From USA Today:
What type of trend is Roger Clemens setting?
By Gary Thorne

The day of the hired gun in baseball has only just begun. Roger Clemens and his strategy of playing just a portion of a season for the highest bidder is the beginning of a slippery slope for MLB.

There are so many issues raised by this strategy on the part of players that it will take some years of experiment and discussion before people have a real handle on what this means for the game.

Think about a Barry Bonds doing the same thing in a DH role. Once he passes Hank Aaron for the home run lead, what will he want to do?

He has struggled to keep his body in shape and avoid the pains of wear and tear over the years. If he wants to stay in the game after the record is set, why not hold out for a part of a year, hook up with a winning team willing to pay and join the team for the second half of a season?

That same scenario can be set for any number of players in the future.

The fact is, teams today are willing to accept this "bring in a ringer" approach if it means they might win.

Fans are willing to accept the deal if winning is the end result. The idea of the old town team with a group of players who stay year after year, win or loose, has gone the way of the horse drawn cart.

Regular season success doesn't even matter any more. It is all about winning the title in every sport, or you have failed. That is absurd, but that is the mentality of far too many of today's fans.

Clemens's ability to maneuver management of teams like the Yankees and Astros is extraordinary.

The concept of the hired gun had to be sold first and Clemens did that by evoking the "I'm an Astro now" or "I'm a Yankee now" approach under the banner of the Cavalry coming to the rescue.

Sports fans love drama. What could be more dramatic than the caped crusader on the charging stead declaring his loyalty and devotion to "our" cause?

Then came what was unthinkable only a decade ago. Clemens wanted to be part of the team for payroll purposes, but didn't want to travel to cheer his teammates on. He wanted to stay home and do whatever.

So desperate are teams to win that the Astros agreed to this deal in 2004 and set the stage for Clemens being able to ask for it again from the Yankees.

Imagine. George Steinbrenner, the owner who demands precise haircuts, no facial hair, and uniforms tucked in and hats worn straight, agrees to hire a player who isn't even going to be around the team unless he's playing.

Steinbrenner, as Astros management did in 2004, went to the team leaders on the field, the Jeters and Rodriguezes, and asked if they would object. No problem there.

Object? Are you kidding? One, the game today is about the players vs. management, not team vs. teams. This was one of the guys dealing with management. You bet they agreed.

Besides, who knows, that just might be what the Jeters and Rodriguezes of the world will be asking future teams to do down the road.

That does not mean everyone was happy. David Wells has come out recently and objected to the very concept of a player just showing up to play and they flying off.

You can bet there are other players who feel the same way and that has to affect the concept of "team," but the affect is a lot less than in the past.

One former MLB manager who has been around the game for a long time said to me this week that he would have quit before having a player in the Clemens' situation on his team.

That is old school, about being there to support teammates in the same way one would expect support from them.

How many managers would take that approach today? Not even Phil Garner in Houston and Joe Torre in New York, two who have been around the game for a long time, were willing to say no to the deal.

They both knew that was a battle they could not win with ownership. They both knew the day of "team" was giving way to the day of win at any price, both monetarily and conceptually.

Will fans at some point say no to this approach of trying to win? Will the concept fail because at some point players tire of too many hired guns showing up at the end of a year to disrupt what is a winning team already?

Will MLB have to institute rules about when players can be signed in the course of a season?

Just how many players will seek to emulate Clemens?

The train is on the track and just where the stations are remains to be seen.

Jim Thorpe, who played at Carlisle, greeted American Indians in this undated photo

Football, the Indian Way

How a school created to assimilate Native Americans
helped change football forever.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

By Mark Starr

Newsweek

Updated: 8:59 a.m. ET April 27, 2007

April 27, 2007 - In 1879, a cavalry officer named Richard Henry Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian School, a remarkable 40-year chapter in this country’s failed social policy regarding Native Americans. Pratt, who was a veteran of the Indian wars, believed that the only way to assure full American citizenship for Indians was to take the sons of tribal leaders—boys whose ancestors had fought this country in battle—and eradicate any manifestations of their native culture. Pratt’s one overriding faith could be described quite simply: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man!” When four decades of forcible education ended in 1918, it wasn’t entirely clear what Pratt’s experiment had killed and what it had saved.

But there was one indisputably notable legacy—the Carlisle football team. In the early 20th century, the Carlisle Indians ascended to the pinnacle of the collegiate game. In those years, the small and obscure Pennsylvania school began to engage all the Ivy football powers on the gridiron. And from 1911 to 1913, which included the season in which the legendary Jim Thorpe returned from the Olympics to score 25 touchdowns, Carlisle had a 38-3 record, including a 27-6 rout of West Point. That game, played just 22 years after the last Army battle with the Sioux at Wounded Knee, not only featured Thorpe, but nine future generals—including a linebacker named Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Washington Post sportswriter Sally Jenkins has produced a fascinating and elucidating new book, “The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation” (Doubleday. $24.95), that examines the Carlisle legend in wonderful detail. At the turn of the century, football was exploding on the college scene, particularly at the Ivy elites, where the sons of the gentry could prepare for the rigors of leadership on the gridiron. They preferred their football brutal—their game resembled a rugby scrum. Conversely, the Carlisle team was inexperienced—many on the team had never played before they reached college—undermanned and seriously undersized; in a 1903 game against Harvard, Carlisle’s biggest player weighed in at 165 pounds.

But Carlisle was blessed with gifted athletes and a wizard of a coach, Pop Warner, who would become a football legend through later tenures at Pitt, Stanford and Temple and the namesake of today's youth leagues. Because Carlisle couldn’t match the brute force of its rivals, Warner created an entirely new brand of football, relying on speed, deception and guile. “Anything went, so long as there wasn’t a rule against it,” writes Jenkins. “There was not an artifice, con, contrivance, dupe, trap or double cross the team didn’t want to run.” Or as the coach would later say: “Nothing delighted them more than to outsmart the paleface.” In that 1903 Harvard game, Carlisle used the hidden ball trick to score on the second-half kickoff. While the return man pretended to cradle the ball, another player had it tucked into a pocket sewn inside the back of his jersey and ran unmolested 103 yards for a touchdown.

The press, which had patronized the Indian players in their earliest efforts, came to embrace the Carlisle show, especially when it came at the expense of the upper-crust Ivy League lads. As Carlisle’s football fortunes prospered, crude stereotypes of the Indians on the sports pages gave way to a newfound respect for their creative and intelligent play. After the 1903 Harvard game, The New York World’s leading sportswriter, Charles Chadwick, wrote: “The poor Indian, so often sized up as deficient in headwork, has at least earned the right to be considered as something more than a tireless, clumsy piece of football mechanism … Where outside of the columns of the Harvard Lampoon or the Yale Record would anyone hope to see such a delightful combination of football with hide and seek, such a burlesque of strategy put forth in all earnestness.”

It was far more than just crude trickery. Carlisle developed new blocking techniques that compensated for its size disadvantage: the spiral throw that put the long pass, with its premium on speed, into the offense and a repertoire of fakes; reverses and misdirection that remain a central part of the game. It took brains to concoct the schemes and intelligence to execute them. These innovations did not go unrecognized. After Carlisle trounced Army in 1912, The New York Times hailed the conquerors from Carlisle for playing “the most perfect brand of football ever seen in America.”

If Carlisle was a precursor of the brand of football that this country would come to embrace, it was also a precursor of unfortunate developments that have shadowed the game. The football team appeared to become more important than the school that produced it. That was a particularly sad recognition for its founder, who hoped to expound on his education ideas when he met President Theodore Roosevelt early in his first term. Instead, the president greeted him like this: “Hello, Pratt! How’s football?” Even sadder, to maintain the football program at its elite level, Carlisle apparently resorted to illegal payments and subsidies that kept veteran stars in school.

Still, today this country celebrates sports like no other endeavor and football like no other sport. Jenkins does a marvelous job of making a direct and intimate connection between our beloved, modern game and the unlikely team that, a century ago, helped make it what it is today.

Not rocking this CD? We have to question your taste.
Courtesy of Elektra / WEA

From New York magazine:
32 Reasons Why the Eagles Are the Best Band in the Universe

1. No band is more deeply misunderstood, particularly by people who believe art should be pious.

2. It’s true that the hedonistic seventies California they’ve come to symbolize was where the let’s-levitate-the-Pentagon spirit of the sixties went to die. But they didn’t kill it — they just performed the autopsy, over the course of six albums that play like one long opera about American counterculture in freefall. Like all good writers, they wrote what they knew.

3. Like all good California singer-songwriters, they looked great, too — no other band has pulled off the awake-for-three-days-on-peyote-buttons, stumbling-off-a-Lear-jet-dressed-like-a-cowboy thing with as much style.

