "They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane."

A pilot from another airline said: "That behavior has been identified as a terrorist probe in the airline industry."

But the imams who were escorted off the flight in handcuffs say they were merely praying before the 6:30 p.m. flight on Nov. 20, and yesterday led a protest by prayer with other religious leaders at the airline’s ticket counter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, called removing the imams an act of Islamophobia and compared it to racism against blacks.

"It’s a shame that as an African-American and a Muslim I have the double whammy of having to worry about driving while black and flying while Muslim," Mr. Bray said.

The protesters also called on Congress to pass legislation to outlaw passenger profiling.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas Democrat, said the September 11 terrorist attacks "cannot be permitted to be used to justify racial profiling, harassment and discrimination of Muslim and Arab Americans."

"Understandably, the imams felt profiled, humiliated, and discriminated against by their treatment," she said.

According to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials, the imams displayed other suspicious behavior.

Three of the men asked for seat-belt extenders, although two flight attendants told police the men were not oversized. One flight attendant told police she "found this unsettling, as crew knew about the six [passengers] on board and where they were sitting." Rather than attach the extensions, the men placed the straps and buckles on the cabin floor, the flight attendant said.

The imams said they were not discussing politics and only spoke in English, but witnesses told law enforcement that the men spoke in Arabic and English, criticizing the war in Iraq and President Bush, and talking about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

The imams who claimed two first-class seats said their tickets were upgraded. The gate agent told police that when the imams asked to be upgraded, they were told no such seats were available. Nevertheless, the two men were seated in first class when removed.

A flight attendant said one of the men made two trips to the rear of the plane to talk to the imam during boarding, and again when the flight was delayed because of their behavior. Aviation officials, including air marshals and pilots, said these actions alone would not warrant a second look, but the combination is suspicious.

"That’s like shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. You just can’t do that anymore," said Robert MacLean, a former air marshal.

"They should have been denied boarding and been investigated," Mr. MacLean said. "It looks like they are trying to create public sympathy or maybe setting someone up for a lawsuit."

The pilot with another airline who talked to The Washington Times on condition of anonymity, said he would have made the same call as the US Airways pilot.

"If any group of passengers is commingling in the terminal and didn’t sit in their assigned seats or with each other, I would stop everything and investigate until they could provide me with a reason they did not sit in their assigned seats."

One of the passengers, Omar Shahin, told Newsweek the group did everything it could to avoid suspicion by wearing Western clothes, speaking English and booking seats so they were not together. He said they conducted prayers quietly and separately to avoid attention.

The imams had attended a conference sponsored by the North American Imam Federation in Minneapolis and were returning to Phoenix. Mr. Shahin, who is president of the federation, said on his Web site that none of the passengers made pro-Saddam or anti-American statements.

The pilot said the airlines are not "secretly prejudiced against any nationality, religion or culture," and that the only target of profiling is passenger behavior.

"There are certain behaviors that raise the bar, and not sitting in your assigned seat raises the bar substantially," the pilot said. "Especially since we know that this behavior has been evident in suspicious probes in the past."

"Someone at US Airways made a notably good decision," said a second pilot, who also does not work for US Airways.

A spokeswoman for US Airways declined to discuss the incident. Aviation security officials said thousands of Muslims fly every day and conduct prayers in airports in a quiet and private manner without creating incidents.

It is preposterous that our one party media even pretends their removal and questioning is even controversial.

We are at war.

Again.

From the DNC’s BBC:

Gaddafi in Nigeria airport drama

By Alex Last

Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has been involved in a diplomatic incident as he arrived in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, for a summit.

Nigerian officials say Col Gaddafi was accompanied by more than 200 heavily armed Libyan bodyguards.

When security officers refused to allow them to keep their weapons, an argument ensued and Col Gaddafi stormed off.

Only when Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo intervened did the bodyguards agree to hand in their weapons.

Foreign ministers from Africa and Latin America have been preparing for the summit which gets under way on Thursday.

The size of Libya’s delegation was not a problem, it seems, just the sheer amount of weapons and ammunition they carried.

So Nigerian security refused to let them proceed to the capital.

As arguments raged, the Libyan leader angrily set off on foot, intending to walk some 40km (25 miles) to the capital, before he was persuaded to return to the airport lounge.

Intervention

By sheer coincidence, President Obasanjo was passing through the airport at the same time.

He intervened in person and proposed that the weapons could be allowed through if they were registered first.

But the Nigerians say that was rejected and the Libyan delegation threatened to fly home.

Incensed, the Nigerians said that was fine with them and told the delegation that instead of the original compromise, they could now only carry eight pistols if they wanted to enter Nigeria, like any other diplomatic security detail.

