Remember To Shave

Well, I guess there isn't much you can do but joke about it when you are targeted by animal rights groups and depicted by a man in drag. I'm sure this PETA spoof is the least of Star's concerns or worries.

"If you're Star Jones Reynolds, beware on April Fool's day. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals will target the co-host of 'The View' with a parody of Jones Reynolds, to be unveiled outside the ABC studio on Friday.

PETA will display a new 'Fur is a Drag' ad featuring 6-foot-tall cross-dresser Flotilla DeBarge dressed in a large white wedding gown and a white fur coat splashed with blood.

'As long as no laws are broken, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,' Jones Reynolds said in a statement Thursday to The Associated Press. 'I hope his hair and makeup look fabulous and he remembers to shave.'

PETA has listed Jones Reynolds four times on its annual 'worst dressed' list, citing her fondness for fur."

... and you know she is not going to stop wearing furs!

Pantalones En El Fuego

... or something like that! It is bad enough that the Bush camp is going around telling blacks that they are getting gyp'ed by social security because they die earlier than whites, but his lie to the hispanic population is just flaming!

Blacks aren't the only Americans whose shorter life expectancies (compared with whites) are being used by the Bush administration to promote Social Security reform. The White House is claiming that Latinos should support changes to the system because they collect Social Security for fewer years, on average, than whites do. There are several problems with that line of thinking, but the biggest one, according to Slate political correspondent William Saletan, is this: It's a lie. A U.S. Census Bureau report shows that Latinos outlive whites by an average of three years, he noted last week. So has the administration changed its strategy since Saletan pointed out the error? Yes. "The White House no longer obliquely implies that Latinos die younger than whites do," Saletan reports. "It now repeats that falsehood explicitly."

At one of those infamous "town hall" meetings held this week in Nevada, Vice President Dick Cheney declared, "Life expectancy, for example, among African Americans and Hispanics is less than it is for others. They get a worse return, if you will, out of Social Security than others because they don't live long enough to draw the benefits that was equal what they've paid into the system over time. So it is an important consideration."

And the press has done little to debunk the myth, Haletan says. A story appearing this week in The Wall Street Journal reported, "For African-Americans ... [Republicans] argue that personal accounts offer a better deal; blacks' shorter life expectancy, the argument goes, means they collect traditional Social Security benefits for a shorter period and thus would help their families more with personal accounts they could leave to heirs. They argue that Hispanics would benefit for the same reason."

No Culture Of Life In Iraq

So now we are starving the children of Iraq and they are worse off than they were under Sadaam.

"Acute malnutrition among Iraqi children aged under five nearly doubled last year because of chaos caused by the US-led occupation, a United Nations expert said yesterday.

Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food, said more than a quarter of Iraqi children do not have enough to eat and 7.7% are acutely malnourished - a jump from 4% recorded in the immediate aftermath of the US-led invasion.

Reporting to the commission's headquarters in Geneva, the Swiss professor claimed the situation was 'a result of the war led by coalition forces'.

If confirmed, the estimates would be an indictment of an occupation which was supposed to improve the lives of a population crushed by Saddam Hussein."

She Lies Like A Rug!

I think it takes big balls to shake someone's hand and lie directly to their face. But, I guess after watching Condoleezza Rice during the 9/11 hearings as well as her confirmation hearings, I already knew what she was made of.

March 16, 2005
"Secretary of State Rice says she discussed the potential sale of F-16 fighter-jets to Pakistan with Indian officials, who have long opposed the plan. She also talked about selling the jets to India.

But Ms. Rice said at news conference Wednesday in New Delhi it is too soon to expect any deals to be signed with either country.

'We are going to continue to have broad discussions about the security needs, about the defense needs of India. I'm quite certain that when I go to Pakistan that I will have discussions about the defense concerns and the defense needs of Pakistan,' said Ms. Rice. 'But there has been no such agreement, and as I've said to you, I don't expect that there are going to be any announcements out of this.'"

Nine days later ...

March 25, 2005
The United States has agreed to sell about two dozen sophisticated F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan, a diplomatically sensitive move that rewards Pakistan for its help in fighting the war on terror, but has angered next-door rival India.

President Bush (news - web sites), who is spending holiday time at his Texas ranch, spoke on the phone Friday with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who told Bush of his "great disappointment" over the decision, Sanjaya Baru, the prime minister's spokesman said.

Singh said that sales to Pakistan would endanger security in the region, Baru said. New Delhi is worried that arming Pakistan with the advanced jet fighters would tilt the military balance in South Asia and could adversely affect the ongoing peace dialogue between India and Pakistan.

Lying heffa! I know your mamma raised you better than that!

Rapists For Schiavo!

So a repentant rapist is now on a mission that includes prohibiting women from a save and legal abortion. Gee, That means that if his victim ended up pregnant, she's have no choice but to produce his spawn. Seems like he still has issues and the need to dominate women.

As protests outside the hospice housing Terri Schiavo in her final days mounted last week, numerous newspaper reports, many based on an Associated Press account, mentioned or quoted 10-year-old Joshua Heldreth and/or his father, Scott Heldreth. Josh was one of several youngsters arrested for crossing police lines in Pinellas Park, Fla., in an effort to take water to Schiavo.

None of the stories revealed that Scott Heldreth, a religious activist and anti-abortion crusader, is a registered sex offender in Florida-- until The Charlotte Observer mentioned it on Sunday.

A widely published AP story on Sunday by Allen G. Breen had painted a warmer picture of the Heldreths, noting that it was young Josh who insisted that his father take him to the protests from their home in North Carolina, not the other way around. “God’s with me,” Josh said.

The article continued: “Scott Heldreth, a veteran of the Operation Rescue and Operation Save America campaigns against abortion, didn't intend to join this fight, until his son asked to be brought to Pinellas Park. ‘My wife and I, we felt like if God really put it on his heart, we should come down, to allow him to live out what God had put on his heart,’ says Heldreth, a carpenter.”

They say the greater the sinner, the greater the saint. I'd love to know what kinds of other things are in the backgrounds of those in the religious right.

Attack Of The Smart People

Help me out here folks! What, exactly, does this imply about the intellect of "Christians"?

'Christians are a lot more bold under Bush's leadership, he speaks what a lot of us believe,' said Mummert.

'We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture,' he said, adding that the school board's declaration is just a first step.

I went to parochial schools through college. I learned about evolution and learned the biblical accounts of creation . Sorry, I think that people who are so concerned about their children receiving religious instruction need to fork up the bucks to pay for them to attend a Christian school - and even then they'd better check the curriculum because my Catholic education came from "the intelligent, educated segment of the culture."

Even More Rocket Science

Geeeeees! Who knew?:

"Women are not only more different from men than we knew. Women are more different from each other than we knew -- creatures of 'infinite variety,' as Shakespeare wrote.

'We poor men only have 45 chromosomes to do our work with because our 46th is the pathetic Y that has only a few genes which operate below the waist and above the knees,' Willard observed.

'In contrast, we now know that women have the full 46 chromosomes that they're getting work from and the 46th is a second X that is working at levels greater than we knew.'

[...]

The researchers learned that a whopping 15 percent -- 200 to 300 -- of the genes on the second X chromosome in women, thought to be submissive and inert, lolling about on an evolutionary Victorian fainting couch, are active, giving women a significant increase in gene expression over men.

As The New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade, who is writing a book about human evolution and genetics, explained it to me: 'Women are mosaics, one could even say chimeras, in the sense that they are made up of two different kinds of cell. Whereas men are pure and uncomplicated, being made of just a single kind of cell throughout.'"

Socrates Is Dead ... Again

Filed under "Is Our Children Learning," I cannot believe this:

According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for "public ridicule" – for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class – would also be given the right to sue.

"Some professors say, 'Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,'" Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.

Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, warned of lawsuits from students enrolled in Holocaust history courses who believe the Holocaust never happened.

Similar suits could be filed by students who don’t believe astronauts landed on the moon, who believe teaching birth control is a sin or even by Shands medical students who refuse to perform blood transfusions and believe prayer is the only way to heal the body, Gelber added.

Well, students during my undergrad years would have been suing for days. Those Jesuit priests were quick to whip your tail with a little socratic dialogue to help you sound out your questions and arguments. I recall my roommate coming from a Theology class one afternoon totally stoked by what she'd witnessed. Apparently, another student (whom she happened to know as a rich girl from her home town) made some snooty remark about seeing a woman in the local bakery purchasing a birthday cake with food stamps. The professor/priest promptly questioned her as to whether she believed that poor people deserved to have birthday cakes too. Yes, the girl was red-faced and miffed. But had she ever thought that, just perhaps, even poor people deserve to have a happy birthday - even if it meant buying a cake with government supplied food stamps?

I hardly think that exchange was about a liberal professor trying to insult or berate this student because she'd expressed her gut response. I'm sure her belief was that if you are poor, you should be buying food with her tax dollars. Part of learning should mean growing to say "Gee, I never thought of it like that before." I submit, then, that part of learning is learning to THINK! If a professor can no longer question a student who is there to learn, why is the student even there? I think this is more about some conservatives not wanting students to ever open their minds, learn to think or have opinions that deviate from the narrow views they were raised with. For that, someone ought to be sued.

Killing The Lamb Of God

Regardless of what George W. Bush's true faith is, he allowed Karl Rove to turn it into a campaign tool to appeal to a block of voters who felt they'd been marginalized by our separated church and state. He talks the talk like a pro yet his non-Christian policies make him no more than a charlatan. The Christian right gets lip service about gay marriage, abortion and prayer in schools yet seem to be blind to the fact that the very things that Christ would not do are being carried out in plain sight by their devout Commander in Chief.

As we enter another Easter Season, it's become all too obvious that if Christ returns, those who hate in his name will slime him, then kill him.

Christ was a long-haired peace activist who would have been sickened to his soul by the war in Iraq. "Blessed are the peacemakers" Jesus said in his defining Sermon on the Mount. "Turn the other cheek...Love thy neighbor."

Such hippie-radical ideals are the "Christian" right wing's worst nightmare. The GOP would never tolerate an upstart like Jesus gathering a following in the face of their corporate-fundamentalist crusade. These are self-proclaimed Christians who love power but would despise the actual Christ, just as they love a Zionist Israel but believe actual Jews are doomed to Hell.

In the wake of Jesus's inspiring life of non-violent rebellion, a perverse liturgy weighted by twenty centuries of intolerant bloodthirsty bigotry has erupted in his name. Attacks on people of color, on nations with oil, on humans of the same gender who love each other, on youth who enjoy sex….all have become staples of a new fundamentalist crusade doing in Christ's name things that would have left him horrified.

In large part through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus came to be viewed as Divine because he spoke eloquently for a gracious, loving God.

Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, George Bush and their corporate-fundamentalist minions speak to and for a very different kind of God, one at war with the Deity described by Christ.

Bush-Rove's Master is a spiteful dictator, defined by hate and greed, intolerance and hypocrisy.

Christ kicked the moneychangers out of the temple. Today's Republicans have enshrined them.

Christ spoke of a God of compassion and joy.

Today's "religious" right wingers worship Meanness of Spirit, a greed-driven war-loving totalitarianism. The only way to salvation, they say is THEIR way, through a nature-hating Authority that tramples all Jesus preached.

If That Don't Do

... Then they'll try something new. If all else fails, try to manipulate young people with notions of patriotism - even if it means appealing to the parents to steer their loved ones into enlisting. Then call up folks who've already done their time. What is it these kooks don't get? Getting killed in Iraq doesn't sound like a good 'career' option to most.

"The Army is forecasting that all three elements - active, Guard and Reserve - will fall short of their targets for March and April. That means they will have to make up the lost ground this summer - traditionally the best recruiting season - in order to meet their full-year goals.

'I'm clearly not going to give up,' Harvey said. 'At this stage we still have six months to go' before the recruiting year ends Sept. 30. 'I've challenged our human resource people to get as innovative as they can. And even as we speak we've got a number of new ideas.'

One of those new approaches is designed to persuade more parents to steer their children to the Army.

'We're going to appeal to patriotism,' he said.

That might be done through a new advertising campaign, he said. He also is encouraging more members of Congress as well as senior Army leaders and Army boosters to spend time in local communities touting the benefits of military service.

The Army also has increased the number of recruiters on the street by 33 percent and is offering bigger signup bonuses. Last week the Army announced that the National Guard and Reserve were raising the maximum age for recruits from 34 to 39 in order to expand the pool of potential enlistees. The regular Army could not raise the maximum age without congressional approval.