4. “Take It Easy” — classic song, classic bumper sticker.

5. The poster included with 1974’s On the Border, in which Don Henley is wearing the manliest peasant blouse in rock history.

6. Don Henley’s fro.

7. The career arc of Glenn Frey, from “Chug All Night” — a song from the first Eagles album, about wanting to be “high on a pleasure wheel” — to “Smuggler’s Blues,” a nuanced critique of U.S. drug policy (seriously!) that inspired a really good Miami Vice episode.

8. The moment in “Already Gone” when Glenn tells somebody “You’ll have to eat your lunch all by yourself,” like he’s disciplining a fourth-grader.

9. The excellent pro-sloth anthem “Earlybird,” a banjo-led number about how the whole catching-the-worm thing is for suckers.

10. “Desperado” — their version, and the children’s-choir cover version by the Langley Schools Music Project — which is one of the most heartrending pieces of music ever committed to tape.

11. The band photo on Desperado, where they dressed up like banditos headed to a sit-down with Al Swearengen down at the Gem Saloon.

12. On the Border’s liner-note shout-out to “the fire gods Nido and Wotan.”

13. They recorded the majestically sentimental “Ol’ 55,” written by a young, semi-destitute singer-songwriter named Tom Waits, who probably collected enough royalties to buy 900 packs of cigarettes and a new porkpie hat.

14. Glenn Frey and Don Henley sang backup on the first Warren Zevon album. The first Warren Zevon album is fantastic. Coincidence?

15. The scene in The Big Lebowski where the Dude (Jeff Bridges) gets thrown out of a taxicab for dissing the Eagles.

16. The scene in The Big Lebowski where Jesus (John Turturro) polishes his bowling ball while the Gipsy Kings’ floridly romantic version of “Hotel California” plays on the soundtrack.

17. “Hotel California” itself, which is both an over-the-top metaphor for drugs or Charles Manson or something and one of the strangest, darkest pop hits ever, a Left Coast Masque of the Red Death that holds up “mirrors on the ceiling” and “pink Champagne on ice” as signifiers of moral decay.

18. The deeply underrated One of these Nights, which extrapolates the druggy paranoia and innocence-lost desperation of “Hotel California” to album length.

19. The bizarre One of These Nights track “Journey of the Sorcerer,” a six-minute instrumental arranged for orchestra and banjo.

20. The image of guitarist/banjoist Bernie Leadon pitching the idea for “Journey of the Sorcerer” to his bandmates, perhaps using flip charts.

21. The cover of the 1978 holiday single “Please Come Home for Christmas” backed with “Funky New Year,” which depicts the shirtless Eagles celebrating the birth of Christ by sipping Mai Tais poolside in the company of women who look as bored as they are, if not more.

22. “Funky New Year,” the best song ever written about Don Henley waking up with a hangover and thinking to himself, Whose shoes are these?

23. The fact that even their enervated late-period records contained spectacular soft-soul ballads like “I Can’t Tell You Why,” sung by new member Timothy B. Schmidt in Hall and Oates–worthy falsetto.

24. Their decision to hire an unsung rock genius like Joe Walsh (whose post-Eagles solo catalog includes awesomely titled albums like The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get and Got Any Gum?) as an auxiliary guitarist.

25. Deeply cynical numbers like the Henley-penned “Life in the Fast Lane,” about a man who’s “brutally handsome” meeting a woman who’s “terminally pretty.” “They had one thing in common / They were good in bed,” Henley explains, neatly encapsulating all L.A. social life past and present in twelve words.

26. The Long Run’s “Those Shoes,” a creepy L.A.-noir fable about how the wrong footwear can lead you to the dark side.

27. The Dust Brothers built “High Plains Drifter,” a track they produced for the Beastie Boys’ 1989 classic Paul’s Boutique, out of a sample of the first few bars of “Those Shoes.”

28. The use of the “talk box” guitar sound — think Peter Frampton — on “Those Shoes.” Walsh’s solo sounds like a duck trying to speak with its mouth full of rubber cement and chewable Quaaludes.

29. The fact that in 1978, they attempted to cash in on the disco craze by writing “The Disco Strangler,” a song about a murderer who loves the nightlife.

30. “The Disco Strangler”’s lacerating guitar lick.

31. The moment on Eagles Live — a victory lap recorded at a Santa Monica concert in 1980 — when Glenn introduces “the next President of the United States — MR. JOE WALSH!,” and then Joe plays his solo hit “Life’s Been Good,” an irresistible faux-reggae ode to rock-star perks like Maseratis and gold records.

32. Their well-developed and underdiscussed sense of irony. In a vintage Rolling Stone profile, Glenn Frey told cub reporter Cameron Crowe that “the only difference between boring and laid-back is a million dollars.”

From pitchforkmedia.com:
Stephen King Big Ups Ryan Adams' Tiger

One critic who won't be giving Ryan Adams' latest one-and-a-half stars: Stephen King, novel mass-producing machine, and probably your mom's favorite author (mine too).

Those trolling Amazon.com recently in anticipation of Easy Tiger's June 26 release may have stumbled across a little nugget of a Product Description whose scribe claims to be King. "I won't say Adams is the best North American singer-songwriter since Neil Young...but I won't say he isn't, either," this King puts forth. "What I know is there has never been a Ryan Adams record quite as strong and together as Easy Tiger."

Turns out that the man behind those words is indeed thee Stephen King, according to Adams' publicist. The two are apparently fans of one another's work, and we suspect, one another's ridiculous prolificacy. And the paragraph-or-so-long Amazon.com bit? It's in fact extracted from an even longer Adams bio/homage penned by King, the full text of which you may peruse after the jump. At least, until the interweb Langoliers gobble it up.

It was, Ryan Adams says, this girl he's been spending time with; the title of this album is her fault. "She wanted to go out to dinner at eight; I wanted to go right away. She said, 'Easy, Tiger.' And that hit me. It stuck with me to the point where I called up Neal [that would be Neal Casal, guitarist of The Cardinals] and left a message on his answering machine with those two words. 'Don't forget this,' I said, 'cause I want to use it.'"

Adams laughs and adds, "I think he's still got that message."

And I understand that. Some things you just save, because they're worth playing over again.

I think there are really only two kinds of pop music CDs these days. There are the ones you listen to only once or twice, maybe downloading the single good song to your iPod or computer; then there are others that grow stronger, sweeter, and more necessary each time you play them. Gold was that way; Cold Roses was that way; so was Jacksonville City Nights. I won't say Adams is the best North American singer-songwriter since Neil Young...but I won't say he isn't, either. What I know is there has never been a Ryan Adams record quite as strong and together as Easy Tiger; it's got enough blue-eyed, blue-steel soul (with the faintest country tinge) to make me think of both Marvin Gaye and the Righteous Brothers. Probably ridiculous, but true. And the songs themselves are beautiful-- the lyrics tightly focused and brief, the feeling one of melancholy calm that will probably be a revelation to fans that remember the old, sometimes angry Ryan Adams.

He agrees that the tone of Easy Tiger is different-- not dark, just different-- and suggests in passing that it may have something to do with both sobering up and growing up (he's 32). Then he goes on to talk about the process, which is clearly something close to his heart. "I write on a manual typewriter," he says. "I get up, I have a cup of coffee, I sit down at the typewriter. I never spent a useless day behind a typewriter."

I say amen to that, but he's already going on.

"It's like-- I don't know, sometimes it's like chasing a pretty girl on the beach. And things I never thought I could do...I can do."


I mention how prolific he is, aware that I might be touching a sore point. After all, there are plenty of critics who seem to think that's a bad thing. Adams, however, just laughs.

"Yeah, yeah, in America people give you shit for working hard," he says. "But...it's process, that's all. I process things. I went into the dream business. If people need 'em, I've got extra."

He talks enthusiastically about all the unreleased material he hopes to set free in a box set, maybe at the end of the year ("If people hear it all, then they'll get the connections," he says), but that's then. Now there's this, maybe the best Ryan Adams CD ever. And I know you want to listen to it right away. But slow down. Take your time. This album asks for that, and it will reward your full attention.

In other words-- easy, Tiger.

--Stephen King

From World Net Daily:
'Vote for Romney is vote for Satan'
Christian leader follows up Sharpton attack on Mormons

Posted: May 10, 2007
9:15 p.m. Eastern

While some evangelical Christians are defending the presidential candidacy of Mormon Mitt Romney from an attack by Al Sharpton, another prominent pastor is going further in his condemnation – saying a vote for the former Massachusetts governor is a vote for Satan.

That's the word from Bill Keller, host of the Florida-based Live Prayer TV program as well as LivePrayer.com.

"If you vote for Mitt Romney, you are voting for Satan!" he writes in his daily devotional to be sent out to 2.4 million e-mail subscribers tomorrow.

