The Jerusalem district court Friday, May 9, approved the prosecution’s application to allow the US financier Morris Talansky, 75, from Long Island, to testify in a pre-trial hearing to handing large sums of cash to prime minister Ehud Olmert. 

The court decided to open the session to the public. Talansky told the police who questioned him that he is afraid Olmert will “send people after him.”

State prosecutor Moshe Lador told the court it was inconceivable that the prime minister, who is under investigation on suspicion of accepting bribes over a long period, would try to influence the witness or alter his testimony. But because Talansky, who has known Olmert through close ties over a long period, might change his mind, it was advisable to depose him quickly.

Olmert’s attorney, Eli Zohar, complained the preliminary process prejudiced the case against his client because it was too soon for him to familiarize himself with the allegations enough to cross-examine the witness.

By the decision on an open hearing, district justice Mussia Arad has strengthened the effect of public opinion on the political and moral aspects of the case. Olmert’s first reaction after the gag order was partially lifted Thursday night, May 8, was to treat it as a strictly legal issue to be fought in court. He acknowledged receipt of large sums from Morris Talansky but insisted they funded his four election campaigns and not a cent had reached his pocket. He refused to quit office as prime minister unless indicted.

At the Talansky hearing expected next week, the naming of more American contributors who gave Olmert cash during his time as mayor of Jerusalem and minister of trade and industry from 1993 to 2000 will undoubtedly add fuel to the unprecedented scandal surrounding the first such case ever to be brought against an Israeli prime minister.

 

Arkani-Hamed is only in his mid-30s, but he has already distinguished himself as one of the leading thinkers in the field of particle physics.

His revolutionary ideas about the way the universe works will finally be put to the test later this year at Switzerland's Large Hadron Collider, which, when completed, will be the world's most powerful particle accelerator.

A theory that has emerged in recent decades that claims to bring some relief to physics mysteries like these is called superstring theory, or string theory for short. While previously, scientists believed that the smallest, most indivisible building blocks of our world were particles, string theory says that the world is made of extremely small vibrating loops called strings.

In order for these strings to properly constitute our universe, they must vibrate in 11 dimensions, scientists say. Everyone observes three spatial dimensions and one for time, but theoretical models suggest at least seven others that we do not see.

Arkani-Hamed proposed, along with physicists Savas Dimopoulos and Gia Dvali, that some of these dimensions are larger than previously thought -- specifically, as large as a millimeter. Physicists call this the ADD model, after the first initials of the authors' last names. We haven't seen these extra dimensions yet because gravity is the only force that can wander around them, Arkani-Hamed said.

String theory has come under attack because some say it can never be tested -- the strings are supposed to be smaller than any particle ever detected, after all. But Arkani-Hamed says the Large Hadron Collider could potentially lead to the direct observation of strings, or at least indirect evidence of their existence.

In fact, by slamming particles into one another, the Large Hadron Collider may detect particles slipping in and out of the dimensions that Arkani-Hamed has worked on describing.

Particle collisions should begin at the Large Hadron Collider in August or September, according to the US/LHC Web site. Evidence of theories such as the ADD model could be discovered by 2009, Marlow said.

Data reflecting Arkani-Hamed's work on large extra dimensions "would really provide the first confirmation in this very profound way we might think about nature," Marlow said.

A recent survey on the environment found that seventy percent of people worldwide think that the planet is running out oil. Only less than one quarter believe that there is enough of it to keep it as a primary source of energy. Petro pessimism runs especially high in the United States where a full two thirds think that the point of depletion is within sight.

Here are some hard facts.

According the Energy Information Administration as of January 2007 there was more than 1.3 trillion barrels of proved crude oil on earth. Even if this were all the oil on the planet there would be no immediate danger of shortages, because at the current rate of consumption – roughly 85 million barrels a day – this supply would last for more than 40 years.

But the 1.3 trillion in these so-called proved reserves refers only to a tiny fraction of earth’s oil, designating only that portion which can be extracted under current ‘economic and operating conditions.’ As it happens, this figure grows with each decade and usually dramatically so.

In 1882, for instance, there were 95 million barrels of proved petroleum reserves. This number jumped to 4.5 billion in 1926 and then to 10 billion in 1932. In 1944 the quantity stood at 20 billion. In 1950 it leaped to 100 billion and in 1980 it was 648 billion. In 1993 the world’s proved reserves grew to 999 billion, and today they stand at 1.3 trillion barrels.

These figures show that our ever-increasing consumption has not over the years reduced the pool of available oil. In fact, the exact opposite is the case – each successive year we have more of it than ever before. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, mankind’s oil supplies are not getting depleted, but they keep continually expanding.