In a related matter, the Army said more people in the Individual Ready Reserve - those no longer in uniform and not obligated to train - are going to be hearing from the Army in the weeks ahead. The Army has revised upward the number of IRR soldiers it plans to put on active duty, from the 4,402 announced last summer to 4,653. Of those given mobilization orders so far, 370 have failed to report for duty, according to Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, an Army spokeswoman. An additional 2,229 have asked for delays in their reporting dates or for exemptions."

Counting the months until the draft is reinstated ...

No Longer Shocked Or Awed

I look forward to reading this blog - even if the posts are generally a depressing view of what it is like to live in Iraq as an Iraqi citizen. We can listen to the dribble about how we're building schools and hospitals (as we should since we blew them up - some favor!). Just as Bushco was doing the Sunday talk show circuit to tell everyone, once again, that we'd done the right thing by invading a sovereign nation two years ago, Iraqis noted the occupation milestone as well.

A seemingly endless 40 minutes later, there was a slight lull in the bombing- it seemed to have gotten further away. I took advantage of the relative calm and went to find the telephone. The house was cold because the windows were open to keep them from shattering. I reached for the telephone, fully expecting to find it dead but I was amazed to find a dial tone. I began dialing numbers- friends and relatives. We contacted an aunt and an uncle in other parts of Baghdad and the voices on the other end were shaky and wary. Are you OK? Is everyone OK? Was all I could ask on the phone. They were ok but the bombing was heavy all over Baghdad. Shock and awe had begun.

Two years ago this week.

What followed was almost a month of heavy bombing. That chaotic night became the intro to endless chaotic days and long, sleepless nights. You get to a point during extended air-raids where you lose track of the days. You lose track of time. The week stops being Friday, Saturday, Sunday, etc. The days stop being about hours. You begin to measure time with the number of bombs that fell, the number of minutes the terror lasted and the number of times you wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of gunfire and explosions.

We try to put it out of our heads, but it comes back anyway. We sit around sometimes, when there's no electricity, or when were gathered for lunch or dinner and someone will say, Remember two years ago when ... Remember when they bombed Mansur, a residential area When they started burning the cars in the streets with Apaches when they hit the airport with that bomb that lit up half of the city when the American tanks started rolling into Baghdad?

Remember when the fear was still fresh- and the terror was relatively new- and it was possible to be shocked and awed in Iraq?

Hijacking The Iraqi Vote

I heard this story of votes being hijacked last week on Flashpoint - a program on Pacifica radio in Northern California. I was waiting to see how long it would take to hit the alternate media. I just don't know how to present things like this without seeming totally cynical. But we don't really want democracy in Iraq any more than previous conquerors did. We want a place to secure our oil interests but democracy may mean an Islamic theocracy that violates our plan. Given our own election hijinks in America, I'm hardly surpised that we've taken our voter supression routine on the road.

The interim Iraqi constitution was dead on arrival. The Bush administration just hasn't accepted this fact. It had no chance of survival had the Shi'a won an outright majority of the vote in the Iraqi election. 'If it [i.e., the percentage of Shi'a votes] had been higher, the [Shi'a] slate would be seen with a lot more trepidation,' a senior U.S. State Department official said, once the official Iraqi election results were announced on Feb. 14. The problem is, there is good reason to believe that the percentage of votes for the Shi'a was higher much higher. Well-placed sources in Iraq who were in a position to know have told me that the actual Shi'a vote was 56 percent. American intervention, in the form of a 'secret vote count' conducted behind closed doors and away from public scrutiny, produced the Feb. 14 result.

The lowering of the Shi'a vote re-engineered the post-election political landscape in Iraq dramatically. The goal of the U.S., in doing this, is either to guarantee the adoption of the U.S.-drafted interim constitution, or make sure that there are not enough votes to adopt any Shi'a re-write. If the U.S.-drafted Iraqi constitution prevails, the Bush administration would be comfortable with the secular nature of any Iraqi government it produces. If it fails, then the Bush administration would much rather continue to occupy Iraq under the current U.S.-written laws, than allow for the creation of a pro-Iranian theocracy. In any event, the Shi'a stand to lose.

Whether this re-engineering will succeed in the long run has yet to be seen. What is clear, however, is that many senior Shi'a know the real results that occurred on Jan. 30, and will not walk away from what they believe is their rightful destiny when it comes to governing of Iraq: a Shi'a controlled state, operating in accordance with Shar'ia law.

The post-election 'cooking' of the results in Iraq all but guarantees that the Shi'a of Iraq will rally together to secure that which they believe is rightfully theirs. This journey of 'historical self-realization' may very well ignite the kind of violent backlash among the Shi'a majority in Iraq that the U.S. has avoided to date. It could also complicate whatever strategies the Bush administration may be trying to implement regarding Iraq's neighbor to the east, Iran. But in any case, the American 'cooking' of the Iraqi election is, in the end, a defeat for democracy and the potential of democracy to effect real and meaningful change in the Middle East. The sad fact is that it is not so much that the people of the Middle East are incapable of democracy, but rather the United States is incapable of allowing genuine democracy to exist in the Middle East.

He's Fristin' Kidding Me!

In addition to the hypocrisy of Bush's 1999 Futile Care Law vs. his current, and politically expedient, "culture" of life, it seems that Senate Majority Leader, and culture of life trumpeteer, also has some inconsistent pre-Rove views on life and death. How he can be pro-life and for baby killing at the same time?

"Frist wrote a book in 1989 called Transplant where he advocated changing the definition of 'brain dead' to include anencephalic babies. Anencephalic babies are in the same state as Terri Schiavo except that she suffered a physical trauma that put her into a vegetative state while the anencephalic babies are born that way.

This remarkable discovery buttresses the argument that Frist's advocacy for Schiavo is wholly political. How does he explain this remarkable inconsistency? Here is the relevant passage on Frist as quoted by the New Republic in 2003:

'And, although Frist writes frequently about the ethical issues surrounding transplants--for example, the question of when death begins--he approaches these issues in starkly scientific terms, with little patience for religious objections.

'Near the end of the book, for example, Frist suggests changing the legal definition of 'brain death' to include anencephalic babies, who are born with a fatal neurological disorder but show just the slightest hint of brain-stem activity. Such a change would make it possible to harvest their organs for transplant--something the Catholic Church and pro-life groups oppose. 'Three thousand anencephalic babies were born a year, enough to solve our demand many times over--but we never used them.'' [The New Republic, 1/27/03]

It would seem to me that even an anencephalic baby would have a soul and therefore be entitled to the same options for life that other babies have - even if expectancy isn't very long. A natural death might mean that the organs cannot be suitable for harvesting and transplants but how can a pro-life doctor even suggest using these babies using these babies as spare part repositories?

With parental approval, I might not have a problem with a baby, who has no chance, giving the gift of life to multiple people. But Bill Frist definitely should.

Still Stuck

I just don't get why Bush's evangelical supporters aren't in uproar over the Texas Futile Care Law. Why is it that they can rally behind the one woman who is about to be starved to death and not the many who have been and will be.

One option is to simply put forth incontrovertible facts – say, by including in each story quoting a Republican lawmaker, the fact that a one-page GOP memo leaked last week called the Schiavo case "a great political issue" that would appeal to the party's base and potentially result in the defeat of Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida.

That's not to say that there are not genuine values at stake for congressional Republicans, many of whom truly believe that removing Schiavo's feeding tube would be a moral wrong. If their actions are cynical, they aren't completely so, and reporters would be doing a disservice by suggesting as much – just as they would be by ignoring the memo all together.

There is one bit of context, however, that seems particularly salient, and it involves a six-month old boy named Sun Hudson. On Thursday, Hudson died after a Texas hospital removed his feeding tube, despite his mother's pleas. He had a fatal congenital disease, but would have been kept alive had his mother been able to pay for his medical costs, or had she found another institution willing to take him. In a related Texas case, Spiro Nikolouzos, who is unable to speak and must be fed through a tube because of a shunt in his brain – but who his wife says can recognize family members and show emotion – may soon be removed from life support because health care providers believe his case is futile.

The Hudson and Nikolous cases fall under the Texas Futile Care Law, which was signed into law by then-governor George W. Bush.

Bush, however, flew from Texas to Washington early this week to sign legislation authorizing federal courts to review Schiavo's case. The president felt that the Florida courts, which had reviewed the case several times over the past seven years, had failed in their duty: "In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life."

When Is Adultery Not Adultery?

I am not sure if it is his appearance or his message that sometimes irritates me more but in many ways I agree with Shmuley Boteach on the Schiavo dilemma. I don't care if Mrs. Schiavo is a vegetable or lost at sea, Mr. Schiavo is still married and living and breeding children with his common law wife just bugs me. I am far from being an evangelical, a devout Catholic or in any way close to agreeing with the religious right on anything. But I just don't see why this man is so bound and determined to stay married to a woman when he has obviously moved on. Mind you, I wouldn't have had a problem if he, who was still young at the time of Terri's collapse, had just told her parents: "I need to divorce your daughter and start a new life." No one would have blamed him. They were obviously willing to take care of their daughter. But somehow, parties on both sides seem to have dropped into a permanent impasse and power struggle. I don't even think it is about Terri as much as it is about both sides wanting to be right and win.

Also, I question how harshly a woman - if her husband were in the same condition - would be viewed if she'd taken up house with and had children by another man. I suspect she'd be labeled, among other scurrilous things, a scarlet woman and the courts would probably not have a problem granting custody to his parents since his wife and presumed caretaker had moved on with another life. And yes, I think had Christopher Reeve's wife decided to bail on him, there would be public outcry to the high heavens.

Good thing for all of us that Christopher Reeve was not married to someone like Michael Schiavo. His wife Terri made a casual comment to him, or so he claims, that should she ever be reduced to a severely disabled state, she would want to die. Schiavo has certainly devoted himself to fulfilling her request.

Unlike the Reeves, in this particular exchange between wife and husband there was apparently never an attempt to encourage Terri to embrace life. Michael Schiavo could easily have said, "Honey, however you are, I will always love you. So get such silly ideas out of your head." Instead, he promised his wife that, should she become mentally incapacitated, he would move heaven and earth to have her die. And they say that there are no good husbands left in America.

I recognize that there is a difference between physical paralysis and mental incapacity, and that in this sense the Reeve and Schiavo stories differ. But the central similarity is that both involve one spouse revealing to the other the wish to die if he or she became mentally or physically incapacitated. In the Reeve case, a wife sees it as her obligation to inspire her husband to choose life. In the Schiavo case, the husband makes not even a limited effort to dissuade his wife from her death wish, although she is speaking with him as a young person in her early twenties.

Moreover, are physical paralysis and mental incapacity really that different? To a man like Christopher Reeve, who led an extremely active life, being confined to a wheelchair was the worst thing that could happen. And yet his wife told him he had not changed, that there was something inside him that could never be broken. His quintessence had not been affected by the fall.

The same is true for the mentally handicapped. Doesn't a parent love his child even if the child is born with the most severe mental infirmity? Can't a man remain devoted to his wife if she loses her mental faculties? We see this kind of devotion in spouses of Alzheimer's patients all the time. Clearly, Michael Schiavo does not share this perspective. Whatever he once saw in his wife was lost as soon as she suffered severe brain damage.

America has never quite witnessed a husband like Michael Schiavo - a man who is prepared to take on the might of the United States government to ensure that his wife ends up six feet under. And who could fault him? After all, a promise is a promise unless, of course, it's a promise of fidelity in marriage.

Sprung!

These folks are coming totally unhinged. Now they want Gov. Bush order police action to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted. As disheartened as I am that this woman will be starved and dehydrated to death, currently our laws say that her husband has the last say on her fate. That's that! If that isn't that, there are thousands of other patients who will need saving too! What about them?

The "auxiliary precautions" of Florida government in this case the Florida supreme court have failed Terri Schiavo. It is time, therefore, for Governor Bush to execute the law and protect her rights, and, in turn, he should take responsibility for his actions. Using the state police powers, Governor Bush can order the feeding tube reinserted. His defense will be that he and a majority of the Florida legislature believe the Florida Constitution requires nothing less. Some will argue that Governor Bush will be violating the law. We think he will not be violating the law, but if he is judged to have done so, it will be in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr., who answered to a higher law than a judge's opinion. In so doing, King showed respect for the man-made law by willingly going to jail (on a Good Friday); Governor Bush may have to face impeachment because of his decision.

