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4A ♦ SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2006 OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Don Moncrief Foy S. Evans Managing Editor Editor Emeritus Houston students do well Houston County students made impressive scores on the revised SAT test this year, coming through with scores that exceeded state and federal mean totals. We like to brag about our public school system as one of the things that has lured newc o m - ers to move into Houston County for decades. Scores like those released by the College Board for the Class of 2006 ratifies our belief that we have a right to brag. Houston County students in the Class of 2006 exceeded the state average by 24 points. They exceeded the national average by 28 points. , Perhaps our state ranks 46 th in the nation, but clearly educators in Houston County are on the right track in preparing students for college with excellent foundations to succeed in institutions of higher learning. Did he need to do that? President Bush went to New Orleans for the 13 th time since Hurricane Katrina struck a year ago and he took “full responsibility” for the disaster. We wonder what is wrong with him. Unless he has powers beyond those we know about, the hurricane was not his fault. The mayor of New Orleans and the gov ernor of Louisiana were on the ground and failed to fulfill their obligations to get people out of New Orleans before the storm struck. Even after the hurricane, local response was poor, with nearly half the police force in New Orleans abandoning their jobs and leaving town. FEMA was a failure. President Bush was not on the scene and if he had been we doubt that he could have done more to prevent the disaster. Many people did outstanding jobs helping the stranded and lives were saved. By accepting responsibility for the disaster President Bush probably said what his crit ics wanted him to say, but as Commander in Chief he had to rely on subordinates who, along with the mayor and governor, did not perform well. Now is the time to move forward and plan for an effective response to the next hurri cane to hit the storm ravaged Gulf Coast. State Briefs Trash sticky situation I read with interest the article on the front page of Tuesdays newspaper about the Mayor complaining of the trash totes being left beside the road after trash pickup. I have a two-part complaint with his thinking. First, my trash day is Wednesday and has been since we started with Advance Disposal. My tote is usually pulled out Tuesday night. This week however I forgot and didn’t pull it out until Wednesday morning. When I came home Wednesday afternoon and went to pull my tote from the road, it was still filled with trash. Now, I didn’t know if I had just missed pick up for not having it pulled out Tuesday night or not. So I left my tote beside the road. Thank goodness I did because they didn’t empty my tote until Thursday. If I had pulled my tote in on Wednesday like the Mayor wants us to do I would have missed having my trash emptied this week. I have called the city and logged a complaint with them, because this is not the first time this has happened both at home and at my place of employment. Second, at my job trash pick up is Wednesday also. I leave the office before 6 p.m. on Tuesday nights. There is no specific time they pick up our trash. Sometimes it is wee early morning hours, noon, or late afternoons. So I pull my tote to the road before I leave the office on Tuesdays because I don’t come in to the office until after 8:30 a.m. in the mornings. I should not have to make a special trip to the office just to pull the tote out after 8 p.m. to make sure it’s out for collection on Wednesday. I feel like the mayor can’t start charging city of Perry residents with misdemeanors for not pulling their totes in until he can get his trash collection people to start doing their jobs and getting our trash emptied on the days it is supposed to be emptied. He wants the citizens to be consistent with getting our totes pulled out after 8 p.m. the day before scheduled collection day and pulled in by 9 p.m. the day of collection but he can’t get his collec tion service to be consistent with trash pick up. Oh, and by the way - we all want to know, What’s with the purple trash tote? Terry S. Stinson, Perry Houston County students In the Class of 2006 exceeded the state average by 24 points. They exceeded the national average by 20 points. The growing American waist Our waistlines keep on growing. At least, that is what the Trust For America’s Health says is happening. Of course, that is something anyone with any eyesight knows. It doesn’t take the study that was conducted by the Trust to point out the obvious. Obesity is on the rise. Just about every government agency involved in tracking the health of Americans tells us that. So do the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, for a start. We’re a nation that likes to talk about healthy living and losing weight, but the scales and how we look are proof that we are better at talking about it than practicing what we preach. Goodness knows, we all know what we should eat. And how much or how little. We know that we should exercise regularly. However, it is easier to give a nod to living the healthy life than forcing ourselves to make the sacrifices that are needed. The Trust says that nine out of the 10 states with the highest obe sity rates are in the South. Why not? Southern cooking is the best you can find anywhere. And what our cooks place before us we eat heartily and in abundance. Health authorities admonish us to eat sparingly and to exercise regularly. They don’t have the luxury of meals consisting of peas and combread and WOCOIIiIMOVER* 11 RfcMIDINGi SSaJ I r v ©2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE, J| J W No more ambulances for terror What kind of cold-blooded thugs use ambulances as killing aids or propaganda tools? Islamic terrorists, of course, have an unsur passed history of using emergency vehicles as tools of their murderous trade. International charities and media dupes have gone along for the ride. In March 2002, Israeli Defense Forces discovered a bomb in a Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance near Jerusalem. The bomb, packed in a sui cide belt, was hidden under a gurney carrying a Palestinian child. The driver confessed that it was not the first time ambulances had been used to ferry explosives. Female suicide bomber Wafa Idris, who blew herself up in a January 2002 attack in Jerusalem, was a medical secretary for the PRCS. Her recruit er was an ambulance driver for the same organization, which receives sup port from governments worldwide and the American and International Red Cross. As I reported in May 2004, an Israeli television station aired footage of armed Arab terrorists in southern Gaza using an ambulance owned and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees which has received more than $2.