There are several reasons for this. New exploration and advancements in surveying techniques in particular result in fresh finds almost every year.

We have seen a dramatic instance of this at the end of last year when a massive reservoir was discovered in the Tupi sector off the coast of Brazil. Estimated to hold some 8 billion barrels of recoverable crude it was the second largest find in the last 20 years. Two months later an even greater deposit was located nearby which may hold as much as 30 billion barrels. If confirmed, the field would be the third biggest on the planet, behind only the Ghawar in Saudi Arabia and the Burgan in Kuwait. Many scientists are now convinced that intense exploration fuelled by high prices will yield comparable discoveries in other places of the globe.

Adding appreciably to the proved reserves is the continual perfecting of drilling techniques. This makes it possible to tap deposits which because of their depth or geological environment were off limits only a few years ago. Today’s equipment can perform mind-boggling feats of horizontal drilling and there are oil rigs capable of reaching 35,000 feet under the surface, about double of what the previous generation could do.

Rising prices also make available oil which was previously considered unrecoverable commercially, because for whatever reason the extraction cost per barrel exceeded the price it could fetch on the market. With every jump in price, however, more and more of such oil is brought up as its production becomes profitable.

Finally, improvements in extraction processes make it possible to more fully utilize currently harvested reservoirs. Due to technical and economic limitations, normally only a portion of an oilfield can be recovered (it is this part that is referred to as the ‘proved’ reserve). A few decades ago the average oil recovery rate from reservoirs was 20%, but thanks to technological progress this rate is nearing 40% today.

It is the combination of these factors that accounts for the fact that more and more is added every year to mankind’s stock of crude oil. This in turn results in a seemingly paradoxical outcome. Even as our consumption increases with each passing year, the projected depletion point keeps moving further out into the future.

This has been the most topsy-turvy presidential election season in anyone’s memory. Conventional wisdom has long since been thrown out the window. Pollsters now openly admit that their polls have margins of error larger than the spreads between the candidates. The high priests of political punditry can pontificate all they want, but the fact remains that none of them have a clue how all of this will turn out.

The only thing for certain is that the candidate who wins will face the most serious set of seemingly insoluble problems since Ronald Reagan took the oath of office. But the presidency should not be for the faint of heart, and we have to pray that the man or woman who walks into the White House in January 2009 will have the experience, wisdom, and personal courage to do what is right for America, not just what is right for his or her reelection. That means whomever we elect must put aside the briefing book marked “your next campaign” and pick up the one marked “urgent problems.”

Tab A of that briefing book is Iran. Why Iran instead of Iraq? Because Iraq is just a subset of the Iran problem. Whatever you think about why and how we got into Iraq, the thing that will matter in the long run is how and why we get out, and what we leave behind.

There is a truism in foreign affairs – there is no such thing as a do-over; you have to deal with the here and now, and concentrate on what you do next. President Bush has made serious mistakes in the Middle East, but we can’t undo those by just walking away. Now that he has finally taken Sen. McCain’s advice and put in more troops into Iraq, things are turning around. As long as the Surge is working and has a chance of success, we should continue with it.

If we quit Iraq without leaving behind a stable government, as Sens. Obama or Clinton propose, it will be easy pickings for Iran. It will finally achieve what it has sought for millennia – impotent neighbors to its east and west. 

In this Jihad Watch exclusive, Julia Gorin discusses yet another fruitless search for that ever-elusive unicorn, a genuine and broad-based moderate Islam:

_______________________________________________________
In my fellow conservatives’ desperation to find a country that doesn’t hate America, and in the universal struggle to find a truly moderate Muslim population, articles and blog posts such as this one by Michael Totten, shamefully in Commentary magazine online, become ubiquitous.

It’s titled “This is a Kosovar Muslim” and has a picture of an elderly Albanian man wearing a “USA” sweatshirt with an American flag on it:

I'm writing this from the capital of Kosovo, the least “scary” Muslim country on Earth…Kosovo is surprising even to me. Islam in this country is so thoroughly liberal (“moderate” doesn't quite cover it) that, if it weren't for the mosques, there would be no visible evidence that Kosovo is a Muslim country at all…Bosnia notoriously welcomed thousands of Salafist mujahideen fighters from the Arab world during Yugoslavia's violent demise. But the Kosovo Liberation Army brusquely told them to stay the hell out of their country--even while they faced an ethnic cleansing campaign directed from Belgrade. [They didn’t.]
…

American flags are on sale at kiosks everywhere. They fly in front of government buildings. The world's second largest replica of the Statue of Liberty sits atop the five star Hotel Victory. The largest street downtown was renamed Bill Clinton Boulevard…Clinton is rightly hailed as a liberator, but one resident told me “We are Republicans here in Kosovo.” They want a strong American President who won't back down from commitments. Just a few short blocks from Bill Clinton Boulevard is the Israeli Odyssea Bakery. It is not just a Jewish bakery, but an Israeli bakery owned and operated by an actual Israeli.

