From Bloomberg:

Libby Juror Dismissed; Deliberations Continue With 11

By Cary O’Reilly

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) — A juror in the perjury case of Lewis ”Scooter” Libby was dismissed after being exposed to out-of- court information on the case. The judge decided deliberations would continue with the 11 remaining jury members.

The female juror came in contact with information about the case by accident, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said after discussing the situation with her, the jury foreperson and lawyers. He ruled that the juror, an art historian, could not remain on the panel.

”She did have contact with information related to this case,” Walton said in court in Washington today. ”It wasn’t intentional on her part, it was a misunderstanding of what I had been telling her throughout the trial.” …

Walton said other jurors weren’t tainted by the information learned by the dismissed juror, which he didn’t describe. To avoid the potential for a mistrial, he has instructed the jury throughout the trial not to view or listen to any news or other reports about the case.

Walton told the remaining jurors to resume deliberations. Defense lawyer Ted Wells told the judge that adding an alternate to return the panel to 12 members would require it to start over, which he said wouldn’t be fair to Libby.

By removing one juror, ”it’s not like we’re on the cliff of some mistrial,” Wells said. Walton said one of two remaining alternates could be called if another jury member is lost.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said the government preferred a 12-member jury…

It’s hard to say, but it looks like the defense may be more confident about going with the cards they have been dealt than Mr. Fitzgerald is.

From the UK’s Telegraph:

Al-Qa’eda ‘plotted to kill Blair in front of Queen’

By Andrew Pierce

26/02/2007

Tony Blair defied an assassination threat from al-Qa’eda to take part in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in central London, it can be revealed for the first time.

The risk to the Prime Minister was disclosed to a new BBC documentary by Lord Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in 2002. He positioned marksmen around Buckingham Palace in readiness for an attack by bombers or snipers.

Lord Stevens, talking for the first time about the alleged plot, said: “There was a threat against the Prime Minister over the Queen’s Jubilee period. It was an assassination threat. There was good reason to believe that the threat was credible.”

Mr Blair had become a target after backing the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan by the deployment of British air power and troops. He was also using his diplomatic influence to try to generate support for President George W Bush to invade Iraq.

The climax of the celebrations in the summer of 2002 was a street party in The Mall attended by the Queen and senior members of the Royal Family…

The sad thing is, if Al Qaeda had succeeded, the UK probably would have felt obligated to surrender.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Choice on Iraq

“I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully about what to do next.”

BY JOSEPH LIEBERMAN
Monday, February 26, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Two months into the 110th Congress, Washington has never been more bitterly divided over our mission in Iraq. The Senate and House of Representatives are bracing for parliamentary trench warfare–trapped in an escalating dynamic of division and confrontation that will neither resolve the tough challenges we face in Iraq nor strengthen our nation against its terrorist enemies around the world.

What is remarkable about this state of affairs in Washington is just how removed it is from what is actually happening in Iraq. There, the battle of Baghdad is now under way. A new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has taken command, having been confirmed by the Senate, 81-0, just a few weeks ago. And a new strategy is being put into action, with thousands of additional American soldiers streaming into the Iraqi capital.

Congress thus faces a choice in the weeks and months ahead. Will we allow our actions to be driven by the changing conditions on the ground in Iraq–or by the unchanging political and ideological positions long ago staked out in Washington? What ultimately matters more to us: the real fight over there, or the political fight over here?

If we stopped the legislative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would see what the new security strategy actually entails and how dramatically it differs from previous efforts. For the first time in the Iraqi capital, the focus of the U.S. military is not just training indigenous forces or chasing down insurgents, but ensuring basic security–meaning an end, at last, to the large-scale sectarian slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has paralyzed Iraq for the past year.

Tamping down this violence is more than a moral imperative. Al Qaeda’s stated strategy in Iraq has been to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war, precisely because they recognize that it is their best chance to radicalize the country’s politics, derail any hope of democracy in the Middle East, and drive the U.S. to despair and retreat. It also takes advantage of what has been the single greatest American weakness in Iraq: the absence of sufficient troops to protect ordinary Iraqis from violence and terrorism.

The new strategy at last begins to tackle these problems. Where previously there weren’t enough soldiers to hold key neighborhoods after they had been cleared of extremists and militias, now more U.S. and Iraqi forces are either in place or on the way. Where previously American forces were based on the outskirts of Baghdad, unable to help secure the city, now they are living and working side-by-side with their Iraqi counterparts on small bases being set up throughout the capital.

At least four of these new joint bases have already been established in the Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad–the same neighborhoods where, just a few weeks ago, jihadists and death squads held sway. In the Shiite neighborhoods of east Baghdad, American troops are also moving in–and Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army are moving out.

We of course will not know whether this new strategy in Iraq will succeed for some time. Even under the most optimistic of scenarios, there will be more attacks and casualties in the months ahead, especially as our fanatical enemies react and attempt to thwart any perception of progress.