They ordered that the rest of the weaponry had to be put back on the Libyan official jet.

After a stand-off lasting several hours, the Libyans backed down and finally made their way to Nigeria’s capital.

Why can’t they leave those poor girls alone?

From the New York Post:

10 SECONDS OF HELL IN QUEENS

COP’S ‘FRIENDLY FIRE’ SPARKED BARRAGE THAT KILLED GROOM
By MURRAY WEISS

November 27, 2006 — A doomed young groom was caught in the crossfire of an undercover cop, whose bullets went clear through his car, and confused officers who returned their own blistering barrage, sources told The Post last night.

The blaze of gunfire lasted just 10 seconds outside the seedy Kalua Cabaret strip club in South Jamaica early Saturday. But it ended the life of 23-year-old, unarmed Queens dad Sean Bell, who was set to marry his high-school sweetheart and the mother of his two young daughters hours after his bachelor party at the club.

Dramatic new details of the deadly mayhem include the undercover cop at one point climbing onto the hood of Bell’s car – his gun drawn and his police shield around his neck – screaming, "Police! Turn off your car! Let me see your hands!" said sources who talked to some of the cops involved in the shooting.

When Bell then tried to run down the plainclothes officer – twice – the cop began shooting, with some of his 11 bullets piercing the rear window of the man’s Nissan Altima, the sources said.

This left the cop’s backup unit – which was just arriving on the scene amid shattering glass and the undercover’s shouts of "He’s got a gun!" – thinking they were being fired upon from inside the vehicle. That’s when they returned fire with another 39 bullets. One 12-year veteran, a narcotics detective, pumped 31 bullets, authorities said.

The sources recounted step-by-step how quickly things spiraled out of control after a dispute inside the club involving one of Bell’s associates.

According to the sources, two undercovers were at the strip joint as part of the NYPD’s new Club Enforcement Initiative. The program was started after the July slaying of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore of New Jersey, who partied at a Chelsea club before being abducted, raped and killed in a Weehawken hotel.

The undercovers, who usually worked in Manhattan, were on the last night of their two-month Queens job to try to nail the Kalua and other clubs on such violations as drugs and underage prostitution.

Inside the club, one of the plainclothes cops sat next to a woman he thought was a hooker and might proposition him, the sources said.

Suddenly, a burly man approached them and told the woman that he had heard she had gotten into a fight with a group of guys earlier in the club. It was unclear what it was over.

The man said, " ‘Don’t worry, baby, I got you covered,’ and he takes her hand, and he rubs it across [the gun in] his waistband," a source said. "Then he tells her, ‘That’s what I’m here for.’ "

It’s unclear how the man smuggled his weapon past the metal detector outside the club. He likely was a regular who knew the bouncer at the door and may have worked there part time, helping with security, the sources said.

The undercover then went outside the club and radioed his backup to tell them there was a man inside with a gun. It was around 3:30 a.m.

While the undercover was outside, the suspect came out along with the girl and others, since it was around closing time.

The undercover watched as an argument erupted between Bell’s group, which included three male pals and the beefy man with the gun, and four other men – with the woman in the middle of them, the sources said.

The woman was overheard saying to the men arguing with Bell’s pals, "I’m not doing you all. I’ll do one or two, but not all," according to the sources.

Around the same time, the undercover said he heard Bell’s friend Joseph Guzman tell his buddies, "Yo, get my gun! Get my gun! Let’s get my gun from the car! Yeah, we’re gonna f- – - him up!" the sources said.

The undercover, thinking there was about to be a drive-by shooting in front of the club involving Bell’s group, followed Guzman, Bell and two others to their car.

"It’s getting hot! Something’s going to happen! Something’s going down!" the undercover radioed to his backup.

He hurried to the front of Bell’s Altima, which was parked on the side of nearby Liverpool Street, and jumped in front of it.

That’s when the undercover put his right leg up on the hood of the Altima and began screaming that he was a cop, the sources said.

The cop was leaning over the hood of the car to try to see the hands of the people inside and make sure they didn’t have any guns, they said. But Bell floored the gas pedal and headed for the cop, the sources said, striking him and badly cutting his knee.

One of the Altima’s passengers – who possibly had a gun – jumped out of the back of the car, the sources said.

Around the same time, an unmarked Toyota Camry driven by a plainclothes police lieutenant and another cop behind him pulled up, but overshot Bell’s car. A police van with an officer and the narcotics detective then managed to block Bell’s car in.

Bell’s Altima first struck the police van in the driver’s desperate bid to escape, then backed up and struck the roll-down metal doors of a commercial building behind him. He then revved his car again toward the undercover – which prompted the cop to scream, "He’s got a gun!" and start firing, according to the sources, with the bullets passing through Bell’s car.