Sharpton, the Democratic Party activist and former presidential candidate, has been widely condemned for singling out Romney's faith as an issue in the campaign.

"As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation," he said.

(Story continues below)

Keller also comes out swinging against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a cult.

"This message today is not about Mitt Romney," he writes. "Romney is an unashamed and proud member of the Mormon cult founded by a murdering polygamist pedophile named Joseph Smith nearly 200 years ago. The teachings of the Mormon cult are doctrinally and theologically in complete opposition to the Absolute Truth of God's Word. There is no common ground. If Mormonism is true, then the Christian faith is a complete lie. There has never been any question from the moment Smith's cult began that it was a work of Satan and those who follow their false teachings will die and spend eternity in hell."

"I guess what I can tell you is it shows that bigotry can still rear its ugly head in society," Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, told WND. "It's sad that anyone would target a fellow American on the issue of faith."

"We really have no comment," Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the Mormon church, told WND.

Keller is also critical of other evangelicals who have reached out to Romney.

"I have watched in horror over the past weeks as one evangelical Christian leader after another has either endorsed, supported, or just as bad, refused to denounce Romney's run for the White House and those Christian leaders who support him," Keller writes. "Last weekend Pat Robertson, founder of CBN and Regent University, had Romney deliver the keynote address to the graduates of Regent. Regent is one of the great Christian colleges in this nation, and Robertson allowed this cult member to deliver the commencement address. Is he out of his mind? Do you think there would ever be a true Gospel preacher giving the commencement address at Brigham Young?"

But the focus of his appeal to followers is to discredit Mormonism as a legitimate faith in line with the tenets of Christianity.

"I have been warning you for years now about this cult born out of the pits of hell and responsible for sending millions of souls to eternal damnation," Keller says. "For the nearly 200 years this cult has been in existence they have strived for mainstream acceptance. They are the most devious of all the cults since they have always tried to portray themselves as 'just another Christian group' when in fact, they are no more Christian than a Muslim is! Their deception starts with their name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Sounds like a Christian church doesn't it? Some Mormons have recently changed their name to simply Community of Christ to disguise even better who they are in an attempt to lure people in."

Keller goes on to say that when LDS members talk of God and Jesus they are not talking about the God and Jesus of Christianity. He claims Romney's high-profile candidacy for the presidency is an important effort by the church to gain credibility and respectability.

"There are reportedly 12 million Mormons worldwide, half of those in the United States," he says. "The worldwide holdings of the Mormon cult are in the tens of billions of dollars. Mitt Romney is the first member of this cult who has had the legitimate opportunity to help them achieve their goal of mainstream acceptance while holding the most powerful office in the world. Romney will have the full resources of this cult behind him in his bid for the White House."

He says if Romney wins the White House, millions of people will be attracted to Mormonism.

"Those who follow the false teachings of this cult, believe in the false jesus of the Mormon cult and reject faith in the one true Jesus of the Bible, will die and spend eternity in hell," he charges. "Romney getting elected president will ultimately lead millions of souls to the eternal flames of hell!"

Keller also criticizes Romney for political flip-flops on issues like abortion, citing a recent report that his wife donated money to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the world.

"Please take some time today and pray for Mitt Romney and all those who have been deceived by the lies of the Mormon cult," Keller adds. "The fact is that unless they renounce those lies and turn to faith in the one true Jesus of the Bible, they will die and spend eternity in hell. Pray also for these Christian leaders who have for whatever reason, foolishly aligned themselves with Romney. Pray the Holy Spirit will convict them and that they will renounce Romney and find a candidate to support who will hold to Biblical values. There is no excuse, no justification for supporting and voting for a man who will be used by satan to lead the souls of millions into the eternal flames of hell!"

Keller was a businessman convicted of insider trading in 1989, a crime for which he served more than two years in federal prison. After getting out, he received a degree in biblical studies from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and has been in full-time ministry ever since.

From Deadspin.com:
Charles Barkley: Hey, If You Talk A Lot, And Loud Enough,
Even The Serious Stuffy People Will Start Listening

We knew that Charles Barkley's Big! Opinions! had crossed him over from the sports world, but we had no idea it had gone this far: He's now getting the Serious Guy Treatment from The New Republic, of all places.

In a wide-ranging interview with the magazine once called "the in-flight reading of Air Force One" -- a fact we seriously doubt is true anymore -- Barkley does what he does best: Expound and orate like crazy. Here's an excerpt (ordinarily you have to be a subscriber to the magazine, which inevitably shows up two weeks late anyway, but this one's free):

Question: In some quarters Barack [Obama] has been criticized for not being black enough.

Well, that's because black people are fucked up. One of the reasons that black people are not going to be successful is because of other black people. We tell black kids that if they make good grades, they are acting white. If they speak well, we tell them that they are acting white. We have a lot of demons in our own closet--in our own family--that we have to address. But first of all, we want black men to be intelligent and articulate and things like that. That's not acting white. That's the way it should be. ... We become our own worst enemy with random black-on-black crime, teen pregnancy, single-parent homes. You know we cannot blaming white America for our ills. Does racism exist? Of course it does. But, at some point, I have to make sure I am educated. I don't have ten kids and no job. I am not killing other black people. At some point, you have to grow up.

We seriously think Barkley and Jason Whitlock should probably just have their own radio show together, at this point.

From Chronicles.org:
Kosovo Blowback Reaches America

by Srdja Trifkovic

The story: four Albanian Muslims from Kosovo, plus a Turk and a Jordanian, are arrested for conspiring to attack Fort Dix, a military base in New Jersey, with AK47s and “to kill as many soldiers as possible” (U.S. Attorney’s Office).

The Mainstream Media spin: “Four of them were born in the former Yugoslavia” (The New York Times); “One of the suspects was born in Jordan, another in Turkey… [t]he rest are believed to be from the former Yugoslavia” (CNN); “Four of the men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one in Jordan and one in Turkey” (MSNBC); “One of the suspects was born in Turkey and four in the former Yugoslavia” (AP), und so weiter…

The names of the four “Yugoslavs” are Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka, Shain Duka (three brothers, all of them in the United States illegally), and Agron Abdullahu. Those are Albanian names, of course, but not one in a hundred Americans knows that. In fact, grasping that they are Albanians and knowing that “ethnic Albanian” plus “Muslim from the former Yugoslavia” equals “Kosovo,” is the privilege of experts. It is but one of many Balkan equations that mainstream media editors are determined to keep hidden from their consumers. That there is nothing in the federal complaint about the “Yugoslav” suspects’ origins is almost certainly the result of political interference.

White House spokesman Tony Snow was quick to assure us there is “no direct evidence” that the men arrested in the Fort Dix plot have ties to international terrorism. His meta-message is clear: The Administration knows it cannot keep the Albanian identity of four “Yugoslav” suspects concealed for ever, but it wants to pre-empt any suspicion that an independent KosovA would be a black hole of jihad-terrorism in the heart of Europe. Hastily denying the group’s link to al-Qaeda and other global networks is a political necessity for the proponents of Kosovo’s independence, not necessarily the reality.

Having been assured ad nauseam over the years by successive U.S. administrations that Kosovo’s Albanians are not really serious about their Islam, that even when they desecrate Christian churches and joyously rip crosses from their cupolas they do it for nationalist rather than jihadist reasons, the powers-that-be are doing their utmost to ensure that the public remains anesthetized. Asking when and how Albanian “secularists” became Islamic radicals is a no-no. Being so audacious as to wonder what this transformation bodes for a new, independent Muslim state in the heart of Europe is simply not on. Asking questions about major KLA figures’ documented links to jihad terrorism (including to Osama bin Laden personally) is polizeilich verboten. In the meantime, cadres, cash and ordnance linked to jihadist outrages all over Europe have been traced back to Kosovo, including the bombings in Madrid (March 2004) and London (July 2005), and a rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Athens last year.

In New Jersey in May 2007, Kosovo blowback has finally reached America.

It is now essential to unmask the web of lies and distortions that has guided U.S. policy in the Balkans for years. The first step is to demand an explanation why and how Muslim Albanian terrorists from Kosovo were able to plan an operation here in the U.S. Why indeed: didn’t the U.S. military fight the Serbs for 78 days in 1999 so that they could have their ethnically clrean, Serbenfrei statelet? As a Washingtonian insider points out,

For almost a decade the U.S. government (or more precisely a handful of State Department bureaucrats and a few Congressmen) have placed the U.S. firmly on the side of the KLA and have helped created a haven for their operations. Even worse, KLA supporters in the United States have operated with virtual impunity, collecting money and weapons to support KLA operations not only in Kosovo, but in neighboring areas of southern Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and northern Greece.