But the fact is that we are in a different place in Iraq today from even just a month ago–with a new strategy, a new commander, and more troops on the ground. We are now in a stronger position to ensure basic security–and with that, we are in a stronger position to marginalize the extremists and strengthen the moderates; a stronger position to foster the economic activity that will drain the insurgency and militias of public support; and a stronger position to press the Iraqi government to make the tough decisions that everyone acknowledges are necessary for progress.

Unfortunately, for many congressional opponents of the war, none of this seems to matter. As the battle of Baghdad just gets underway, they have already made up their minds about America’s cause in Iraq, declaring their intention to put an end to the mission before we have had the time to see whether our new plan will work.

There is of course a direct and straightforward way that Congress could end the war, consistent with its authority under the Constitution: by cutting off funds. Yet this option is not being proposed. Critics of the war instead are planning to constrain and squeeze the current strategy and troops by a thousand cuts and conditions.

Among the specific ideas under consideration are to tangle up the deployment of requested reinforcements by imposing certain “readiness” standards, and to redraft the congressional authorization for the war, apparently in such a way that Congress will assume the role of commander in chief and dictate when, where and against whom U.S. troops can fight.

I understand the frustration, anger and exhaustion so many Americans feel about Iraq, the desire to throw up our hands and simply say, “Enough.” And I am painfully aware of the enormous toll of this war in human life, and of the infuriating mistakes that have been made in the war’s conduct.

But we must not make another terrible mistake now. Many of the worst errors in Iraq arose precisely because the Bush administration best-cased what would happen after Saddam was overthrown. Now many opponents of the war are making the very same best-case mistake–assuming we can pull back in the midst of a critical battle with impunity, even arguing that our retreat will reduce the terrorism and sectarian violence in Iraq.

In fact, halting the current security operation at midpoint, as virtually all of the congressional proposals seek to do, would have devastating consequences. It would put thousands of American troops already deployed in the heart of Baghdad in even greater danger–forced to choose between trying to hold their position without the required reinforcements or, more likely, abandoning them outright. A precipitous pullout would leave a gaping security vacuum in its wake, which terrorists, insurgents, militias and Iran would rush to fill–probably resulting in a spiral of ethnic cleansing and slaughter on a scale as yet unseen in Iraq.

I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully about what to do next. Instead of undermining Gen. Petraeus before he has been in Iraq for even a month, let us give him and his troops the time and support they need to succeed.

Gen. Petraeus says he will be able to see whether progress is occurring by the end of the summer, so let us declare a truce in the Washington political war over Iraq until then. Let us come together around a constructive legislative agenda for our security: authorizing an increase in the size of the Army and Marines, funding the equipment and protection our troops need, monitoring progress on the ground in Iraq with oversight hearings, investigating contract procedures, and guaranteeing Iraq war veterans the first-class treatment and care they deserve when they come home.

We are at a critical moment in Iraq–at the beginning of a key battle, in the midst of a war that is irretrievably bound up in an even bigger, global struggle against the totalitarian ideology of radical Islamism. However tired, however frustrated, however angry we may feel, we must remember that our forces in Iraq carry America’s cause–the cause of freedom–which we abandon at our peril.

Mr. Lieberman is an Independent senator from Connecticut.

It’s unlikely, but maybe some Democrats will listen to this plea for reason.

If not, hopefully we will see just how independent Mr. Lieberman can be.

From the teary-eyed reporters at Reuters:

Farrakhan calls for impeachment of Bush

By Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT, Feb 25 (Reuters) – Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on Sunday angrily denounced the war in Iraq and called for the impeachment of U.S. President George W. Bush in an appearance billed as his final public address.

“What should they do about a man who has been lying to America?” Farrakhan said. Then, turning to face Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and shared the stage in Detroit, he added: “If you won’t impeach him, sanction him.”

Farrakhan, 73, was released from a hospital last month after undergoing a 12-hour abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer.

There had been widespread speculation Farrakhan would use what supporters called a farewell speech to name a successor or to shift his movement closer to mainstream Islam. But Farrakhan instead devoted much of a wide-ranging, two-hour address to a critique of Bush’s foreign policy, which he linked to prophecy of the apocalypse.

“Why did they invade Iraq? Why did they kill Saddam? Why did they kill his sons?” Farrakhan said. “The real story is Saddam Hussein became an economic threat.”

He compared America’s decision to go to war with Iraq as being as one-sided as former boxing great Muhammad Ali, a black Muslim, “fighting a quadriplegic.” But he said the war had touched off a cycle of violence that would end with “cities destroyed … not by a terrorist but by God.”

Farrakhan also said the United States had no right to deny nuclear power to Iran, saying, “International law says Iran has that right.”

He urged his almost exclusively black audience to resist the calls of U.S. military recruiters, who he said targeted young people lacking education and opportunity.

“I’m here to tell you brothers and sisters that’s the worst decision you can ever make,” he said. “This is going down, and if you join it you go down with it.”

