I was just thinking, "I wonder if another teacher will soon be arrested for having an affair with her student today." Please don't ask me why I was thinking that. So I did search on news.google.com and came up with this:

WPVI (ABC Philadelphia) ^ Feb. 21 2005 NORA MUCHANIC
Riverside, N.J., Feb. 21, 2005 — Sources say the 14-year-old boy having an affair with a teacher is cooperating with police, but is reluctant to divulge details for fear of getting her in more trouble. Action News has been told the boy is in love with the teacher, who is ten years older, and that the two even talked of marriage. Gail Nottie/STORE OWNER: "I can't understand it, I can't see what a women would see in a child." People are still in shock about the arrest Friday of a substitute teacher at Riverside High School for allegedly having an...

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SocalPundit Special Commentary can be found on the California Republic Site and my blog entries will be occasionally mirrored at the OneRepublicBlog.

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Indeed, the hawkish new tone of Hillary Clinton is surely more proof she plans a run in 2008. Being that she is a liberal through and through, there can be no other explaination for her sudden hawkish tone.

As NewsMax.com reports:

Hillary More Hawkish Than Kennedy

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton went out of her way yesterday to contradict leading Democratic Party Iraq War critic Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has urged the Bush administration to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Asked about the kind of pullout suggested by Kennedy and other top Democrats, Clinton told NBC's "Meet the Press": "I don't believe we should tie our hands or the hands of the new Iraqi government. ... I think it would be a mistake."

The likely 2008 presidential candidate warned: "We don't want to send a signal to the insurgents, to the terrorists, that we are going to be out of here at some, you know, date certain. I think that would be like a green light to go ahead and just bide your time. We want to send a message of solidarity."

On CBS's "Face the Nation" Clinton noted that U.S. troops have been stationed all over the globe, saying: "We have been in places for very long periods of time. And in recent history, we've made a commitment to Bosnia and Kosovo."

Clinton also cited the American military presence in Korea, Europe and Japan, which has lasted decades.

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As Powerline points out, this could come as nothing, but it is also worth hoping and praying there is truth to this. "U.S. in Secret Talks with Iraqi Insurgents":

U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers are conducting secret talks with Iraq's Sunni insurgents on ways to end fighting there, Time magazine reported on Sunday, citing Pentagon and other sources.
The magazine cited a secret meeting between two members of the U.S. military and an Iraqi negotiator, a middle-aged former member of Saddam Hussein's regime and the senior representative of what he called the nationalist insurgency.

"We are ready to work with you," the Iraqi negotiator said, according to Time.

Iraqi insurgent leaders not aligned with al Qaeda ally Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi told the magazine several nationalist groups composed of what the Pentagon calls "former regime elements" have become open to negotiating. The insurgents said their aim was to establish a political identity that can represent disenfranchised Sunnis.

Powerline also points out that this story SoCalPundit posted over the weekend seems to lend credit to the idea that the Baathist Insurgency is weakening.

UPDATE: Radio host and fellow blogger, Eric Hogue advises caution when dealing with terrorists. He writes in today's OneRepublicBlog:

Careful here...

Remember our 'rule of thumb' on the morning show; terrorists want one end result - they want to be seen as legitimate political factions by forcing their seat at the table through terrorism.

When the civilized world recognizes terrorists and terrorism as a form of political speech - we are all doomed for destruction. When the civilized world offers terrorists and terrorism a 'seat at the table' in diplomacy, the war against terrorism is lost.

If diplomacy 'happens', every time there is a political demand by the 'terrorists' after this threshold, they will opt for violent terrorism in order to force the diplomacy - and they will have a "diplomatic precedent" to refer to; then the socialists, the 'realists', the liberals and the Europeans and the United Nations will force the United States and Israel to compromise.

I'm initially not liking what I'm reading here...maybe there's more to the story than what TIME is reportering here. I pray so.

UPDATE: I wrote to Eric about his post and said this:

I share your skeptical position. However.....

I believe it is worth noting that the "terrorists" we are negotiating with are not the Jihadists sent by Al Qaida to wage holy war. We are (I believe) speaking to the former Saddam-ites who have grown weary of this fight. Indeed, the REAL terrorists, the Islamofacists of the bin Laden variety can not and must not be negotiated with. To do so would, as you say, only lead to the legitimization of their cause and thus their way of "protesting".

Regards,

Kevin D. Korenthal - SoCalPundit

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As traditional media (known here as the MSM) continues to lose credibility, Blogs like Powerline and SoCalPundit continue to gain readership and media marketshare. Weblog trailblazers like Hugh Hewitt are becoming media mogals through the blogosphere and talk radio while the MSM can barely prove they have any credibility left to speak of.

In the case of CNN Executive Eason Jordan, as with Rathergate, the bloggers are coming up with the goods before the MSM has even authorized one of it's lemming reporters to do a astory on it.

Newsday reports that the claim that only "conservatives" read and write blogs is crap:

Liberal bloggers played a key role in exposing James D. Guckert, who used the alias Jeff Gannon worked for a conservative news outlet and was given access to White House press briefings where he asked pointedly political questions. The question of who is given press access to the White House was seen as legitimate and given attention by mainstream news organizations.

Bloggers pressed forward and found evidence linking Guckert to online sites suggestive of gay pornography _ a detail that many news organizations would have considered irrelevant.

Left-of-center blogs like The Daily Koz seem as powerful as any of conservative blogs out there so the MSM will have a hard time blaming partisanship on the success of the Blogosphere. It will be interesting for me to both be a part of and document the growth of this powerful new internet media.

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