As with everyone else who has deigned to finally write about Kosovo now that it’s back in the headlines, Totten sees only what’s on the surface, because he didn’t bother following Kosovo from 1999 on (not to mention pre-1999). Yes, Albanians are pro-American, thanks to our distinctly un-American operation on their behalf. The last time someone expanded Albania for them, Albanians were so grateful that they formed two Nazi divisions to show their appreciation, rounding up Jews for Bergen-Belsen, and killing Serbs. Before that, they converted to Islam to benefit from Ottoman patronage, get higher status and get the upper hand over the Slavs. Albanians will be whatever they have to be, and the love is always conditional.

As I wrote in an article titled “The Pro-American Terrorists” and in another titled “Why Do They Love Us?”: Whoever secures more land for Albanians--in the current case a second country (while Jews still struggle for just one)--that’s whom they’ll love. So now we’re their patrons. Ottomans. Nazis. USA (along with Saudi Arabia and UAE). Which means that just as there is a Clinton mural in Kosovo, there is also a Hitler diner and a “bin Laden Mosque” (dubbed as such because of all the photos of bin Laden that adorned its walls until the Americans complained).

Totten further reveals his credentials as an imposter to this issue when he writes that the “Kosovo Liberation Army brusquely told [mujahedeen] to stay the hell out of their country--even while they faced an ethnic cleansing campaign directed from Belgrade.”

The ever-present use of State Department-issued language concerning “ethnic cleansing directed from Belgrade” aside (and please note that when it comes to any discussion of Kosovo, there is no variation from government to media to art), the KLA did in fact have Islamist help. Bin Laden co-financed, co-trained and co-fought with the KLA. Even the Brooklyn-based gun smuggler Florin Krasniqi listed al Qaeda as among those helping his KLA in a PBS-aired documentary (2005), saying that he would have worked “with the devil” too. Just as Totten’s article was being published the other day, al Qaeda-linked Kuwaitis were admitting that they were also fighting in Kosovo, in addition to every other kind of mujahed—one of whom told a journalist in 1999, “This is my eighth jihad.” As one National Guard source recently told me, the jihadists come and go as they please.

But I would certainly be interested in seeing some documentation for the notion that Totten conjured up of KLA telling the mujahedeen to “stay the hell out of their country.” I’d like to see even something quoting an Albanian leader, an “ex” KLA fighter or international administrator making this up, but Totten naturally offers zero documentation in his Commentary blog post, which reads like a ventriloquist act to anyone who has heard it all before—from Albanians.

To understand how things work in Kosovo and surrounding areas, Totten needs a heavy dose of Chris Deliso’s book The Coming Balkan Caliphate, from which he would glean that the Albanians have an “arrangement” with the fundamentalists that goes like this: If your boys touch the internationals here--who are giving us what we need--we will kill them. Tell them to keep their heads low, and they can continue to operate in the region.

While Albanians are slowly reawakening to Islam after a communist slumber, Kosovo is filling with mosques and is the center of al Qaeda heroin-trafficking. In case anyone ever seeks to question why U.S. leaders and the State Dept. sabotaged Serbian-Albanian negotiations at every turn, using absolutist language throughout (e.g. “Independence is the only option”), he or she will find that we were responding to the perpetual threat of violence by the Albanian leadership, our new “friend”. Of course, the Albanian leadership does not mean all Albanians, but even those Albanians who don’t have blood on their hands are all too happy to accept their independent Kosovo/Greater Albania however the KLA managed and bludgeoned to win it. They take their goodies from whoever is handing them out, and however they can get them.

Meanwhile, the receptiveness that the jihadists have found among young Albanians (like young Bosnians) to fundamentalism isn't unlike the void that Islam is filling in millions of young people everywhere. But the point is that our intervention opened that floodgate, and we continue down the same road even post-9/11. Instead of promoting multi-culturalism, we promoted the most radical elements, ethnic supremacy and a victim mentality that ultimately seeks out the old faith. And that faith is making inroads in Kosovo with access it didn’t have before 1999. (Just look at how surprised the famous shill for Balkan Muslims, Stephen Schwartz, was on this bus trip.)

