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ISLAMABAD, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot and wounded Pakistan's religious affairs minister, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, in a brazen attack in the capital on Wednesday that killed his driver, officials said. Pakistan has been braced for retaliatory attacks by the Taliban and other groups linked to al Qaeda since a U.S. missile strike on Aug. 5 killed Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the hardline Islamist group in the nuclear-armed country. Kazmi, a cleric and vocal opponent of the Taliban, belongs to the Barelvi sect, whose moderate adherents of Islamic sufi mysticism venerate saints and their shrines. "We have been receiving...

Back during the heyday of the credit bubble, they were the financiers who earned huge bonuses for creating, trading and investing other people's money in those complex securities that resulted in trillions of dollars in losses and brought global financial markets to their knees. And now they're out there again hustling for investors and hoping to make another score buying and trading the same securities. Like golfers who treat themselves to a second drive after hooking the first one deep into the woods, these guys play on without apology or penalty. The maddening thing is that they're getting away with...

On July 24, 2009, the main Israeli English paper, The Jerusalem Post, featured a front page article - a very favorable one - about Messianic Jews. Titled, “Serving in the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], ‘for the sake of God and Jesus,’” the paper went on to explain some “150 highly motivated believers will join the IDF this year. Many of them will serve in combat units.” The journalist described a Messianic prearmy program called “Netsor” that leads soon-to-be soldiers through a week of mental and spiritual preparation for their army service. The Jerusalem Post interviewed a Netsor class of 28...

Just 34% of voters nationwide support the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats if the so-called “public option” is removed. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 57% oppose the plan if it doesn't include a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Last week, Rasmussen Reports tracking found that support for the Congressional plan was at 42%. While the tracking question did not specifically mention the public option, it referred to the bill proposed by the president and congressional Democrats now working its way through Congress. All of the congressional...

Most Americans have a lot riding on the success of the government's efforts to pull the U.S. economy out of its ditch: individual investors, bankers, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Democratic politicians, and taxpayers. A somewhat smaller group has a lot riding on the failure of these efforts. I'm not simply talking about investors who are betting against the markets and who believe the recent stock-market rally is overdone. I'm talking about the Failure Caucus, a group spanning the political spectrum that has invested reputations, egos, and, in some instances, their political futures on the notion that we're in for...

Forty Years After Gruesome Cult Killings, Susan Atkins is Paralyzed, Near Death Charles Manson follower and convicted mass murderer Susan Atkins is expected to appear in person today to plead for parole so she can die outside of prison, but officials said her condition is on an "hour by hour" basis.

LANCASTER, Pa. - A Pennsylvania man said he robbed a bank in 2007 to go to jail and get away from his overbearing wife. At a sentencing hearing Monday, 39-year-old Anthony Miller said he robbed a bank in Ephrata because he wanted to leave his then-wife but she had threatened to commit suicide if he did. Defense attorney Robert Beyer said Miller approached tellers with a BB gun, asked for money and told them to call the police. He said Miller even asked for updates on their efforts to reach authorities. Miller pleaded guilty in June. Lancaster County Judge Louis...

"Please, Barack! Hug me tight in your loving arms and whisper sweet assurances into my ear that you won't be dropping the public option from ObamaCare!" That is pretty much the theme of this KOmmie THREAD, "Will Obama kick us to the curb?" Right now the KOmmies fear, but don't want to believe, that they are about to be betrayed by The One. Their very insecurity is what makes this KOmmie thread so very very hilarious. So let us now watch the KOmmies worry about betrayal in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, watching Lucy once...

In an acknowledgment that the Department of Education provided lesson plans written somewhat inartfully, surrounding the President Obama’s speech to students next Tuesday, the White House today announced that it had rewritten one of the sections in question. President Obama will talk to students from Pre K thru 12th grade about personal responsibility and the importance of staying in school, White House aides said. As one of the preparatory materials for teachers provided by the Department of Education, students had been asked to, "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. “ Today, after Republicans...

