Bonds bomb ties Ruth in career homers

After a long, but not long enough wait, the Giants' Barry Bonds hit a home run this afternoon in Oakland to tie Babe Ruth's career mark for four-baggers.

The headline? It's supposed to work on several levels.

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Crosstown Classic: White Sox muzzle Cubs 7-0

A second inning bench-clearing brawl was all the excitement that the Chicago Cubs could muster this afternoon, as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Chicago Cubs 7-0.

Technorati tags: Baseball MLB White Sox Cubs Chicago Chicago White Sox Crosstown Classic

Barack Obama's new book out this fall

This fall, the first book of Senator Barack Obama's three book deal will be published.

Excerpts are available from his web site, Barackobama.com. Such as this passage:

I find it hard to shake the feeling these days that our democracy has gone seriously awry," he writes. "What's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem.

Well, no one will accuse Obama of hiring a ghostwriter.

What's been largely left out of the media coverage of Obama's book deal is that he received a $1.9 million advance for his three book deal after he won his Illinois US Senate seat, but before he was sworn in, which allowed him to skirt Senate ethics rules.

But to most people, he'll always be "Saint Barack."

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Ethics Politics Democrats

Iraq approves national unity government

As alluded to in the previous post, Iraq's parliament approved a national unity government.

Technorati tags: Iraq العراق عيَراق أهل

Iraq's national unity government might be cue for US and Britain to begin troop withdrawals

The likely, but by no means definite announcement later today about the formation of first post-Saddam permanent Iraqi government may be the trigger-point for the United States and Great Britain to begin sending troops home.

From The Times of London:

Tony Blair and President Bush are preparing to hail the formation of Iraq’s first permanent government since the fall of Saddam Hussein today — a development that should finally allow them to begin withdrawing their 140,000 troops from an ever more hostile country.

The two leaders are desperate for a breakthrough after months of relentlessly grim news from Iraq, and hope that a government of national unity will have the strength to take on the Sunni insurgents responsible for thousands of deaths over the past three years.

As darkness fell in Baghdad last night Sunni, Shia and Kurdish politicians were still arguing over the Defence and Interior portfolios, both essential in tackling IraqÂ’s massive security problem.

But Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, said that despite the wrangling he would still unveil a government of national unity.

Of course, some of those forces might be needed for that country east of Iraq.

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Tony Blair Bush العراق عيَراق أهل

Crosstown Classic: White Sox put Cubs to sleep

Game one of the three game baseball series between the World Series Champion Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs ended up with a 6-1 Sox victory.

Ace Mark Buehrle gave up just two hits in his complete game effort for the South Siders.

Game two will be played Saturday afternoon.

Techorati tags: Baseball MLB White Sox Cubs Chicago Chicago White Sox Crosstown Classic

Welcome Pajamas Media readers

Light up your day with "The Torch" post below.

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Iran may force non-Muslims to wear badges

The Islamic Republic of Iran is evil.

From Canada's National Post:

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.

"This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis."

Godwin's Law absolutely does not apply here.

More..

Mr. Behroozian (an Iranian-exile living in Toronto) said it will make life even more difficult for Iran's small pockets of Jewish, Christian and other religious minorities -- the country is overwhelmingly Shi'ite Muslim. "They have all been persecuted for a while, but these new dress rules are going to make things worse for them," he said.

The new law was drafted two years ago, but was stuck in the Iranian parliament until recently when it was revived at the behest of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Taliban tried something similar with its small Hindu population before they were overthrown.

UPDATE 11:05PM CDT: A couple of media reports are claiming this story isn't true. AFP tracked down Iran's only Jewish member of parliament who is vehemently denying the National Post report.

Technorati tags: Iran Islamic Republic خبر ايران Iranian Ahmadinejad Jews Christianity Religion

Immigration rallies' backlash, cont'd: English as America's national language

The backlash against the recent open borders rallies continues. Yesterday, the US Senate passed a provision authorizing English as America's "national language." Making English the nation's official language would've been better, but even as a national language, the legislation makes sense. It will be included, along with a similar provision, in the immigration legislation making its way through Congress.

Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma brought the provision to the Senate floor.

The usual suspects, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Patty Murray, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, among others, voted against it.

But I want to focus on the comments made by one of my senators, Dick Durbin.

He's worried that warning signs in Spanish might be taken down.

From the Chicago Tribune, free registration may be required:

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), for example, said drowning deaths on the Potomac River, which flows through the nation's capital, had gone from more than a dozen in 2004 to none last year. The U.S. Park Service credited the decline, he said, to warning signs in Spanish and English after it noticed that many drowning victims were immigrants.

"So is making this political statement in the Inhofe amendment so important that we wouldn't want to provide safety for those using the Potomac River?" Durbin asked.

Inhofe responded that his bill would not prevent such signs from being printed in other languages in addition to English.

Whereas I'm glad there were no drowning deaths on the Potomac last year, I find it not at all surprising that Durbin framed the debate over the provision in a manner that a trial lawyer would. The trial lawyers are the ones who tell juries that not no matter what warning signs are put in place, they're never enough of them, they're never big enough, and they're not in enough languages.

Of course, over the last twenty years, the Democratic Party has become the party of the trial lawyers.

The photograph was taken at the Chicago May 1 immigration rally by Jake of Freedom Folks.

Related post: Immigration rallies legacy: National Guard to the border

Technorati tags: Durbin dick durbin immigration Chicago Illinois Congress Democrats Law DC Senate Inhofe

Ex-Senator "Torch" alleged to have links to oil-for-food scandal

A story in Britain's Financial Times about the United Nations' oil-for-food scandal brings a new name into the mix, Senator Robert "The Torch" Torricelli (D-NJ).

Torricelli was forced end his 2002 re-election effort after it was disclosed he received expensive gifts from David Chang. The latter served 15 months in prison for with showering Torch's campaign with illegal money.

Now Torricelli's tattered reputation is taking another hit.

From the Financial Times:

Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican chairman of the US Senate permanent sub-committee on investigations, said: "We take these allegations seriously and will continue to investigate in a bipartisan manner allegations of wrongdoing under the oil-for-food programme. We have investigated the illicit conduct of politicians in Russia, France, and the UK. We have a similar interest in preserving the institutional integrity of the US Senate, so we take these allegations regarding former Senator Torricelli seriously and will continue our investigation into them and will refer our findings to the appropriate agencies." The British, French and Russian politicians investigated by the subcommittee deny the allegations.

The allegations are based on Iraqi documents, including diplomatic cables, retrieved after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq's former president. The Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian business daily, have obtained copies of some of the Iraqi diplomatic cables. A source also described the contents of some of the other Iraqi documents.

The Iraqi documents also involve a former Republican congressman, James Courter, who allegedly met with Iraqi officials on behalf of Bright and Bright, Mr Chang's trading and lobbying company.

According to the documents, Mr Torricelli, nicknamed "the Torch" for his incendiary political style, had a series of meetings in the late 1990s, when he was a congressman, with Nizar Hamdoun, then the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations. During these meetings, Mr Torricelli allegedly urged the Iraqi authorities to help Mr Chang and Bright and Bright get oil-for-food contracts on good terms.

"Mr. Chang" is of course David Chang.

Oil and water don't mix, and it looks like oil and "The Torch" doesn't mix either.

Technorati tags: Iraq New Jersey Norm Coleman United Nations UN scandal oil for food