Totten goes on to assert not only Albanians’ pro-Americanism, but their pro-Semitism:

Accomplished businessman and practicing Muslim Luan Berisha told me that 90 percent of Kosovars support Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict. I don't know if that's really true. But if so it means Kosovo is more pro-Israel than even the United States…No one in any Arabic country would say such a thing. Kosovo sharply contrasts also with nearby Serbia on this question, where General Wesley Clark is seen as a sinister Jewish figure who plotted Belgrade's destruction, and where Saddam Hussein was considered an ally.

Forced into dealing with countries that weren’t part of the Western-led sanctions, boycotts and bombings against it, Serbia was isolated and had few options. Hence the dealings with Saddam Hussein, who was our ally as well when we needed him. While Wesley Clark is rightfully hated in Serbia, Israel is supported and, as Yohanan Ramati, Chairman of Jerusalem Institute for Western Defense, wrote in the Jerusalem Post in 1995, “Israelis are still liked and welcomed.” There was good reason that Israel was against the bombing of Serbia and was providing covert assistance to Belgrade even while providing humanitarian aid to “Kosovars”.

For years, Serbia continued to face Westward despite our crimes against it, even offering troops for Afghanistan and Iraq. But having dug ourselves into a hole, we continued to dig—and continued to kick Serbia’s teeth in. Whatever geo-strategic advantages and goals we’ve managed to carve out of our disastrous 1990s errors (quietly admitted to here and there), at least as much could have been accomplished working with our WWI and WWII ally, Serbia, which also has an incredible intelligence apparatus and had good border security in Kosovo until we dismantled it. (Recall it was Serbia that caught a key suspect in the Madrid bombings 16 months after the attack--as he transited untouched through Europe, most likely on his way to Kosovo or Bosnia, writes Deliso.)

While Totten is in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, he should look around and ask himself why it’s so pristinely Albanian. And while showing us “This is a Kosovar Muslim,” he should remember that so was one of the Fort Dix Six planning to massacre American soldiers—and three others were Albanian Muslims from western Macedonia, a.k.a. Greater Kosovo. Indeed, Totten’s timing on this post couldn’t be better, as today is the one-year anniversary of the arrests that should have been America’s red light on Kosovo independence.

Too bad conservatives can’t distinguish themselves from the Democrats and other appeasers on this front.

IF YOU'VE SPOKEN WITH someone who has swooned for Barack Obama, chances are you've heard them say the word "judgment" a lot. The Obama campaign's central talking point has devolved into, "You have to vote for Barack Obama because he has such wonderful judgment."

Back in the early days of the campaign, references to Obama's super-human judgment served as a shorthand for the fact that he knew enough not to get us involved in what the left considers the Iraqi quagmire. The Lioness of Tuzla, on the other hand, in spite of her many decades of making change at the highest levels of power, fell for the farrago of Bush administration lies and deceit and supported the Iraq war. Thus, in 2003 when he was but a humble state legislator, Barack Obama showed a moment of wonderful judgment--judgment so superb that even Hillary Clinton couldn't approach it.

I have no problem with the Obama campaign and its supporters using the term "judgment" to remind Democratic voters that Obama is more in line with the Democratic mainstream than his rival. My problem is that Obama supporters seem to have forgotten that "judgment" was just a codeword, and it was never really supposed to serve any other purpose beyond invoking the memory of Hillary Clinton's Iraq war vote.

It became clear to me a few weeks ago just how ludicrous the whole judgment issue has become for the typical Obama supporter. I was exchanging emails with one of Obama's law school classmates who, like all the other Obama classmates that I spoke with, was quite fond of Obama. I asked him if he could send me a written testimonial on Obama. He agreed.

Obama's classmate began his statement by saying that he didn't know Obama very well at all back in law school, but what he did know he liked. Somewhere near the end of the message, he took a detour to make sure he praised Obama's judgment.

In some ways, this was an impressive testament to the way modern campaigns, just by osmosis, can get their supporters to regurgitate the campaigns' talking points. Of course, the praise for Obama's judgment in this context made no sense. I, too, went to law school. And I can't imagine a circumstance where I would come to admire a fellow student's judgment, especially when the fellow student in question was a casual acquaintance. I couldn't see myself saying back in my law school days, "Gosh, the way that 28 year-old outlined those cases before attending Civil Procedure really showed judgment. Presidential judgment!"

 

Earth may once have had more than one moon, most probably two more, NASA scientists think.

Prevailing scientific consensus holds that the existing Moon was formed when a Mars-sized planet collided with the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system was very young.

So much matter would have been thrown up into space that it recollected under its own gravity to form the Moon, which for millions of years would have glowed red-hot as the molten rock from the planetary collision cooled.

However, researchers Jack J. Lissauer of NASA's Ames Research Center near Mountain View, Calif., and John E. Chambers of the Carnegie Institution of Washington figure quite a bit of that ejected matter would have recollected into two other small moons at the so-called "Lagrangian points" or "Trojan points."