"The undercover thought they had more than one gun. He thought they would do anything to get away. He was yelling, ‘Let me see your hands!’ " one source said.

The other cops, thinking they were under attack, started firing at the car, too.

At one point, the detective thought his gun had jammed and so reloaded his magazine and emptied the clip again at the car, firing 31 bullets.

Bell was killed, Guzman critically injured, and a third friend, Trent Benefield, was shot. They are expected to live.

Benefield later told a friend from his hospital bed that he and his buddies didn’t know the undercovers were cops.

He told investigators, "I got into the car, and there was all this shooting."

It was unclear when the other four men who were originally fighting with Bell and his pals fled the scene. They were spotted leaving in a black SUV.

Bell had been arrested three times in the past: twice for drugs and one on a gun rap in a case that was sealed. Guzman has been busted nine times, including for armed robbery. He spent two stretches in state prison in the ’90s. Benefield has a sealed record as a juvenile for gun possession and robbery.

Some marijuana was later found near the Altima, and investigators believe that it may have been tossed out by the group before the gunfire. Two bullet casings also were recovered from the Altima, although cops said they do not believe they were from a police gun.

The shooting of Bell, who was black, has ignited racial tensions in the city – even though the cops involved included two blacks, a Hispanic and two whites.

The five cops who fired shots were put on administrative duty. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said it was the first time that any of the officers were involved in a shooting.

Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino said the cops were justified in firing off a total of 50 bullets at unarmed men because Bell was using his car as a lethal weapon.

"Once the threat ended, so did the shooting."

A source told The Post: "They [the cops] feel completely sad about what happened. They made a decision, and they’re going to live with it."

Mayor Bloomberg spoke to Bell’s fiancée Saturday after the shooting, sources said.

Details that the race-baiting pretend reverend Al Sharpton and his allies in our one party media are overlooking.

From the Washington Times:

House to avoid ‘extreme’

By Eric Pfeiffer

November 27, 2006

Three Democrats who will lead powerful House committees in the next Congress insisted their party will not pursue a radical agenda, with one backing off some from his vows for a military draft, but said they will first tackle issues that have bipartisan support.

"We want to win elections, and we’re going to do our best to do so. This doesn’t mean to get into any extreme positions on any matter," said Rep. John D. Dingell, Michigan Democrat, during a joint appearance on "Fox News Sunday" with Reps. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Charles B. Rangel of New York.

"We’ll do what makes good sense on Iraq, what makes good sense on tax policy, what makes good sense on the environment and on energy, and we’ll come up with a package that the people will like and that will make good sense in the middle," said Mr. Dingell, who is expected to lead the House Energy and Commerce Committee when Democrats take control in January.

"The first thing we’re going to do is try to work together on things we know we can accomplish," Mr. Rangel said, adding that the Democrat-led Congress will not become "the committee against the president; it’s not going to happen."

Mr. Frank said during his appearance on "Fox News Sunday" that the Democratic agenda will be popular because many of their signature issues, including a proposal to raise the minimum wage, have been incorrectly identified as liberal.

"I think it’s very popular. I think a lot of issues that people are talking about are indeed quite popular," he said. "Giving the federal government the mandate to negotiate drug prices as part of the prescription-drug program I think has great majority support."

"In fact, what’s happened is some things have become liberal because the right-wingers who control the Republican Party have abandoned them to us," said Mr. Frank, who is slated to lead the House Financial Services Committee.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ike Skelton, the incoming Armed Services Committee chairman, said that congressional resolutions from earlier this year mean that it is now "law" that U.S. forces should begin withdrawing from Iraq immediately.

"We’re going to have to send a message to the Maliki government, to the Iraqi people, as well as the American people that we’re not there forever. And it’s in the law that we redeploy this year. That would begin it this year," the Missouri Democrat said during an appearance on NBC’s "Meet the Press."

Mr. Frank said he hopes to offer a bill that would allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military. However, the homosexual lawmaker said that his personal priorities aside, it was not near the top of his legislative agenda.

"Our first efforts are going to be to do those things that I think the mainstream of America wants," he said.

Mr. Rangel said his party wouldn’t be able to pass more partisan legislation even if it wanted.

"First, we can’t do anything Democratically. We need Republicans working together," he said. "And, second, the president has a veto. We don’t want really a fight with the president. What we want to do is to prove that we can govern for the next two years."

When asked about his draft proposal, Mr. Rangel damped down his words from last week somewhat, when he made headlines by saying he was serious about pushing such a proposal through Congress. Yesterday, he acknowledged having little power to make it happen in his committee chairmanship.

