So much for an open society

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Primal Therapy enthusiast, says the only way citizens can get the "truth" from political candidates is to exclude the press.

This, friends, is what psychologists would call Projection. Big time Projection.

That's what happens when an individual sees his own attributes in other people.

For when a national political party is captive to an extremist financier and the various committees and organizations this billionaire bigwig is funding, it cannot afford to have its candidates speaking in front of cameras. The left controls the Dem agenda. Thus we see such things as the Dem-controlled Congress attempting to set a pullout date in Iraq, all the while proclaiming their support for troops. That's called Cognitive dissonance.

It's a social disorder.

Voters, please take note. You allowed these extremely compromised people to take over Congress last November because they refused to campaign on any real issues. Now they claim all sorts of "mandates" were transmitted in your votes, perhaps through some magical electoral ESP.

It will only get worse if you encourage them. Please refrain.

The Dems are already moving several pieces of legislation forward that would expand government, curb individual freedoms and eventually mess up your lives and ours. They prefer show trials over real debate and closed doors to open access.

Be vigilant.

Strange behavior at DFW

A Good Friday report we missed in the Dallas Morning News about two women in Muslim garb staking out positions near Dallas Love Field airport. (HT: Michelle Malkin)

Dallas police and federal terrorism officials are investigating two women, both dressed in camouflage pants under their traditional Muslim robes and scarves, who were seen conducting what appeared to be surveillance and acting suspiciously at Dallas Love Field.

One of the women, Kimberly "Asma" Al-Homsi, 42, of Arlington, who is on probation for a 2005 Garland road rage incident involving a fake grenade, is said to have long-range assault rifle and explosives training, according to a Dallas police intelligence bulletin issued March 5.

"I'm a trained sniper and proud of it," Ms. Al-Homsi said in an interview Thursday after first refusing to comment on whether she has any terrorism ties. She then said no.

Police officials said they have no direct evidence the women have ties to terrorism.

How about indirect?

"I am not a dangerous individual," said Ms. Al-Homsi, who said she is an accountant who has dual Syrian-U.S. citizenship.

On the afternoon of Feb. 25, Ms. Al-Homsi and a friend who could not be reached for comment, Aisha Abdul-Rahman Hamad, 50, of Irving, were spotted at Love Field wearing Muslim robes and camouflage pants and "acting suspiciously," the bulletin states. The surveillance video shows one of the women walking back and forth, apparently pacing off distances.

When confronted, the women told officials they were looking for the Frontiers of Flight museum. They left in a red Honda. Descriptions of the incident and the car were circulated at the airport.

Two days later, the museum executive director was leaving for the evening when he noticed the Honda parked facing the runway. A woman, later identified as Ms. Al-Homsi, was sitting on the hood, looking through binoculars at the airplanes. He told the women the museum was closing, and they left.

Dallas officers stopped the car nearby, but the women refused to let police search their car, according to a police report. The women had digital camera memory cards, binoculars, a flashlight and several lighters on them.

Police issued one of them a citation for having no front license plate and failing to change her address on a driver's license. They were released.

There's more, including waving a fake grenade at traffic on the Central Expressway, and spending a great deal of time at an area rifle range, always dressed in camo trousers visible under Muslim garb.

This being tax season, you'd think an accountant would have more profitable things to do. You'd also think not having the front license plate in Texas would be enough of an excuse to search the car over the owner's objections.

What does it all mean?

Let's pray that she is a harmless, if slightly unhinged, wingnut. Anything else would be truly scary.

Today is Good Friday

From 12 noon to 3 p.m. it is most appropriate to be prayerful and remember what a terrible and glorious price was paid to ransom the human race from its birthright of sin.

Jesus willingly suffered and died for each and everyone of us. In itself this is both a glorious and sorrowful mystery that we can never fully understand because the testimony of the cross appears as folly to mere human reasoning, but in God's mind it is the pure essence of perfection.

Father, how wonderful your care for us!
How boundless your merciful love!
To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

(Excerpt from The Exultet: The Easter Proclamation, an ages-old part of the liturgy of the Easter Vigil of the Church)

What would Jesus drink?

Coca Cola wasn't thrilled when an Italian movie, originally set to open today, featured Jesus of Nazareth gratefully accepting a ride near Emmaus as well as a freshing Coke.

Lawyers were dispatched. The distributor for the film has cancelled its release.

ROME — The Coca Cola Company has taken legal action against producers of a spirituality themed Italian film set in present day Israel in which Jesus drinks a can of Coke in the desert.