Those are fixed places in the Moon's orbit around the Earth where the gravity of both large bodies would keep smaller objects in stable positions.

"The giant impact that likely led to the formation of the Moon launched a lot of material into Earth orbit, and some could well have been caught in the Lagrangian points," Lissauer tells New Scientist magazine.

For example, there are two groups of asteroids in the Lagrangian points of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun — one called the "Greek camp" leads the giant planet by 60 degrees in its circular orbit, while the other group, dubbed the "Trojan camp," follows 60 degrees behind.

Lissauer and Chambers figure the two small moons would have orbited Earth for about 100 million years before the slight gravitational tugs from the solar system's other planets sent them spiraling off course, either to crash into the Moon or Earth or to drift off into space.

In a separate study, astrophysicist Matija Cuk of the University of British Columbia thinks the smallest possible moons, those only a few dozen miles across, could have lasted for up to a billion years at the Lagrangian points in the Moon's orbit.

"They would have looked more like Jupiter or Venus in the sky than a satellite," Cuk said to New Scientist. "They would have resembled very bright stars."

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Gunfire broke out in downtown Beirut Thursday after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said recent government actions amount to "a declaration of open war." 

"Just in the past few minutes ... things have gotten a lot worse," CNN's Cal Perry reported from downtown Beirut. The sound of gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades could be heard throughout his live reports.

Perry, who took cover with the Lebanese army, said government forces have not yet reacted to the violence.

The violence appeared limited to Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods in the capital, near CNN's Beirut bureau. There were no reports of violence in Beirut's Christian neighborhoods.

The Lebanese army, which is charged with trying to keep peace in the capital, is in a precarious position, Perry explained.

"When you're talking about this much gunfire, when you're talking about RPG fire, it's absolutely ludicrous to think that the army will put themselves between these two factions," he said.

Video of the scene showed tanks and armored personnel carriers moving through empty streets past shuttered stores.

Witnesses and journalists described a long line of cars on the main road leading out of Beirut after violence broke out, but Perry later said he and his cameraman drove past restaurants full of customers calmly enjoying their meals.

The violence erupted shortly after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the government's attempts to halt Hezbollah's use of a telecommunications system amounts to "a declaration of open war."

"We believe the war has started and we believe that we have the right to defend ourselves," Nasrallah said in a televised speech. "We will cut the hand that will reach out to the weapons of the resistance no matter if it comes from the inside or the outside."

At the same time, Nasrallah called for dialogue, saying, "We are ready, whoever wants a compromise, we are here and ready."

"Those who have taken decisions leading to war, let them withdraw their decisions and there would be no war," he said.

"Am I declaring war? Not at all. I am declaring oppression and self-defense."

Lebanese parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri on Thursday blamed Hezbollah's leader for "starting a new round of horror," and called on the army to intervene.

"Beirut is under siege -- its airport, downtown, center, the roads leading to the city are all under siege," said Hariri, the son of the late former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Lebanese Communications Minister Marwan Hamadi said Nasrallah's speech "is a direct threat of assassinating us."

"We are not scared of the threat," Hamadi told al-Arabiya. " 'Cutting off the hands' is a direct threat of assassination.

"He says it is a new phase; we say it is a new phase, too. We are determined to keep what is left of the Lebanese government."

Many Lebanese politicians who have opposed Syria's influence in their country have been assassinated in recent years, including former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and four members of parliament.

A 37-year-old man is charged with raping a 10-year-old girl who gave birth last month in Idaho. 

"St. Anthony Police said they were notified of the young girl's pregnancy by medical personnel after she went in for treatment at a doctor's office," KIFI-TV reports on its website.

One day later, the ABC affiliate says the young mother delivered a 6-pound girl at Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg, Idaho.

KIDK-TV says Guadalupe Gutierrez-Juarez, a suspected illegal immigrant, is being held at the Fremont County Jail. He's due in court next week to face rape charges.

"I wouldn't have believed a 10-year-old could conceive in the first place," Fremont County Sheriff Ralph Davis tells the Associated Press.

DEBKAfile’s political sources report that circles closest to Ehud Olmert, prime minister and leader of the Kadima party see little hope of him surviving the political fallout from the new, as-yet unpublished police investigation against him.

Tuesday, May 6, is seen as marking the critical point in the inquiry, after which the police and general prosecution will move quickly to draw up an indictment.

Whether or not Olmert escapes conviction at the end of the road, his position as prime minister is becoming untenable ahead of the legal battle to clear is name.

