Just remember, the private automobile stands for freedom, and if you're not with us you're with the terrorists. From Newsday, July 24:

Hummer driver pled guilty to loan-sharking charges

The Lloyd Harbor man who fell asleep and accidentally drove his Hummer into two teenage sisters, killing one, is awaiting sentencing on separate loan-sharking charges -- though that crime won't factor in the investigation into Sunday's accident, authorities said.

Another turn of the screw. The NYPD unveils draconian new regulations in the ongoing crackdown on the Critical Mass bicyclists. The elitist New York Timess refuses to put this fine July 21 column by Clyde Haberman online for free, but we present it here in the interests of free speech and open discourse:

Thousands of people demonstrated across Latin America the week of July 17 to protest Israel's air and ground attacks in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip starting the week before.

About 500 protesters rallied on July 17 outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a demonstration organized by Argentine Arab associations, leftist groups and activist organizations, including the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Anibal Veron piquetero ("picketer") organization of the poor and unemployed. "Today the state of Israel is applying state terrorism and a plan for extermination the way the [1976-1983] Argentine dictatorship did," Confederation of Arab Entities of Argentina vice president Roberto Ahuad told the French news service AFP.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continued the second phase of its "Return to Sender" interior enforcement operation July 12-20 with raids through the state of Oklahoma and the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Illinois; Louisville, Kentucky; and Kansas City, Missouri. The same operation brought the arrest of 154 immigrants in a July 10-14 sweep through three Ohio cities. In the first phase of Return to Sender, 2,179 immigrants were arrested nationwide from May 26 to June 13. The operation targets immigrants who have final orders of deportation.

A letter from Israeli filmmakers to Palestinian and Lebanese filmmakers
Israeli Filmmakers - Friday, 21 July 2006, 15:21

We, the undersigned Israeli filmmakers, greet the Arab filmmakers who have gathered in Paris for the Arab Film Biennial. Through you, we wish to convey a message of camaraderie and solidarity with our Lebanese and Palestinian colleagues who are currently besieged and bombarded by our country’s army.

On July 21, Israeli reserve officer Yonatan Shapira, a helicopter pilot and signer of the pilots' letter refusing to perform assassinations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, spoke out against Israel's attack on Lebanon on Democracy Now! The following quote is part of a debate between Shapira and a member of what Democracy Now! oddly refers to as Israel's "peace party," Meretz. Only one of six members of the Knesset from Meretz has expressed opposition to Israel's attack on Lebanon:

Another sacrifice for the American way of life. From the New York Post, July 20:

'3-TIME DWI' MOM KILLS PRIEST, 79

July 20, 2006 -- A beloved Long Island priest taking an evening walk was killed by a hit- run, serial drunken driver on a leafy East Hampton street, police said yesterday.

As if the facts in the headline aren't bad enough, note also the armed attacks on the Sunni religious establishment. It is starting to seem more and more like Bush's blundering into Iraq will have only succeeded into plunging the country into a genocidal situation. From AP, July 20:

Killers slit throats of mom, 3 children
Baghdad family had fled to Basra to escape threats

BAGHDAD -- Assailants slit the throats of a mother and her three children Wednesday in southern Iraq, where the family had fled to escape threats that they had cooperated with the Americans.