Thousands of Farrakhan’s supporters listened from chairs on the playing field at Ford Field, home to the Detroit Lions football team.

Farrakhan took the stage in the end zone after an introduction featuring Grammy-winning R&B singer Anita Baker, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and Conyers. He was embraced when he took the stage by Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

He concluded his address by urging followers to read a range of books, including recent works by former President Jimmy Carter and leftist scholar Noam Chomsky.

Farrakhan handed over temporary control of the Nation of Islam to a board last year because of an illness he said had taken him to “death’s door.” “My time is up,” he said on Sunday.

Farrakhan’s career has been marked by controversy, provocation and charges of anti-Semitism.

He once called Judaism a “gutter religion” and praised Adolph Hitler as a “great” man. He was barred from entering Britain in 1986 because the government said he espoused racist views.

Farrakhan said on Sunday he had never been “anti-gay” or “anti-white,” saying those labels had been applied by people looking to discredit him and incite his murder.

Farrakhan’s address was part of an annual Saviours’ Day event marking the birth of the Nation of Islam’s founder, W.D. Fard.

Active membership in the Nation of Islam is estimated to number in the tens of thousands. Its emphasis on racial separatism and deification of Fard have kept it at odds with mainstream Islam in the past.

You see, it’s all about “unity.”

Lest we forget, Minister Farrakhan is (or was) the paid stooge of Muammar Kaddafi, and almost certainly other Middle Eastern leaders.

And why not? He hates the Jews almost more than they do.

Luckily in a past "Saviours’ Day" speech, the self-appointed minister told us the truth about 9/11:

I hasten to tell you that the precious lives that were lost in the World Trade Center was a cover, a cover for a war that had been planned to bring a pipeline through Afghanistan to bring oil from that region, oil owned by Unocal of which Dick Cheney is a stockholder." — Saviour’s Day Speech, Chicago, 2/23/03

And speaking of lies, it’s a wonder he didn’t gag on this one:

Farrakhan said on Sunday he had never been "anti-gay" or "anti-white…"

From some of his more upbeat remarks on whites:

Katrina should have taught us that the government of the United States is not our friend. Katrina should have shown us the cold-hearted nature, not of white people, but the cold-hearted nature of the rulers. There are white people who want to see something good done. But they are hamstrung by white people who don’t want to see something good done. — Saviours’ Day, Chicago, Illinois, 2/26/06

White people are potential humans…they haven’t evolved yet." — Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/18/00

According to a journalist’s account, "Farrakhan called ‘the white man’ the ‘anti-Christ’ to rousing applause." — Jackson, MS, 9/19/97, Clarion-Ledger, 9/21/97

And of course there are similar quotes about his feelings towards homosexuals.

It’s a miracle he didn’t deny he was anti-Semitic as well.

Ever notice how chronic liars tend to call everyone else "liars"? Of course being a pathological liar is probably the least of this murdering racist hate-mongering lunatic’s faults.

But what does it say about Rep. John Conyers and the other politicians and celebrities who honored him like a hero?

These people would have lined up to kiss Hitler’s feet and called him "Saviour."

By the way, the "Saviour" of "Saviours’ Day" [sic] is Wallace Fard Muhammad, whose real name was Wallace Dodd Ford. The holiday marks his birthday.

(Someone really should straighten out the NOI about the spelling of savior and the proper use of possessives.)

Mr. Ford Fard was a drug addict and ex-con.

And just like Louis Farrakhan (who was born Louis Eugene Walcott), he was a dangerous pathological liar and racist lunatic who preyed upon ignorant blacks — for profit and glory.

Goodbye and good riddance.

From a rapturous Reuters:

Mark King, who has adopted the name Bilal Mansa, stands outside the mosque Atlanta Masjid of al-Islam before Friday prayers in Atlanta, Georgia February 9, 2007. Islam is growing fast among African Americans, who are undeterred by increased scrutiny of Muslims in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to imams and experts.

Post 9/11, Islam flourishes among blacks

Sun Feb 25, 2007

By Matthew Bigg

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Islam is growing fast among African Americans, who are undeterred by increased scrutiny of Muslims in the United States since the September 11 attacks, according to imams and experts.

Converts within the black community say they are attracted to the disciplines of prayer, the emphasis within Islam on submission to God and the religion’s affinity with people who are oppressed.

Some blacks are also suspicious of U.S. government warnings about the emergence of new enemies since the 2001 attacks because of memories of how the establishment demonized civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

As a result, they are willing to view Islam as a legitimate alternative to Christianity, the majority religion among U.S. blacks.

“It is one of the fastest-growing religions in America,” said Lawrence Mamiya, professor of religion at Vassar College, speaking of Islam among black Americans.

He said there were up to 2 million black U.S. Muslims but acknowledged there are no precise figures.

