Dear Readers:

Personal matters are keeping me from the computer.

I will not be able to return for a few more days. . . .

Frank L. — May 31

We join Mudville Gazette’s Memorial Day weekend salute to American hero TSgt John A. Chapman.

Washington Times — May 28, 2005

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines — Sixty years after the guns of World War II went silent, reports that two Japanese Imperial Army soldiers had been found in the mountains of the southern Philippines sent Japan’s diplomats on a frantic mission yesterday to try to contact them.

The two men, in their 80s, reportedly have lived on the restive southern island of Mindanao since they were separated from their division, staying on for fear they would face court-martial if they returned to Japan.

A day of waiting at a hotel in General Santos, a city 600 miles south of Manila, turned to disappointment for Japanese diplomats.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s spokesman, Yu Kameoka, said in Tokyo the men were apparently reluctant to meet with the officials because of the large crowd, including journalists, waiting to see them.

Diplomats were trying to schedule a meeting today through a Japanese mediator, who had contacted the country’s embassy in Manila about the men.

Embassy spokesman Shuhei Ogawa said they were giving the story “another day.”

He said it was too early to determine whether the report was true that the men were the latest of a cadre of old soldiers who held out on various islands for decades after the war ended in August 1945.

The story created huge interest in Japan, particularly among veterans marking the 60th anniversary of the war’s end.

One veteran, Goichi Ichikawa, said he had heard of at least three Japanese men living in the mountains of Mindanao from someone who went there late last year and alerted Japan’s government in February.

“It’s amazing they were able to survive for 60 years,” Mr. Ichikawa told reporters in the Japanese city of Osaka. “Of course I was stunned.”

Japanese broadcaster NHK said embassy officials were reluctant to meet the two men outside town because of the danger of Islamic rebels and criminal gangs. The area where the two were supposedly found is notorious for ransom kidnappings and attacks by Muslim separatists, who have waged war for three decades. Communist rebels also are active.

More at Washington Times [Free registration required.]

UPDATE:
May 28, 7:03 AM (ET) [Posted: CSJ at 9:13 AM (ET)]
Saudi King Fahd in Stable Condition

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — King Fahd, Saudi Arabia’s monarch for the last 23 years, was said to be in stable condition Saturday, a day after he was hospitalized for unspecified tests.

But in the capital, where the talk was all of his health, many people said they feared for the worst.

“I’m asking God to protect King Fahd for us and his family,” said businessman Ebrahim Al-Khudair, 39. “The stability of the kingdom comes with his name.”

More at MyWay News

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 27, (UPI) — Reliable sources in the Saudi capital Riyadh said Friday King Fahd is dead, reports the Saudi Institute.

The Washington Times: “King Fahd of Saudi Arabia has been dead since late Wednesday, according to several well-placed sources in the capital Riyadh who spoke to the Saudi Institute, a pro-democracy think tank in Washington, on condition of anonymity.”

More at The Washington Times — SEE UPDATE

MyWay News — “Navy SEAL Acquitted of Abusing Iraqi”

SAN DIEGO (AP) – A military jury acquitted a Navy SEAL lieutenant Friday of beating an Iraqi prisoner who later died. Jurors deliberated about three hours before finding Lt. Andrew K. Ledford not guilty of all charges.

The 32-year-old SEAL had faced up to 11 years in military prison if he had been convicted of assault, dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming an officer and making false statements.

Ledford, who had stood at attention for the verdict’s reading, burst into a huge smile and embraced his attorney upon hearing he was acquitted. He later brushed away tears and shook hands with the prosecutors.

“I think that’s what makes this country great is that there is a system in place and it works,” he said outside court.

More at MyWay News

Remember this piece of anti-American, pro-illegal immigration slime? I wrote about him here and here.

He’s Joe Arpaio, the scumbag sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. He spends his time and official resources to help keep the Mexican border open and he stands ready to arrest anyone that interferes with the smooth flow of illegal aliens into the U.S. He was really ticked at the Minuteman Project and he works hard to avoid reporting immigration violators to federal officials.

Well, he’s on tv again. … This time pretending that he’s surprised that some Hispanic men were video-taped selling heroin (“tarballs”) from cars at the local high schools and to high school students in affluent neighborhoods. He said he is going to “crack down on those responsible.”

