Yes, I am surprised.  Gratified perhaps, but still amazed.  Hollywood has actually taken a position against terrorism.

Hollywood has long since been a town of liberals who typically take positions I find nonsensical.  But today in a full page ad in the LA Time, 84 Hollywood heavy weights took a different stand.

Nic and stars against terror 
(note:  Interesting that the ad is in a US paper, but we read about it from a source in Australia…)

NICOLE Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism - and accepted a high-level offer to visit Israel.

The actress was joined by 84 other Hollywood stars, directors and studio bosses yesterday in a powerfully-worded full-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times newspaper.

It specifically targeted "terrorist organisations" such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad read. "If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.

"We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."

The ad was also signed by celebrities including Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, William Hurt and Ridley Scott plus News Corporation chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch and Paramount Pictures chairman Sumner Redstone.

News Corporation is the parent company of News Limited, publisher of The Daily Telegraph.

It also emerged yesterday that Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres had persuaded Kidman to visit Israel.

The pair met at a conference held by Mr Murdoch in California last month.

"We will be happy to have you," Mr Peres told Kidman. "Maybe you can be tourism ambassador to the Galilee."

Kidman asked Mr Peres about the country’s prospects for the future.

"We will come out stronger from this conflict (with Hezbollah)," he said.

With so many people condemning Israel for their retaliation this is gratifying.

This is no real shock.  The laws as noted below really are just common sense reactions to crack down on businesses who hire illegal aliens, something that is arguably a crime.  Likewise it holds landlords responsible for renting to illegals.

Frankly I don’t see the fuss.  We are talking about people hire or shelter people who have either stayed her past their legal visa and are fugitive, or people who entered illegally and are fugitive.

Town sued over strict immigration law

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Civil rights campaigners sued the Pennsylvania town of Hazleton on Tuesday, seeking to block one of America’s toughest local laws against illegal immigrants.

The suit says Hazelton’s City Council violated the U.S. constitution when it passed a law denying business permits to companies that hire illegal aliens and fining landlords who rent homes to them.

I would love to see their rationale on this.  How does this violate the constitution?

(I researched and have the answer below)

The measure, which also establishes English as the town’s official language, has made Hazleton a focus of the national debate on immigration. The plaintiffs say their suit is the first in the country to challenge a local immigration ordinance.

The suit was filed in federal court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania by groups including the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the        American Civil Liberties Union. They accuse Hazleton of overstepping its authority on the federal matter of immigration and say the law discriminates against immigrants.

No really it does not.  They are not directly affected it addresses those who hire them, and those who rent housing to them.

"This mean-spirited law is wrong for many reasons but the most obvious is that the city does not have the power to make its own immigration laws," Omar Jadwat, an attorney for the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.

Why not?  This law does not supplant Federal law in anyway, it merely provides for specific relief at a local level.