Iran has asked the United States to allow direct flights between the two countries after a break of more than two decades, a senior civil aviation official said on Thursday.

The request comes as the United States and its European Union allies are pressing for the Islamic Republic to be reported to the United Nations Security Council where it could face possible sanctions for its nuclear program.

“We sent a letter to the relevant American officials on Wednesday, announcing Iran’s willingness to resume direct flights,” Nourollah Rezai-Niaraki, head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, told state television.

He said the decision to make the request was taken by hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad due to demand from the large Iranian community living in the United States.

“They have repeatedly complained about wasting time and losing their baggage on connecting flights,” the official said.

The evidence just keeps on mounting…

January 26, 2006

The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.

Nizar Nayuf (Nayyouf-Nayyuf), a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper �De Telegraaf,� that he knows the three sites where Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are kept.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said vehicle traffic photographed by U.S. spy satellites indicated that material and documents related to the arms programs were shipped to Syria… Convoys of vehicles, mostly commercial trucks, were spotted going into Syria from Iraq shortly before the start of the war March 19 and during the conflict, he said.

“General Ali al-Jajjawi - former Republican Guard commander in the northern city of Mosul - said Saddam’s Baath Party deputy Izzat Ibrahim and other top figures had fled to Syria shortly before the city fell last Friday.

Related:
The Syrian Connection
RUSSIA TIED TO MISSING IRAQ WEAPONS
Saddam’s Terror Ties
Documents May Reveal Iraq had WMDs and Ties to Al-Qaida

Via Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, who has never vetoed legislation, said on Thursday he was ready to do so this year if the U.S. Congress approves too much government spending.

“I’m fully prepared to use the veto if they overspend,” Bush told a news conference.

The New York Times is finally giving up on trying to be an objective observer and reporter of the news. Today, the Old Gray Lady has said to hell with the code of journalist ethics that say, “Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting.”

Today, the “newspaper of record” is making a purely political statement and encouraging Democrats to filibuster Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination. They say “he holds extreme views” and that he is an “eager lieutenant in the ranks of the conservative theorists who ignore our system of checks and balances”.

This is the same newspaper that hailed the chief ACLU litigator-turned-Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s celebration of “the role religion plays in her work” as a Supreme Court Justice and called her a “Balanced Jurist at Home in the Middle.”

A filibuster is a radical tool. It’s easy to see why Democrats are frightened of it. But from our perspective, there are some things far more frightening. One of them is Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.

At least the New York Times is admitting they’re tired of pretending to be unbiased. Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.

Abramoff picked up part of the tab for two Democrats, Reps. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, on a trip to the Northern Mariana Islands in the mid-1990s

For giving AFP a reason to use this headline that proved, as I read it, that milk can shoot all the way across the room… from one’s nose.

By the way, Mikey, I know you seem to get tons of grief when you offer your unsolicited opinions on politics, but I want to take a stand for conservatives the world over and thank you personally. It seems everytime you open that massive piehole of yours and deliver another twinkie-laden diatribe… another big election goes to the conservatives.

So keep up the good work, Mikey.

There was a “Walk for Life West Coast” this past Saturday in San Francisco. Though both sides were on opposite ends of the abortion debate, none of the protestors or counter-protestors appear to have ever been actually aborted themselves. This raises the question of whether any of them can actually support the act of abortion… you know, until they’ve been one. Damn embryohawks.

As always, Zombie has great photographic coverage (hat tip: Michelle). It’s interesting to note that once again the leftist groups (collectively comprised of communists, socialists, anarchists and jobless vagrants) were out to stifle the free speech, proving that they only think it applies to their own radical verbal diarrhea.

Defend Women’s Reproductive Autonomy, Confront the Right-Wing Invasion, and Shut down the Walk for Life. Meet at 11 am. SATURDAY, Jan. 21. Justin Herman Plaza at the Embarcadero, San Francisco. Look for the info table.

Spokescouncil to plan Civil Disobedience: Sunday, Jan. 15. San Francisco. 3 pm. Location to be announced.

Just before the Nov. 2 election, it was common in some liberal circles to hear people joke or threaten to move to Canada if the president won. Not since the days of the Vietnam War and the draft, when an estimated 50,000 Americans fled north, had so many citizens considered getting out of Dodge and moving to Moose Jaw.