In taking these extraordinary steps to save an innocent life, Governor Bush should be judged not by the opinion of the Florida supreme court, a co-equal branch of the Florida government, but by the opinions of his political superiors, the people of Florida. If they disagree with their governor, they are indeed free to act through their elected representatives and impeach him. Or they can vindicate him if they think he is right. But he should not be cowed into inaction he should not allow an innocent woman to be starved to death because of an opinion of a court he believes to be wrong and unconstitutional.

... And leave Dr. King out of this! He, for one, would be battling for a decent Medicaid budget and for the indigents that Bush wants to die - at the hospital's discretion - if they cannot pay for care.

Bush's Electric Slide

Let's see ... It is probably about time for another Osama tape or another attack on American soil. Bush is going to need something to get his approval ratings up because, despite his mantras to the public, his numbers are sliding fast.

As mentioned earlier, Congressional approval ratings have fallen since last month and are at their lowest point since 1997, and President Bush’s job approval ratings have also declined. 43 percent now approve of President Bush’s handling of his job as President; 48 percent disapprove.

36 percent approve of President Bush’s handling of the economy, and 53 percent disapprove. Bush’s approval rating on Iraq has also dropped; 39 percent approve, down from 45 percent in late February; 53 percent now disapprove.

No AK-47's For You!

I saw reference to this Rumsfeld quote on another site, the first thing that came to mind was "heck, we have more than 100,000 AK-47's on the streets here in the US." How stupid, then, is Rummy for even forming his mouth to ponder why Venezuela would want or be allowed to have the same weapons?

Is he freaking kidding?

"The Bush Administration very deliberately allowed the Federal assault weapons ban to expire last fall. Since the ban expired, it is quite likely that there are more than 100,000 new assault weapons like AK-47s in the United States.

In the past six weeks, such assault weapons have been used in horrible high-profile shootings in Dallas and Tyler, Texas; Los Angeles, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Ulster, New York and Akron, Ohio. Six were killed and seven were wounded in the shootings.

Now, the U.S. is trying to prevent the government of Venezuela from importing 100,000 AK-47s, out of concerns the government of President Hugo Chavez plans to use the guns to quash political opposition.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking in Brazil yesterday, said 'I can't imagine what's going to happen to 100,000 AK-47s...I can't understand why Venezuela needs 100,000 AK-47s. I personally hope it doesn't happen. I can't imagine, if it did happen, it would be good for the hemisphere.'

'The Administration is right -- Venezuela shouldn't be allowed to flood its streets with military-style assault weapons,' said Michael Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign and a former member of Congress who was an authority on Latin American affairs. 'Only the United States should be allowed to flood its streets with military-style assault weapons.'"

I already think that our imperialistic attitude is waaaay past old and arrogant but this is positively comical! Common street hoods (some of them minors) can get access to assault weapons yet we want to question why a sovereign nation (one that is a top oil producer and sees the saliva running from our mouths over it) might want a few?

I'm dying here!!!

Kofi's Pre-emptive Reform

Kofi is taking action before "bull in a china shop" Bolton reports to his post as US Ambassador to the UN. Though many of the reforms seem to be a direct response to our pre-emptive actions in Iraq, his proactivity can be seen as a good thing.

If there is one thing on which both critics and supporters of the United Nations agree especially since the enormous row over the Iraq war it is that the world body is in need of reform. America and its allies were exasperated at the UN's failure to agree action against Saddam Hussein's regime. Opponents of the war were equally angry at the UN's failure to stop America from launching it. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, there was the revolting spectacle of Britain and France sucking up to Lansana Conté, the tinpot dictator of tiny Guinea, because the UN's rules had given him one of the Security Council's rotating seats. Earlier, there was the equally stomach-churning sight of the tyrannical Libyan regime getting a turn at chairing the UN's Commission on Human Rights. Then there was the gross embezzlement that has been uncovered in the UN's $70 billion oil-for-food programme in Iraq not to mention the UN's prolonged inaction while the mass slaughter has continued in Sudan's Darfur region.

Fearing that the UN was sliding into irrelevance, Kofi Annan, its secretary-general, set up an international panel, mainly of former heads of government and ministers, which late last year suggested sweeping reforms (see our profile of Mr Annan). On Monday March 21st, Mr Annan presented his recommendations for change, based on the panel's conclusions, to a gathering of the UN's 191-member General Assembly. He is calling for an expansion of the Security Council, so that it better reflects the global realities of today though he did not specify how the council's membership and veto rules should be changed. The Commission on Human Rights would, he proposes, be replaced by a smaller human-rights council, on which it would be harder for tyrants to get seats. To avoid repeats of past stalemates, the UN would agree a definition of terrorism, which would be incorporated in a new anti-terror treaty. It would also adopt clearer principles on when military force is justified.
[...]

Don't Get Whiplash From The Backlash

At least some of these folks get it ... and have sense enough to speak out against their leader running roughshod over the principles of their party and over the United States constitution. I was wondering how long it would take for the real Republicans to go "whoa Nelly" and at least attempt to reign in this fool of a President who doesn't seem to have the basic principles of democratic government down. Unlike John McCain whom, I think is making a mistake by being one of Bush's point guards, these guys understand the body they were elected to and their responsibility to uphold the law.

'To simply say that the 'culture of life,' or whatever you call it means that we don't have to pay attention to the principles of federalism or separation of powers is certainly not a conservative viewpoint,' said former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga.

Allan Lichtman, who chairs the history department at American University in Washington, said the intervention of Congress and Bush to try to overturn the decision by Schiavo's husband not to prolong her life is the antithesis of several conservative principles.

'It contradicts a lot of what those behind it say they believe: the sanctity of the family, the sacred bond between husband and wife, the ability of all of us to make private decisions without the hand of government intervening, deference to states and localities as opposed to the centralized government,' said Lichtman.

Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped briefly. She can breathe on her own, but has relied on a feeding tube to keep her alive since.

The feeding tube was removed Friday under a Florida court order, but Congress passed a law Monday requiring a federal court review of the case in the hope that the judge hearing it would order the tube reinserted. U.S. District Court Judge James Whittemore of Tampa rejected the plea of Schiavo's parents to do that.

The case evolved into a cause for social 'right to life' conservatives who oppose abortion and euthanasia. Bush justified the action, saying the case was complex but that it was better to err on the side of life.

But Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia voted against the legislation, saying it goes against the conservative principles of federalism.

'That the misfortunes of life vested upon Theresa Marie Schiavo are a human tragedy, no one can deny. I said my prayers, as did many Americans, as we attended religious services this Palm Sunday,' he said. 'I believe it unwise for the Congress to take from the state of Florida its constitutional responsibility to resolve the issues in this case.'"

I am letting out the tiniest, most cautious sigh of relief that clearer heads are peeking out and, perhaps, will even prevail.

I Ain't One To Gossip

... so you didn't hear this from me. This is just frickin' wierd

BUSH'S BALDIES....I saw this picture over on Julie Saltman's site yesterday and found it....disturbing. I mean, I had heard that Bush had a thing for bald-headed people, but this went far beyond that. It seemed — what? Haunting? Evocative? Alarming?

I'm not sure. But I went back for another look today. I couldn't help myself. What the hell is he doing? So I googled and found a whole collection of pictures of Bush rubbing the heads of bald men, including the (apparently) original source of this picture. I don't know who took it, though, only that it was "submitted by Webster" on or about February 15th, and it seems to be the only one where Bush is laying down a full bore smooch, not just copping a quick feel.

... and speaking of copping a feel (or not), here is a Michael Jackson spoof.

Roses Really Smell Like Boo-Boo-oo

I have to admit, I was a little worried when pro-life, Harry Reid was selected to be the Minority Leader. But, so far I think he has been doing an excellent job of keeping his foot up the Republican's behinds. Him clarifying the partisan verbiage regarding personal or private accounts is just another example.

"What's in a name? Would a personal account by any other name smell as sweet?

Apparently not, according to strategists in the two political parties.

In the Social Security debate, one of the most ferocious struggles is over language, whether President Bush is proposing to create 'personal' or 'private' accounts in the program, whether he is really proposing the 'privatization' of Social Security.

Mr. Bush complained last week that ' 'privatization' is a trick word,' intended to 'scare people.' Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, interrupted a news conference to correct a reporter who asked about 'personal' accounts.

'It's 'privatization,' ' Mr. Reid said, adding that 'personal accounts' was 'the Republican term.'

The staff of the House Franking Commission, which regulates the political content of Congressional mail that goes out at taxpayer expense, has weighed in with advice on which versions of the word 'privatize' can be used to describe the president's plan. (The distinction revolves around the difference between 'full' and 'partial' privatization.)

This is not simply a semantic exercise. Real issues are at stake, the sides agree. Mr. Bush has proposed letting younger workers divert part of their payroll taxes into private (or personal) investment accounts.

Democrats say that amounts to a fundamental revision of the 70-year-old program, draining huge sums of money from it, reducing the government's role and exposing individuals to far more risk - in short, at least partly 'privatizing' it."

A rose by any other name may smell the same ... But, if roses really smell like ...

(HT Ezra Klein)

Harvard Not Giving Passes To Girls With Nice Asses?

Well, we know from all the hoopla about Condoleeza Rice's globe hopping wardrobe that clothes do leave quite an impression. But this woman claims her mode of dressing has cost her opportunities for advancement at Harvard.

"A Harvard University librarian claims in a lawsuit that she has been rejected repeatedly for promotion because she is black and is perceived as just a 'pretty girl' whose attire was too 'sexy.'

As a jury was chosen Monday to decide her federal lawsuit, Desiree Goodwin said she's been rejected for 16 jobs at Harvard since 1999, when she completed her master's degree in library science after attending night classes at Simmons College for 4 1/2 years.

Goodwin, 40, also has a master's degree in English literature, seven years of experience in the library of Boston College and another nine years as an assistant librarian at Harvard.

'I feel no matter how much education I achieved or how many contributions I made, there was nothing I could possibly do that would impress them so that they would open the door for me to allow me to advance,' Goodwin said during a court recess.

She said she was shocked when, in late 2001, her supervisor told her she would never be promoted at Harvard. In court documents, Goodwin said her supervisor told her she was 'a joke' at the university's main library, where she 'was seen merely as a pretty girl who wore sexy outfits, low cut blouses, and tight pants.'

She said after the conversation with her supervisor, she modified her appearance and wore more conservative clothing, but she continued to be turned down when she applied for better positions.

Goodwin says in her lawsuit that she has suffered emotional distress and lost $150,000 in wages as a result of Harvard's failure to promote her since 1999.

Harvard denies that it has discriminated against Goodwin. University spokesperson Joe Wrinn would not discuss the case Monday, citing the impending trial. But in earlier interviews, Wrinn noted that Goodwin's case was dismissed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

A jury of seven men and one woman was chosen to hear the case, with opening statements scheduled for Tuesday."

I have no real comment on this except to say that people still have a hard time connecting smart and pretty as far as women are concerned. It seems as though you either have to "dumb" down or "cute" down. Let's see how it pans out. A settlement might be nice.

What Plan?!

This is getting tiring. President Bush has not presented a plan. Once again, he has the country divided and fearful by chanting a message of privitization. What the heck is John McCain talking about?

"President Bush and Sen. John McCain put on another showing Tuesday of their good-cop, bad-cop routine on Social Security, trying to prod Democrats into cooperating with rather than opposing the president's drive to create private accounts within the system.

Bush emphasized the positive, continuing to assure current and near-retirees their benefits would not change under his plan and promising that credit would be duly shared if Washington politicians can come together to fix Social Security's long-term fiscal ills.

'Bring your ideas forward, please,' the president told a mostly darkened auditorium here. 'If we're going to solve this problem, it's not going to be a Republican idea or a Democratic idea. It's going to be an American idea.'"

All Bush had to do was attempt to lead a bi-partisan effort to find a long-range plan to keep Social Security solvent. Instead, he tosses out some capitalistic scheme, that his own daddy thinks is dumb, that scares people into thinking - one way or another - that their futures won't be safe! This man is a piece of work. Can he present one plan, agenda or goal that isn't rooted in manipulation and fear-mongering? John McCain, who once may have had my support for President, has lost all credibility with me now that he has attached his suction lips to George W. Bush's backside! I don't know who the dems will have up in 2008 for Pres but I do know I'll be voting "anybody but McCain!"

Didn't Tell Us About The Crack

Speechless ...

"As police searched for the mother of a first-grader who passed out crack cocaine at his Chicago Heights school on Friday, believing it was candy, other parents expressed outrage Monday that they weren't notified about the incident.

