Low Earth Orbit

Language difficulties

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An aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stormed out of a presentation by Victor Davis Hanson, author of the book Mexifornia about illegal immigration in California. The Pelosi aide, Federico de Jesus, said Hanson's views were racist and backed that up by accusing Hanson of being an admitted "classist." Hanson is in fact a scholar of ancient Greece and Rome and had been introduced to the group as a, "classicist," a distinction apparently lost on de Jesus, who proceeded to storm out of the room, trying as he left to grab one of the pizzas that had been brought in for the participants.

When jumping to conclusions, one should look before one leaps.

Crossing Jordan

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Parliament in Jordan has overwhelmingly rejected a proposed law imposing harsher punishments for men who kill female relatives in what are known as "honour killings". It was the second time since June's elections that the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, quashed the bill on such killings […] In 2001, King Abdullah passed a temporary bill imposing harsher penalties for honour killings. But parliament recently voted to dissolve the bill.

The UN estimates 5,000 deaths a year from honor killings worldwide, about 20 per year in Jordan. Special sections of Jordanian law mandate lighter penalties for such "honor" based murders. The UN also estimates that

In 1999, more than two-thirds of all murders in Gaza strip and West bank were most likely honor killings.

Time for a change of policy

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Ahmed Qurei, the man who might become Palestinian prime minister, said today that for him to succeed in that post, the Bush administration would have to press Israel to restrain its military and to "change their way of dealing with President Arafat."

I agree - Israel should stop coddling Arafat and put a bullet in his head. The US should pressure Israel in to doing that. After all, our official policy is that Arafat shouldn't be involved in the Palestinian Authority. A bit of lead injection should fix that right up.