He reminds us that in 2004 Dutch television broadcast a documentary of Kosovo Albanian Muslims legally buying weapons in the U.S. and shipping them to Kosovo is support of their “liberation war” in violation of numerous U.S. laws, including the Neutrality Act: “The documentary then showed the same Albanians at a fundraiser in New York writing hefty checks to American politicians of both parties. There is no public indication that any action was taken by federal or state law enforcement agencies.”

But like the Bourbons of yore, KosovA enthusiasts inside the Beltway learn nothing and forget nothing. At last Tuesday’s open hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, titled “The Outlook for the Independence of Kosova” (sic!), the Committee’s Chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), declared urbi et orbi:

“Just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led governments in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe. This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. [sic!] The United States’ principles are universal, and in this instance, the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.”

On that same occasion Ms. Rice’s No. 2, Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, reiterated the U.S. position that immediate independence without standards or compromise is a must lest the Albanians get nasty: “the prospects for violence would be greater if we waited, because 92 to 94 percent of the people who now live in Kosovo are Albanian Muslims. They have been waiting a long, long time.”

Albanian Muslims, mind. Not Albanians, not “Kosovars,” not “Yugoslavs.” As Julia Gorin pointed out, Mr. Burns also didn’t miss the opportunity to invoke the usual Nazi imagery in reference to the Serbs, while praising the Kosovo prime minister Agim Ceku, an indicted Serb-slaughterer, as “impressive” and “worthy.” That’s the broad picture, dear reader, and a bunch of overexcitable, non-al-Qaeda-connected “Yugoslavs” from New Jersey will not be allowed to disturb it.

And yes, Mr. Lantos’s “jihadists of all color and hue” are taking note.

Copyright 2007 WRAL.com

A sign outside Good News Independent Baptist Church in
Spring Hope tells passer-bys not to be deceived by the message of Islam.

From WRAL.com: Kudos to this pastor-more like him are needed.
And get a load of the Muslim's cockamamie "actions of one individual" trope.

Church's Sign Against Islam Sparks Controversy

Spring Hope — Words like "bomb" and "die" draw attention to the small sign in front of Good News Independent Baptist Church.

Rev. Gary Murrell put up the sign, which on one side claims the message of Islam is "submit, convert or die."

The other side reads: "When is the last time you heard of a Jew or Christian with a bomb strapped to their body?"

Despite some in the Islamic community who claim the sign is offensive, Murrell says it is not a hate sign.

"It was not put up there with the purpose of showing that we hate those people," he said. "It's not the people, it's the religion."

Murrell says it is a violent religion compared to Christianity. But not everyone agrees.

"I would really say that the actions of one individual really do not represent the Islamic faith," said Debbie Jaunich, with the Islamic Center of Raleigh. "The Islamic faith really calls for peace."

"It's sad to see that we still have this kind of ignorance in the community about the Islamic faith," she added.

Murrell says he is trying to make people think but Jaunich said she thinks it breeds discrimination and bigotry.

"The point is that their salvation is in Jesus Christ, not in the Islamic faith," Murrell said. "I am not trying to be a bigot. I'm not. I don't hate those people."

Murrell says the sign has been up for about a week and that he plans to change it this weekend.

But discussion about the message will likely continue. The Islamic Center of Raleigh is inviting Murrell and his congregation for a visit to learn more about Islam.

• Reporter: Mike Charbonneau
• Web Editor: Kelly Gardner

Copyright 2007 WRAL.com

A sign outside Good News Independent Baptist Church in Spring Hope poses the question:
"When is the last time you heard of a Jew or Christian with a bomb strapped to their body?"

Staff Vice Adm. Eric Olson, deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Command,
has been nominated for a fourth star and to run the command. Olson would be the first
admiral in charge of the military's special operators, and only the second non-Army officer.

A Navy SEAL assumes command
By Michelle Malkin

May 10, 2007 02:01 PM

A military reader sends along a message from the current SOCOM (Special Operations Command) Commanding General: "He is to be relieved by a Navy SEAL, three star, who will add a fourth star with this promotion. Both of those things are firsts. Resounding evidence of the prominent role that SEALs have assumed during the War on Terror."

Here's the SOCOM Commanding General's announcement:

SOF Leaders - I am pleased to inform you that today at approximately 1300 hours the President will announce Adm Eric Olson has been nominated to be my relief. Eric embodies all that is SOF and has been a unifying force in the SOF community. He is a warrior who understands our operational missions and the needs of the men and women who carry them out. He also understands both indirect and direct actions and how they will contribute to winning the war on terror...

...He is the right leader at the right time. Please join me in congratulating VADM Olson.

Congrats and Godspeed!

The Fort Dix plot and illegal immigrants
James P. Pinkerton

May 10, 2007

So three of the men arrested for plotting to massacre American soldiers in New Jersey were here illegally. Here's a dumb question: Why are there any people here in this country illegally?

It's possible to argue back and forth about the economic and social impact of illegal immigration into the United States. But surely there can be no argument about the undesirability of terrorism.

And, since we have just been reminded yet again that illegal aliens can be terrorists, we should ask a further question: Do we really have to wait for an A-bomb to go off in a U.S. city before we get curious as to who is in our midst?

Now, of course, some might say we should target only certain groups, such as Arabs and Muslims - the Fort Dix Six are all Muslim - for special surveillance. But that would be profiling, and we can't have that!

Moreover, as CBS News reported Tuesday, four of the six accused terrorists are from the former Yugoslavia, a European country. So here's a better idea: Let's simply recognize that the most dangerous elements in our society, by definition, are those who are illegal and unknown. Those unknown illegal immigrants might be honest and hard-working busboys. But they also could be mass murderers: The point is we don't know.

Coincidentally, on Tuesday night's broadcast, CBS went from news about catching terrorists before they strike to news about tracking floods before they rise. According to correspondent Nancy Cordes, the National Weather Service, reacting to the big floods of 1993 that killed dozens, has established a high-tech early-warning system.

And it seems to be working: Federal meteorologist Dennis Feltgen displayed computer projections, illustrated by color-coded maps, identifying floods along the banks of the Missouri River.

In other words, Uncle Sam seems to be doing pretty well at monitoring water levels - better than he is at monitoring possible terrorist cells.

Note to presidential candidates in both parties: There are votes, lots of them, to be gained by the candidate who presents himself or herself as being tough on homeland security. From securing our borders to ascertaining the legal status of everyone who abides within our borders, the American voters will reward the White House hopeful who offers them what they want - safety. (And if the next president were actually to deliver on that promise, that would be a great argument for re-election.)

But, in the meantime, we might pause to consider further the ethno-religious origins of these six accused terrorists. As noted, four of them are Albanian Muslims, from the former Yugoslavia. That country has now been broken into seven countries, plus the semi-country of Kosovo. Americans will remember Kosovo as the place we tried to help; back in 1999, President Bill Clinton used military force to stop the Serbs from slaughtering and oppressing the locals, who were mostly Albanian Muslims.

Americans were told, at the time, that our actions were earning us gratitude from Muslims around the world. Well, maybe yes, maybe no. But we sure don't seem to have earned much gratitude from the Albanians and Muslims who allegedly plotted to kill Americans at Fort Dix.

Now the question of still more Muslims coming to America from radicalizing war zones is coming up again as Iraq continues to boil. The United States has officially admitted 68 Iraqis for resettlement in the last seven months, but thousands more are in the legal pipeline. And what about the illegal pipeline?

Tragically, millions of Iraqis have been displaced from their homeland. Where do many of them wish to end up - legally or illegally? Will some come here, wanting to carry on jihad of some kind? Might some be agents of, say, Iran?

The point is, if we don't know who's here - and what ideas and equipment they might have brought with them - we can't begin to defend ourselves.

James P. Pinkerton's e-mail address is pinkerto@ix.netcom.com.

Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

Duke coach excoriates school in book
BY GRAHAM RAYMAN

graham.rayman@newsday.com

May 10, 2007, 7:39 PM EDT

In an insider's account of the Duke lacrosse scandal, former varsity lacrosse coach Mike Pressler blasts senior university officials for fumbling the case.

In "It's Not About the Truth," scheduled to reach bookstores June 12, Pressler and co-author Don Yaeger say Duke officials failed to support the players publicly and were more concerned about the university's image. They also hint at an attempted coverup.

"The thing that might be most disheartening to me is that ... the only people that have stood up and apologized ... were the players," Pressler says in the book. "The adults in this picture -- the faculty, the administration -- they haven't apologized for anything."

In January, an investigation by the North Carolina attorney general declared all three indicted players "innocent." Pressler, who said he was forced to resign, is now coaching in Rhode Island.