'I was really upset they didn't tell us,' said Nancy Flores, 26, whose third-grader attends the public school, Lincoln. 'There are numerous things that can happen. He could have taken it home, he could have ate it.

'Thank God nothing happened . . . but they took away from us the ability to be alert,' she said, referring to school officials.

Lincoln Principal Elmer Joyce said a letter explaining the situation was being sent home with all students on Monday, and one wasn't sent out earlier for several reasons.

'By the time everything had been settled [on Friday] . . . school was over,' Joyce said. 'And we didn't really know exactly what the substance was; it hadn't been tested.'

Besides, police had asked the school to stay mum 'because it was an open investigation,' he said."

Attention! Back Away From The Table Please!

A few months ago, I pulled out of the grocery store parking lot and found myself next to a van that had just emerged from the McDonald's drive-thru that was also in the mall. I saw a beefy young man nearly devouring a Big Mac in one bite. I actually gasped. I am positive that he'd supersized that order. But it did make me think about the sheer gluttony that I witness constantly. We all have our vices but America just seems to have bred a few generations of people who have no concept of portion control or when to back away from the table. So, it is no surprise that the up and coming generation will be dying from obesity related problems at ages younger than their parents. Inhaling Big Macs, big gulps and double orders of fries won't help.

"Americans ought to be worried. The prospect of shorter life spans for today's children deserves serious attention.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine last week suggested that increasing obesity could cause today's kids to become the first generation in more than 200 years to have shorter life expectancies than their parents. The scientists said the decline in life spans could be as much as five years.

That possibility is by no means certain. Other factors, such as advances in medical treatments, could more than offset the negative effects from obesity.

Even if there are ways to ease the health burdens of an ever-fatter population, however, American kids, parents and policy-makers should work on changing consumption patterns and increasing exercise. The rising obesity rate threatens to trigger more diabetes, heart troubles and other health problems.

Americans already spend an extraordinary amount of money on health care. Maybe science and even more spending can erase the threat of shortened life spans. But why would anyone wish the quality-of-life impairments associated with unnecessary health problems on today's kids? Prevention is always best."

Jive Turkey

For a minute, I thought I had dreamed this BS. I thought I heard a report of Donald Rumsfeld blaming Turkey for the strength of the insrugency. Sure enough, he passed the buck again

"Asked if he had any regrets looking back at the US campaign of the past two years, Mr Rumsfeld said he wished US troops had not been 'blocked' from entering Iraq through Turkey, saying this had boosted the insurgency.

'Given the level of the insurgency today, two years later, clearly if we had been able to get the 4th Infantry Division in from the north, in through Turkey, more of the Iraqi, Saddam Hussein, Baathist regime would have been captured or killed,' Mr Rumsfeld said on Fox.

'The insurgency today would be less,' he said, adding that the resulting thrust of the US invasion through southern Iraq had enabled many insurgents to evade capture in the north.

Diplomatic tensions between the two NATO allies over Washington's desire to use Turkey as a launch pad for penetrating northern Iraq chilled after the Turkish parliament, dominated by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), refused the US permission to open a northern front in Iraq through southeast Turkey. "

Mr. Rumsfeld, Turkey is an Arab Democracy. You know, the kind of government that we are supposedly trying to help build in Iraq. Their parliament voted and decided it was against their interests to allow us to use their country as a front in the war. That is how democracies work - at least when they work. I cannot believe that two years later, you are blaming a democratic nation - who has specific strategic, political and security issues of their own - for your inability to adequately plan and predict key consequences of our invasion. It boggles the mind!

Further, and filed under "pot meet kettle," how can you form your mouth to say this?

"The important thing is that they be competent people. They have to be darned careful about making a lot of changes just to be putting in their friend or to be putting in someone else from their tribe or from their ethnic group."

What a turkey!

UPDATE: So glad I am not the only one who found Rumsfeld's comments about Turkey totally bizarre.

Selective Culture Of Life

I'll be truthful. I thought Sun Hudson was a tragic, hopeless case. There was no cure for that baby and no way for him to live without a respirator. Moreover, the mother was completely off her rocker. She named him Sun because she thought that the Sun was God and that her son, was the earthly incarnation of said God. I thought it was cruel for her lawyer to parade her through the talk show circuit when she was obviously and seriously detached from reality. Her own family wanted her to "let go" of Sun and get more professional help (because she had been involuntarily committed earlier). But, it is ironic that Bush was no where to be found when the hospital decided to remove this child from the respirator and this so-called culture of life seems to be quite selective to whom it applies:

As Republicans plotted congressional intervention last week to extend the life of Terri Schiavo, a Texas woman named Wanda Hudson watched her 6-month-old baby die in her arms after doctors removed the breathing tube that kept him alive. Hudson didn't want the tube removed, but the baby's doctors decided for her. A judge signed off on the decision under the Texas futile care law -- a provision first signed into law in 1999 by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

Under the 1999 law, doctors in Texas, with the support of a hospital ethics committee, can overrule the wishes of family members and terminate life-support measures if they believe further care would be futile. Bush signed the bill after interested parties, including antiabortion activists, agreed on compromise language that required hospitals to give families 10 days' notice before terminating care and to help families find an alternative treatment facility that would continue care instead.

That process worked last week for the family of Spiro Nikolouzos, a retired electrical engineer who was critically injured in a car accident 10 years ago and has been in a persistent vegetative state since at least 2001. The Houston Chronicle reports that a lawyer for Nikolouzos' family was able to delay the termination of care by a Houston hospital just long enough for the family to find a nursing home in San Antonio that would take him in.

Wanda Hudson didn't have that option. According to the Chronicle, Texas Children's Hospital said it contacted 40 facilities with newborn intensive care units, but not one of them would accept Hudson's baby. He died last Tuesday, just minutes after doctors removed his breathing tube. So far as we can tell, neither the White House nor any member of Congress made any effort to intervene in the case."

Too Much Like Wrong

Even though I spent a good portion of yesterday watching CNN, MSNBC and C-Span as this whole Terri Schiavo sideshow escalated, I just cannot seem the words to write about how wrong this whole thing is at so many levels. Mainly, I cannot believe that the United States House of Representatives intruded into this - particularly when so many in the GOP have sought to pass legislation that seems to be diametrically opposed to what they are doing in this case - which is to pander to the religious right. It's just inconscienable.

"In a statement released early this morning, President Bush said he will 'continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans.' But the facts make it hard to believe that Bush is standing on principle. In 1999, then Gov. Bush signed a law that 'allows hospitals [to] discontinue life sustaining care, even if patient family members disagree.' Just days ago the law permitted Texas Children's Hospital to remove the breathing tube from a 6-month-old boy named Sun Hudson. The law may soon be used to remove life support from Spiro Nikolouzos, a 68-year-old man. Bush has not commented on either case.

At every opportunity, Tom DeLay has sanctimoniously proclaimed his concern for the well-being of Terri Schiavo, saying he is only trying to ensure she has the chance 'we all deserve.' Schiavo's medications are paid for by Medicaid. Just last week, DeLay marshaled a budget resolution through the House of Representatives that would cut funding for Medicaid by at least $15 billion, threatening the quality of care for people like Terri Schiavo. Because the Senate voted to restore the funding, DeLay is threatening to hold up the entire budget process if he doesn't get his way.

Bill Frist has been positioning himself in the media as a champion for Schiavo's interests. Yet, much of Schiavo's medical care has been financed by $1,000,000 from two medical malpractice lawsuits Schiavo won after her heart attack 15 years ago. Frist has been leading the charge to limit recovery for people like Schiavo who are severely debilitated. If Frist is successful, people like Schiavo would not be able to recover any punitive damages no matter how severe their injuries."

Honestly, even though this case has been in the court system for 8 years and they have consistently ruled in the husband's favor, I'm not sure I agree that the feeding tube needs to be pulled. I'm not convinced, based on what I've heard from both sides, that all options have been exausted to rehabilitiate her or to see if there is a chance that she can get better. I guess I don't understand why the husband, who has obviously moved on with a common law wife and two kids, cannot divorce Terri and allow the parents to obtain guardianship over their daughter. He insists that, at 25 years of age, his wife made some comment about not wanting to be sustained if something catastrophic happened to her - a comment made casually while they were watching TV. I don't understand why he cannot just let the parents take over - particularly since they've agreed to foot all of the associated medical costs.

But, still, this is not an issue for Congress. The fact that they've turned this into a dramatic episode - complete with the President (who couldn't even get his butt up out of the chair when 9/11 happened) cutting one of his numerous vacations short so that he could sign the bill at the 11th hour - just turns what could be a good deed into a despicable act of trying to gain political leverage. So, while I would err on the side of the parents as far as keeping their daughter alive, I agree with Michael Schiavo when he said: Jeb Bush and President Bush ought to be ashamed of themselves. The GOP dominated Congress should be too! Scary things are happening people! The party of small government is becoming the party of big brother, daddy and slave master.

More "What Will They Tell The Women?"

I guess I shouldn't be phased, anymore, that women are increasingly being targeted by religious fundamentalists in Iraq since the fall of Saddam. But it is sad that we are bragging to the world that we freed Iraq when half of its citizenship is on the verge of being marginalized and oppressed the same way so many of their Arab sisters are in other parts of the Middle East.

"During Saddam Hussein's regime, women could dress less conservatively in the big cities and would not be punished, according to female activists.

But now women say they are no longer safe and decapitated female corpses have begun turning up in recent weeks with notes bearing the word 'collaborator' pinned to their chests, according to Colonel Subhi al-Abdullilah, a senior police investigator.

'They have tried to kill me many times but I won't stop my work as an activist and will increase my participation to bring the rights for Iraqi women. I wear a head scarf when I have to leave my home to go to work and even so, I prefer strong colours,' Son Kul Chapuk, member of the national assembly and president of the Women's NGO association, told IRIN in Baghdad.

Islamic militants have killed 20 women in the northern city of Mosul and a dozen more in Baghdad since the beginning of this year according to local authorities. All of the victims were women who were looking forward to a better future. They include three gynaecologists, two pharmacists and students."
[...]
Manal Omar, director of the Women for Women International (WFWI) organisation in Iraq, told IRIN that women have become a target for insurgents and that they have become more vulnerable.

"Many women have been killed inside the country and the killers have not been yet been charged. The activists are the latest target and if this is not addressed soon, the situation will get much worse," she maintained.

Son Kul Chapuk added that many women had been attacked with a spray containing acid in the northern city of Kirkuk because they weren't wearing their veils properly.

"It's really absurd. They cannot prohibit women from wearing what they want or stop them from looking out for their rights," she said.

Yes, it is "absurd." Unfortunately, with the promise of Sharia looming as the new government is created, they may very well be able to prohibit women from "wearing what they want" AND stop them from "looking out for their rights."

Another job well done President Bush.

Legend In His Own, Been Shot Nine Times, Mind!

Okay, here's a feeding tube that needs to be pulled! 50 Cents has plucked my last, good nerve. It is one thing for him to have "beefs" with Nas, Ja Rule, The Game and whomever person in his genre. But, he has truly gone over the deep end if he thinks there would be any contest in a "beef" with the likes of Samuel L. Jackson. I don't know if "Fiddy" is perpetually high or what, but somebody needs to bring his barely literate tail down to this earth!

Maybe they should call him Bitchy Cent.

Rap star 50 Cent is about to start filming on 'Locked and Loaded,' a story based on the Queens native's life and directed by Jim Sheridan.

But he unloaded yesterday in response to remarks Samuel L. Jackson made exclusively to the Daily News.

'I have had conflicts with people in the music business because I'm not going to prop some rapper up in some movie,' Jackson told The News' Robert Dominguez. 'I'd love to work with Jim [Sheridan], but I wouldn't prop 50 Cent up.'

The rapper shot back: 'Saying he wouldn't work with a rapper is like saying he wouldn't work with Will Smith, Queen Latifah or Ice Cube.

'Basically, he didn't want to play second fiddle. He knew that because of my success, people would come to see the movie because of me - and he couldn't handle that,' he told London's Daily Mirror.

'To be honest, I couldn't see where he would fit into the movie, anyway - other than as my grandfather.'"

Here's to hoping bullet number ten is heat seeking!

Sometimes Normal

You Are 30% Normal (Occasionally Normal)

You sure do march to your own beat... But you're so weird, people wonder if it's a beat at all You think on a totally different wavelength And it's often a chore to get people to understand you

How Normal Are You?