"I want to make it abundantly clear that I have been advocating a draft ever since the president has been talking about war, and none of this comes within the jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee," he said.

Mr. Rangel stood by remarks that the Army is staffed by low-income and uneducated people.

"I want to make it abundantly clear, if there’s anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits," said Mr. Rangel, a Korean War veteran. "If a young fellow has an option of having a decent career or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq."

Good thing they aren’t extremists, huh?

But it looks like Rangel is such a buffoon he is parroting Mr. Kerry’s "botched joke":

If a young fellow has an option of having a decent career or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq.

I wonder if Rangel considers his years in Congress as "a decent career"?

I can’t think of anything more indecent.

From Chavez’s colleagues at Al Jazeera:

Ecuadorean presidential candidate Rafael Correa is surrounded by supporters while arriving for a victory celebration after he appeared to have clinched the election based on exit polls and partial vote counts, in Guayaquil, early November 27, 2006.

Correa ahead in Ecuador vote count

Rafael Correa was ahead of Alvaro Noboa after Sunday’s presidential run-off election in Ecuador, according to partial official results.

The results don’t necessarily reflect a national trend as ballot box counts are first received from smaller provinces before the most populated areas.

However, the results, which are expected to be fully tallied by Tuesday, mirrored exit polls.

With 13.71 per cent of ballot boxes counted, Correa got 66.23 per cent of the votes and Noboa 33.77 per cent.

Exit polls showed Correa, who has pledged to radically reform Ecuadorean politics, has a wide lead over Noboa.
Correa, a US-trained economist, told supporters that we "accept this victory with dignity and humility".

Pollster CEDATOS-Gallup said Correa, an ally of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, received 56.8 per cent of the votes compared to Noboa, who gained 43.2 per cent.

Market, a second pollster, gave Correa 58 per cent to 42 per cent for Noboa.

At a news conference in Quito, Correa said: "Thank God, we have triumphed. We are just instruments of the power of the people. This is a clear message that the people want change."

However, Noboa immediately rejected Sunday’s exit poll results, saying he would wait for the official count to end.

He said in a television interview: "I know in my interior that I won. The electoral tribunal will give the official figure once it has finished the vote count."

Citizens’ revolution

Correa won a place in Sunday’s run-off by pledging a "citizens’ revolution" against the discredited country’s political system.

Ecuadoreans have driven the last three elected presidents from power and Correa appealed to voters as a fresh face in a field of established politicians.

He has pledged to construct 100,000 low-cost homes and copied Noboa’s promise to double to $36 a "poverty bonus" that 1.2 million poor Ecuadoreans receive each month.

Correa’s election would add another member to South America’s grouping of left-leaning nations, which already includes Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

Noboa, a billionaire, had run an old-fashioned populist campaign, crisscrossing Ecuador, from its Pacific coast to the Andes and eastward to the Amazon jungle, handing out computers, medicine and money.

He said he was willing to accept a clean defeat, but "if it is fraudulent, we will never accept it".

It looks like Iran’s president may be right.

The world is becoming Ahmadinejad-ised.

From a disappointed Associated Press:

Malachi Ritscher holds up a sign during an antiwar protest in Chicago in this photo from April 2003. On Nov. 3, 2006, Ritscher set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire on expressway off-ramp in down Chicago. War protesters are hailing him as a martyr.

Protester Immolation Virtually Unnoticed

Sunday, November 26, 2006

By ASHLEY M. HEHER, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO — Malachi Ritscher envisioned his death as one full of purpose.

He carefully planned the details, mailed a copy of his apartment key to a friend, created to-do lists for his family. On his Web site, the 52-year-old experimental musician who’d fought with depression even penned his obituary.

At 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 3 — four days before an election caused a seismic shift in Washington politics — Ritscher, a frequent anti-war protester, stood by an off-ramp in downtown Chicago near a statue of a giant flame, set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire.

Aglow for the crush of morning commuters, his flaming body was supposed to be a call to the nation, a symbol of his rage and discontent with the U.S. war in Iraq.

"Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country," he wrote in his suicide note. "… If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country."

There was only one problem: No one was listening.

It took five days for the Cook County medical examiner to identify the charred-beyond-recognition corpse. Meanwhile, Ritscher’s suicide went largely unnoticed. It wasn’t until a reporter for an alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader, pieced the facts together that word began to spread.

Soon, tributes — and questions — poured in to the paper’s blogs.

Was this a man consumed by mental illness? Or was Ritscher a martyr driven by rage over what he saw as an unjust war? Was he a convenient symbol for an anti-war movement or was there more to his message?

