Former spy Ralph Peters just put a new book out. If his NYPost op/ed of today is any indication of what’s between the covers, I’m buying myself a copy of New Glory: Expanding America’s Global Supremecy.

Peters is writing about journalists who publish intelligence secrets during war time and win awards for it.

He begins with:

If a street-corner thug knowingly receives stolen goods for profit, he goes to jail. If a well-educated, privileged journalist profits from receiving classified information – stolen from our government – he or she gets a prize.

Is something wrong here?

And ends with:

If you draw a government (or contractor) paycheck and willfully compromise classified material, you should go to jail. If you are a journalist in receipt of classified information and you publish it to the benefit of our enemies, you should go to jail (you may, however, still accept your journalism prize, as long as the trophy has no sharp edges). And consider yourself fortunate: The penalty for treason used to be death.

When a journalist is given classified information, his or her first call shouldn’t be to an editor. It should be to the FBI.

Hurrah! He also says leaks shouldn’t come from the White House. I disagree, so long as the decision is presidential, not staff, because we must be able to count on our president to consider the impact of the leak on America, its troops and its agents. If a president were to put troops and agents at risk for political reasons, we the people would take care of that.

And no, Valery Plame, was not put at risk. She wasn’t secret, she hadn’t been posted overseas for some time, and she apparently wasn’t operating any overseas networks.

hat-tip: Real Clear Politics
Tags: Plame, Pulitzer, CIA, Peters, Dana Priest, New Glory

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Nation editor and leftyblogger Mark Cooper has an op/ed on Monday’s immigration rallies in today’s LATimes that includes this:

The millions of workers in the nation’s underground economy who pick our crops, cut our lawns, pluck our chickens and slaughter our hogs have gotten a bum deal. We make them run a perilous gantlet at a rough-and-tumble Mexican border.

I’ll skip the cheap shot, because his point isn’t that we push them into this, it’s that we don’t give them an easy way to do it legally. And if it’s not easy to do it legally, we shouldn’t expect them to be legal.

That’s always been the liberal rub, eh? Quick, painless and easy could be the three platforms of the Democratic Party. Anything, like the war in Iraq, that’s hard and drawn out is not a Dem platform-maker. “Raise a tax, create an entitlement, run and hide. Just don’t make me work at it.”

Cooper does a couple good things, though. He points out that International ANSWER is working hard to radicalize the march. People need to know that the Socialist- Communist- Anarchist faction is all in a tizzy about this little effort.

And he doesn’t think people should walk off their jobs — a late afternoon demonstration would be better. As if illegals get afternoons off. As if public transportation would deliver them in time. Cooper’s a bit of an elitist here.

He’s not anti-walkout because jobs are sacred or anything, but because he feels Big Mo is in the illegals direction now, with Congress working on an approach to reform he blesses as good, i.e., easy. A big to-do and Congress might just consider illegals to be illegal.

So, which are we pulling for on Monday, a calm, respectful march, or a huge walkout that gets out of hand?

Tags: Illegal immigration, Illegals, May 1, Demonstation, International ANSWER

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More good news from Iraq:

U.S. forces, acting on Iraqi intelligence, raided a house where Hamid al-Takhi, the local al-Qaida in Iraq leader, and the two other insurgents were hiding just outside Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Al-Takhi, known as the “emir” of Samarra, was gunned down while fleeing the house, and the other two militants were killed while trying to defend it with grenades, the U.S. military said. After they were killed, the U.S. troops found a car parked nearby containing a grenade launcher, rockets, AK-47s, grenades and a shotgun, the U.S. military said.

Iraqi police said al-Takhi had been responsible for many insurgent attacks against coalition forces and civilians in the area.

I particularly like the part about Iraqi intelligence ferreting out Al-Takhi’s location, and the part about him being “gunned down while fleeing the house.” I hope he felt each bullet, that he felt overpowered, small, vulnerable, frightened and alone as each of them ripped into his despicable body.

I wish he could have told his followers that he found flame, not virgins, waiting for him on the other side.

Tags: Iraq, Insurgent, Insurgency, Al-Takhi

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I was fortunate to go to the American School in Japan (you can take a tour here), which was a pretty elite place — there were 104 in my graduating class; 103 went to college. We were the children of ambassadors, diplomats, business leaders, missionaries … and then there was me, scrawny 17 year-old me.

I just caught up with some of my classmates via the quarterly school magazine, Ambassador. Wow.

Annie Sung Bernstein lives in Honolulu, HI, where she teches tai chi and qi gong and keeps the creative juices flowing through the practice of Chinese calligraphy.

Kathy Chih has finished her tour of duty in Kuwait and has returned to San Diego. She can’t believe that she survived the 140 degree heat and sand in Kuwait, but is proud to say she served. [Thank you for your service!]

