† We Fight Them Over There So We Don’t Have To Fight Them Over Here?: Part XI (second item): Neighbors of homegrown terror suspects Mohamed Alessa, 20, and Carlos "Omar" Almonte, 24, aren’t at all surprised that the two aspired to become jihadis, reports the New York Post:

Not a single school could handle Alessa. He openly talked of blowing up his schools in the name of Islam.

Almonte was picked up by cops several times for increasingly violent behavior. …

Back when Alessa was a North Bergen HS student in early 2005, officials there were so troubled by his radical-Islam-inspired rants that they contacted Homeland Security [emphasis, The Stiletto].

Even the Al Huda School, an Islamic institution in Paterson, couldn't handle him, and he left after few months in 2005.

Later that year, when he was transferred to KAS Prep, an alternative school for troubled teens, the outbursts continued, a school official said.

He recalled that Alessa had his own misinterpretation of Islam, claiming that the religion required the subordination of women and the mutilation of gays.

Alessa even said he wanted to organize a squad of Muslims to blow up the school, the Bergen Record said yesterday.

Is this another case of Homeland Security downplaying the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism so as to be politically correct?

† Mama, Don’t Take My Incandescent Bulbs Away: The New York Times reports that “despite the escalating push to go green and switch to compact fluorescents - or perhaps because of it – [the] antique glow [of the exposed- filament light] has spread like a power surge” amongst owners of trendy restaurants in Manhattan and owners of painstakingly restored Victorians in San Francisco, alike:

But that might not have happened without Bob Rosenzweig, who started selling the reproductions [of Thomas Alva Edison’s first light bulb] in the 1980s …

He started selling the lights to collectors, theatrical prop houses and the Edison national park site in New Jersey, for its gift shop. Demand grew but did not really take off, Mr. Rosenzweig said, until shortly after the turn of the century, as consumers were being pushed to use compact fluorescents.

Customers, particularly in San Francisco, complained that they hated how those squiggly bulbs looked in their vintage fixtures, casting an odd green tinge inside their restored Victorians. Around the same time came a boomlet of nostalgia-infused restaurants in New York, like Public, which opened in 2003 in a former Edison laboratory in NoLIta. …

The bulbs are now popular all over the world, in Germany, England, Australia and even Hong Kong Disneyland, Mr. Rosenzweig said. The only place he cannot seem to find a market is Miami Beach, where the prevailing look is modern. In countries with bans on incandescent lights in homes, he markets the product as a novelty bulb. …

In the United States, the craze has spilled over into home décor, with demand high enough that even mainstream retailers like Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and Anthropologie sell the lights for $9 to $20 each.

† Sotomayor And The Supreme Court: It’s Not The End Of The World For Conservatives: By a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has backed the formula for calculating good time credit used by the Bureau of Prisons, which is based on the length of time actually served and not the length of the term imposed by the sentencing judge, reports The National Law Journal:

[T]he formula preferred by the Court would result in 470 days of credit for a well-behaved prisoner serving a 10-year sentence, while the method urged by defendants would result in 540 days of credit.

That may not sound like much, but in a strongly worded dissent Justice Anthony Kennedy said the ruling will add "tens of thousands of years" collectively to time served, at a "cost to taxpayers of untold millions of dollars." In human terms, Kennedy added, the ruling will be "devastating to the prisoners who have behaved the best." …

Joining Kennedy in dissent were justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who emphasized during confirmation hearings last year that she disagreed with President Barack Obama's "empathy standard" for new justices, voted with the majority against defendants in the case. …

The case was brought by Oregon federal prisoners challenging the calculation method, but they lost at both the district court in Oregon and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

As the Los Angeles Times points out, “[s]he has not been a reflexive vote for criminal defendants.”

† Life Imitates “A Law Abiding Citizen”: In this Washington Times op-ed Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, shines the spotlight on Robert Chatigny, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Connecticut, who has been nominated by President Barack Hussein Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit:

Our president … has decided that a man who actively empathizes with serial killers and rapists, sex offenders and child pornographers should be given a promotion to a lifetime … bench position that has led other judges right up the U.S. Supreme Court. …

In a documentary on serial killers, Michael Ross describes how he tied up 14-year-old Leslie Shelley, put her in the trunk of his car and "took the other girl, April Brunais [also 14] out, and I raped her and killed her, and I put her in the front seat." He said he killed eight girls and women, ages 14 through 25, and if he wasn't caught, he still would be killing.

It was of this man that Judge Chatigny said: "[Michael Ross] never should have been convicted. Or if convicted, he never should have been sentenced to death." Judge Chatigny then fought to stop Ross' execution - twice - and was overturned by the Supreme Court both times. Judge Chatigny went on to suggest that "sexual sadism is clearly a mitigating factor." Mitigating factor? A sexual sadist deserves less time in prison because he's sick? That twisted thinking is a normal reality for Judge Chatigny. …

Mr. Obama should withdraw Judge Chatigny's nomination immediately. This issue is at the very core of protecting American women. The proper role of government is to ensure the safety of its citizens - in this, case women and children.

That White House Council on Women and Girls Obama created 14 months ago “to provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges confronted by women and girls and to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families” should lobby the president to nominate another judge. Otherwise, what is it good for?

† Updates To Previous Posts (Israel And The Armenian Question): In October 2000 and again seven years later, prominent American Jewish organizations successfully augmented Turkey’s lobbying to dissuade Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush from allowing a symbolic resolution acknowledging the Armenian Genocide to make it to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote. With relations between Israel and Turkey having precipitously eroded as the formerly secular Turkey steadily became more Islamist, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and other sponsors of the Armenian Genocide Resolution may finally prevail now that the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, D.C. is no longer helping Turkey. The Washington Times explains:

In some ways, the Memorial Day flotilla affair marks an end of Israel's more than 20-year strategic alliance with Turkey, and the resulting support from the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. …

In Congress, the Jewish organizations lobbied for an oil pipeline from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, a pipeline that bypasses Turkey's rival Armenia entirely. The Jewish lobby in Washington helped protect U.S. arms sales to Turkey, on which the Greek lobby often tried to block or impose conditions. …

In the 1980s, Turkey often lost major fights in Congress to the Greek and Armenian lobbies. …

Today, far from being an asset for Turkey, the American Jewish community appears to becoming a potent foe of Turkish interests in Washington.

Barry Jacobs, the American Jewish Committee's former director of strategic studies in the office of government and international affairs – described as one of the “architects of the Jewish community's support for Turkey in Washington that began at the end of the Cold War” by The Washington Times - tells the paper that "The major Jewish organizations decided in 2008 that the question of the Armenian genocide resolution was so sensitive we would no longer take public and private positions to oppose it.” Morris Amitay, a former executive director of AIPAC adds, "If someone asked me now if I would try to protect Turkey in Congress, my response would be, 'You've got to be kidding.'"

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on Metro Atlanta Police Chief Gene Wilson, who turned himself in for parking illegally in a handicapped spot at a Conyers Chik-Fil-A. WSB-TV (Channel 2-Atlanta) reports:

Wilson told Channel 2’s Diana Davis he realized he parked illegally after getting breakfast at the restaurant on Highway 138. …

He drove back to headquarters and had another officer write him the ticket. It carried a $280 fine. Wilson also apologized in a letter to the newspaper. …

The chief told Davis he wanted to send a message that his department takes parking in a disabled spot without a permit very seriously. According to Wilson, anybody caught doing it, including police, will get a ticket.