Hey A.H., we know you’re lying because your lips were moving and besides, that would mean you’d have to arrest the voters that were dumb enough to put you in office.

La Shawn Barber’s Corner has a post announcing that “Newsweek Is Hiring!” that is funny but also right on point of what media bias is all about.

Bernard Higgins at A Certain Slant of Light has another exposé on the cost of politicians continuing to ignore the invasion from the South.

How about $1.45 billion for emergency room healthcare, hmm?

I was writing a rant about media bias but remembered the colletion of examples at Media Research Center.

Here are some excerpts from:
The Best of Notable Quotables, 2004

February 6
“Kerry Presidency Seen a Boon for U.S. Markets.”
“If John Kerry wins the Democratic nomination and goes on to be the next U.S. President, experts say it would be good for Wall Street, which likes the way he talks up balancing the budget.”
– Headline and first paragraph of Reuters reporter Chris Sanders article, touted as “Recommended Reading” on the news agency’s Web site.

February 8
“How, why, as a fiscal conservative as you like to call yourself, would you allow a $500 billion deficit and this kind of deficit disaster? … Every President since the Civil War who has gone to war has raised taxes, not cut them… Why not say, ‘I will not cut taxes any more until we have balanced the budget’? If our situation is so precious and delicate because of the war, why do you keep cutting taxes and draining money from the Treasury? … How about no more tax cuts until the budget is balanced?”
– NBC’s Tim Russert to President Bush, Meet the Press

July 7
“It was the all important and perfectly choreographed first glimpse of the Democratic Party’s new dream team. The Kerry and Edwards families posing for pictures, a nervous first date with the American public… Humor from the boss, humanity from his running mate… Team Kerry touched and tickled their way to Ohio, the first stop in a six-state, five-day swing through battleground states… Both partners in this political marriage hope it’s a winning formula… At the moment, star-struck Democrats are willing to believe.”
– CBS’s Byron Pitts on the Evening News.

July 19
“In politics, self-made men seem to fall into two categories: sunny and dark… In the 2004 election, Dick Cheney projects the bleakness of a Wyoming winter, while John Edwards always appears to be strolling in the Carolina sunshine.”
– Story by Newsweek’s Evan Thomas, Susannah Meadows and Arian Campo-Flores as part of cover package on Kerry and Edwards, “The Sunshine Boys?”

August 31
“I read you once took a psychological profile test, and it said the position you’re most suited for is undertaker.”
– ABC’s Claire Shipman to Vice President Cheney in an interview on Good Morning America.

September 1
“One of the obstacles for Dick Cheney tonight is the fact that he has become a dark figure… There are those who believe that Dick Cheney has led this administration and this President down a path of recklessness, that maybe his approach, his dark approach to this constant battle against another civilization, is actually the wrong approach for ultimately keeping America safe.”
– NBC White House reporter David Gregory during live convention coverage on MSNBC, about two hours before Cheney spoke at the Republican convention.

October 4
“Republican [Vice President Dick] Cheney, portrayed by critics as the dark architect of the Iraq war, and Democrat [Senator John] Edwards, the sunny Southerner with the homespun style, meet in a 90-minute televised encounter… Cheney and Edwards are polar opposites as politicians. The bald, bespectacled Cheney, 63, is a dour campaigner with a lengthy government and national security resume, who not too long ago swore at a Democratic Senator on the Senate floor. The energetic and articulate Edwards, 51, is a first-term Senator who was once named People magazine’s sexiest politician and is known for his optimism and populist rhetoric.”
– Reuters political correspondent John Whitesides in a dispatch previewing the next day’s debate.

October 13
“Senator Kerry, the gap between rich and poor is growing wider. More people are dropping into poverty. Yet the minimum wage has been stuck at, what, $5.15 an hour now for about seven years. Is it time to raise it?”
“Mr. President,… you said that if Congress would vote to extend the ban on assault weapons, that you’d sign the legislation. But you did nothing to encourage the Congress to extend it. Why not?”
– Questions from CBS’s Bob Schieffer to Kerry and then Bush at the presidential debate.

Lots more good stuff at: MediareSearch.org