“It’s not viewed (by authorities) as a threat because the numbers are small and once we get past the war on terror and all the negative images then it will continue to spread.”

Black Americans typically attend mosques separate from Muslims from immigrant backgrounds despite sharing common beliefs, according to Aminah McCloud, religious studies professor at DePaul University in Chicago.

But imams in Atlanta, a U.S. center for black Muslims, said they were subjected to less scrutiny than Muslims from the Middle East and Indian sub-continent.

RAP BROWN’S MOSQUE

Many blacks converted during the civil rights era, when Malcolm X helped popularize the Nation of Islam, attracting boxer Muhammad Ali among others. Islam still attracts prominent blacks such as rapper Scarface, a recent convert.

But the Nation of Islam has declined as a force at the expense of an association of mosques led by Warith Deen Muhammad, the son of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, who died in 1975.

At a street-corner mosque in one of Atlanta’s oldest and poorest neighborhoods, a recent Friday sermon illustrated the power of the history of Islam in the United States for blacks.

Men and women sat separately on the mosque floor, heads covered, as cleric Nadim Ali recounted stories from history of Muslim slaves brought from Africa who struggled to uphold their faith in the face of slaveholders’ opposition.

If Muslims could remain true to Islam under slavery, the audience should follow their example, Ali said at the Community Masjid of Atlanta in the city’s West End district.

“You are talking about a people who were cut off from their roots …. Islam reconnects you with Africa and with other parts of the world so your peoplehood transcends race,” Ali said later in an interview.

The mosque has a direct link to a slice of black history. It was founded by H. Rap Brown, a one-time member of the 1960s Black Panthers group. Brown became a Muslim in prison in the 1970s and changed his name to Jamil al-Amin.

He was convicted for killing a sheriff’s deputy in Georgia in March 2000 and is serving a sentence of life without parole, but in his absence the mosque has continued what Ali said was the low-profile work of building a local Muslim community.

CONVERSION

The mosque teaches there was no distinction between Sunni and Shi’ite within Islam, according to people who attend regularly. Sermons urged Muslims to find work, stay free from crime and drugs and maintain stable family lives.

Ali said he assumed the mosque was bugged and infiltrated by informers, in part because its leaders remained skeptical about U.S. policies since September 11.

“They (the government) unplug black people and plug in Arabs or Muslims. They unplug Arabs and plug in communists. America needs war to maintain its economic status,” he said.

The larger Masjid of al-Islam mosque in another mainly black neighborhood of Atlanta is part of Warith Deen Muhammad’s group. Its imam, Plemon el-Amin, said he was involved with local interfaith work as well as with a local Islamic school.

One recent Friday, Mark King, a new convert, and hundreds of others at the mosque listened to a preacher urge Muslims to seek God through the Koran. Followers of other faiths should seek God through their own holy books, the preacher said.

King, who wears his hair in dreadlocks, converted after visiting Africa for the first time and in Gambia read the Koran and realized its teaching chimed with his own beliefs, not least in fighting injustice.

“For young African Americans, there is some attraction to learning about traditions that have been associated with resistance to European imperialism,” said King, who has adopted the name Bilal Mansa since his conversion.

Oh joy.

Never mind that Muslims practically invented and still dominate the international slave trade. Who cares about history in such matters?

The important thing is embracing Islam as the perfect guide to life.

Some blacks are also suspicious of U.S. government warnings about the emergence of new enemies since the 2001 attacks because of memories of how the establishment demonized civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Yes. Martin Luther Kind is so "demonized" he is the only US citizen with his own holiday.

Malcolm X was killed by Black Muslims (probably under orders from Minister Louis Farakhan) because he wasn’t anti-American and anti-white enough to suit them.

But never mind such details. Here’s a bit more about the bravo Mark King, from his Yahoo blog:

Mark K’s Blog

Entry for August 03, 2006

I care about love, spirituality, laughing, caring, and evolving into my best me.

The more I live, the more I realize how the life journey is mirrored by research (which is part of what I do for a living).

- with life…usually when we do something new, it changes us and allows us to see more deeply into the things that have been "in our faces" all along.

- with research…studies often change what we think about "how things work," and they ultimately culminate in paradigm shifts that reveal additional ways for us to view reality.

What’s my point? Every time I try to explain my Africa trips, I fall short. I cannot find the words to explain things with sufficient accuracy.

The trip that I took is conducted every year by the African American Studies Program at a Black college in Northern Mississippi (Rust College). Because the trip entails so much uncertainty the details of the trip and participants are pretty circumstance-dependent. The students who attend are primarily selected by accompanying professors from a pool of applicants. I was an accompanying professor this time. I learned about the trip by going to an annual Black student Leadership conference (held in january at Rust College) and offered to pay what the students pay for travel, food, and lodging, and to also help teach the course.