I Was Telling Mother In The Limo ...

First of all, who would listen to the wife of a multi-millionaire regarding the benefits she couldn't possibly want or need? Secondly, Bush knows he is in bad shape if he's got to drag his momma out on the road to sell his load of crap to the public.

Wearing her trademark pearls, Barbara Bush took the stage with the president and another of her sons, Gov. Jeb Bush. George W. Bush opened the program by reassuring people born before 1950 that their Social Security benefits would not change.

On cue, the 79-year-old former first lady joked that she showed up so she could tell her two sons what to do.

"That's really not why I'm here," she quickly admitted. "I'm here because your father (President George H.W. Bush) and I have 17 grandchildren, all born after 1950. And we want to know, is someone going to do something about it (Social Security). That's the whole reason — other than seeing my boys."

Bush contends he's making progress on the Social Security issue, but polls show growing opposition to his idea to overhaul the system by allowing younger workers to put some of their payroll taxes into private retirement accounts.

With or without private accounts, future retirees are expected to get smaller Social Security benefits than promised. The president argues that investment returns generated by the private accounts would offset the decrease. Some opponents say Bush's plan is too risky because the value of the accounts could go both up and down with the stock market.

"A mix of conservative bonds and stocks will get you a better rate of return on your money than that which you're going to get inside the government," Bush said.

Seniors have children and grandchildren to worry about. They understand that they will get their check as usual. They are concerned that the safety net that was there for them won't be there for their children and their children's children.

5-Year-Old Cuffed and Shackled

I must say that I hate BAK's¹ with a passion. I know it generally points to a lack of proper discipline and control by the parents but tantrums, backtalk and aggression can still work my nerves. I've seen enough episodes of Super Nanny and Nanny to know that many parents are having a hard time managing the behavior of their children. No doubt, some of that behavior trickles over into school. However, I have a definite problem with a 5-Year-Old child being cuffed and arrested for a temper tantrum.

"A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school where she threw books and boxes, kicked a teacher in the shins, smashed a candy dish, hit an assistant principal in the stomach and drew on the walls.

The students were counting jelly beans as part of a math exercise at Fairmount Park Elementary School when the little girl began acting silly. That's when her teacher took away her jelly beans, outraging the child.

Minutes later, the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs."

The little girl was "acting silly." Well, gee! Isn't that what 5 year old little girls tend to do? Perhaps the teacher should have addressed that behavior and found a way to coax her into behaving like the rest of her classmates instead of snatching away her jelly beans. Perhaps it was her temper that aroused the child's.

I was a very tiny and shy child. I looked much younger than I was and constantly had problems with people mistaking me for a toddler. On my very first day of second grade at a new school, I lined up outside with my class and followed the teacher into the building. Somehow, probably because I was so timid, I ended up at the end of the line. Just as I put my first foot on the stair to go to up our room, my arm was yanked by another teacher who told me that I could not go up there and that I was with the wrong class. I told the woman, repeatedly, my name and that I was in second grade. She kept insisting that I was wrong. She was a kindergarten teacher and she'd already gotten her headcount but she insisted that I was too little for second grade and that she would help me find my "right" classroom. So, off she pulls me - by the arm - to the other kindergarten class, the pre-1st grade class, both 1st grade classes, and finally, after there were no options other than the one I had originally stated, to my class. I was late. I'd missed most of the other children introducing themselves. I was tear soaked and humiliated. I never, ever forgot that day (and neither did most of my classmates because even in high school, some of them were still bringing it up). Nearly 40 years later (even though I am still petite and still get 'carded') I'm sure that single incident has shaped who I am today. I will argue to the death against someone telling me I don't know something that I am SURE of. Literally and figuratively, I do not allow anyone to grab my arm, not listen to me, and drag me to places where I know I do not belong.

So, I can only imagine the scars that will be left on a 5 year old who was handcuffed, shackled and carted off campus in a police vehicle for what began as normal "silliness." Then people wonder how "angry black women" and men come to be that way.

¹(bad assed kids)

May As Well Laugh About It

Top 10 Reasons Why Paul Wolfowitz Would Make a Good World Bank President
By John Cavanagh

1. He would follow in the great tradition of World Bank president Robert McNamara, who also helped kill tens of thousands of people in a poor country most Americans couldn’t find on a map before getting the job.
   
2. It helps to be a good liar when you run an institution with employees who earn over $100,000 a year to pretend to help billions of people who live on less than $1 a day.
   
3. With all his experience helping U.S. companies grab Iraq ’s oil profits, he's got just the right experience for doling out lucrative World Bank contracts to U.S. businesses.
   
4. After predecessor James Wolfensohn blew millions of dollars on "consultations" with citizen groups to give the appearance of openness, Wolfowitz's tough-guy style is just what’s needed to rid the World Bank of those irritating activists.
   
5. Unlike former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, another one of the four leading candidates, at least Wolfowitz hasn't failed at running a Fortune 500 company.
   
6. Unlike the Treasury Department’s John Taylor, another leading candidate, at least Wolfowitz doesn't want to get rid of the institution he would head.
   
7. While earning a University of Chicago Ph.D. , he was exposed to the tenets of market fundamentalism that have reigned at the World Bank for decades.
   
8. He has experience in constructing echo chambers where only the advice he wants to hear is spoken.
   
9. He knows some efficient private contractors who build echo chambers for only a few hundred billion dollars (cost plus, of course).
   
10. He can develop a pre-emptive poverty doctrine where the World Bank could invade countries that fail to make themselves safe for U.S. business, modeled on the U.S. pre-emptive war doctrine he helped craft.
    

John Cavanagh is the director of Institute for Policy Studies. For more information about contenders for the World Bank’s presidency, visit http://www.worldbankpresident.org

Prodigal Son Strikes Again

Just as Dubya went headstrong into war in Iraq when his father, years earlier, discounted it as a good idea, it seems the black sheep of the family is again thumbing his nose at his dad's sensibilities:

"Crack TNR editorial assistant Ben Adler recently fished this H.W. Bush quote out of the TNR archives (from the November 23, 1987 issue):

I think it's a nutty idea to fool around with the Social Security system and run the risk of [hurting] the people who've been saving all their lives.... It may be a new idea, but it's a dumb one.

For those keeping score, the comment came in response to a question from fellow presidential candidate Pete du Pont during a presidential debate. Du Pont was an advocate of partially privatizing the program. "

I really hate that this country and the world seem to be caught in the crossfire of a bizarre Bush family feud. Why couldn't Georgie just challenge the old man to "mano a mano" combat again and leave the rest of us out of it?

And I'm Telling You, I'm Not Goin'

Hmmm. Wonder why blacks don't want to protect our freedom?

"The number of African-American recruits, a cornerstone of the Army in recent years, has plummeted, the military says. And the Army is struggling to maintain a force large enough to wage a war on two fronts, Afghanistan and Iraq.

For years, African-Americans have made up nearly 25 percent of the Army, more than twice their representation in the general population. The military, especially the Army, has had a long history of providing opportunities for African-Americans.

But since 2000, according to the Department of Defense, African-American representation among Army recruits has fallen sharply.

In 2000, 23.5 percent of Army recruits and 26.5 percent of Army Reserve recruits were African-American. Last year, African-Americans represented just 15.9 percent of Army recruits and 20.2 percent of Army Reserve recruits. As of the end of last month, those numbers had fallen even further - to 13.9 percent of Army recruits and 18.4 percent of Army Reserve recruits.

Additionally, the Army has seen a decline among women, often for the same reasons as African-Americans, according to one of two surveys of youth conducted by the military last year. For the studies, more than 1,000 young people were interviewed, as well as more than 1,000 adults who were likely to influence youth, including parents, guidance counselors, members of the clergy, coaches and teachers. "

Comb Licker Gets The Nod For World Bank Pres

Great!:

"President Bush on Wednesday selected Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a magnet for controversy as one of the leading architects of the Iraq war, as his choice for World Bank president.

'Several disturbing scenes stand out in Michael Moore's agitprop movie 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' but one that always prompts 'ewwws' from the audience involves a comb, some saliva and the stubborn coif of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz.'

'Showing top officials primping before TV appearances is a tried-and-true embarrassment tactic, but the Wolfowitz scene -- captured on camera on a breezy morning outside the Pentagon -- is notable because Wolfie not only spits on his own comb but gets grooming assistance from an aide who donates saliva.'
A Little Gob Will Do Ya - Washington Post 7/8/2004
The decision threatened to set off a bitter fight on the World Bank board, which must sign off on Washington's choice, at a time when Bush has said improving trans-Atlantic relations and America's image in the Arab world will be a top priority.

Bush sought to head off any backlash over his selection, calling Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and other world leaders to make the case that Wolfowitz would be a 'strong' leader of the international agency. The bank provides billions of dollars in loans in the developing world with the goal of fighting poverty.

At a White House news conference Bush described Wolfowitz as 'a compassionate, decent man' with 'good experience' in managing large organizations, citing his role at the Pentagon, and as 'a skilled diplomat' who is committed to global development."

I Am Love

Not sure if everyone would agree but that is what the quiz says!


LOVE is your chinese symbol!


What Chinese Symbol Are You? -- Updated (7/21/03)
brought to you by Quizilla

Uh ... Ain't It Kinda Late?

What is the point of this Catholic Fatwa? This book is in paperback. The horse is out of the barn.Learn to keep up, Cardinal!

"If you're not among the millions who have already read 'The Da Vinci Code,' an Italian cardinal has a plea for you: don't read it and don't buy it.

Genoa Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who previously was a high-ranking official of the Vatican's office on doctrinal orthodoxy, told Vatican Radio on Tuesday that the runaway success of the Dan Brown novel is proof of 'anti-Catholic' prejudice.

Allegations in the novel that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and has descendants have outraged many Christians and have been dismissed by historians and theologians.

'The distribution strategy has been absolutely exceptional marketing, even at Catholic bookstores - and I've already complained about the Catholic bookshops which, for profit motives, have stacks of this book,' the cardinal said.

'And then there's that strategy of persuasion - that one isn't an adult Christian if you don't read this book. Thus my appeal is: don't read and don't buy' the book."

Then Is It A Bus?

Who the heck passed the crack pipe around the legislature in Kansas?

"When is a dog not a dog? ... When it's a greyhound in Kansas.

It may sound like a punchline to a joke, but it's true. Two years after the Parimutuel Racing Act was passed in Kansas, the law protecting pets in the state was changed to exclude greyhounds from the designation of dog.

'A greyhound ought to be a dog in the state of Kansas,' said Kevin Neuman, of Overland Park.

Neuman and his wife, Sherri, have fostered and adopted greyhounds for 11 years. They are also active in a greyhound placement organization for retired racers.

'We fell in love with the breed. They're definitely a dog . They're a great dog,' Neuman said.

Monday, he went to Topeka to try to change the law.

The National Greyhound Association, based in Abilene, Kan., disagrees. The executive director called the change unnecessary and said greyhounds aren't bred for pets, and therefore, shouldn't fall under pet protection laws.

Advocates of the change in the law said as dog racing revenues and attendance at races wane, there will be more pressure to breed a winner, and the state should help protect greyhounds.

'More dogs are bred and more dogs are put at risk,' Kevin Neuman said.

Breeding organizations dispute that claim, saying kennels are closely regulated by the NGA and the Kansas Greyhound Registry.

People who love the dogs, but not the sport, said it's time to call it like it is and to level the playing field when it comes to the law.

'Protect greyhounds just like collies or German shepherds, or any other breed of dog,' Neuman said.

Both sides of the debate appeared before the House Agriculture Committee late Monday afternoon.

Maybe interested parties in California can get lawmakers to decide that gerbils aren't gerbils ... (Okay, going to the naughty corner).

Operation "State Run TV" Will Proceed

Inching closer to tactics like those of Vladimir Putin and his controlled media, the White House tells it's agencies to ignore GAO's ruling on 'illegal' TV news releases:

"The White House, intent on continuing to crank out 'video news releases' that look like television news stories, has told government agency heads to ignore a Government Accountability Office memo criticizing the practice as illegal propaganda.

In a memo on Friday, Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the lawyers the White House depends on disagree with the GAO's conclusions.

Accompanying Bolten's memo was a letter from Steven Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, who said video news releases 'are the television equivalent of the printed press release.'

'They can be a cost-effective means to distribute information through local news outlets, and their use by private and public entities has been widespread since the early 1990s, including by numerous federal agencies,' Bradbury said.