Duke president Richard Brodhead and athletic director Joe Alleva both were criticized.The book also reveals that Pressler and the team kept a secret list of people they felt had wronged them, dubbed, "The Grail."

Tom Butters, a former longtime Duke athletic director, also takes university officials to task in the book. "I know I am probably stepping on toes when I say this, but it was absurd," Butters says. "I wanted someone to step up for Mike and those kids."

Duke spokesman David Jarmul declined to comment on the book because it has yet to be issued. "From his first statement in March 2006, at a time when many seemed to accept the truth of the district attorney's charges, President Brodhead repeatedly emphasized the need for the students to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise within the legal system," Jarmul said.

At the outset, back in March 2006, the book says, Pressler and other Duke officials were so convinced that the allegations would go away that they gave bad advice to the players.

For example, co-captain Dan Flannery says that the assistant dean of students, Sue Wasiolek, told him, "Right now, you don't need an attorney. Just don't tell anyone, including your teammates or parents, and cooperate with police if they contact you."

The following day, eight police officers showed up at the North Buchanan house, frisked the players, searched the house, and took them to the station for interviews and DNA tests.

Flannery now blames Wasiolek's advice for what followed. "We believed, albeit falsely, that these people would look after our best interests," he says in the book. When Durham police called Pressler on March 20 and asked for an informal meeting with players, the coach agreed.

Pressler admits in the book that he told the team not to tell anyone about the meeting. "I was told to keep it quiet," Pressler said. "Everybody. . . thought it was going to go away. There was no reason to bring more attention to it. So I interpreted that being, 'Hey, guys, it's going to go away, let's keep it in-house here. Don't tell your parents yet, don't tell your girlfriends. Keep it in house.'"

But some parents already knew and demanded a postponement.

At times, the book says, Duke officials expressed support for the players in private, but not in public. On March 24, Pressler met with Athletic Director Joe Alleva, along with other Duke officials and the team captains. Alleva told them only that they would be punished for throwing the party.

The next day, Duke president Richard Brodhead decided the team would forfeit two games.

In an emotional five-hour meeting with the team's parents that followed, Duke officials said they believed the players' accounts. But on March 26, Brodhead ordered the suspension of all future games.

On April 5, Alleva met with Pressler and Kennedy. Pressler says Alleva declared that the season must be canceled. "What new has happened," Pressler asked. "Joe, you told the players and the parents you believed their story."

Alleva replied, "It's not about the truth anymore."

Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

C'est Si Bon
by Ann Coulter

I'm off to Paris! I hereby revoke every churlish remark I've ever made about those lovely Gallic people. (But in light of former New Jersey governor and current "gay American" Jim McGreevey's latest career move, I redouble everything I've ever said about the Episcopalians.)

With Nicolas Sarkozy's decisive victory as the new president of France, the French have produced their first pro-American ruler since Louis XVI.

In celebration of France's spectacular return to Western civilization, I bought a Herve Leger dress on Monday, and we're having croissants for breakfast every day this week. This delicate French pastry, by the way, is in the shape of a crescent to commemorate the Crusaders' victory over Islam. Aren't the French just peachy?

"Sarkozy the American," as he is known in France, called Muslim rioters "scum." Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

He explained his position on Muslim immigrants in France, saying: "Nobody has to, I repeat, live in France. But when you live in France, you respect its rules. That is to say that you are not a polygamist. ... One doesn't practice female genital mutilation on one's daughters, one doesn't slit the throat of the sheep, and one respects the republican rules."

Sarko never issued an apology or entered rehab. To the contrary, he said: "I called some individuals that I refuse to call 'youth' by the name they deserve. ... I never felt that by saying 'scum' I was being vulgar, hypocritical or insincere."

Is there a single American politician who would speak so clearly without then apologizing to Howard Dean?

It looks like the Democrats are going to have to drop their talking point about Bush irritating the rest of the world. Evidently not as much as Muslim terrorists irritate the rest of the world. The politicians who hate Bush keep being dumped by their own voters.

At the Democratic presidential debate a few weeks ago, B. Hussein Obama carped that Bush had "alienate(d) the world community" and vowed that he would build "the sort of alliances and trust around the world that has been so lacking over the last six years."

Democrats are terrific at building alliances. Remember how Jimmy Carter won the love of the world by ditching our ally the Shah of Iran, allowing him be replaced by a string of crazy ayatollahs? Since then, we haven't heard a peep from that area of the world.

The smartest woman in the world sniped that she would "create alliances instead of alienation."

Yes, it was spellbinding how her husband charmed North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and his sociopathic son Kim Jong Il by showering them with visits from Jimmy Carter and gifts from love-machine Madeleine Albright. And that was that: No more trouble from North Korea!

As I understand it, the center of the supposedly America-hating world is France. But now it turns out even the French don't hate America as much as liberals do.

Au contraire! (We can say that again!) Our Georgie is the most popular American with the French since Jerry Lewis.

All over the civilized world, voters are turning terrorist-coddling liberals out of office and voting for politicians friendly toward Bush, the world's sworn enemy of Islamic fascism.

Those foreign leaders so admired by Democrats for hating George Bush and loving Saddam Hussein are being replaced by rulers who pledge their friendship to the United States.

Retrospectively, B. Hussein Obama's answer about our most important ally being "the European Union" may eventually become true, thanks to Bush's ceaseless ally-making.

In Germany, pro-American Angela Merkel crushed the mincing anti-American chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2005.

Last year, conservatives swept Canada, making Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper the prime minister. I haven't loved Canadians this much since the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard is both the longest-serving Australian prime minister and -- by his own account -- the most conservative. As The New York Times rooted for his defeat in 2004, claiming Australians were furious with him for his support of the Iraq war, he won a historic third term.

Along with Howard, Bush's staunchest ally in the war on terrorism has been Britain's Labor Party leader Tony Blair. He's about to leave office -- only to be replaced by a leader from the even more pro-American Conservative Party.

American celebrities who threaten to move out of the country every election rather than live under a conservative leader are running out of countries to move to.

Only Spain remains a nation of women. As long as Spain exists, it will not outlive the shame of its gutless capitulation to terrorist bombings in 2004. It is worse than Sweden's neutrality toward Hitler.

But France! Until this week, France seemed a less likely place to find someone who supports America than a meeting of Democrats.

Apparently, even the French prefer Western civilization to clitorectomy-performing, car-burning savages.

The Democratic Party is now officially the only organization on Earth that does not take the threat of Islamic fascism seriously. Between the Democrats and the media, America has gone from its usual position as the world's last hope to radical Islam's last hope.

MLB whiffs by allowing Clemens' deal
By Stephen A. Smith

Inquirer Columnist

Roger Clemens' former teammate David Wells says the Clemens deal shows
disrespect to other players on the team.

The sports world can shut up now.

It can shut up the second the next athlete reminds us that humility is
neither a part of his vernacular nor a part of his lifestyle. It can
hush whenever the next athlete illustrates a departure from
established tradition, upgrading things to suit his wishes.

Roger Clemens may be about three months removed from 45 years of age,
en route to Cooperstown and possibly a parade down Broadway this fall,
but the new pitcher for the New York Yankees also could give lessons
on how to accumulate riches and the perks that come along with his
job.

Heck, maybe he'll even enlighten us on how he's done it with Major
League Baseball's approval, too.

Terrell Owens looks pretty darn good today. So does Allen Iverson. Say
what you will about their bravado, their penchant for trying to get
their way, but they work under the same rules and regulations as their
contemporaries. Neither had the audacity to contractually circumvent
basic team etiquette - with league consent.

And never mind getting into what would have happened if they even had
tried.

The fact that the Yankees surrendered a reported $28 million to a
pitcher who is depreciating before our eyes is their business. If they
want to give about $750,000 per start to a pitcher whose ERA was 4.35
and 3.91 in his last two seasons in New York, who gets bigger and
better with age, who was last seen hobbling off the mound for the
Houston Astros.

Literally.

But when any pitcher is contractually allowed to show up only on the
days he is scheduled to pitch, playing golf or showing up at movie
premieres in between, marketing himself to the highest bidder while
feigning retirement, then prepare for the day when Alex Rodriguez,
Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera say, "Hey, what about me?"

Yeah! What about them?

Just the other day, David Wells, a pitcher for the San Diego Padres
and Clemens' former teammate with the Yankees, said, "I don't think I
would ever do it because of the fact I personally think it would
disrespect the team and your teammates."

Wells also implied that Clemens' actions disrespect the game, which is
something few are paying attention to.

If this had been football, basketball, boxing or hockey, the pundits
would have been chirping.

They would have harped about the lack of respect today's professional
athlete has for the game, how these athletes should be more
appreciative of the status they enjoy.