I did this because I knew that I would be learning a great deal from the more experienced professors, and that my money would just facilitate making things happen on the trip. As I expected, I learned a lot about teaching, and re-learned the significance of Africa for a concerned African American – especially one with middle class level access to knowledge, opportunities, and resources. It helped me to remember that the work I do in this life is not only for myself, but also for humanity’s quest to end all forms of oppression and exploitation. In fact, to work for the latter IS to work for the former. I spent much of my life focused on racial oppression, but I have come to see the interrelatedness of many forms and the centrality of racial, gender, and class-based oppression in the whole system.

As for the name, Bilal is a man who travelled [sic] with Muhammed. He was called an Ethiopian, which until the last 100 years (give or take a few years) has typically referred to any "burnt-skinned person." He was the one compainion [sic] seen as being pious enough to call the early Muslim community in Arabia to Prayer. Not just by Muhammed, but also by Allah. Yet, he is known to have been a Muslim before Muhammed began the prophethood stage of his life.

Mansa is the Mandinka word for King. While in Africa I renewed my commitment to prayer as a way to build spiritual power (hence Bilal), and I started to learn some Mandika (hence Mansa). My French really sucks (which limited me in Dakar, Senegal), but Gambians learn English in school. There are about 10-20 local languages spoken at home, though. Wolof and Mandinka are two of the major ones.

An interesting note is that Alex Haley’s ancestor, Kunta Kente, came from a family that has been living in what is called the Gambia today for hundreds of years. Their village is called Juferee. They are Mindinka. The Mandinka have been a Muslim people for hundreds of years.

My whole encounter with West Africa has forced me to engage with my triple heritage as a person of African descent (Traditional African, Muslim, and Christian). It moved me to think about the high probability that I am also biologically a person of Native-American and European descent (and the spiritual heritages that come with these). Wrestling with these things and the biological myth of race, and the social construction of race have all been quite a mind altering experience.

I am the kind of person to seek both inclusion and social justice in my understanding of the world and resulting action. So, putting all of these elements of myself together while avoiding mental (and thus behavioral) paralysis is quite a trick.

How’s that for a first step?

Mark King (AKA: Bilal Mansa)

That’s right. Mr. King Mansa is a teacher at a college.

Though notice that even his understanding of Islam is somewhat suspect:

Yet, [Bilal] is known to have been a Muslim before Muhammed began the prophethood stage of his life.

Bilal ibn Rabah converted to Islam after hearing Mohammed preach, which of course he only did once he began the "prophethood" stage of his life.

A mistake like this would probably cost Mr. King Mansa his head in some quarters.

Though probably not in a "mosque" that claims there is no difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam.

But as Malcolm X himself famously discovered, any similarities between Black Muslims and traditional Islam are purely accidental.

And, lest we forget, unlike Jesus Christ, Mohammed owned slaves. He saw nothing wrong with slavery. Indeed, he was all for it.

From Thomas Patrick Hughes’ Dictionary Of Islam:

SLAVERY

I. —The TEACHING OF THE QUR’AN on the subject of slavery is as follows:

(1) Muslims are allowed to cohabit with any of their female slaves. Surah iv. 3: "Then marry what seems good to you of women, by twos, or threes, or fours; and if ye fear that ye cannot be equitable, then only one, or what your right hands possess." Surah iv, 29: "Take of what your right hands possess of young women." Surah xxxiii. 49 "O prophet! verily We make lawful for thee wives to whom thou hast given their hire (dowry), and what thy right hand possesses out of the booty God hath granted thee."

(2) They are allowed to take possession of married women if they are slaves. Surah iv. 28: "Unlawful for you are . . . married women save such as your right hands possess.’ (On this verse al-Jalaln the commentators say: "that is, it in lawful for them to cohabit with those women whom you have made captive, even though their husbands he alive in the Daru ‘l-Harb.")

(3) Muslims are excused from strict rules of decorum in the presence of their female slaves, even as in the presence of their wives. Surah xxiii. 5: "Those who are strict in the rules of decorum, except for their wives, or what their right hands possess." See also Surah lxx. 29.

(4) The helpless position of the slave is regards his master illustrates the helpless position of the false gods of Arabia in the presence of their Creator. Surah xvi. 77: "God has struck out a parable, an owned slave, able to do nothing, and one provided with a good provision, and one who expends therefrom in alms secretly and openly, shall they be held equal? Praise be to God, most of them do not know!" See also Surah xxx. 27.

(5) Muslims shall exercise kindness towards their slaves. Surah iv. 44) "Serve God and do not associate aught with Him, and show kindness to your parents and to kindred and to that which your right hands possess."

(6) When slaves can redeem themselves it is the duty of Muslims to grant the emancipation Surah xxiv. 33: "And such of those whom your right hands posses as crave a writing (i.e. a document of freedom), write it, out for them if ye know any good in them, and give them of the wealth of God which He has given you. And do not compel your slave-girls to prostitution if they desire to keep continent."

And of course slavery is still practiced in the Muslim world to this day.

But never mind that either.