Comptroller General David Walker of the GAO said Monday that his agency is 'disappointed by the administration's actions' in telling agency heads to ignore the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

'This is not just a legal issue, it's also an ethical matter,' Walker said. 'The taxpayers have a right to know when the government is trying to influence them with their own money.'"

So, they will continue to use tax dollars from my deflated salary to pay for the President to lie to me. This, as we claim to be spreading democracy ...

Congressional Nose Dive

Have people been high? It seems they are slowly coming out of their haze to catch a clue? Along with the President's slumping approval rating and waning support for his bogus agenda, Congress is taking a credibility hit too.

Fewer Americans approve of the way Congress is handling its job than at any time since shortly after Republicans impeached President Clinton, a Gallup Poll finds.

Only 37% of Americans gave Congress a high approval rating, down from 45% last month, the poll taken last week showed. A total of 53% disapproved, up from 48% in February.

It was the worst showing for Congress since September 1999, the year after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached Clinton.

Even then, Congress had an identical 37% approval rating. It hasn't been lower since October 1997.

Steroid McCarthyism

Is it just me or does this seem like a ridiculous use of Congressional time? Granted, I'm not a sports fan but I really just don't give a rats ass about whether some jocks inject themselves with steroids.

"Does your urine belong to Congress? Should private citizens not suspected of any wrongdoing be hauled up to Capitol Hill and grilled under oath, on live TV, about what substances they've put in their bodies?

Congressman Henry Waxman sure thinks so. The Los Angeles Democrat is convening hearings Thursday, March 17 on the pressing national security issue of ballplayers using performance-enhancing steroids. Last Wednesday, subpoenas were sent out to seven current and former Major League Baseball players to testify about their hormones in front of the oxymoronic House Committee on Government Reform.

Only one player, recent retiree Jose Canseco, has enthusiastically accepted the committee's invitation, though he's lobbying hard for immunity. By crazy coincidence, the former Bash Brother has a new, factually-challenged and universally-panned bestseller on the market, titled Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big."

And don't even get me started on Jose Canseco! He's been doing the cable talk show circuit and all I see is a big hunk of massive ego! Ugh!

Close But No bin Laden

Couldn't find WMD's and still can't find bin Laden. Almost, might coulda, might woulda ... yeah right!

"Pakistani security forces came close to capturing Osama bin Laden in an operation about eight to 10 months ago, but the terror mastermind eluded arrest and his trail has since gone cold, Pakistan's president said Tuesday.

Though President Gen. Pervez Musharraf did not say where the operation took place, the comment was the first official indication that bin Laden has recently been in Pakistan. Intelligence officials have said they believe he is hiding in the rugged mountains that straddle the border with Afghanistan."

They're trying to sell bridges again.

Ciao Baby!

I'm not sure why public opinion is suddenly a factor for Berlusconi since he ignored it when he sent troops off to Iraq as part of the "coalition of the willing." I wonder if, perhaps, he believes that his journalist and secret service agent were actually targets of the US? Whatever the case, this adds one more ally to the coalition of the leaving.

"We will begin to reduce our contingent even before the end of the year, starting in September, in agreement with our allies,' he said in an interview on state television RAI.

Withdrawing Italian troops 'will depend on the capability of the Iraqi government to give itself structures for acceptable security,' the ANSA news agency quoted Mr Berlusconi as saying. 'I've spoken about it with Tony Blair, and it's the public opinion of our countries that expects this decision.'

The move will be a blow to the US, which has struggled to find countries willing to contribute troops following a wave of kidnappings and beheadings of foreigners in Iraq and an ongoing bloody insurgency. Italy's 3,000 troops, deployed in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, constitute the fourth largest contingent after the US, Britain and South Korea.

The news comes amid a continuing row over the death of Italian secret service agent Nicola Calipari, who was shot dead by US troops at a checkpoint in Iraq on March 4. Calipari was accompanying a freed Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, to Baghdad airport when US soldiers fired on their car. The US troops said the car had been speeding towards the checkpoint; Ms Sgrena and the car's driver denied this."

If Only ...

I have yet to see Diary of A Mad Black Woman but am would hardly expect seeing anything but a funny, semi-slapstick, upgraded version of the play (I was subjected to a DVD of the play over the holidays and couldn't believe that people paid good money to see it on stage ... okay, perhaps I'm a theater snob, though). But, it certainly seems to have struck a nerve with the author of this commentary entitled "What if Some African American Men Weren't Stuck On Stupid??"

"I just saw the block buster 'Diary of a Mad African American Woman.' It is a wonderfully done movie. It's a dynamic commentary on the power of African American love, not at all like the African American female bashing the African American male story I expected. As an African American man, it did make me angry though! Not angry at the movie, not angry at African American women, but angry at all the African American males with attitudes that demean African American women and undermine African American dignity. I'm not going to bash African American males here either, although I certainly would like to open a case of whipass. No, instead I want you to join me on a little imaginative thought of 'What if some African American Men weren't stuck on stupid?'

If some African American men weren't stupid, they would not comprise a major percentage of this modern day prison population. The Three Strikes Law wouldn't need any discussion on our so called community. Don't give me that crap about how African Americans do more time for the same crimes committed by Whites. If you don't see that it's the crime not the time that is the issue, you might be stupid."

If some African American men weren't stupid, our neighborhoods would be the safest places for our children to play and our women to walk. There would be no drugs, theft, gangs or murder; there are better choices.

If some African American men weren't stupid, our families would be whole, with children who are sure they have the best and most loving father in the world!

If some African American men weren't stupid, there would be no Baby's Mamas! "She tricked me," you say? A woman can be tricked into pregnancy; a woman can be forced into pregnancy. African American men can't be forced into pregnancy and any African American man who believes he can be tricked into pregnancy is stupid.

[...]

Oddly, this same site has a commentary by another brother who has taken issue with so-called independent women:

Women can say what they want about their liberation, but we have not evolved to the point where an aggressive woman is desirable and we never will.

The overwhelming response by some women to men's repulsion to aggressiveness and negativity is that a "strong woman" is hard to handle. It may make you feel good to declare that men can¹t handle a strong woman, but you have to ask yourself what it is that is really repelling them.

My mother was a strong woman, but she never spoke in a derisive manner to my father or to her children and men were never repelled or repulsed by her. When a woman speaks to me in an overly critical and negative manner, I am neither impressed nor repulsed by her strength, I am repulsed by her poor communication skills and distasteful attitude.

The "Independent Woman" phenomenon appears to be rooted in a groupthink program, as opposed to each individual woman defining herself. As a groupthink pursuit, so-called " women" are more worried about looking weak to other so-called " women." Many of them have completely abandoned the concept of building a team, because they already have their relationship defined before the man shows up, relegating his task to "rising to her level."

One of the most repulsive aspects of the groupthink program is the frequent advice to quickly exit relationships that appear to be problematic. A man can exhibit signs of negative behavior, but without taking a closer look, " women" are advising each other to abandon everything without trying to work it out "You don't need a man," and now, "it's just me, myself and I. I'm my own best friend"

Ladies, other so-called " women" may respect you and support you for your ability to give up and run away quickly, however, at the end of the day, you may find yourself childless, without any prospects of marriage and thirties with nothing but unresolved issues and loneliness. After all, relationships with spouses and children are based on dependence.
[...]

If only either assessment were that simple. Yes some black men are stuck on stupid and some black women refuse to put up with them. Clearly, not every woman is willing to be Camille Cosby or Jacqueline Jackson and tolerate their husbands' constant philandering. At the same time there is nothing wrong with women who decide that they aren't up for the struggle and drama that some men would like them to to work through. I'd offer that women's lib brought options and whatever choice a woman makes is her business as long as she is willing to live with the consequences.

Big Foot Is Back

Okay, I know calling her Big Foot is juvenile but ever since I heard Karen Hughes on NPR's Fresh Air stating that her feet were so big she had to buy shoes from a place that is frequented by drag queens, I just can't get that out of my mind. Anyhow, she's baaack!

Rice Introduces Hughes:
"Declaring the United States 'must do better job of engaging the Muslim world,' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice introduced former presidential adviser Karen Hughes Monday as the Bush administration's choice for a State Department post designed to change Islamic perceptions about America.

Hughes, pending confirmation by the Senate, would become undersecretary of state for public diplomacy with the rank of ambassador.

'I'm eager to listen and to learn,' Hughes said, with Rice standing at her side.

From the White House, President Bush said 'spreading the universal principle of human liberty' is key to changing the conditions that spawn terrorism and thus a crucial part of the nation's long-term security strategy.

'This will require an aggressive effort to share and communicate America's fundamental values while respecting the cultures and traditions of other nations,' Bush said in a statement. 'Karen Hughes has been one of my most trusted and closest advisers and she has the experience, expertise and judgment to lead this critical effort.'

Choosing one of his most-trusted aides 'signifies my personal commitment to the international diplomacy that is needed,' Bush said.

Introducing Hughes at the State Department, Rice said the United States must do much more to counter the 'hateful propaganda' that is so common in the Islamic world.

Rice said Hughes believes strongly that the United States 'must mobilize young people around the world to shatter the mistrust of past grievances and to foster a new spirit of tolerance and mutual respect.'

Also in attendance at the ceremony was Dina Powell, an Egyptian-born former White House aide who is slated to be a top aide to Hughes.

Hughes, who for years has had a major voice in crafting Bush's domestic message, is a former counselor to the president who left the White House in 2002 to move her family back to Texas.

She is also a former Texas television reporter. She has continued to advise the president from her home in Austin. Although not a diplomat by training, Hughes had a hand in several foreign policy initiatives during Bush's first term, including efforts to promote democracy and improve the lives of women and children in Afghanistan.

Hughes and Powell will focus on Bush's plan to spread democracy in the Middle East, an effort that has gained momentum with recent elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

The two nominees are the latest close Bush aides to follow Rice to the State Department. Rice was Bush's White House national security adviser during his first term. She succeeded Colin Powell as the top U.S. diplomat in January."

Mine Is Bigger

In another round of the dueling demonstrations anti-Syrian Lebanese citizens come out in full force to top last week's demonstration by pro-Syrians.

Baby, Can I Hang Your Curtains?

Okay. I'll admit to being one sick individual for making light of this tragic situation. But, I just can't help myself. While I can see how the best way to handle being held hostage by a desperate murderer would be to act as compassionately as possible, I am not sure I'm feeling how the woman could follow this man (especially since he was unarmed at the time) to dump a stolen truck and take him back to her place. I guess he wasn't the only one seeking "normalness" as she also fixed him pancakes for breakfast.

A woman held hostage by the suspect in a courthouse shooting last week in Atlanta, Georgia, said he had "just wanted some normalness" in his life.

Ashley Smith, 26, said Brian Nichols had followed her into her apartment in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia.

She was held for seven hours but was eventually freed so she could go see her young daughter.

Mr Nichols, 33, was later recaptured and is being questioned over the killing of four people.

Police say he shot dead a judge and two others in court on Friday as he was due to face trial for rape and he later allegedly also shot dead a customs agent while on the run.

The original charges against Mr Nichols were rape, assault and false imprisonment.

Mrs Smith called the emergency services after she was freed and police soon surrounded her suburban apartment complex.

Mr Nichols gave himself up peacefully, waving a white towel.

Appearing tired and often close to tears, Mrs Smith said her ordeal had begun around 0200 (0700 GMT) on Saturday when Nr Nichols approached her in the parking lot of her apartment building:

"He said, 'I'm not going to hurt you if you just do what I say... I don't want to hurt anybody else'."

Mr Nichols took her to the bathroom in her apartment, bound her with masking tape and an electrical cord, and put a towel over her head while he took a shower, she said at her lawyer's office late on Sunday.

"I thought he was going to strangle me," she added.

He later freed her and the pair talked about her life and she read to him from the Bible, ultimately cooking him breakfast and persuading him to turn himself in, Mrs Smith said.

"I told him I was supposed to see my little girl the next morning at 10," she added. "I asked him if I could go and he said no."

She told Mr Nichols her husband had died four years ago in a stabbing and if he hurt her, her five-year-old daughter "wouldn't have a mommy or a daddy".

During their conversation, the fugitive told her she was like "an angel sent from God to tell him that he had hurt a lot of people".

Mr Nichols did not bring any weapons, she said, when he had her help him move a truck he had stolen away from the apartment complex.

At 0930, he let her leave to go to see her daughter.

"He said, 'Is there anything I can do while you're gone, like hang your curtains?'. He just wanted some normalness," Mrs Smith said.

