Prestidigitation is defined as "skill in performing magic or conjuring tricks with the hands". From the very beginning the IDF has kept the Hezbollah guessing about its true intentions. Nasrallah made the cardinal mistake of projecting his own estimate by believing that Israel would respond to his abduction of IDF soldiers with a limited cross border raid of their own. The IDF responded by smashing his Beirut headquarters and fixing the Hezbollah main force in the south. Nasrallah, Iran and Syria made a second error in believing that Israel, perhaps reinforced by the diplomaic mummery which encouraged the illusion, would be forced to accept a ceasefire within a fortnight only to discover that neither the international force was forthcoming (no one had the troops to put on the ground) nor would the Bush administration waver in its support for Israel. In reality Israel has been forced to accept nothing.

Wookies Will Win - 11
Gashouse Gorillas - 1
Poor Wyatt. John went to town this week against him, and this time, Goliath kicked David's ass. With this monster win Wookies hold a 4 game lead over the second place Cardinals, and 7.5 games over the third place cats. At least Wyatt can slap the runners around the bases. He won in RBI's to keep from getting skunked.
Game MVP: Carlos Delgado - 3 Home Runs, 8 RBI's, and 5 times across the plate.
Game Wash-Out: Tom Gordon - Being a closer with a week's ERA of 12.00 is not a good thing. He was lucky to get 2 saves.

SAN DIEGO - Ronald Reagan had just left office, the Christian Coalition was new, "values" had yet to become a buzzword of American politics and six of the current U.S. Supreme Court justices had other jobs when an atheist sued the city of San Diego for permitting a giant cross in a public park.

Seventeen years later, the 29-foot concrete monument still crowns a hill over the Pacific, defended by the city's voters and members of Congress.

Now the Supreme Court has stepped in, and the case of the Mount Soledad cross could help determine under what circumstances religious symbols are permissible in public places.

The cross, dedicated in 1954 in honor of Korean War veterans, was erected by the Mount Soledad Memorial Foundation, a private, nonprofit group that also maintains the monument.

State and federal judges have ordered the cross removed, saying it represents an unconstitutional endorsement of one religion. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court blocked an order that the city take it down by Aug. 1, giving state and federal courts time to hear appeals this fall.

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- When Jeff Trinca liquidated part of his stock portfolio to satisfy a divorce decree in early 2005, he calculated he would owe 15 percent tax on his capital gain. A year later, he got a nasty surprise: a much higher bill from the Internal Revenue Service.

If anyone should have known what to expect, it's Trinca: He's a Washington tax lobbyist. Still, he lives in one of some 2 million U.S. households that were denied the lower rate on capital gains last year because of a little-noticed quirk in the alternative minimum tax, originally created almost four decades ago to make sure a much smaller number of affluent Americans were paying their fair share.

Instead of paying the 15 percent rate established by President George W. Bush's 2003 tax cut, Trinca, 45, and other taxpayers with incomes between $150,000 and $400,000 are required to pay rates of up to 22 percent on their investment income. If left unchecked, the AMT anomaly may deprive millions more six- figure earners -- 60 percent of whom voted for Bush in 2004, when he won 51 percent of the vote nationwide -- of the low rate.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israel massed tanks and troops on the border, called up reserves and warned civilians to flee Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon as it prepared Friday for a likely ground invasion to set up a deep buffer zone.

The army's chief of staff said forces would conduct ground operations as needed in Lebanon, but they would be "limited." Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz also said nearly 100 Hezbollah guerrillas have been killed in the offensive in Lebanon.

"We will fight terror wherever it is because if we do not fight it, it will fight us. If we don't reach it, it will reach us," Halutz said in a nationally televised news conference. "We will also conduct limited ground operations as much as needed in order to harm the terror that harms us."

July 21 (Bloomberg) -- A new group called Communities United to Strengthen America has opened 12 "resource centers'' this year for the avowed purpose of educating citizens about issues such as health care and energy conservation.

It is probably no coincidence that all 12 are located in Republican-held congressional districts targeted by Democrats trying to recapture control of the House of Representatives in November's midterm elections.

Campaign-finance experts cite Communities United as an example of the type of nonprofit group that Democrats and their allies are creating to help their campaign, permitting unlimited and undisclosed donations from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals.

[...] Both 527s and 501(c)(4)s are named for sections of the U.S. tax code. Unlike the overtly political 527s, the latter groups don't have to disclose their donors.

By law, the 501(c)(4) groups must spend less than half their budget on political activities. "The only wild card in this equation is whether the IRS will become more aggressive," says Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner, a Republican. "Thus far, I haven't seen any indication that that is occurring."

Israel has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, reluctant to send in ground troops on terrain dominated by Hezbollah.

But an Israeli army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion. Israel broadcast warnings Wednesday into south Lebanon, telling civilians to leave, a possible prelude to a larger ground operation.

"There is a possibility; all our options are open. At the moment, it's a very limited, specific incursion but all options remain open," Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the state to loan $150 million to the state's financing agency for stem-cell research, one day after President George W. Bush vetoed legislation expanding federal funding for such studies.

The move by Schwarzenegger, a Republican running for re- election, was a boost to a voter-backed program whose funding has been hobbled by lawsuits. California has been unable to sell $3 billion of bonds approved by voters for disease-fighting research with embryonic cells because of the legal battles.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A wave of Israeli warplanes blasted a bunker in south Beirut thought to hold Hezbollah's top leaders Wednesday, intensifying an offensive against the guerrillas despite mounting international pressure and an appeal from Lebanon to spare the country further death and devastation.

[...] The Israeli military said warplanes dropped 23 tons of explosives late Wednesday on a south Beirut bunker where top Hezbollah figures, possibly including leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, were thought to be located.

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, whose weak government has been unable to fulfill a U.N. directive to disarm Hezbollah and put its army along the border with Israel, issued an urgent appeal for a cease-fire. He said his country "has been torn to shreds" with about 300 people killed, and pointedly criticized the U.S. position that Israel acts in self-defense.

"Is this what the international community calls self-defense?" a stern-looking Saniora asked a meeting of foreign diplomats including U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman. "Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions?"

LARNACA, Cyprus - The luxury cruise liner Orient Queen arrived in Cyprus' port of Larnaca early Thursday with about 1,000 Americans aboard, completing the first trip in a massive operation to evacuate thousands of U.S. citizens from wartorn Lebanon.