From the guilt-ridden reporters at the Associated Press:

Virginia apologizes for role in slavery

By LARRY O’DELL, Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Va. – Meeting on the grounds of the former Confederate Capitol, the Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously Saturday to express “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery.

Sponsors of the resolution say they know of no other state that has apologized for slavery, although Missouri lawmakers are considering such a measure. The resolution does not carry the weight of law but sends an important symbolic message, supporters said.

“This session will be remembered for a lot of things, but 20 years hence I suspect one of those things will be the fact that we came together and passed this resolution,” said Delegate A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat who sponsored it in the House of Delegates.

The resolution passed the House 96-0 and cleared the 40-member Senate on a unanimous voice vote. It does not require Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s approval.

The measure also expressed regret for “the exploitation of Native Americans.”

The resolution was introduced as Virginia begins its celebration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, where the first Africans arrived in 1619. Richmond, home to a popular boulevard lined with statues of Confederate heroes, later became another point of arrival for Africans and a slave-trade hub.

The resolution says government-sanctioned slavery “ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation’s history, and the abolition of slavery was followed by systematic discrimination, enforced segregation, and other insidious institutions and practices toward Americans of African descent that were rooted in racism, racial bias, and racial misunderstanding.”

In Virginia, black voter turnout was suppressed with a poll tax and literacy tests before those practices were struck down by federal courts, and state leaders responded to federally ordered school desegregation with a “Massive Resistance” movement in the 1950s and early ’60s. Some communities created exclusive whites-only schools.

The apology is the latest in a series of strides Virginia has made in overcoming its segregationist past. Virginia was the first state to elect a black governor — L. Douglas Wilder in 1989 — and the Legislature took a step toward atoning for Massive Resistance in 2004 by creating a scholarship fund for blacks whose schools were shut down between 1954 and 1964.

Among those voting for the measure was Delegate Frank D. Hargrove, an 80-year-old Republican who infuriated black leaders last month by saying “black citizens should get over” slavery.

After enduring a barrage of criticism, Hargrove successfully co-sponsored a resolution calling on Virginia to celebrate “Juneteenth,” a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

It’s odd but so far none of the reports about this resolution mention any apologies to the white indentured servants who were a large part of Virgina’s early population.

Even Wikipedia:

Indentured servant

During the 17th century most of the white labourers in Maryland and Virginia came from England this way. Their masters were bound to feed, clothe, and lodge them. Ideally, an indentured servant’s lot in the establishment would be no harder than that of a contemporary apprentice, who was similarly bound by contract and owed hard, unpaid labour while “serving his time.” At the end of the allotted time, an indentured servant was to be given a new suit of clothes and set loose…

But some slave are more equal than others.

From the terrorists’ own news agency, Al Jazeera:

Piracy is common off the Somali coast

Somalia pirates hijack UN ship

February 25, 2007

Pirates have hijacked a cargo ship delivering UN food aid to northeastern Somalia.

The ship, NV Rozen, had just delivered 900 tonnes of food aid to the semi-autonomous region of Puntland when the pirates attacked, said Stephanie Savariaud, a spokeswoman for the UN’s World Food Programme.

“We know it has been hijacked by pirates but we do not know how many pirates there are,” Savariaud said.

The ship was contracted by the WFP to deliver food aid to Somalia.

Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Programme, said the pirates had not yet made any demands.

It was not immediately known if any of the 12 crew members aboard – six from Sri Lanka and six from Kenya – were injured in the attack.

The ship is currently being held close to the island of Ras Afun, just off the Puntland coast.

The vessel has lost contact with its home port of Mombasa in Kenya and it is unclear if the hijackers are armed, said Mwangura…

Further proof that there is no honor among thieves.

From Iran’s elated fans at France’s AFP:

Iran says fires first rocket into space

by Stuart Williams

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran said on Sunday it had successfully launched its first rocket into space for research purposes, at a time of mounting tension with the West over its nuclear programme.

The rocket reached an altitude of 150 kilometres (93 miles) but did not stay in orbit, said Ali Akbar Golrou, deputy head of Iran’s aerospace research centre.

He described the rocket as a “sounding rocket” — one used for research purposes — and said it returned to earth with the aid of a parachute, the Fars news agency reported.

“The first space rocket has been successfully launched into space,” a state television anchor announced.

“The rocket was carrying material intended for research created by the ministries of science and defence,” Mohsen Bahrami, the head of the aerospace centre, told the channel.

He did not give further details on the nature of the payload. State television has yet to broadcast pictures of the launch.

The altitude of 150 kilometres is above the internationally accepted boundary between the earth’s atmosphere and space, which is agreed at 100 kilometres (62 miles) above the surface and is known as the Karman line.

Such an altitude means the rocket reached the lower part of the earth’s thermosphere at an altitude slightly below that required by satellites and well off the exosphere at the upper limit of the earth’s atmosphere.