Our sources do not credit the reports that Monday, May 5, visiting US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice leaned hard on Olmert to mark President George W, Bush’s May 14 visit with a declaration defining the final frontiers of a Palestinian state acceptable to Israel. They say Rice is fully aware he is in no state for radical decisions that would finalize Israel’s state borders as well.

Israel’s parties have begun looking ahead to an autumn 2008 general election. A vacuum is beginning to form in the conduct of Israel’s most pressing security and other matters because of the prime minister’s shrinking authority.

Foreign minister Tzipi Livni as acting prime minister would step into Olmert’s shoes to head a caretaker government until elections, if he stepped down or was otherwise barred from carrying out his duties. In prospective Kadima primaries, transport minister Shaul Mofaz and others would challenge her for the party leadership.

Labor leader, defense minister Ehud Barak, is believed to be exploring a pact with Livni to form a new party bloc to fight Likud. New party factions may spring up. There are no clear answers as yet on the manner of Olmert’s departure or its short-term impact on the shape of the government coalition.

Former American UN ambassador John Bolton said that while a hostile Iranian response harming US interests existed, the damaged inflicted by Tehran would be far higher if Washington took no action. He was quoted by the UK Telegraph as urging therefore that Washington order air strikes against the Revolutionary Guards Corps camps training Iraqi insurgents.

A US spokesman last week confirmed DEBKAfile’s earlier disclosure that the IRGC’s al Qods Brigades had drafted Hizballah personnel to support Iraq’s Shiite militias and train them at facilities in Iran.

Pro-Western Siniora government and Iran-Syria-backed Hizballah forces exchanged fire in the streets of Beirut Wednesday, May 7. DEBKAfile’s sources report both have ordered a general call-up of their adherents. 

Hizballah fighters clad in national army and police uniforms are infiltrating government party strongholds in the capital to seize control. In the north and the western Beqaa Valley region of Kharoub, government forces are mobilizing. First units have been sighted heading for Beirut.

During the day, Hizballah blocked the roads leading to the airport and vowed to keep it under siege until the Siniora government goes back on the decision announced Tuesday, May 6, to shut down the private telecommunications network Iran installed for the group and reinstate the pro-Hizballah airport director Gen. Wafiq Shuqeir. To pile up anti-government pressure, Hizballah called labor unions out on strike.

General Shuqeir was removed after Druze Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt accused Hizballah of installing spy cameras at the airport to monitor the movements of Lebanese and foreign leaders. Jumblatt said incoming flights were bringing the Shiite militia supplies of weapons from Iran.

On August 9, 2007, DEBKAfile first revealed that Iranian military engineers were installing a secret underground telecommunications system to support Hizballah’s missile unit. The network runs through south Beirut, the Beqaa Valley’s Yohmor region near the Syrian border – where Hizballah and the Palestinian Popular Front-GC keep their training facilities – and connect the southern towns of Tyre on the Mediterranean with Abassieh, seat of Hizballah’s southern headquarters.

For the ten months during which this military telecommunications network was being installed, the Beirut government did not dare touch it.

Prime minister Fouad Siniora finally decided enough was enough when satellite images provided by Western agencies showed work on connecting Hizballah’s network with the communications and eavesdropping systems set up by the Syrian army along the Lebanese border.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the two networks and their linkage are part of military preparations by Iran, Syria and Hizballah for a possible new flareu-up of hostilities with Israel.

Well, it looks like it's the end of the road for Hillary. Time for her to pack up her pantsuits and go back to ... wherever it is she's pretending to be living these days. Now we just have to get rid of the other two. Perhaps if I endorse Obama ...

This week, Bill Clinton lost his second presidential election for a protege.

Ronald Reagan was so popular, he not only won a 49-state landslide re-election for himself, but he also won a symbolic third term for his boob of a vice president, George Herbert Walker Bush (who immediately blew it by breaking his own "no new taxes" pledge).

 

By contrast, in addition to not being able to get half the country to vote for him in two tries, Clinton's connection to any other presidential candidate spells utter doom. Both his vice president and his wife have been defeated in elections they should have won, but lost because of their unfortunate association with him. The country has spoken. It wants to be rid of the Clintons.

The reason two elections in recent history -- the 2000 presidential election and the 2008 Democratic primary -- were razor-close is that in both cases there was some strange, foreboding, otherworldly force dragging down the presumptive winner.

Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, lost an election that should have been his in a walk. In fact, he was the first incumbent president or vice president in 100 years to lose an election in peacetime with a good economy. Mind you, that was before we even knew that Gore was a deranged conspiracy theorist who believes the Earth is in serious peril from cow flatulence.

What was the mystery factor to explain such a historic loss?

The media's pollsters may have lied to the public about Clinton's vaunted popularity, but Gore's pollsters got paid not to lie to him. And they told Gore the truth: Clinton was killing him.