The thing is, baseball should have been the first in line.
Commissioner Bud Selig should have stepped up to the plate and
reminded the players' union and the Yankees that while there isn't a
rule against such deals, they are highly inappropriate and in
violation of professional ethics. Specifically when it comes to our
national pastime.

Except it is baseball we're talking about - the land of steroids,
alcohol and, evidently, privilege. The same place where a manager
(Tony La Russa) could muster the temerity to lecture Josh Hancock on
alcohol abuse after his own arrest on drunken-driving charges.

Hancock died a few days later in a crash linked to alcohol.

The hypocrites are everywhere.

They are the same people who will dump on Barry Bonds about alleged
steroid use, or perks aimed at Michael Jordan during his heyday.

Practices may have been adjusted for Jordan, just like a few perks
were accorded to Bonds. But there were no contractual obligations
placed on a team to capitulate to a player's AWOL status, nothing that
validated in writing for any player to appear above the team.

If you didn't practice, you at least had to show up to practice.

And since Clemens' good friend Andy Pettitte can be seen in the
Yankees' dugout on off-days, the same conceivably applies to the
games, as well.

It doesn't apply to Clemens anymore, because he is a hired gun.
Clemens is a mercenary in the age of mercenaries.

He'll never admit as much, but he doesn't have to anymore.

Now other athletes don't need to make excuses anymore.

Clemens handed one to them. A fastball right down the middle.

Strike three! Welcome to a new era.

From TVGuide.com:
Things We Learned from The Unit
by Robert Edelstein

Few television shows pack the same live-grenade tension as an hour of The Unit (which presents its season finale tonight at 9 pm/ET). On the CBS series, Dennis Haysbert leads a small group of elite military personnel through deadly missions in hot spots around the world, while at home, Unit wives grapple with long separations, their husbands' low pay and some potentially explosive secrets. The show is based on the book Inside Delta Force, which covers author Eric Haney's own career in the army's special-forces unit from 1978 to '85. And though both Haney and fellow series producer Shawn Ryan maintain that the show is fiction, it turns out The Unit is much more bull's-eye than bull. Here's a look at what's pure story and what's true grit.

A man really can survive being snatched off the ground by a passing plane.
"It's called the Fulton Extraction," Haysbert says of the real-life technique his character Jonas used to escape a hot zone in the second-season premiere. While part of the stunt was blue-screened, a crane yanked Haysbert 75 feet into the air to get the right effect. "Now I know what flying superheroes feel like," he says.

Waziristan actually exists.
The Unit battled local militia in this very real, albeit very fake-sounding, region of northwestern Pakistan.

Special-forces wives have it bad.
Keeping national secrets, maintaining a brave face and dealing with bureaucracy: that's just another day in the life of a Unit wife. When one of the wives got a threatening note from base officials because, of all things, her lawn wasn't edged properly, real-life Air Force wife Lori Twichell cringed. "I've had that happen to me!" she says about a notice to evict a family from base housing unless their turf passed inspection.

It takes a team to make one sniper shot.
In one episode, Unit members had to shut down three enemy machine-gunners from nearly 1.5 miles away. While one calculated distance and a second judged wind speed, two others hit the bull's-eye — just like in real life. "Wind, temperature, elevation, distance, humidity — all are big influences on the bullet," says a military shooter stationed in Iraq.

War games are real.
Apparently, special forces from other countries do compete in counterterror Olympics like in the "Games of Chance" episode. "It's mostly Western European and English-speaking nations," says Ryan. Does Haney confirm? "No comment," he says.

Army pay stinks.
Young soldiers bring home about $20,000 per year. No wonder Jonas' wife, Molly (Regina Taylor), took a controversial job as a private-security-company recruiter.

Elite forces speak in tongues.
Can you say "polyglot" in Urdu and Spanish? To survive in a covert unit — on TV or off — you'll need to. "You have to cover a wide area linguistically," says Haney, who has a passing knowledge of seven languages. "That's a requirement."

If you're a military kid, both your parents can be deployed at the same time.
Such was the case in "Change of Station." "It happens, and it's a travesty," Haney says. "I don't want to use our show to point this out, but hopefully it gets people to think."

Unit members are not above the law.
The secret Unit emergency stash that's funded, in part, by stolen diamonds? It's "dramatic license," Haney says. Contrary to what many of the show's antics would have you believe, the Delta Force does not have carte blanche to stray outside the law. The show's fiction will mirror that fact in this week's season finale when the guys return from a mission to find that they're under investigation.

Uncle Sam doesn't LoJack soldiers.
In "Extreme Rendition," Army docs implanted a sensor inside Bob (Scott Foley) to track him during a mission. "Does that exist? Yeah," Haney says. But "the military does not do that." Yet.

But elite forces do play chicken.
In "The Kill Zone," junior snipers pick off brightly colored fowl as a training exercise. "A chicken's body moves in the way a person's head moves," Haney says, defending the practice. "I've done that, and all the chicken lovers of the world can write me about it."

Unit members don't mind a little illegal whiskey — though the stuff could kill ya. Bob was "initiated" into the Unit with a drink of moonshine from a hidden still earlier this season. In the real Delta Force, says Haney, getting to that ‘shine takes some know-how, not to mention courage. "Tradition holds that the guys back in the 1950s built a still down in one of the [firing] ranges because they knew nobody would go there. [They built it] like the path through a minefield, so only the cognoscenti knew how to get to the still and run off with a batch of whiskey. Of course, not everybody can get down there. It's in a place where, if you took a misstep, you'd blow up." You've gotta be really thirsty.

A soldier's life is worth $100,000.
After a soldier died in "The Kill Zone," there was talk of his family getting a $6,000 "death gratuity," among other funds. According to Pentagon releases, that figure may have been accurate four years ago, but it was raised to $12,000 in 2003, and then in January 2006 to $100,000 for all active-duty soldiers.

Sometimes it takes five guys to protect one VIP.
There are times the entire unit will be dispatched to rescue or secure one individual. "It all depends on the threat, the location and where the person might be traveling," says Ryan. Of course, not everybody gets such five-star treatment. Jokes Ryan, "Yeah — it is a status symbol."

It's easier to get into Harvard than the Unit.
The dropout rate of those applying for the few Delta Force positions is, Haney says, 94 percent. So while the training Bob endured to make the cut in "Natural Selection" was brutal, the real thing is "much harder."

Elite soldiers always fire twice.
Haney calls the pop-pop shooting technique a "double tap." Pray you never need to know why.

If you ever find a paratrooper cap, check behind the patch.
In a recent episode, Tiffy (Abby Brammell) bought a WWII paratrooper cap and found a rare coin sewn behind it. Doing so was SOP in the old days, though the coin was chiefly for recreational or protective purposes. Says Haney, "The whole idea was if you were downtown on pass, at least you had a dollar for a beer, or if you were drunk, you could take the bus back. Or if there's a fight, you could whip the hat and break a cheekbone with it."

"We do negotiate with terrorists."
Col. Tom Ryan (Robert Patrick) declares as much in "Bait" — but only if the stakes are worth the risk. Haney concurs. In his Delta days, he was often asked to help speed along diplomacy. Nowadays, it happens "only if the price is high enough," he says. "If you're a senator's daughter, that's one thing. If you're a TV Guide writer, you're on your own."

The New Republic Online

Trigger Shy
by Gregg Easterbrook

Virginia Tech and our impoverished language for evil.

atie Couric: "Just who was the shooter?" Charles Gibson: "Tonight--the survivors, their stories; the shooter, his background." Matt Lauer: "We've now got an identity of the shooter." Wolf Blitzer: "That is the shooter, Cho Seung-Hui."

Learning that there had been a mass killing at Virginia Tech, many in the press began to speak of the "shooter" who had brought horror to the campus: A shooter was loose, a shooter did this, a shooter did that. On ABC, CBS, and NBC news broadcasts in the 72 hours after the tragedy, the word "shooter" was heard roughly three times as often as "killer" or "murderer."

The fact that murder had happened at Virginia Tech was clear within hours, if not minutes, of initial reports. Yet plenty of media figures could not bring themselves to say that the killer was a killer, that the murderer was a murderer. Instead, they used "shooter," a weirdly neutral term that practically sounds like a skilled trade. To call someone a "shooter" is to say he was holding a firearm that discharged, but to imply nothing about any moral choice involved or the fact that it's bad to aim a pistol at a helpless person and pull the trigger. Same goes for the word "gunman," also used frequently by journalists and pundits.