"This man killed himself in such a painful way, specifically to get our attention on these things," said Jennifer Diaz, a 28-year-old graduate student who never met him but has been researching his life. Now, she is organizing protests and vigils in his name. "I’m not going to sit by and I can’t sit by and let this go unheard."

Mental health experts say virtually no suicides occur without some kind of a diagnosable mental illness. But Ritscher’s family disagrees about whether he had severe mental problems.

In a statement, Ritscher’s parents and siblings called him an intellectually gifted man who suffered from bouts of depression. They stopped short of saying he’d ever received a clinical diagnosis of mental illness.

"He believed in his actions, however extreme they were," his younger brother, Paul Ritscher, wrote online. "He believed they could help to open eyes, ears and hearts and to show everyone that a single man’s actions, by taking such extreme personal responsibility, can perhaps affect change in the world."

His son, who shares the same name as his father, said his father was trying to cope with mental illness. Suicide seemed to be the next step, and the war was a way to give his death meaning.

"He was different people at different instances and so, so erratic. I loved him no doubt, but he was a very lonely and tragic man," said Ritscher, 35, who is estranged from the rest of the family. "The idea of being a martyr I’m sure was attractive. He could literally go out in a blaze of glory."

Born in Dickinson, N.D., with the name Mark David, Ritscher dropped out of high school, married at 17 and divorced 10 years later. Eventually, he would change his name to match his son’s and, coincidentally, a world-famous prophet. At the end, he worked in building maintenance and was a fixture in Chicago’s experimental music scene.

He described himself as a renaissance man who’d amassed a collection of more than 2,000 musical recordings from clubs in Chicago. He was a writer, philosopher and photographer. He was an alcoholic who collected fossils, glass eyes, light bulbs and snare drums. He paid $25 to become an ordained minister with the Missionaries of the New Truth and operated a handful of Web sites protesting the Iraq war.

A member of Mensa who claimed to be able to recite the infinite number Pi to more than 1,000 decimal places, he titled his obituary "Out of Time." Friends, who seemed surprised about his death, found themselves searching for answers. Ritscher’s death became even more enigmatic than his life.

Perhaps the most famous self-immolation occurred in 1963, when Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself at a Saigon intersection in protest against the south Vietnamese regime. Another activist, Kathy Change, lit fire to herself in 1996 at the University of Pennsylvania to protest the government and the country’s economic system.

Ritscher’s death brought back memories for Anita King, a 48-year-old artist from West Philadelphia who was Change’s best friend.

"I think both of them, they just felt like their death could be the last drop of blood shed," King said. "It was too hard for them. They had too much of a conscious connection to the struggle to go on in their lives."

In the end, only Ritscher knew the motivations for his suicide. There is little doubt, though, that he was satisfied with his choice.

"Without fear I go now to God," Ritscher wrote in the last sentence of his suicide note. "Your future is what you will choose today."

If a protester burns in Chicago, and nobody is there to see him…

Still, I bet it would get some ink if Cindy Sheehan did ink. What with her Soros/Fenton connections.

Hint, hint.

(Thanks to DGA for the heads up.)

From the terrorist enablers at Reuters:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki arrives in Baghdad’s Sadr city November 26, 2006. Angry fellow Shi’ites threw rocks at Maliki’s motorcade during his visit on Sunday to pay his respects to some of the 202 victims of last week’s devastating bombing.

Calls for calm as crowd stones Iraqi PM

Sun Nov 26, 2006

By Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Angry fellow Shi’ites stoned Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s motorcade in a Shi’ite stronghold of Baghdad on Sunday in a display of fury over a devastating car bomb that tore through their area.

Maliki was visiting the Sadr City slum to pay respects to some of the 202 victims of last week’s devastating bombing.

"It’s all your fault!" one man shouted as, in unprecedented scenes, a hostile crowd began to surge around the premier and then jeered as his armored convoy edged through the throng away from a mourning ceremony.

The area is a base for the Mehdi Army militia led by Maliki’s fellow Shi’ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr.

Though the violence was limited, it was a dramatic demonstration of the popular passions Maliki and his national unity government are trying to calm following Thursday’s multiple car bombs in Sadr City — the worst since the U.S. invasion — and later revenge attacks.

On Sunday, a car bomb killed at least 6 people and wounded more than 20 in a market just south of Baghdad, police said.

On the third full day of a curfew on the capital, mortar bombs crashed down in various parts of Baghdad and residents reported isolated and mostly unexplained clashes.

The government has said traffic can circulate again from Monday morning but, after a series of high-level meetings, it again appealed for calm.