In a strange example of degrees of separation, I know someone who knows this guy. From her account he seems to have been, at least at one point, a very nice person. Perhaps that explains him asking the hostage if he could hang her curtains.

An Idea Is Not A Plan

This joke that the President is trying to play on the public is getting old. He's canvassing the country telling people that Social Security is in trouble yet he has presented nothing that will address the solvency of it. The nation allowed itself to be fooled into a war. I'm glad that the Dems have gotten some type of backbone and are standing pat on not letting the President pull another fast one.

As Republicans attempt to cast Democrats as "The Party of No" in the Social Security debate, House Minority Leader Pelosi is dismissive of GOP criticism that Democrats have nothing to bring to the table.

"Nobody wants us to have a plan more than the Republicans," Pelosi said Wednesday during an interview with CongressDaily in her Capitol office. "They're just taunting, taunting, taunting."

Pelosi countered that while the GOP attacks Democrats, they have yet to offer a proposal of their own.

"The president doesn't even have a plan," she said. "He has an idea, which is privatization. We have an idea, which is solvency. The two are not compatible."

Pelosi said Democrats would be prepared to offer their own proposal when the GOP lays down a bill. "When we see [the president's] full plan, and how he can justify such an approach, then we'll have a plan on how to counter that," she said.

Despite talk on both sides of the aisle calling for a bipartisan approach, Pelosi said there is currently no way Democrats can negotiate unless private accounts -- the cornerstone of President Bush's plan -- are taken out of the debate entirely.

"I believe in some way private accounts are a decoy, a fake, a classic Trojan horse," she said. "The terrible underbelly of that is the destruction of Social Security."

Pelosi argued, as many Democrats do, that the Republican Party has always been fundamentally opposed to the Social Security system and that private accounts would begin a full dismantling of the largest entitlement program in the federal government.

"They are free-marketeers, [saying] 'Let's take it to the marketplace.' [Democrats] believe in the markets as well, but we don't believe in destroying Social Security and calling it the free market," she said.

As both sides are fully engaged in the message war over how to overhaul the system, Pelosi said Democrats' key objective -- Democratic members will have held about 300 Social Security constituent events by the end of March -- is to shift the public debate away from private accounts.

Tell It Like It T I Is!

You can fool some of the people, some of the time. Butyou can't fool Rep. Charlie Rangel. Here is his assessment of Bush' latest attempt to feed the country a pack of lies.

Yesterday, as part of his pitch for privatizing Social Security, President Bush stated that opponents of privatization 'say certain people aren't capable of investing...It kind of sounds like to me, you know, a certain race of people living in a certain area.' (USA Today)

'It is clear that in their desperation to rescue their privatization plan, the White House has sunk to a new low. How far will they go? The White House strategy seems to be to sow divisions - young and old, men and women, Black and White, North and South - to achieve their political goals. The Republicans figure if they can divide the nation, they can conquer Social Security.

First, Republicans said that they would consider providing African American workers with a different level of benefits based on their race.

That did not go anywhere, so President Bush and his allies claimed that Social Security is a bad deal for African Americans, since African Americans tend to have a shorter life expectancy. But Blacks have a shorter life expectancy because of higher infant and teen mortality - problems that the Bush Administration has cruelly ignored. With its disability and survivor benefits, as well as retirement benefits, Social Security actually is a slightly better deal for African Americans than for the general population.

Now, the White House has changed its tune again and is saying that those of us who oppose privatization are somehow racist. This is totally outrageous. No one is saying that any certain group cannot invest - we are saying that no matter who you are, you need one asset that you can depend on, no matter what. That asset is Social Security. Without it, almost 60 percent of African American seniors would live in poverty as would millions and millions of other older Americans of all races.

The only thing easier than making money on Wall Street is losing money on Wall Street. That may be fine if you have the money, but for the millions of Americans that depend on Social Security for their survival, their independence, and their peace of mind, they can't afford to take the President's gamble."

We've got to cut the head off of this snake and stomp, stomp, stomp!

When The Hypocrisy Hits The Fan

But we are demanding that Syria pull out of Lebanon.

"Israeli state bodies have been secretly diverting millions of dollars to build illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, an official report has revealed.

Former state prosecutor Talia Sasson has recommended criminal investigations against those alleged to be involved.

Israel is meant to remove unauthorised outposts on Palestinian land under the US-backed roadmap peace plan.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al -Kidwa said there would be 'no peace' while settlement building continued.

Anti-settlement groups say more than 100 outposts have sprung up, normally consisting of small groups of mobile homes stationed close to existing settlements."

Still can't figure out why the Arab world hates America and Israel?

Look At His Priorities People!

Along with Bush's non-sensical style of speech, so are his priorities for fixing what is wrong in this country.

"This week, there was more evidence that the world has begun edging away from the dollar. International data showed that several more nations that have been big customers for American debt - including China and India - have diversified their portfolios away from the American greenback. To us, that sounds like a serious threat to the long-term soundness of the U.S. currency. But the Bush administration hasn't come close to addressing any of the economic fundamentals that have helped spawn the dollar's decline (the budget deficit comes to mind). Instead, the White House has been busy lobbying for new tax cuts that will make the situation worse.

Meanwhile, in a world in which the United States desperately needs international cooperation on everything from curbing the trade in terrorist weaponry to presenting a united front to countries like Iran and Syria, President George W. Bush is spending his political capital on getting John Bolton, a longtime critic of multilateralism, as representative to the United Nations.

We had hoped, when Bush was re-elected, that he'd rethink his goals once the next campaign was no longer an issue. There are so many critical problems facing the United States. But the president seems determined to ignore the biggest challenges and to home in on politically charged side issues. Medicare faces a perilous future, given growing health costs and the aging of the baby boomer population, and anything approaching a resolution would require hard bipartisan work. But the White House instead decided to make privatizing Social Security its chief priority. Social Security's long-term problems are relatively minor compared with Medicare's, and the fixes are pretty obvious.

The list goes on and on. When we look at problems that cry out for White House involvement, one that leaps out is America's dependency on foreign oil. That not only leaves America hostage to some of the shakiest and most unappetizing oil-producing nations around the globe, but also threatens the entire economy over the long term, given that rising oil prices make the trade deficit even bigger and the dollar even weaker. Another huge economic threat, at least for some agricultural regions, is the growing international pressure to end America's irrational subsidy program for crops like cotton. Both of these are tricky political issues that require steady and firm presidential intervention.

We haven't heard Bush make a big deal about either, except for his fixation with drilling in the Arctic wildlife preserve. Meanwhile in Congress, all the political capital is being directed toward putting an anti-environment former lobbyist for mining interests on the federal bench, and passing a new law that will make it difficult for middle-class credit card users who suffer a life catastrophe - like sudden illness or divorce - to get back on their feet after they have to declare bankruptcy.

The priorities of this administration never cease to amaze."

Well, I'm not amazed. I'm afraid!

It Gets Curiouser and Curiouser

Who really won?
18 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT VOTING IN AMERICA

Lord Free Us From This Fool!

Though he says he is going to keep telling people that Social Security is a problem that privitization will fix until they believe it, it seems that even those special enough to get invited to his "supporters only" town hall meetings aren't fully sold on risky ventures:

"THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you something about the Thrift Savings Plan. This is a Thrift Savings Plan that has a mix of stocks and bonds?

MS. WEBSTER: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Now, how hard was that to learn how to do that?

MS. WEBSTER: And I chose the safe plan, government bonds. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: That's all right. Well, not so safe, unless we fix the deficit. But other than that -- (laughter). We're fixing the deficit. (Applause.) "

Not so safe unless we fix the deficit? You mean the one he ran up after starting with a surplus? The one that will only get bigger if he gets to implement this privitization scheme? The one he wants to reduce by cutting education programs and veterans benefits?

Foul and Offensive

It was bad enough that Barack Obama had to endure a campaign season shooing away a fly like Alan Keyes. But now he has to spend his first four years in the Senate trying to keep the President from pulling the wool over the eyes his black constituency. It just takes a wee bit of common sense to see the false logic that Bush is spewing in an attempt to win black support for privatizing Social Security. Like Obama, I find Bush's approach offensive ... and insulting.

"'I frankly found the statement that the president made somewhat offensive,'' Obama said at a press briefing with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), focusing on the impact the creation of individual investment accounts would have on blacks.

'There is no doubt a disparity in the lifetime opportunities between white America and black America. And that is something that everybody at this table is committed to closing,'' Obama said.

He criticized what he said was the cynical use of disparities as a reason to dismantle Social Security. Instead, people should be talking 'about how are we going to close the health disparities gap that exists, and make sure that African-American life expectancy is as long as the rest of this nation.'
[...]
'The notion that we would not be talking about lack of health insurance, and reducing diabetes, and reducing incidents of AIDS, and making sure that African Americans have the wealth and the income to save into retirement and supplement Social Security is stunning to me.'
[...]
Said Obama, 'This is as if the president is arguing for privatization of fire protection because our houses aren't worth as much as houses in rich neighborhoods. Or maybe we could privatize police protection because if we get robbed, our stuff is not as nice. It defies logic.''"

Indeed! It does defy logic and, save a few greedy black preachers looking to make bigger fortunes, only fools are going to buy that rationale from our "Fool King" of a president.

F'Real Tho'

Interesting rape defense device found over at shabooty's.

Kofi Will Not Be Punk'd

Bush's nomination of Bolton to be US Ambassador to the UN, in addition to being a slap in the face to the UN, is also spit in the eye of Kofi Annan who believes our invasion of Iraq is illegal. Well, I have to commend the man for standing his ground as well.

"The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, launched a fierce attack on Britain and the US yesterday for weakening human rights in the name of the war on terror.

'We cannot compromise on core values,' he said in Madrid on the first anniversary of the train bombings that killed 191 people in the Spanish capital. 'Human rights and the rule of law must always be respected.'

Addressing a three-day conference which included about 20 heads of state and government as well as terrorism experts, lawyers and journalists, Mr Annan laid out five elements in what he called a 'principled, comprehensive strategy' to fight terrorism.

He proposed a UN special envoy to monitor whether governments' counter-terrorism measures conformed to international human rights law. 'Compromising human rights cannot serve the struggle against terrorism,' he said. 'On the contrary, it facilitates the achievement of the terrorists' objectives by provoking tension, hatred, and mistrust of governments among precisely those parts of the population where he is most likely to find recruits.'"
[...]
Human rights law already made ample provision for strong counter-terrorist action, "even in the most exceptional circumstances", he said.

Mr Annan appealed to the world's political, religious, and civic leaders to state unequivocally that "terrorism is unacceptable under any circumstances and in any culture".

Rounding on the argument that oppressed people had a right to resist occupation, he said this could not include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians.

He said the root cause of terrorism was the belief by certain groups that such tactics were effective and had the support of people in whose name they were used. "Our job is to show they are wrong," he said.

He's 'Goin Back To Indiana

While I plan to write a heartfelt post on Michael Jackson and all of his perils, I MUST make at least one wisecrack.

When I heard about Michael wearing his pajamas to court, I just shook my head and said "he's losing it." But when I saw that he also had on his "house shoes," crazy went out the window and ghetto flew in! You can take a brotha out of Gary but ...

Whew! No he didn't!

Premeditated War

The reason why many anti-war are still so angry about the invasion of Iraq, even though they may not think it wise to pullout right now, is the nagging belief that Bush was out to get Saddam long before September 11^th and that he planned to do it with just cause or without.

Osama Siblani, publisher of "The Arab American" newspaper, says George W Bush told him in May 2000 - before he was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate - that he is going to "take out" Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

Excerpt of rush transcript:

OSAMA SIBLANI: I met with the President, and he wanted to go to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he considered the regime an imminent and gathering threat against the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: You met with the President of the United States?

OSAMA SIBLANI: Yes, when he was running for election in May of 2000 when he was a governor. He told me just straight to my face, among 12 or maybe 13 republicans at that time here in Michigan at the hotel. I think it was on May 17, 2000, even before he became the nominee for the Republicans. He told me that he was going to take him out, when we talked about Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

And I said, ‘Well, you know, I totally disagree with you. You just can’t go around taking leaders out of their countries, you know. Let the Iraqi people do it. They can't do it on empty stomachs. Lift sanctions. Keep the pressure on Saddam Hussein, but lift the sanctions on the Iraqi people. People can't make moves on an empty stomach. Once they start establishing, you know, a connection with the United States and helping democracy inside, they will overthrow him.’