Iran’s claim of success in launching a space rocket appears to be the first major step towards its stated ambition of putting home-made satellites into space using Iranian-made rockets.

The country has in recent years pressed ahead with a nascent space programme, which has already seen an Iranian Russian-made satellite put into orbit by a Russian rocket in October 2005.

That satellite, Sina-1, was Iran’s first — and so far only — probe to be launched into space, and was described by the Iranian press at the time as being for research and telecommunications.

Iran has said it plans to construct and launch several more satellites over the next three years.

Officials were quick to emphasise that the rocket had been manufactured using Iran’s own resources, echoing similar statements about its nuclear programme.

“All the tests (leading up to the launch) have been carried out in the country’s industrial facilities in line with international regulations,” said Bahrami.

“The manufacture of the rocket and the cargo was achieved by experts at the centre of aerospace research and the engineering centre at the ministry of agricultural planning,” he added.

Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar said the US trade embargo imposed after the Islamic revolution in 1979 had spurred Iran to press ahead with its own space programme…

Yes, of course it’s Bush’s fault.

Luckily there is nothing to worry about.

The UN is monitoring the situation.

From a deeply concerned Associated Press:

Romney Family Tree Has Polygamy Branch

 

By JENNIFER DOBNER and GLEN JOHNSON

February 24, 2007

While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate’s great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.

Romney’s great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.

Romney’s great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she “used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow” over her own husband’s multiple marriages.

Romney’s great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley Pratt’s brother and fellow apostle, OrsonPratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.

Romney’s father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, where Mormons fled in the 1800s to escape religious persecution and U.S. laws forbidding polygamy. He and his family did not return to the United States until 1912, more than two decades after the church issued “The Manifesto” banning polygamy…

B. Carmon Hardy, a polygamy expert and retired history professor at California State University-Fullerton, said polygamy was “a very important part of Miles Park Romney’s family.”

Hardy added: “Now, very gradually, as you moved farther away from it, it became less a part of it. But during the time of Miles Park Romney, it was an essential principle of the Romney family life.”

Other Mormons have run for the White House, including Romney’s father in 1968 and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in 2000. But Mitt Romney’s stature as a leading 2008 contender has renewed questions about his faith and its doctrines…

Funny how the media hasn’t mentioned Barack Obama’s father’s polygamist ways. That is, apart from this from the UK tabloid, the Daily Mail:

A drunk and a bigot – what the US Presidental hopeful HASN’T said about his father…

27.01.07

.… At 18, he married a girl called Kezia. But Obama Sr was more interested in politics and economics than his family and his political leanings had been brought to the notice of leaders of the Kenyan Independence movement…

At the age of 23 he headed for university in Hawaii, leaving behind the pregnant Kezia and their baby son.

Relatives say he was already a slick womaniser and, once in Honolulu, he promptly persuaded a fellow student called Ann – a naive 18-year-old white girl – to marry him. Barack Jr was born in August, 1961.

Two years later, Obama Sr was on the move again. He was accepted at Harvard, and left his little boy and wife behind when he moved to the exclusive east coast university…

Mr Obama Jr claims that racism on both sides of the family destroyed the marriage between his mother and father.

In his book, he says that Ann’s mother, who went by the nickname Tut, did not want a black son-in-law, and Obama Sr’s father ‘didn’t want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman’.

In fact Ann divorced her husband after she discovered his bigamous double life…

Obama Sr was forced to return to Kenya, where he fathered two more children by Kezia. He was eventually hired as a top civil servant in the fledgling government of Jomo Kenyatta – and married yet again.

Now prosperous with a flashy car and good salary, his third wife was an American-born teacher called Ruth, whom he had met at Harvard while still legally married to both Kezia and Ann, and who followed him to Africa…

And this is Obama’s father, not his great-great grandfather. Who knows what Obama’s Muslim ancestors were up to in Africa a hundred years ago?

But speaking of fathers, how is it none of this was ever mentioned when Mitt’s father George ran for the presidency in 1968?

Was it because he was adamantly against the Vietnam War, and therefore a far preferable choice to Richard Nixon — at least in the eyes of our watchdog media?

And how often was Mo Udall’s Mormonism mentioned when he ran for president? Didn’t his great-great grandparents practice polygamy?

But our one party media are experts at selective and timely outrage.

From the Deseret News:

Trolley Square rampage puzzle still lacks ‘why’

By Ben Winslow
Saturday, February 24, 2007

Salt Lake City police detectives believe they know what happened.

They just don’t know why.

The investigation into the Trolley Square shooting rampage Feb. 12 apparently is hinging on the unanswered question: why?

Why did 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic go on a killing spree inside the crowded mall, killing five people and wounding four others before dying in a shootout with police?

On Friday, Salt Lake City police said detectives have been reviewing their evidence, witness and survivor accounts to make sure everything is consistent.