 

[...]

 

And now Bill Clinton has wrecked Hillary's campaign, too. He's like the creepy guy who graduated last year but still hangs around the high school cafeteria chatting up sophomores.

In a Time magazine poll taken earlier this year, more than twice as many voters said Bill Clinton's involvement in Hillary's campaign made them less likely to vote for her as said they were more likely to vote for her. (Some even said that "having Bill Clinton around makes me less likely to vote for What's-Her-Name." One-third of the respondents were upset Bill didn't call the next day, like he promised.)

So before remembering that we are now left with two dangerous choices for president -- a young liberal who is friendly with terrorists or an old liberal who is friendly with Teddy Kennedy -- take a moment to revel in the fact that our long national nightmare is over. It turns out getting rid of the Clintons was the change we've been waiting for.

Cinco de Mayo commemorates a resounding victory of Mexican troops over French invaders in Puebla, Mexico, on May 5, 1862. The French emperor, Napoleon III, antidemocratic despot that he was, planned to recolonize Mexico. He then hoped to help the Confederate Army secure the disintegration of the United States republic which he despised so thoroughly.

Fortunately for the Union Army, the valiant Mexican forces at Puebla thwarted Napoleon III’s game plan. The Mexican victory gave the Union Army enough time to build the massive military force that led to the decisive victory at Gettysburg in 1863. After Gettysburg, Lincoln dispatched General Philip Sheridan and troops to the Texas-Mexican border, where they supplied Mexico with weapons and ammunition. The Union even supplied soldiers, allowing honorably discharged American soldiers to keep their uniforms and rifles if they joined the Mexican army.

Although it took several years, the French invaders were eventually expelled. The American Legion of Honor marched in the Victory Parade in Mexico City. Because of American support in the 1860s, thousands of Mexicans crossed the border after Pearl Harbor to join the U.S. Armed Forces, as did others after 9/11.

Despite the Mexican-American war in Texas in the 1840s, by the 1860s, Americans and Mexicans coexisted primarily as allies and friends. Sadly, in the background of today’s celebration of Mexican-American brotherhood, all is not sweet concord. I won’t address the serious problem of anti-Mexican bigotry today, but instead will focus on the militant nationalism of hotheaded and hate-mongering Mexican-Americans that seeks to pervert the spirit of Cinco de Mayo.

A quick Google search uncovers various lurid statements that some Mexican-Americans are making about the United States. For example:

“Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired…Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die.”

“California is going to be a Hispanic state. Anyone who doesn’t like it should leave.”

“We are practicing ‘La Reconquista’ in California.”

The concept of “Reconquista” is crucial. The “Reconquest” refers to the reconquest of Spain by Christians after centuries of occupation by Muslims from the 8th century until that most eventful year of 1492.

It is useless to try to alter the opinions of the men who made those statements. Malevolence cannot be reasoned with, so I merely offer the cautionary note that people consumed with anger about what happened to their ancestors often condemn their children to strife and violence. However, to Mexican-Americans and Mexicans of a calmer frame of mind, I humbly ask you, why would you want Mexico to take over California or any other American state?

Think about it. Why have you emigrated from Mexico to come here? Was it not for economic reasons? Then ask yourself, why is the United States a land of vast economic opportunity compared to Mexico? Why has the United States prospered over the decades while Mexico stagnated?

You can accuse me of Anglo-American jingoism if you want, but would you at least consider the possibility that the only reason the American southwest is so affluent today is because it is part of the United States and not Mexico? Both the Southwest and Mexico were blessed with temperate climates and abundant natural resources. The only reason why the former prospered while the latter stagnated was because the one was well governed and the other poorly governed.

If Mexico had been under the same system of law, governance, and justice as the United States, then its economic development would have paralleled that of the United States. If, on the other hand, the American Southwest had remained part of Mexico, it would be as underdeveloped as Mexico, and Mexicans would be emigrating northward from California in search of economic opportunity. In short, everyone—regardless of race or ethnicity—in the American Southwest today should be glad that Santa Anna lost the Mexican-American War! It would be a lot poorer region if he had won.

In closing, I offer an undiplomatic, pointed comment to the Mexican macho men who brag about reconquering California: If you really want to do something manly and heroic, try reforming Mexico. Set that beautiful land free so that it can finally achieve its enormous potential.

Over the past few years, the term nakba (also spelled naqba) has become the favorite nonsense word of the Anti-Israel Lobby. Meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, it has been embraced by anti-Semites all over the planet to refer to Israel’s creation, which supposedly imposed a “catastrophe” upon the “disenfranchised Palestinian Arabs.”