APPEAL FOR UNITY

"We are counting on you, a great nation," Shi’ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish leaders said in a joint statement. "Do not let those who are depriving you of security impinge on your unity.

"They want to drag you all into angry reactions.

"Those whose forefathers have lived together for thousands of years on this land as brothers … come today so we can write our history, our present and the future, for our children and grandchildren, in forgiveness," the statement continued.

Maliki accused factions in the government itself of fuelling conflict. Three days before he meets President George W. Bush to talk about how to impose stability and start pulling out U.S. troops, he said the violence reflected a "political crisis".

Frustrated by deadlock in the national unity government over the past six months and harsher rhetoric between minority Sunnis and his fellow Shi’ite leaders, he said: "The ones who can stop a further deterioration and the bloodshed are the politicians."

But he added this could happen "only when they agree and all realize that there are no winners and losers in this battle."

"Let’s be totally honest — the security situation is a reflection of political disagreement," he said on television.

Iraqis — and Maliki’s sponsors in Washington — are frustrated at his failure to improve either security or the economy since being appointed in April as a compromise candidate following months of wrangling within the dominant Shi’ite bloc.

Maliki’s aides say he in turn is irritated by uncompromising language, and support for armed groups, among Sunni leaders and Shi’ite allies, like Sadr, on whom he depends for his position.

The U.S. and Iraqi governments have indicated the summit in Jordan will go ahead, despite a demand from Sadr, who wants an immediate U.S. withdrawal, that Maliki boycott the talks.

Ever notice how the people at fault are never blamed?

Al Qaeda was behind these attacks. But the locals pretend it was anyone else but.

And of course our one party media helps them with their propaganda.

From Ahmadinejad’s fans at Reuters:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (L) reviews Basij paramilitary volunteers during their parade ceremony in front of the shrine of Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini mausoleum south of Tehran November 26, 2006.

Iran says will help U.S. if it quits Iraq

Sunday, November 26, 2006; 9:45 AM

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday Iran was ready to help the United States and Britain in Iraq but only if they pledged to change their attitude and withdraw their troops.

The remark comes amid growing calls for Washington to engage Iraq’s neighbors, Iran and Syria, to help prevent Iraq plunging into civil war.

A senior U.S. official said this month Washington was "in principle" ready to discuss Iraq with Iran but said the timing of such talks was unclear. Ahmadinejad has previously said he would talk but only if Washington changed its behavior.

"The Iranian nation is ready to help you get out of that swamp (in Iraq) on one condition … you should pledge to correct your attitude," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech to a parade of the Basij religious militia.

"Go back and take your forces to behind your borders and serve your own nations," he added.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani should make a delayed visit to Tehran on Monday to discuss Iraq after a curfew in place since a mass car bombing on Thursday was due to be lifted.

Ahmadinejad regularly condemns the U.S. occupation of Iraq and complains about U.S. bases in the region. Washington accuses Iran of seeking to foment unrest, while Iran blames the violence on the presence of U.S. troops.

The Iranian president also criticizes what he says is a hostile U.S. and British attitude to Iran, particularly over its disputed nuclear programme.

Western countries, including the United States and Britain, accuse Iran of seeking to develop atomic bombs, a charge Iran denies. It says its aim is to generate electricity.

Ahmadinejad urged countries in the region to work together to expel foreign forces from their soil.

"Let us put our hands together and expel enemies who are against humanity from our countries and our sacred lands," he said.

Iran has in the past called for a security pact between Iran and other regional states, but Gulf Arab countries, dominated by Sunni Muslims, have long been suspicious of Shi’ite Muslim Iran’s intentions in the region.

He’s never lied to us before.

What are we waiting for?

From France’s AFP:

Italy’s Berlusconi recovers after collapse

11-26-2006

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi collapsed briefly while making a political speech in a stuffy sports hall but recovered after being carried out of the room.

Live television pictures showed Berlusconi on the podium closing his eyes and slowly collapsing in front of the microphone while trying to speak in an address to political supporters in Montecatini, near Florence Sunday.

His bodyguards immediately stepped in to stop him falling over and his personal doctor Umberto Scapagnini was seen apparently taking Berlusconi’s pulse. The bodyguards then carried him out of the hall.

"He lost conscience for a few seconds. The cause could just as likely be the fatigue of these last few days, as the strong heat in the hall," Scapagnini said.

Half an hour after the incident the 70-year-old media magnate walked out of the building and stepped into a car, ANSA news agency reported.

His spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said Berlusconi was feeling better and would return by helicopter from the central Italian town to his residence near the northern city of Milan. He is then due to undergo a detailed medical examination.

Berlusconi "has recovered, he is better and is walking unaided," Bonaiuti said on Rai state television. He added that the incident was due to a fall in blood pressure.