Here is video on a Town Hall Meeting held yesterday in Waldorf, Maryland by Democrat Steny Hoyer that included scuffles and shouting matches. The crowd generally seemed very dissatisfied with the presentation by Hoyer, not feeling he really answered their questions. . . . (Watch Video)

If the zingers Democrat Cal Cunnigham was directing at freshman Sen. Richard M. Burr last week are any indication, the former state senator is getting ready to take on the Republican incumbent in 2010. In a videotaped speech to a Democratic gathering in Charlotte now making the Internet rounds, Cunningham hit Burr early and often. "In 15 years on Capitol Hill you can't name one thing that Richard Burr has done to make your life better, and I can't either," he declared, referencing Burr's time as a senator and a congressman. Cunningham, an Iraq War vet, noted, "During the same...

More from this radical leftist...

Security: A Senate bill lets the president "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "nongovernmental" computer networks and do what's needed to respond to the threat. Didn't they just collect our e-mail addresses?We wish this was just a piece of the fictional "Dr. Strangelove" that fell to the cutting-room floor, but it's not. It is a real piece of disturbingly vague legislation sponsored by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. Senate Bill 773 would grant the administration emergency powers (where have we heard that before?) in the event of a cyberemergency that the president would have...

September 02, 2009 The Organizer-in-Chief Henry Percy Our Organizer-in-Chief will address students across America come September 8. In preparation for that teaching moment, Teaching Ambassador Fellows at the Department of Education have prepared a Menu of Classroom Activities to prepare the kiddies. Here are a few of the leading questions: Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials ...? Why is what they say important? What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? Well, as a parent and citizen, I wonder why there was no space...

CAPE TOWN — South Africa will seek a review of a decision granting one of its white citizens asylum in Canada, which the ruling party has said is racist, the deputy foreign minister told parliament Thursday. Sue van der Merwe said the decision to grant refugee status to someone on the basis that he was persecuted by blacks "shows a lack of familiarisation with the facts and reality of South African society." "While we have incredibly good bilateral relations with the Canadian government we will be pursuing this matter and following diplomatic procedure in order to express with the Canadian...

The White House has announced that on September 8, President Obama is going to address the nation’s schoolchildren on the importance of education. As explained in an open letter by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, “The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.”Presumably, the president is going to advocate for self-discipline and reject excuses, a message that Mr. Obama, as the nation’s first black president, can deliver powerfully and well—especially to black youths—as he has demonstrated repeatedly in the past few years.So far, so good. Things get a bit dicier if we contemplate the president addressing what will be a...

Watch Congressman Pete Stark blow up when Jan Helfeld asks him why Stark believes, "the more we owe, the wealthier we are."

Naomi Wolf is “simply appalled” at my “misrepresentation” of her disposition toward Muslim veiling on my recent NewsReal blog. She has asked my boss, David Horowitz, to “remove this falsehood from your site and correct the record.” She has also made similar demands of Phyllis Chesler, who has also touched on Wolf’s totalitarian odyssey in a recent Pajamas Media piece. Wolf insists that she does not find the burqa “sexy” and that she does not wish to institutionalize it, even though her recent piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, is entitled Behind the Veil Lives a Thriving Muslim Sexuality and...

President Barack Obama's plans for a televised back-to-school address to students next week are drawing fire from some conservatives, who say he's just trying to indoctrinate them to his political beliefs. In the Sept. 8 speech, Obama will challenge students to work hard, set goals for their education and take responsibility for their learning, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a letter to principals. The Education Department is encouraging teachers to create lesson plans around the speech, using materials provided on the department website, that urge students to learn about Obama and other presidents.

Global Warming: Given rising voter anger, members of the U.S. Senate can't be blamed for going wobbly on costly cap-and-trade legislation. But maybe members of the EU Parliament can buck them up. Let's hope not.Not satisfied just with ruining their own continent's economy, a few Euro-pols want to come over here and do us the same favor. The Waxman-Markey version of cap-and-trade already passed the House in June on a narrow 219-212 vote. Now these members of the European Parliament want to lend support as their green-left comrades in the U.S. Senate ponder doing the same. With China and India...