Of course, the real catastrophe that befell the Arabs in 1948-49 was that they failed in their attempt to annihilate Israel and exterminate its population, and for that they paid a price.

Meanwhile, Nakba Nonsense has been spreading. Google finds over 85,000 web pages referring to Israel’s creation as a “nakba,” and a Yahoo search finds even more than that. The anti-Israel web magazine Counterpunch cannot mention Israel without using the term. Even Israel’s leftist minister of education, Yuli Tamir, has ordered that the nakba be taught as part of the curriculum in Israeli schools, where Israel’s schoolchildren can be taught to mourn their own country’s existence.

(Tamir, who was previously a professor of education at Tel Aviv University, is so bizarre that in the summer of 1996 she published an article in the Boston Review defending female circumcision in the Third World and denouncing those who expressed disgust at the practice – see http://bostonreview.net/BR21.3/Tamir.html.)

Nakba ceremonies are now held each year by leftist professors at Israeli universities who mourn the very creation and existence of their country.

The nakba of the late 1940’s and 1950’s that befell large numbers of Jews living in Arab countries who were suddenly expelled, persecuted, and stripped of their property does not interest such people. Those Jewish refugees made new homes in Israel and actually outnumbered the Palestinians who fled.

Meanwhile, an urban legend has been fabricated about the origin of the term “nakba” – a fairy tale that claims the word was a banner waved by Palestinians starting in 1948, and that its very use shows how deep the roots of “Palestinian nationality” go.

So here is a little current events quiz: What is the real origin of the term “nakba” and what is its original meaning?

If you get the answer to the quiz wrong – in other words, if you say it refers to the events of 1948 – you are in very good company. I myself would have flunked the quiz up until a few days ago, when I stumbled on the correct answer. Not only does the bandying about of the “nakba” nonsense word not point to any “depths of roots of Palestinian nationality,” it proves the very opposite: namely, that there is no such thing as a Palestinian nation or nationality at all.

The authoritative source on the origin of “nakba” is none other than George Antonius, supposedly the first “official historian of Palestinian nationalism.” Like so many “Palestinians,” he actually wasn’t – Palestinian, that is. He was a Christian Lebanese-Egyptian who lived for a while in Jerusalem, where he composed his official advocacy/history of Arab nationalism. The Arab Awakening, a highly biased book, was published in 1938 and for years afterward was the official text used at British universities.

Antonius was an “official Palestinian representative” to Britain, trying to argue the cause for creating an Arab state in place of any prospective homeland promised the Jews under the Balfour Declaration of 1917. By the 1930’s Antonius was an active anti-Zionist propagandist, and as such was offered a job at Columbia University (where some things don’t seem to change much).

He served as an academic fig leaf for xenophobic Arab nationalists seeking to deny Jews any right to self-determination in or migration to the Land of Israel. And he was closely associated with the Grand Mufti, Hitler’s main Islamic ally, and also with the pro-German regime in Iraq in the early 1940’s.

Antonius was so passionately anti-Zionist that he continues to serve as the hero and mentor of Jewish leftist anti-Zionists everywhere. For example, the late Hebrew University sociology professor Baruch Kimmerling relied on Antonius at length in his own pseudo-history, Palestinians: The Making of a People (Free Press, 1993).

So how does Antonius provide us with the answer to the current-events quiz concerning the origin of “nakba”? The term was not invented in 1948 but rather in 1920. And it was coined not because of Palestinians suddenly getting nationalistic but because Arabs living in Palestine regarded themselves as Syrian and were enraged at being cut off from their Syrian homeland.

Before World War I, the entire Levant – including what is now Israel, the “occupied territories,” Jordan, Lebanon and Syria – was comprised of Ottoman Turkish colonies. When Allied forces drove the Turks out of the Levant, the two main powers, Britain and France, divided the spoils between them. Britain got Palestine, including what is now Jordan, while France got Lebanon and Syria.

The problem was that the Palestinian Arabs saw themselves as Syrians and were seen as such by other Syrians. The Palestinian Arabs were enraged that an artificial barrier was being erected within their Syrian homeland by the infidel colonial powers – one that would divide northern Syrian Arabs from southern Syrian Arabs, the latter being those who were later misnamed “Palestinians.”

The bulk of the Palestinian Arabs had in fact migrated to Palestine from Syria and Lebanon during the previous two generations, largely to benefit from the improving conditions and job opportunities afforded by Zionist immigration and capital flowing into the area. In 1920, both sets of Syrian Arabs, those in Syria and those in Palestine, rioted violently and murderously.

On page 312 of The Arab Awakening, Antonius writes, “The year 1920 has an evil name in Arab annals: it is r