There are times when neutral words like "shooter" and "gunman" are justified. In police investigations and legal proceedings that involve the determination of guilt or innocence, dispassionate terms should be used. In news reports about accusations that have not yet gone to trial, cautious phrasing is wise. But there was no possibility that the Virginia Tech deaths were caused by legitimate use of force, mistaken identity, self-defense, or some dreadful accident; the only possible explanation was mass homicide. To call Cho a "murderer" would have been a simple statement of fact. Yet, according to a Nexis search of major U.S. newspapers and wire stories, in the three days following the massacre, 2,516 stories contained the terms "shooter" or "gunman," while just 746 used "murderer" or "killer." And, a full week after the calamity, many news outlets--including CNN, msnbc, and Fox News--were still referring to Cho as a "shooter."

Similarly odd was the frequent use of the phrase "shooting spree" to describe the Blacksburg horror. A spree is a gay, carefree outing. Those who say "shooting spree" make it sound as if killing at random is therapeutic, even recreational: He felt depressed, so he went on a shooting spree. The only term that fits what Cho did is "rampage," and a few reports used this word. But a disturbing number opted for "spree."

Commentators even tiptoed away from using the term "madman" to describe Cho. We don't need to be psychiatrists or even be aware of the demented materials he mailed to NBC News to determine that the Virginia Tech murderer was mentally ill. There simply are no circumstances under which a person of sound mind would slaughter 32 unarmed innocents. (Whether he was legally insane--unable to distinguish right from wrong--is a separate question. Most who suffer mental illness remain sane. Cho's suicide sug- gests he was sane; presumably, he killed himself to escape punishment for his crimes.) Yet, even as Cho's crazed messages and psychological-health profile have been revealed, news reports have treated the murderer's history gently. In one story, the worst The New York Times could bring itself to say was that the killer suffered a "troubled mental state" and "imbalance." Had the Times called Cho a "madman," the paper would have been criticized--for using a judgmental term about a mass murderer!

But we should be judgmental about murderers and others who commit moral horrors. Of course, one explanation for the popularity of terms like "shooter" may simply be that, with the proliferation of TV crime dramas, cop slang like "shooter" and "perp" has seeped into everyday language and hence into public discourse. But the larger, more troubling explanation has to do with morality. The Western press and intellectual realms were scoffing at the concept of evil long before George W. Bush cheapened the word through constant bandying. Media and thought leaders don't want to say that the man who chained the exit doors of Norris Hall before he started killing had a mind taken over by evil; they want to dismiss him as no more than a confused gunman, because they don't want to contemplate his demonstration that evil is entirely real. And so they use words like "shooter" that remove the moral dimension, making it seem like terrible events just happen--not that human wickedness causes terrible events. Many news reports spoke of the slaughter as if it had been a bad, bad car crash with no one really at fault.

That Cho became evil is distinct from whether society failed him at earlier points; you can sympathize with his earlier self and agree that someone suffering his condition deserved better care. But set aside whether evil results from psychosis--or from supernatural temptation, genetic flaws, free-will choice, trauma, poverty, wealth, or ideology: Evil exists and must be spoken of as evil, not in euphemism. On a windy Monday morning in Virginia, evil armed itself and performed the most despicable of acts: pleasure in the taking of innocent life. Evil will arm itself again. As George Orwell showed, unless we call a thing what it is, we can neither think about it clearly nor oppose it.

Gregg Easterbrook is a contributing editor at The New Republic and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.

From Deadspin.com:

It's Important That You Remember That Roger Clemens Is Your Savior

Last week, Curt Schilling was accused of self-aggrandizing ego worship for supposedly painting blood on his sock, or whatever it was. Schilling's impassioned defense of his own heroism was both absolutely correct -- the man has a right to defend himself against false claims -- and completely fitting, because it allowed Schilling to further do what he does almost as well as he pitches: Promote his own legend.

But Schilling, as skilled at self-inflation as he is, has nothing on Roger Clemens, who somehow conflated a Lou Gehrig moment for himself yesterday, a moment all the more pleasing for him because he didn't have to, you know, actually be dying. Clemens is the master of playing the prettiest girl at the prom, but yesterday might have been the most egregious example yet: Clemens really did fancy himself a god.

And gods do not come cheaply. Darren Rovell at CNBC has calculated Clemens' ridiculous salary, and discovered it makes no financial sense at all for the Yankees, even if they do make the playoffs. Clemens, when you do all the salary math, will make $8,888 a pitch; no amount of playoff ticketing and extra Clemens-ecstatic last-minute sales can make up that amount.

But Roger Clemens gets to feel like the conquering savior, and he gets to do it live. That 45-year-old arm better still have tons of oomph left, because yesterday's masturbatory construction is going to look awfully silly if he doesn't turn the Yankees around. Or, say, if he forgets that baseball's still steroid testing. Let's hope it doesn't turn into his "Mission: Accomplished" moment.

Smith told the crowd that Lebo was a quick learner
when he played for the Tar Heels.

From Mobile Press-Register:

North Carolina coaches come when Lebo calls

Williams, Smith conduct basketball clinic at Auburn
at request of former Tar Heel


Sunday, May 06, 2007
By EVAN WOODBERY
Sports Reporter

AUBURN -- Roy Williams can be a very persuasive man.

That's how the North Carolina men's basketball coach keeps his team's academic progress rate scores among the best in the nation, despite having players depart for the NBA regularly.

APR scores, which were released by the NCAA last week, measure how well programs retain players and keep them making progress toward a degree. Teams lose points -- and can even be docked scholarships -- for players who leave while academically ineligible. South Alabama has forfeited a scholarship, while the Auburn men's basketball team is on a shaky ground.

But at UNC, where five players have left early for professional basketball in Williams' tenure, the APR scores are nearly perfect.

Williams said he's always willing to support a player's decision to go pro. But he has no tolerance for players who want to write off the rest of the semester after the basketball season is over.

"I talk to them and say, 'I am not going to support you, I am going to go after you, I am going to be mean if you don't promise me that you're going to finish up this semester the right way,'" Williams said. "And very fortunately for us, all five of them have."

Williams spent Friday at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum, teaching a class at Auburn head coach Jeff Lebo's annual coaching clinic. Lebo, a former basketball player at UNC, also invited his mentor and former coach, the legendary Dean Smith. The reunion of the Carolina family drew more than 200 coaches to the event.

Williams spent 15 years at Kansas before returning to North Carolina in 2003 and winning the national championship in 2005.

The defections from that national championship team forced Williams to rebuild on the court, and also manage the academic and personal needs of the departing players.

"I talk with them about the whole thing," he said. "I'm dumb enough that I give them the (NBA) salary structure. That's usually the kiss of death when they see how much money it is.

"I say, 'Tell me what you want to do and I'll support you.'"

Two of his current players had different answers.

Brandon Wright is off to the NBA, where he'll likely be one of the top picks in this year's draft. Tyler Hansbrough is staying put.

"Tyler's got two things that are unique for him," Williams said. "One, his dad's an orthopedic surgeon, so he's OK (financially). And second, he hates to fly. He's going to be the first player ever to ask for 12 years of college."

Wright is the oldest of three boys in a single-mother family, Williams said.

"I finished my booster club rounds last week and every one of them asked a question about Brandon," Williams said. "I'd say, 'All you people back there that think he should have stayed in school, raise your hand.' I'd get a bunch of them raising their hands."

Then Williams would read aloud Wright's potential earnings in the NBA over his first four seasons and ask people to raise their hands again.

To them, Williams said, "Y'all may have gone to Carolina, but you didn't graduate."

Even as visions of millions dance in his head, Wright is still in Chapel Hill, preparing for an exam on Monday, Williams said. APR won't be a problem with him.

Williams said North Carolina has few problems because academic standards are tough, even by ACC standards, and admitted athletes are invariably good students -- with a few exceptions.

"Every now and then we'll slip up and let someone like Lebo in school, but most of the time it's really difficult," he said.

--

The Carolina coaches enjoyed their meeting Friday, good-natured gibes and all. They chatted over hamburgers in Lebo's boardroom overlooking Beard-Eaves. Smith entertained the crowd with anecdotes from his coaching days, and offered plenty of smiles and jokes during brief interviews with reporters.

Smith said he was greeted on his plane by Lebo's daughter, who immediately told him that Auburn had beaten Alabama in football and basketball this year, and was only one game away from completing the sweep in baseball.

"So, I see what (rivalry) you have here," Smith said with a laugh. "We have a little bit of that in North Carolina, too."

Friday's visit was the first trip to the Plains for Williams, but he said he keeps in touch with Lebo by phone. Williams was an assistant for Smith when Lebo was recruited to Carolina from Pennsylvania.

"He's one of those youngsters that, when we recruited him, you just think, 'There's a kid who was born to be a coach,'" Williams said. "I really believed that the first time I saw him, I said, 'That kid'll end up being a coach.' You had a guy who was fundamentally sound, extremely competitive, was willing to make the sacrifices and do the things to help his team win. You had that feeling for him as a player. You knew that when he finished playing, he was going to be a coach."