"They feel pretty comfortable they know where people were and when, where the shooter was," Salt Lake City police detective Jeff Bedard said Friday. "We’re trying to figure out why."

Police Chief Chris Burbank said they have found nothing so far that points to a motive, other than that Talovic was a "very disturbed individual who felt that this was his only option in life."

"It’s unfortunate that society, you know, we have these things come up every once in a while, and we haven’t come up with a solution to prevent it," Burbank told the Deseret Morning News.

Burbank said they continue to trace the guns that Talovic used, a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber pistol. Police are still tracking down people who had contact with Talovic so they can be questioned.

"We’re still going through the process of looking at anyone that he may have had contact with that had a computer," the chief said, adding that homicide detectives have not found any connection between the young man and his victims or the Trolley Square mall.

Whatever the detectives have learned, they’ve gone to great lengths to keep quiet.

Police have refused to release many basic details of the shooting rampage, including how many shots were fired by both Talovic and officers, the make and model of the guns he used, where they were purchased and what Talovic said to his victims and officers before he died.

"He really said nothing," Burbank said. "It’s my understanding that he used a curse word and that’s it."

A series of records requests filed by the Deseret Morning News under the Government Records Access Management Act for 911 tapes, transcripts and incident reports have all been denied. The newspaper has filed an appeal to the Salt Lake City Attorney’s Office…

Burbank said that he believes his detectives will uncover a motive.

"There are still a lot of questions to be asked from a lot of different people," he said…

Funeral plans for Talovic are also on hold. The family said it is still working with the Bosnian government to get approval to bury him in his homeland…

No, perhaps we’ll never know. Certainly not if our politically correct police and media masters have their way.

And note that even this article assiduously avoids any mention of Mr. Talovic’s religion.

The family said it is still working with the Bosnian government to get approval to bury him in his homeland.

Speaking of which, whatever else this shooting spree was, it was certainly a case study in ingratitude:

Bosnian Muslim Redzo Talovic (59) distant relative of Sulejman Talovic, shows the ruins of the pre-war home where Sulejman Sulejman was born, in the village of Talovici, 100 kms northeast of Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2007. Talovic left the village of Talovici in 1993 in a UN convoy and the houses were destroyed during the war.

The home of Sulejmen Talovic sits in a quiet neighborhood Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2007, in Salt Lake City.

Mourners look at photographs and mementos of Vanessa Quinn, pictured with husband Rich, left, during her funeral Friday, Feb. 16, 2007, in Sandy, Utah.

But of course we are supposed to forgive and forget.

It’s the Christian politically correct way.

From an outraged BBC:

Iraq Shias protest against arrest

24 February 2007

Thousands of Shia Muslims have protested in the Iraqi city of Najaf about the detention of the son of a powerful Shia politician by US forces.

Crowds chanted slogans of support for Ammar al-Hakim, the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

He was briefly held on Friday on the Iraq-Iran border when the US military said his convoy behaved suspiciously.

US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has apologised for the incident.

US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver said Mr al-Hakim’s convoy was stopped as it re-entered Iraq near the Mehran border crossing with Iran, 130km (70 miles) east of Baghdad.

Lt Carver said that the vehicles were stopped because they “met specific criteria for further investigation in an area where smuggling activity has taken place in the past”.

The US has repeatedly said that Iraq’s Shia militias are being armed with weapons smuggled in from Iran.

Lt Carver said Mr Hakim was arrested when people travelling in the convoy “did not co-operate with coalition forces and displayed suspicious activities”.

Mr Hakim, a cleric, and his two bodyguards were kept at a US military base for nearly 12 hours, Iraqi officials have said…

The US said Mr Hakim was treated “with dignity and respect throughout the incident”.

In the wake of the incident US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad issued a rapid apology saying that Washington did not mean any disrespect to Mr Hakim or his family…

Last December, the Hakim residential compound in Baghdad was raided by US forces who arrested two Iranians said to be members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.  

It’s this kind of nonsense that kept the US from dealing with As Muqtada al-Sadr the way he should have been dealt with years ago.

But we shouldn’t worry about it now and we shouldn’t have worried about it then.

These people live to be outraged.

From a desolate Al Jazeera:

Blast kills Pakistan ‘bombers’

February 24, 2007

Three men have been killed in central Pakistan when the bomb they were carrying accidentally exploded, according to police.

The bicycle the men were travelling on apparently hit a bump in the road in the town of Chechawatni setting off the explosion on Saturday.

Mohammed Bashir, a local police chief, told the Associated Press news agency that either a nearby cattle market or a funeral service at the home of an recently killed police officer could have been the intended target.

“The head of one man has been blown off,” Bashir Ahmed, deputy police superintendent told Reuters news agency.

Another of the dead men had his legs blown off, while the third had his stomach ripped open and died later in hospital, he added.

At least two of the dead men were students at a nearby madrassa, suspected of having links to Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a banned Sunni Muslim group, the deputy superintendent said…

Gee, that’s horrible.