Steve MacDonald remains in northern Spain, enjoying the great food, wine and European trips. He and his wife recently signed off on final drawings for their main retirement home in the Philippines.

Sherrie Shibata Russell Miline recently won the US Fish and Wildlife Service federal duck stamp contest [shades of Fargo!] with her painting of a Ross’ goose. Her work, on the right, was chosen from among 232 entries.

Wise Young and his work as stem cell researcher and medical activist were featured in the December 2005 issue of Esquire.

And my best friend, Peter Tsukahira, continues to lead Kehilat HaCarmel (Carmel Assembly), an evangelical, charismatic church near the peak of Mt. Carmel in Israel. That’s him, with his wife Rita. He prayed for 20 years for my salvation, and broke down in tears in a post office in Haifa when my letter telling him I had accepted Christ arrived.

I would, quite literally, be lost without him.

As time goes by, a school and schoolmates that I took for granted despite my parents’ signficant financial sacrifice to pay my tuition become more cherished and more important to me.

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Hat-tip to the Hedgehog for this beaut.

“Animals are little people in fur coats” summarizes everything wrong with the environmental movement: The refusal to accept that Man is on top of the global pecking order for a reason.

“Draft SUV drivers first” would be OK if there were a draft. But I prefer “Draft self-righteous Lefties in polluting old Accords first.”

“End US Imperialism” makes no sense since it ended in the 1800s after not much of a run at all.

“Imagine no handguns” when Kevin Cooper or Gary Ridgway or Willie Horton come a-knockin’.

“Give peace a chance” is a fine idea, but it ought to be in Arabic.

What, no “Kerry/Edwards?” Embarrassed?

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It’s a great state, don’t get me wrong. Just too many stupid, wayward, backward, ward- of- the- state oughttabe Democrats. Get this!

The state Senate on Thursday spoke out in favor of a boycott of schools and jobs planned by immigration activists for Monday.

Senators approved a resolution officially recognizing the nationwide protest, which will include rallies in cities throughout California and the United States.

The resolution was submitted by Gloria Romero, who represents a number of heavily Hispanic areas of LA. You can email her at gloria.romero@ sen.ca.gov. She said the resolution doesn’t ask students and workers to stay home … how nice … but says the boycott:

“is to educate people in California and across the United States about the tremendous contribution immigrants make on a daily basis to our society and economy.”

The vote, of course, was on party lines.

Can we just boycott the California legislature for a day? You know, not really endorse leaving school or skipping work, but just “educate people in California and across the United States about the tremendous frustration we have with electeds who refuse to listen to electors because they see immigrants as the constituency of last resort to save their pathetic party.”

Tags: Illegals, Illegal immigrants, May 1, Boycott, California legislature, Gloria Romero

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The story is, quite literally, about what comes out the back end of bulls. And it’s full of the same.

Reporting in the San Jose MercNews, journo-greenie Paul Rodgers hyperventilates:

Bay Area hikers heading to the Sierra Nevada this summer should be extra careful about where they find their drinking water, particularly if cows are nearby.

That’s the upshot of a new study that found cattle-grazing in national forests between Lake Tahoe and Mount Whitney is the leading source of E. coli contamination in Sierra streams and lakes.

In fact, nearly every stream and lake frequented by cattle or pack animals contained unsafe levels of E. coli – a bacterium found in livestock waste that can produce severe stomach illness and even kidney failure in humans.

The study reportedly found no such incidence of E. coli when cattle weren’t around. I don’t believe it, and I don’t believe that Rogers didn’t bother to ask … or bother to report the answer to, in any case … the obvious question: Does a bear poop in the woods?

I saw a study of E. coli in ocean water in which DNA analysis was used to determine the source of the E. coli. While enviros would like us to think it all came from urban runoff (i.e., human, dogs, etc.), in fact it came primarily from sea mammals, followed by sea birds.

So I’d like to ask this study’s author, Robert Derlet of UC Davis, why just cattle? Why not E. coli from squirrels, elk, bears, deer, rabbits, coyotes, pumas, skunks, birds, snakes and all the other wild critters for whom we are protecting these wilderness areas? Are they carefully burying their waste? Using outhouses? Just holding it in?

The enviro agenda calls for moving cattle out of national forests because it’s supposedly so destructive of Earth Goddesses. (Greenies also call land that’s been grazed for decades “pristine wilderness” if it’s slated for development — go figger.)

Derlet’s study, published in Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, for cryin’ out loud, seems to be agenda-fodder, not real science.

Tags: Greenies, E. coli, Sierras

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How many convictions grew out of the formal investigations (Starr, Smaltz, campaign finance) of the Clinton administration?

