"Tens of thousands of tourists and residents have been ordered to leave the Florida Keys as Tropical Storm Rita heads toward the US chain of islands." That is, apparently, possible. "Governor Jeb Bush has declared a state of emergency, which allows the state to oversee evacuations and call in the National Guard." Should the president intervene or can his brother handle this?

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic consecration for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered; it, or any part of it, should not be given up," the Hamas charter states. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060202/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_palestinians Palazzi believes that Israel exists by "divine right" and that the Koran clearly states (Sura 5:21) that God granted the Land of Israel to the Childre...

1. Taking land in a war is illegal. 2. Israel should have been invaded and become part of an Arab state. 3. It is unacceptable for an Arab minority to live in a state with a Jewish majority. 4. It is acceptable for Jews to live in Europe or America. 5. The Arab refugee problem is a real tragedy and must be part of any solution to the Palestine conflict. 6. It is acceptable to talk about the Palestine conflict without mentioning the Jewish refugees from Arab countries. 7. Israel...

Jerusalem, Israel For the past three weeks I have been in Jerusalem. I am here a student of the university of Haifa, relocated to Jerusalem because somebody shot rockets at Haifa. The Hebrew University in Jerusalem is a digital dump. The campus is stunningly beautiful but Internet access for students is very sporadic, computer labs are badly equipped, and the most reliable Internet connection around is the (sporadic and slow) wireless access in Cafe Aroma (which has excellent sandwiches...

And here it is: 1. Don't burn down stuff and stop killing people. Now that that is out of the way, or if you are not the type of person anyway, follow the next few easy rules. 2. Don't educate the west, educate fellow Muslims. This is your religion and your rules and thus your problem, not ours. 3. Don't act as if other people made a mistake but learn from your own mistakes. 4. And stop pretending that your prophet is worth more than anybody or anything else. For you he might...

One year ago the Queen of Denmark apparently nailed it: Queen Margrethe II of Denmark has called on the country "to show our opposition to Islam" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/15/wqueen15.xml Of course, the telegraph puts its own spin on things, using words differently than I would: "Her comments further undermined the image of Denmark as a liberal haven for those seeking a new life in northern Europe." For example, I would say that a ...

I published the next article on South Sudan and two picture galleries. http://desertpenguin.org/south-sudan/south-sudan-level-2-aweil.html

I wrote an introduction to my series on South Sudan. http://www.desertpenguin.org/south-sudan/south-sudan-level-1-juba.html Read on my blog, comment here.  

Just received my humanitarian visa for South Sudan from an embassy employee in my hotel. Flying to Juba tomorrow.   I will have pictures and stories in a few days.   I am back on Joe User for this purpose.

Despite the author's intentions, "Unnatural Selection" might be one of the most consequential books ever written in the campaign against abortion. It is aimed, like a heat-seeking missile, against the entire intellectual framework of "choice." For if "choice" is the moral imperative guiding abortion, then there is no way to take a stand against "gendercide." Aborting a baby because she is a girl is no different from aborting a baby because she has Down syndrome or because the mother's ...