[Editor's Note: Last Tuesday night, September 9, a Palestinian suicide-terrorrist set off a bomb at Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem.  The following was written by Jan Medved, an Israeli businessman whose son was one of the first upon the scene.]

Last night's terror struck close to home.

The boom of the blast at Cafe Hillel on Emek Refaim Street shook the windows of our house and left no doubt that we were hit again -- this time in our own neighborhood.

I have known Senator John McCain for 33 years. I have known Senator John Kerry for the same length of time. Sen. McCain I met in person, in a prisoner of war camp. In the Spring of 1971, Senator McCain and I were in a camp the Communists told us was a punishment camp in which we had been placed because we were "reactionaries" with "bad attitudes." In the same camp, I came to know about Senator Kerry, but only by reputation.

In the 2000 presidential election I supported John McCain because, from my personal knowledge of him gained in that camp, I knew that he was fit to serve as President. In the 2004 presidential election, again based upon my knowledge gained in that camp, I oppose the election of John Kerry because I believe that he is unfit to serve as President.

Media reports that the "insurgency" is gaining ground are no more genuine than Dan Rather's memos on President Bush's National Guard service.

Contrary to vague news reports of a "widening conflict," an analysis of where casualties are being inflicted indicates the conflict is still restricted largely to the Sunni triangle areas where it has always been. Two thirds of the country and three quarters of the population are relatively peaceful.

"You may hear analysts and prognosticators on CNN, ABC and the like talking about how bleak the situation is here in Iraq, but from where I sit, it's looking significantly better now than when I got here," says a US Marine. "It is very demoralizing for us here in uniform to read and hear such negativity in our press. It is fodder for our enemies to use against us and against the vast majority of Iraqis who want their new government to succeed."

Are you listening, Senator Kerry?

The following letter to all members of the United States Congress was written by legendary Chinese freedom advocate and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Harry Wu. Information on the struggle for human rights in China and how to help free political prisoners being held in China’s Gulag can be found at the website of Harry’s Laogai Research Foundation. ---JW

...Business expansion and economic reforms in China have caused many people around the world to hail China as a glittering land of golden opportunity and ignore the continuing brutality perpetrated by the Communist government of China. It is often said that today’s China is not the same China that existed during the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square, and is no longer even a Communist society.

Meanwhile, however, innumerable people are languishing in China’s vast Laogai system, where many have been sent without any trial taking place or any official documents being issued. Internet dissidents and religious believers are being rounded up and thrown into jail in increasing numbers in order to prevent dissent among the masses. Women and their families are being persecuted for violating the national one-child policy, and are subject to forced abortions and sterilization, detention and other punishments.

Gaylan King is Director of Security & Business Development for Gulfconsultec, Ltd., a business consulting firm based in Kuwait. I think you’ll his description of doing business in Iraq fascinating -JW


...We drove on to reach Baghdad by dusk. In late afternoon we stopped at a regular truck stop to eat a late lunch; our Iraqi passengers recommended it. The single room was large, clean and filled with 100-150 young Iraqi truck drivers. I was the only obvious Western in the room (I doubt they see many of us at this place). The room quieted and then someone gave me the, "thumbs up", signal, which I returned. Then everyone started smiling and saying, "Welcome!" and so on.

That is really a gratifying experience; no one was frowning in the corner and whispering. The food was delicious. Iraq has the best-tasting vegetables and fruit and meat; this is an accepted fact. The waiters immediately cover the whole table with every kind of salad, pasta, vegetable and fruit imaginable, plus several kinds of Arab bread, which is simply delicious! After enough time this is removed and the main course is served. Mine happened to be a large chicken leg on a bowl of really delicious rice. It was the perfect size for a perfect meal.

Just then, our waiter, a good-looking 25 year-old man with crew cut hair, no beard or mustache, and a great smile, leaned down to me, gave the "thumbs up" sign and said, "George Bush good!" He then flipped the thumb to the down position and said, "Kerry bad!" We both laughed hysterically! All of his buddies were watching and agreeing it was a great moment.

I shook every one of their hands before we left; it was great fun and this kind of humor is one of the reasons I enjoy the Iraqis so much; they are educated, intelligent people and their land is the probable location for the very beginning of everything human. They were never wandering nomadic herdsmen as were the Gulf Arabs.

The conservative movement believes in the American people’s ability to rise to the occasion, in their ingenuity. They believe that entitlement, government programs in mass and laws regulating every aspect of our daily lives infringe on the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that government intervention in our daily lives should be held to a necessary minimum.

By contrast, the Left has more ideological factions than a Douglas Fir has needles. There is the NEA, which champions a globalist multicultural agenda in our public schools. Their agenda includes seeing children forced to participate in the study of the Koran in California under the guise of multicultural tolerance while doing everything to banish Christianity from our nations classrooms in total.

There is the ACLU who sued the City of Los Angeles in an effort to remove a cross from their city seal and who chose to represent NAMBLA -- a group that advocates pederasty between men and boys -- in a murder trial under the pretext of free speech.

There is the National Organization for Women and the National Abortion & Reproductive Rights Action League who, without a mandate by the medical community on when life actually begins, has championed as a natural right the act of partial birth abortion. These are but a very few of the “causes” and “action groups” that effectively comprise the Left and the Liberal-Left.

For weeks now, the FBI has carried out in the press a prosecution of individuals and organizations it has so far been unable or unwilling to pursue in court.

Using innuendo and a steady stream of (often recycled) press leaks, the names and reputations of a number of people "including several who are senior officials in the United States government at the moment" have been sullied. There is no need to repeat their names here. Virtually all are people I have known and greatly admired for decades. It is bad enough their years of public service have been in any way diminished by those leaping to unfounded conclusions.

Even more troubling is the transparent character of this witch hunt: With apparently one exception, all those named in one way or another in connection with this inquiry (for example, they have been briefed on the matter, they run large Pentagon bureaucracies in which an individual suspected of misconduct -- or, perhaps, espionage -- works, etc.) have something in common: They are Jews.