"We laid him out and he immediately regained consciousness and his blood pressure returned to normal," Scapagnini added.

Berlusconi, Italy’s richest man, left government last April after his centre-right coalition lost elections to Romano Prodi, who now heads a centre-left government.

Shortly before collapsing Sunday, he told supporters at the political meeting that emotions could be harmful to health at his age.

"You do not think of the fact that we elderly people are more exposed to emotion and that emotion can at times play bad tricks on the heart," he said.

SKY TG24 television said Berlusconi was currently taking antibiotics and had complained on arrival that the hall was over-heated.

Berlusconi’s political opponents, including the prime minster and two vice-prime ministers, promptly sent him get-well wishes after his collapse.

"Dear Silvio, I am very concerned by what happened today while you were talking with your customary ardour to young members of your party," said a message from Prodi.

"I am convinced that it is just a small problem and wish you a speedy recovery."

Berlusconi and his conservative allies are planning a big protest next weekend in Rome against the Prodi government’s budgetary plans.

Next week will also see the continuation of Berlusconi’s trial on tax fraud and money-laundering charges, He faces up to 12 years in jail if convicted.

The article neglects to mention that Berlusconi has also been recently accused of having rigged the last election — even though he lost.

But given that he faces a hard-line Communist opponent, maybe they should check for radiation poisoning.

From those lovers of the gorgeous mosaic at the DNC’s Associated Press:

Men seek apology from ex-’Seinfeld’ star

By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press Writer

Sat Nov 25

Two men who say they were insulted by actor-comedian Michael Richards during his racist rant at a comedy club want a personal apology and maybe some money, one of the men and their lawyer said Friday.

Frank McBride and Kyle Doss said they were part of a group of about 20 people who had gathered at West Hollywood’s Laugh Factory to celebrate a friend’s birthday. According to their attorney, Gloria Allred, they were ordering drinks when Richards berated them for interrupting his act.

When one of their group replied that he wasn’t funny, Richards launched into a string of obscenities and repeatedly used the n-word. A video cell phone captured the outburst.

Richards, who played Jerry Seinfeld’s wacky neighbor Kramer on the TV sitcom "Seinfeld," made a nationally televised apology on the "Late Show with David Letterman" earlier this week. He has since apologized to the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, both civil rights leaders.

But Doss, 26, said Friday he wanted a "face-to-face apology."

"To have him do what he did to me … I can’t even explain it," Doss said. "I was humiliated, even scared at one point."

Richards’ publicist said his client wants to apologize to both men, who are black, but hasn’t been able to locate them.

Allred, speaking by phone from Colorado, said Richards should meet McBride and Doss in front of a retired judge to "acknowledge his behavior and to apologize to them" and allow the judge to decide on monetary compensation.

"It’s not enough to say ‘I’m sorry’ on ‘David Letterman,’" she said.

She did not mention a specific figure, but pitched the idea as a way for the comic to avoid a lawsuit.

"Our clients were vulnerable," Allred said. "He went after them. He singled them out and he taunted them, and he did it in a closed room where they were captive."

The video of Richards’ outburst shows several people getting up and walking out as he shouts at the audience.

Richards’ publicist said the comic wasn’t considering any demand for payment. "He’s not dealing with that," Howard Rubenstein said. "He wants to apologize to them directly and then see what happens."

What a shocking development.

Undoubtedly a sizeable contribution to the (pretend) Reverends Jackson and Sharpton is also in order.

But why is it that the YouTube posting of the video of this historic incident does not include the remarks from these two "victims"?

From the terrorist enablers at Reuters:

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal

Hamas predicts new uprising if no peace progress

Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:05 AM ET

By Alaa Shahine and Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) – The militant Islamist group Hamas warned Israel on Saturday of a third uprising if it failed with the United States and Europe to make progress toward a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal told a news conference in Cairo Western powers would have six months to seize on "the historic chance" to settle the region’s longest conflict once a national unity cabinet is formed between Hamas and rival group Fatah.

But forming the government is subject to talks between the two groups and faces several obstacles, including obtaining guarantees to ensure the end of a Western financial ban on the Palestinian Authority once the cabinet takes power.

Shortly before Meshaal’s ultimatum, Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel, residents said. Israeli artillery shells later hit a house and a car in the northern Gaza Strip, wounding at least two people, hospital officials said.

Israeli forces also killed a Palestinian militant in the strip on Saturday, and in a separate incident overnight, they shot dead an unidentified Palestinian while he was approaching the strategic Karni border crossing.

"We give them six months and the real political horizon will open up," said Meshaal, in Cairo to discuss efforts to form the unity government and a possible prisoner exchange with Israel.