Titled "7 Km da Gerusalemme" (Seven Kilometers From Jerusalem) pic centers around a Milanese ad exec having a midlife crisis who makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

In the desert, near the biblical Emmaus, the Italo ad man gives Jesus a ride on his Jeep, hands him a Coke, and, while Jesus is quenching his thirst, says: "My God, what a testimonial!"

Coca Cola in a letter complained to producers Graziano Prota and Angelo Sconda demanding that the scene be cut because it is likely to give Coca Cola a negative image and complaining that use of their brand was unauthorized.

"We are not interested in this kind of product placement," a Coca Cola Italia spokeswoman said.

Too bad. Here at Oklahomily Central we consider ourselves fairly situated on the respectful side of the overall scale of devotion, and we rather suspect that Jesus would not hesitate to quaff a cold Coke if it gave Him the opportunity to minister to an ad executive (a type of human, in our experience, that could be considered "one of the least of our brothers"). Jesus, who said that it wasn't what a man ate or drank that polluted his character, is quite willing to use whatever materials are available - water, dirt, spittle - to teach and to touch!

Surely the soft drink giant doesn't think its product is unworthy, does it?

DISCLOSURE - The Oklahomilist is a Diet Coke addict, and freely admits that this dependency may color his commentary.

Free trade & food imports - a danger exists

How much free trade can a nation afford? A case in point:
China denies role in U.S. pet deaths

"China has nothing to do with the pet poisoning in the United States," said a report in the official newspaper of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which monitors the export of food, animals and farm products.

The China Inspection and Quarantine Times said in a report on its Web site dated Tuesday that as of March 29, 2007 China had "never exported wheat or wheat gluten to ... the United States."

Keep in mind this is the statement of a government-run publication.

This contradicted comments by two employees at the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., this week who said the company had shipped wheat gluten to the United States.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has identified Xuzhou Anying as the supplier of the tainted gluten.

The Chinese firm exports about 10,000 tons of wheat gluten each year, but we are given the assurance in the article that only 873 tons (that's about 1.7 million pounds of wheat) wind up in the United States.

The FDA is not responding to the New York state lab that reported finding a deadly poison, aminopterin, in the pet food it examined, and for the moment is sticking with its finding that a chemical known as melamine, used in the production of plastics and pesticides, was in the gluten shipment.

The FDA is also sticking to 15 as the number of official pet deaths. That seems to be contradicted by others in positions of authority.

Emilio DeBess, Oregon's state public health veterinarian, said he had tallied altogether 106 cases of poisoning believed arising from pet food, far more than federal health authorities had reported in the three-week old scandal.

Moral of this story?

It is obvious you cannot trust government officials, whether in Red China or the U.S. of A., to speak the truth. Motivations may differ, naturally, but the inherent knee-jerk reaction of bureaucrats in any system is to delay, dissemble and obfuscate.

Did the tainted wheat gluten go into anything other than pet food? The FDA said it was possible.

ROCKVILLE, Maryland: The tainted wheat gluten that triggered a massive pet food recall also ended up in processing plants that prepare food consumed by people, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.

While agency leaders offered assurances Monday that the U.S. food supply remains safe, they said they cannot yet completely rule out contamination of human food by the suspect wheat gluten, which contained melamine, a chemical found in plastics and pesticides.

According to import records, the wheat gluten was shipped to the United States from China between Nov. 3 and Jan. 23 and contained "minimal labeling" to indicate whether it was intended for humans or animals.

...

The vast majority of the contaminated gluten went to pet food manufacturers and distributors, according to the agency. But some of the processing plants that remain under agency scrutiny make both human and pet food.

By the way, this last report was filed by The Boston Globe but was not widely picked up by the Drive-by Media.

Whether or not the poison is in the human food chain, this crisis has revealed to those who have their eyes open a huge, gaping hole in our national security. Forty years ago we surrendered our energy independence in favor of cheap oil from the Mideast. Today we have surrendered our nutritional independence for relatively cheap food imports from the Third World (and yes, that includes China). Our corporate, trans-national agri-business buddies have uprooted home-grown farming by pricing the little man out of the business, and reduced the incentives for anyone to even consider raising his or her own food.

And of course we willingly cooperated. Nothing like fresh roasting corn in January. Why have a garden when you can get anything you want at the grocery store anytime of year?

Now we see the worst case yet of lax inspection of imported foodstuffs, and we realize that America has allowed itself to become so "inter-dependent" as to be foolhardy. We are just one or two "accidents" away from a major health and civil defense crisis. Do we really need to be importing food from a country whose leaders have sworn to defeat us? Why should we, with the millions of acres of farmland gone fallow, import any food at all?