Drug trafficking (3); racketeering, extortion, bribery(4); tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2); fraud (12); conspiracy (5); fraudulent loans, illegal gifts(1); illegal campaign contributions(5); money laundering (6)

What was the average number of “I can’t recall” type of memory failures by the Clinton circus in their various under-oath appearances?

237

And how many under-oath memory lapses did Bill have during the Paula Jones testimony alone?

271

Hm. So Clinton really was above average …

There’s much more fun stuff at the Official Clinton Stat Board.

Tags: Clinton, Whitewaer, Scandal, Paula Jones

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Lord, I’m tiring of this Big Oil price fixing/gouging stuff, and I fear it’s just getting started.

I recently heard “they” were doing “this” so we’d buy more Prius-type cars.

Really? The oil companies are raising prices so we’ll buy cars that allow us to buy less gas? Interesting theory. I guess it makes sence once you find out the truth, that Toyota is really an oil company; it’s just posing as a car company.

Thomas Sowell’s got a great (of course) wrap-up on the ridiculousness of the issue at Real Clear Politics. It’s like striking a vein of gems in your backyard mine. Here’s just one passage:

Prices are a symptom of an underlying reality. Politicians can seize on the symptom and even pass laws dealing with it, without changing the underlying reality.

Prices are like a thermometer reading. When someone has a fever, it is not going to do any good to put the thermometer in ice water to bring down the reading. If you think the fever is gone, it may not be long before the patient is gone, if you don’t do something about what is causing the fever.

Laura Ingraham was playing some idiot congressman this morning who faulted the President for not getting us all to walk and ride bikes to work after 9/11. Instead of whining, why isn’t he trying to get his constituents to do it, and see how successful he is.

Besides, that would be 17 miles for me, each way. Our nation’s neighborhoods have been planned in a free market, where responding to consumer demand is key. Consumers, most of them, don’t want to live smashed into urban environments, so most of us live in suburbs. It’s a phenomenon that started in the 1880s with the introduction of the streetcar, and it continues.

So we’re not walking to work. We’re not reducing our use of oil much at all, but we whine when prices go up. Of course they’re up. Material costs are higher, demand is static and high, ergo prices go up.

Buy a hybrid, an E85 or a diesel, move next to your job, take the bus, or just grin and bear it, remembering that in Japan and Europe the price is $6 or $7 a gallon. Just don’t whine.

Drill offshore, drill in ANWAR, exploit shale, build refineries. Just don’t whine.

The important thing is to cut off the Middle East’s terror-funding petrodollars. Not whining about ExxonMobil.

Tags: Oil, Gas prices, Price controls, ExxonMobil, Hybrid, E85, Diesel

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Sure, I used to crank up Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl really loud. Who didn’t?

But times change, creativity fades, and you won’t catch me twisting the dial up for these Neil Young lyrics from his new non-hit, Let’s Impeach the President [with inserts from me]:

Let’s impeach the president for lying

And leading our country [that would be OUR country, you Canadian!] into war [based on intelligence even Kerry believed]

Abusing all the power that we gave him

And shipping all our money out the door [That explains the super-strong economy!]

He’s the man who hired all the criminals

The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors [Neil, it was Clinton that had the most cabinet members in history convicted!]

And bend the facts to fit with their new stories

Of why we have to send our men to war [Volunteers! And don't forget the women, you sexist.]

Let’s impeach the president for spying

On citizens inside their own homes [who talk to al Qaeda]

Breaking every law in the country [wow, even jaywalking laws?]

By tapping our computers and telephones [Yeah, sure, Neil -- when they're talking to al Qaeda]

What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees [huh?]

Would New Orleans have been safer that way [huh?]

Sheltered by our government’s protection [Huh?]

Or was someone just not home that day? [HUH?]

Let’s impeach the president

For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected [I don't think Bush and Young share a religion, so what's with the "our?"]

Dividing our country into colors [Like, say, Al Sharpton?]

And still leaving black people neglected [Like Cynthia McKinney?]

Thank god he’s racking down on steroids [Well, that's new!]

Since he sold his old baseball team

There’s lot of people looking at big trouble [Like Rove?]

But of course the president is clean

Thank God

If you remember, Young’s popular album featuring Cinnamon Girl was called “Everyone Knows This is Nowhere.” A fitting title for a new album with this song, eh?

In contrast, yesterday I listened to Blowing in the Wind, sung in intense, nasal sincerity by Bob Dylan in the original 1963 recording. Think what you will of the song, but there’s not a dishonest word in it:

How many roads must a man walk down
Before they call him a man
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand
How many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they are forever banned
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

How many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea
How many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free
How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky
How many years must one man have
Before he can hear people cry
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

What a sorry, small shadow of former greatness have the balladeers of today become.

Tags: Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Let’s Impeach the President

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