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies. Palestinian gun men used the UN emergency vehi cle as getaway transportation after murdering six Israeli soldiers. Senior UNRWA employee Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah confessed to using his official UN vehicle to bypass security and smuggle arms, explosives and ter rorists to and from attacks. Nidal ‘Abd al-Fataah ‘Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist, worked as an UNRWA ambu lance driver and admitted he, too, had used an emergency vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists. Peter Hansen, the head of the UNJ?WA, huffily denied that its vehicles OPINION mashed potatoes and beef and pork chops and fried chicken and banana pudding and other delicacies only a true southerner can appreciate. That, of course, is no excuse. Our waistlines are expanding at our own expense. This is supposed to cause diabetes and heart disease and shorten our lives. I mentioned my concern over my own growing waistline and weight to my son and he told me, “If I was old as you it wouldn’t matter.” Maybe I am guilty of giving lip ser vice to maintaining my own weight and waistline. There have been several times when I have had exercise routines. About 30 years ago I got up before dawn and ran several miles before breakfast. Most mornings I asked myself if I wanted to punish myself that way the rest of my life. Ironically, jogging or running can become addictive. I got to the point I needed my fix. On trips I looked for a place to run and if I didn’t run I felt guilty all day. I have jogged in many unusual places, includ ing the roofs of some downtown hotels in Atlanta. were being exploited by terrorists. But a few months later, he told Canada’s CBC TV: “I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA pay roll and I don’t see that as a crime.” When they’re not being used to ferry weapons, ambulances serve as major stage props for Hizballah news pro ductions. I remind you again of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s description last month of Hizballah’s ruse: “They had six ambulances lined up in a row and said, OK, you know, they brought reporters there, they said you can talk to the ambulance drivers. And then one by one, they told the ambulances to turn on their sirens and to zoom off, and people taking that picture would be reporting, I guess, the idea that these ambulances were zooming off to treat civilian casualties, when in fact, these ambulances were literally going back and forth down the street just for people to take pictures of them.” Keep all this context in mind - and keep the summer’s bombshell blog rev elations of Photoshopped war fauxtog raphy by Reuters and staged photos by other media outlets in mind - as we move on to the events of July 23. According to the Lebanon Red Cross, two of its ambulances were delib erately struck by weapons in Qana, Lebanon, while performing rescue mis sions. The international press, which has stubbornly ignored the prolonged exploitation of emergency vehicles by terrorists, immediately accused Israel of committing “war crimes.” Photos and accounts of the alleged Foy Evans Columnist loyevansl9@cox.net Michelle Malkin Columnist malkin@comcast.net HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL I got off of the running kick when I had surgery. Since then, on a few occa sions, I have joined health clubs and have maintained a sensible exercise program until I fell off the wagon, per haps permanently, more than a year ago. Now I tell myself I am going to start exercising again as I join the multi tude of people with waistlines who are requiring larger and larger clothes. Today’s Americans have a lifestyle conducive to obesity and larger waist lines. It’s what we eat, but alsd the fact most of us do not have jobs that require more than a minimal amount of exertion. Any beneficial exercise most of us get is by setting aside time for “exercise” and most people find this hard to do, considering other things tugging at them for their time. • Government intervention is sup posed to be helping. Food and bever age companies are being asked to keep the calories down. The suggestion has been made that planning and zoning regulations should make more walk ing necessary. Nutrition counseling is everywhere. But the final responsibility lies with all of us. Lecturing will do no good. What we consider important is within us. I know that my priorities have changed as I have grown older. I find it easier to dream than to act. And when the chips are down I figure that my son may be right, after all. ambulance targeting were dissemi nated widely by newswires, the BBC, ITV, The New York Times, the Boston Globe and countless others. It should be noted that Western journalists were not allowed onto the scene, but received video and pictures from locals. Bloggers have again raised pointed doubts about what those photos really show (see zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/ and my Internet video report at hotair. com/archives/2006/08/29/ambulances for-jihad/). The roof of one Red Cross ambulance said to have been hit by a missile had a neat hole punched dead center - in the same location that ven tilation holes of other ambulances are positioned. Massive rust and corrosion around the hole suggest the damage may have occurred before the alleged strike. Moreover, a missile explosion inside an ambulance would not leave the rest of the vehicle as intact as the supposedly targeted ambulance remained. A para medic quoted by several media organi zations claimed a “big fire” engulfed the inside of the vehicle. But photos of the ambulance allegedly consumed by the fire showed gurneys and seats intact and minimal damage to the interior. What is the response from all of the media hypers of the alleged Red Cross ambulance missile strike last month? The same response they’ve had to the jihadists’ past ambulance hoaxes: Nothing. Maybe your political representatives will have more to say. Many of the UN and Red Cross ambulances and ambulance drivers being exploited by the likes of Hamas and Hizballah are supported by American taxpayers and charitable groups. Isn’t it time to cut off the ambulances-for-terror lifeline? Michelle Malkin is author of the new book “Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild.” Her e-mail address is malkin@concast.net.