Smith said he tried to steer Lebo into coaching.

"When he was just a senior, he was really a bright student in the business school," Smith said. "I said, 'Are you the best?' He said, 'No.' I said, 'If you become a coach, then you will be the best.'"

Auburn has struggled in Lebo's three years at the helm, although the Tigers made a late run at the SEC West title at the end of last season.

Smith, who served on the NIT selection committee with former Alabama and Vanderbilt coach and Kentucky athletics director C.M. Newton, said the coaching job didn't go unnoticed.

"(Newton) said that job Jeff did this year was fantastic -- which I thought, too, so it was nice to hear a Vanderbilt and Alabama coach say it," Smith said.

--

Williams is coaching in a climate that is much different than the one Smith experienced when he started at UNC almost 50 years ago. Players departing early for the NBA are still a challenge, even with a new league rule that requires players to spend a year in college.

Williams said the NBA created the rule for its own purposes, not to help college basketball.

"Let's be sure we know one thing: The NBA is not our partner," Williams said. "They look at college basketball as competition. They made that rule because it's best for them, and it has nothing to do with the good for the kids. That's a bunch of crap. What they do is try to figure out what's best for them, and that's what they're supposed to do."

Williams said it's easier for the NBA to evaluate talent in college, instead of watching a player like Wright play against overmatched high school kids.

For the overwhelming majority of players, college is a good idea, Williams said. But he's less eager to endorse a blanket rule for every player.

"I don't think there is a perfect rule," he said. "Did Kobe Bryant make the wrong decision? Did Kevin Garnett make the wrong decision? But for every one of those guys, there are a lot of guys we don't hear about any more that apply for the draft and don't get drafted and they're gone in two years."

Williams said the college experience can be valuable in itself. The Carolina "family" is well-known in the basketball ranks, even to the point of ridicule.

"Our guys in the NBA always tell us everybody else makes fun of it, but then they say, 'You know what it is, coach? They're just jealous,'" Williams said.

Smith said the loyalty to the program started with something as simple as sending Christmas cards as a way of staying in touch. But even he is cautious talking about it, for fear people will think it "phony."

But Williams said it was Lebo's Carolina connections that made it easy for him to come to Auburn.

"All Jeff did was call and say, 'Would you do this?' and I said, 'Yeah. Let's just figure out a time and get it done,'" Williams said. "I think he would do the same thing if I called him. A guy that plays at North Carolina -- or like myself, who didn't play but coached there -- you don't have to talk to a guy on the phone every other week or something. When you see him, it might be a year since you talked to him, a year since you've seen him, but it's like you spent the night before with him. You stop everything else."

From The New York Sun:
Shortest of Honeymoons
BY MARK STEYN
May 7, 2007

Is the French election a belated acknowledgment of reality or the latest attempt to dodge it? In other words, is it Britain voting for Mrs. Thatcher in 1979 and America for Ronald Reagan the following year? That's to say, the electorate understands the status quo is exhausted and unsustainable and that unless catastrophe is to be avoided radical course correction is required. Or is it Germany voting tepidly and tentatively to give Angela Merkel the narrowest of victories in 2005? In other words, the electorate was irritated with the incumbents but recoiled from any meaningful change, with the result that Frau Merkel found herself presiding over a nominally fresh government with no agenda and no mandate for reform.

I'd bet on the latter. Just as Frau Merkel proved not to be Germany's Thatcher, I would be surprised if Nicolas Sarkozy turned out to be France's Reagan. Not because he doesn't have Reaganite tendencies but because the French electorate, like the Germans, aren't there yet. M Sarkozy did well in the first round because he co-opted many of Jean-Marie Le Pen's concerns. I don't mean the fascism and the anti-Semitism and the oven jokes. It's a tribute to the shriveling of the French political sphere that, by the time of the last presidential election in 2002, an antiquated perennial loser was able to catapult himself into second place. But, in an advanced technocratic state, where almost any issue worth talking about has been ruled beyond the scope of partisan politics, you might as well throw away terms like "left" and "right." The previous presidential election was meant to be a contest between the supposedly conservative Jacques Chirac and his supposedly socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin. In practice, this boiled down to a candidate who's left of right of left of center, and a candidate who's right of left of right of left of center. Chirac and Jospin ran on identical platforms: they were both in favor of high taxes, high unemployment and high crime. Faced with a choice between Tweedleleft and Tweedleright, you couldn't blame French voters for choosing to make it a real race by voting for the one guy running on an openly stated, clearly defined manifesto. In 2002, the political class considered most of M Le Pen's preoccupations — immigration, crime, unemployment — beneath discussion.

This time round, Mr. Sarkozy didn't make that mistake. The discontented citizenry often complain about the lack of croissance — that's not a basket of crescent-shaped buttery breakfast pastries invented to mark Christendom's victory over Islam at the gates of Vienna in 1693, but the French word for "growth." The Fifth Republic has entirely missed out on the Reagan-Thatcher booms of the last quarter-century: its over-protected and over-regulated economy has led to permanently high unemployment and a lack of entrepreneurial energy, not to mention various social tensions from the blazing Citroens and Renaults lighting up the sky every night to entire suburbs that have effectively seceded from France to join the new Caliphate. It's a measure of the torpor of French politics that M Chirac regarded a presidential election against an elderly fascist as little more than a mildly embarrassing social faux pas rather than a profound indictment of a failing system So he spent his second term as he did the first, governing as an elegant narcissistic complacent hack.

When you mention "the French riots," most people assume you're talking about the excitable chaps rampaging around in 2005. But it was another set of riots six months later that symbolizes the trap in which the political class is caught. The fall 2005 rioters were "youths" (ie Muslims from the suburbs), supposedly alienated by lack of economic opportunity. The spring 2006 rioters were "youths" (ie pampered deadbeats from the Sorbonne), protesting a new law that would enable employers to terminate the contracts of employees under the age of 26 in their first jobs, after two years.

To which the response of most Americans is: you mean, you can't right now? No, you can't. If you hire a 20-year-old and take a dislike to his work three months in, tough: chances are you're stuck with him till mid-century. In France's immobilized economy, it's all but impossible to get fired. Which is why it's all but impossible to get hired. Especially if you belong to that first category of "youths" from the Muslim ghettos, where unemployment is around 40 to 50 per cent. The second group of "youths" — the Sorbonne set — protesting the proposed new, more flexible labor law ought to be able to understand that it's both necessary to the nation and, indeed, in their own self-interest: they are after all their nation's elite. Yet they're like lemmings striking over the right to a steeper cliff — and, naturally, the political class caved in to them.

When most of us on this side of the Atlantic think of "welfare queens," our mind's eye conjures some teenage crack whore with three kids by different men in a housing project. But France illustrates how absolute welfare corrupts absolutely. These Sorbonne welfare queens are Marie Antoinettes: unemployment rates for immigrants? Let 'em eat cake, as long as our pampered existence is undisturbed.

Not all French youth is so self-deluded. I notice, for example, every time I'm across the pond in my corner of South Kensington that one hears more and more French spoken on the street. There are somewhere between 400 and 500,000 French citizens living in Britain's capital. London is now the seventh biggest French-speaking city in the world. These are young talented dynamic people who like the same things about France the British and American tourists do — the vin, the cuisine, the couture, the Provencal farmhouses and the Cote d'Azur's topless beaches — but have concluded that it is no longer a society in which you can fulfill your economic potential. They would presumably be Sarkozy supporters, but, like many who feel the odds are stacked against them, they chose in the end to bail out.

As for those who remain, they're sick of crime and unemployment and on the whole could do with rather fewer Muslims on the streets, but they're not yet willing to give up on the economic protectionism and lavish social programs that lead, inexorably, to the crime and unemployment and a general economic and demographic decline leaving the nation dependent on mass immigration and accelerating Islamization.

In my recent book, whose title escapes me, I cite one of those small anecdotes that seems almost too perfect a distillation of Continental politics. It was a news item from 2005: A fellow in Marseilles was charged with fraud because he lived with the dead body of his mother for five years in order to continue receiving her pension of 700 euros a month.

She was 94 when she croaked, so she'd presumably been enjoying the old government check for a good three decades or so, but her son figured he might as well keep the money rolling in until her second century and, with her corpse tucked away under a pile of rubbish in the living room, the female telephone voice he put on for the benefit of the social services office was apparently convincing enough. As the Reuters headline put it: "Frenchman Lived With Dead Mother To Keep Pension."

Think of France as that flat in Marseilles, and its economy as the dead mother, and the country's many state benefits as monsieur's deceased mom's benefits. To the outside observer, the French give the impression they can live with the stench of death as long as the government benefits keep coming. If that's the case, the new president will have the shortest of honeymoons.

© 2007 Mark Steyn