If progress is not made, Meshaal said, the Palestinian Authority could collapse and "the Palestinian people will close all the political ledgers and come out in a third intifada (uprising) project and the struggle will be wide open."

Palestinians began an uprising in 2000 in which they carried out frequent attacks inside Israel. There has been a sharp reduction in such strikes in the Jewish state since a ceasefire was declared in early 2005.

Meshaal gave few details of his negotiations in Cairo on a unity government, seen by Palestinians as a way to end the financial sanctions imposed after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.

One issue delaying the agreement with Fatah, he said, was his group’s rejection to the idea of a cabinet of technocrats based on competence regardless of their party or factional affiliations — an idea meant to keep Hamas at a distance from the levers of power.

Meshaal also made clear Hamas would not give up its control of the Palestinian Interior Ministry, which oversees major Palestinian security services.

Hamas’s insistence on controlling the Interior Ministry has bogged down negotiations between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

"(Hamas is) the ruling party… Some people want us to give up the tools of power. This is injustice," Meshaal said.

Senior Palestinian officials said Abbas had planned to announce on Saturday he was naming a U.S.-trained academic, Mohammad Shbair, to replace Haniyeh as prime minister.

But Haniyeh has refused to step aside until a final agreement on a unity government is reached.

Meshaal said there was progress in negotiations, mediated by Egypt, to swap hundreds of Palestinian prisoners with an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was captured in a cross-border operation by Palestinian militants, including members of Hamas, in June. He blamed Israel for the delay but gave no details.

Israel began an offensive in the Gaza Strip after Shalit’s capture. An estimated 402 Palestinians, about half of them militants, have been killed since the Gaza offensive began, say Palestinian hospital officials.

Asked is Shalit was in a good health, Meshaal grinned, telling a reporter: "He is good and he sends his regards."

What a switch. If the terrorists don’t get what they want they will start another infant tantrum intifada.

Never mind that the Palestinians have already been given everything they want.

Even most of the restrictions on aid have been lifted, based on the claim that Hamas was going to form a new government with Fatah.

Hamas’s insistence on controlling the Interior Ministry has bogged down negotiations between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. "(Hamas is) the ruling party… Some people want us to give up the tools of power. This is injustice," Meshaal said.

Of course that turned out to be a lie.

But no matter.

From the immigration experts at ABC News:

Pear Crop Rots as Field Hands Kept from Crossing Border

Amid Immigration Debate, Farm Bureau Official Says, ‘We Couldn’t Get by Without Foreign Workers’

By JOHN QUINONES

LAKE COUNTY, Calif., Nov. 24, 2006 — Nick Ivicevich has been growing pears in northern California for 45 years, but never had he seen as good a crop as the one that blossomed here this season.

"I thought I died and went to heaven," he said. "I kept pinching myself. I could not believe how beautiful my crop was."

But now, much of his crop, almost two million pounds, lies on the ground — rotting away.

Thanks to increased security along the Mexican border, thousands of migrant workers who harvest the nation’s fruits and vegetables never showed up for work. Ivicevich’s pears ripened and then just fell off the tree.

"I’d lay in my house," he said, "and hear, ‘plop, plop, plop’ … and I’d have to look at them out my window. And, it’s just sickening."

Watch John Quinones’ report on the rotting pear crop tonight on "World News."

Farmers across the country blame Congress for not coming up with legislation that would grant migrant workers "seasonal worker status," allowing them to come work in U.S. fields temporarily and legally. It’s a matter of national security, some say.

"Do we want to become dependent on foreign food like we are on foreign oil?" asked Toni Scully, a California pear shipper. "Or do we want to recognize that our food is put on our table by Mexican workers who need a legal way, and deserve a legal way, to come into this country?"

"We couldn’t get by without foreign workers in California," said Jack King of the California Farm Bureau. "We employ some 450,000 workers."

As if things weren’t bad enough, the farmers in California are worried about the pruning season for the pear trees in December. And then there’s the next harvest — not only pears, but also of grapes and walnuts. Unless those workers somehow get across that border, agriculture here once again will be hard hit, if not crippled.

If the migrants don’t show up for the next harvest, Ivicevich said he’ll have to destroy entire orchards that were planted more than a century ago."

"That makes them 120 years old," he said, in tears. "So, I mean, how could I take that tree out?"

Instead of pears, he said, he’d grow hay — a crop that doesn’t require too many workers.

There aren’t enough illegal aliens currently in this country to pick pears? Every year we have to import more?

Could it be because of another crusade of ABC’s?

Maybe once these "immigrants" are educated they want to be paid higher wages?