And then he said, ‘We have to talk about it later.’ But at that time he was not privy to any intelligence, and the democrats had occupied the White House for the previous eight years. So, he was not privy to any intelligence whatsoever. He was not the official nominee of the Republican Party, so he didn't know what kind of situation the weapons of mass destruction was at that time.

I know. I know. How can you believe someone named Osama?

WJWD: What Jesus Wouldn't Do

In my earlier "Blessed Are Those" post, I suggested that perhaps the Beatitudes would make a better display in public buildings than the authoritarian (not to mention varied by denomination) Ten Commandments. But the difference between the religious right and the religious left does seem to be clearly illustrated in the differences between those two "lists." Whenever I hear some of these judgmental, religious tirades performed by some evangelicals, I scratch my head and ask when did Jesus say that? He wouldn't have done that. I like many of the points made in this article because I think that it tells us the path we should be on in America - both domestically and abroad. If evangelicals are truly going to be a force in politics in this country, then voices from the left and the right need to be heard for the side that is the loudest, isn't necessarily the side that is right.

The politics of Jesus is a problem for the religious right.

In Matthew’s 25th chapter, Jesus speaks of the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, prisoners, and the sick and promises he will challenge all his followers on the judgment day with these words, "As you have done to the least of these, you have done to me." James Forbes, the pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, concludes from that text that, "Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor!" How many of America’s most famous television preachers could produce the letter?

The hardest saying of Jesus and perhaps the most controversial in our post–Sept. 11 world must be: "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you." Let’s be honest: How many churches in the United States have heard sermons preached from either of these Jesus texts in the years since America was viciously attacked on that world-changing September morning in 2001? Shouldn’t we at least have a debate about what the words of Jesus mean in the new world of terrorist threats and pre-emptive wars?

Christ commands us to not only see the splinter in our adversary’s eye but also the beams in our own, which often obstruct our own vision. To name the face of evil in the brutality of terrorist attacks is good theology, but to say they are evil and we are good is bad theology that can lead to dangerous foreign policy. Christ instructs us to love our enemies, which does not mean a submission to their hostile agendas or domination, but does mean treating them as human beings also created in the image of God and respecting their human rights as adversaries and even as prisoners. The words of Jesus are either authoritative for Christians, or they are not. And they are not set aside by the very real threats of terrorism. The threat of terrorism does not overturn Christian ethics.

While I often see WWJD on bumper stickers, I'd like to see some that say WJWD. Too many of the things going on in his name are things that he died on the cross for not doing.

Point Of Clarification

There are a lot of fine lines which can leave the uninformed quite confused. While I agree that Islamic Fundamentalists (like Christian Fundamentalists) have a culture that is demeaning and oppressive for women, I do not paint the whole of Islam as dangerous to women.

Dutch politician and women's-rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Tuesday said Islam was unfriendly to women and urged Europe not to tolerate religious violence.

'Muslim religion is many things but it's certainly not friendly to women,' she said at the European Parliament, warning the West that it 'shouldn't indulge in and buy fallacies from Muslims.'

Hirsi Ali said violence is the most important obstacle to liberating women and must be eradicated through policies such as positive discrimination and education campaigns.

She also warned domestic violence is on the rise in Europe and proposed setting up a European court and an attorney general to deal with domestic-violence cases.

She suggested women should actively fight for their rights and stop being 'their own worst enemies.'

'Women conceive and give birth to sons, but they don't commit them to the noble cause of defending gender equality,' she told a seminar on combating violence against women. 'The problem is the inability of women to draw up a plan on how to help women.'

Hirsi Ali, known across Europe for fighting for Muslim immigrant-women's rights, went into hiding for 10 days following death threats from Islamic fundamentalists after the Nov. 2, 2004, killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had collaborated with her on a film called 'Submission.'

Hirsi Ali wrote the script for the movie, which criticized the treatment of women under Islam and enraged some Muslims.

Van Gogh was stabbed and shot to death on an Amsterdam street in what was seen as the first terrorist attack by Islamists in the Netherlands.

The killer left an 'Open Letter to Hirsi Ali' pinned to the corpse with a knife, threatening that she would 'go down' for perceived insults to Islam.

Hirsi Ali, 35, escaped a forced marriage in Somalia as a young adult and fled to the Netherlands, where she became an interpreter for asylum seekers.

After entering politics, she started campaigning for women's rights and against Muslims who reject progressive Dutch values."

It's the outdated, patriarchal culture of extremist sects and denominations that are harmful. Not the core religion itself.

Monkey Gorilla Business

Clearly I am not in or of this kind of foolishness so I have to ask. What is it about being shot 9 times that didn't render 50 Cent forever resolved to avoid this kind of gorilla unit behavior? I wasn't exactly up on 50's multiple feuds with other rap artists - including one of his protoges - nor was I aware that it had escalated to the point where folks felt compelled to commence to shooting over said "beef."

However, while the fear of bullets didn't serve as a deterrent, the fear of losing money may have as black activists like Al Sharpton spoke out and recommended that there be a 90-day ban on radio and TV airplay for any performer who uses violence to settle scores or hype albums. So 50 and Game make nice.

"Perhaps selling 1.1 million copies of his new album in four days has softened the heart of 50 Cent. Or maybe he has so many feuds going, he can afford to let one go. On Wednesday, 50 Cent and The Game publicly squashed a bitter feud that had erupted into gunfire last week after 50 kicked Game out of his G-Unit clique for disloyalty.

The two platinum-selling gangsta rappers didn't exactly kiss and make up. When they emerged before a media throng at Harlem's famed Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, both looked as if they'd been shoved into apologies by a stern mother.

But they did shake hands, albeit at the end of the press conference, after speaking about contrition and the need for peace.

50 noted that Wednesday was the anniversary of the unsolved murder of Biggie Smalls in 1997, the culmination of a rap war between Biggie and Tupac Shakur that pitted East Coast against West.

'We're here today to show that people can rise above the most difficult circumstances and together we can put negativity behind us,' said 50, a native New Yorker. 'A lot of people don't want to see it happen, but we're responding to the two most important groups, our family and our fans.'

'I just want to apologize on behalf of myself and 50,' said Game, who's from the Los Angeles suburb of Compton. 'I'm almost ashamed to have participated in the things that happened in the last couple of weeks.'"

Game shouldn't be the only one who is "almost ashamed." Mr. Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson needs to be ashamed too!

Blessed Are Those ...

Here's a novel thought. Instead of all of this haggling about the tablet of Moses being on display in public buildings, why not post what Jesus, himself, said. Why not display the beatitudes?

That’s not to say I have problems with the Ten Commandments. Both Moses and Jesus are in the Bible I read regularly. The commandments that God gave Moses on Mount Sinai are of fundamental importance for human morality, both collective and individual. But they do have a stern tone about them, and it could be that by emphasizing the "thou-shalt-nots" of the Ten Commandments, we Christians are coming across as a bit too self-righteous. Furthermore, it has long been acknowledged by Christian theologians that at least the first few commandments—the ones dealing with worship and idolatry—are not the sorts of things we want to impose on everyone in our pluralistic democracies.

On a more positive note, it might be better for Christians—especially those of us who talk a lot about "moral values"—to let our fellow citizens know that we do care a lot about the "blessed" traits that Jesus sets forth in the Beatitudes: meekness, peaceableness, empathy with the poor and the grieving, a spirit of mercy—things of that sort. To be sure, we will be criticized for this, too, by the folks who don’t want us to inject any of our religious views into the public square. But if we are going to be scolded by those who resist religious teachings, let’s at least be scolded for promoting something that comes straight from Jesus.

• Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
  
• Blessed are the meek: for they shall posses the land.
  
• Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
  
• Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
  
• Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
  
• Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.
  
• Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
  
• Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
  

Saddam Capture Staged?

Several days after Saddam's "capture," Democracy Now! reported that Saddam had not been captured by US Soldiers but, rather, by a Kurdish militia.

A British newspaper, the Sunday Express, and the Kurdish news agency in Iraq are reporting that Saddam Hussein was found last week not by the United States but by Iraqi Kurds. The reports claim that Hussein was captured in Tikrit after he was tracked down by a Kurdish militia comprising members of the Patriot Union of Kurdistan. He was then drugged and handed over to the U.S. The Kurdish news agency reported the U.S. insisted that his capture be made to look like an American arrest because U.S. officials worried that such a coup for the Kurds might provoke an Arab-Kurd civil war.

That was the only time I heard anyone deviate from the story that was broadcast throughout the world.
Until now ...:

"A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.

Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.

'I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced,' Abou Rabeh said.

'We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed,' he said.

He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor. Then they shouted at him in Arabic: 'You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting.'

'Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well,' Abou Rabeh said.

Abou Rabeh was interviewed in Lebanon."

Do we know if this former Marine is telling the truth? Of course not and, afterall, he is in Lebanon and (though I don't know if he is pro or anti-Syrian occupation) his statements must be suspect, right?

Hizbullah Part Of The Solution?

There are always two sides to every story. So here's the perspective from Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Hizbullah is not a problem - it is part of Lebanon's solution

"Civil violence is a red line that should never be crossed - 'If we cross it, the country will return to square one in the history of the Lebanese crisis.' These are words of experience and wisdom, and they came from Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Nasrallah is the custodian of other commonsense concepts that found public expression on Sunday. For example, he called for a national dialogue to cement the things on which all parties concur. He was making clear that Hizbullah is Lebanese and that despite some differences in approach from some groups firmly entrenched in the opposition camp, there are, in fact, many points of agreement, including national unity and the parliamentary system.

He also said the 'time was ripe for a safe withdrawal' of Syria's military presence in Lebanon, and that because Syria had been successful in its policies in Lebanon, the withdrawal would not cause instability, as long as the withdrawal was conducted sensibly and carefully. This means, Nasrallah said, that the best mechanism for such a withdrawal is the 1989 Taif Accord, which Syrian President Bashar Assad announced Saturday would be implemented.

By the same token, Nasrallah emphasized that a Syrian withdrawal does not give a green light for other powers to step into Syria's shoes: 'Sovereignty and freedom means to be masters of our own destiny. We are ready to unite with the opposition in the fight for true freedom and independence.' If sovereignty means anything at all, then it means independence from the United States and Israel as much as it means independence from Syria. Sovereignty means sovereignty - it cannot be interpreted one way for one party and another way for another party. This is why, Nasrallah maintains, Hizbullah cannot support UN Resolution 1559.

Nasrallah has a point, and Lebanese of all persuasions would be advised to listen more closely and afford the Hizbullah leader the respect he is due. There may be too many who are prepared to reject out of hand the words of moderation - in the very difficult circumstances in which Lebanon currently finds itself - coming out of the southern suburbs of Beirut. To dismiss Hizbullah or to entertain thoughts of confronting it, is to approach the red line that must be avoided at all costs.

Hizbullah must be accorded an important place in the process of national dialogue and rebuilding not so much because it is a powerful force that was capable of making the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon too costly for Israel, but because it is the major sociopolitical organization in Lebanon. Quite simply, Hizbullah is not a problem: It is part of Lebanon's solution.

So when Nasrallah also said that before we demand anything more of Syria we need to know what we want for ourselves, he knew what he was saying. To press ahead recklessly into the unknown will only be an invitation to approach the red line."
hat tip to Black Looks

With Liberty And Justice For Some

So now China is being the ass-clown and putting our dollar-based stances on democracy out for the world to see. Are we on the side of Communist China or the democracy seeking Taiwan?

"Taiwan on Tuesday condemned the anti-secession law presented to the National People's Congress in Beijing, calling it a 'blank check' that would allow China to launch hostilities against the island.

The Mainland Affairs Council in Taipei, the government office that deals with issues concerning China, described the proposed law as 'malicious' and 'crude' and warned that it would threaten regional peace.

'This law exposes China's plot to impose armed force to swallow up Taiwan,' the council said in a written response. 'In essence, it has handed its military a blank check to unleash force against Taiwan.'"

In an explanation of the proposed anti-secession law, Wang Zhaoguo, a deputy president of the National People's Congress, reiterated Beijing's claim that Taiwan was a part of China and listed measures that China would take to encourage Taiwan to eventually accept peaceful reunification with China.

But reaction on Taiwan focused on the part of his speech that laid out the circumstances under which China would resort to war to protect its claims over Taiwan.

"The fact that there is a law legalizing threats against Taiwan is itself problematic," said Hsiao Bi-khim, a legislator with President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party.

Hmmm. We want Iraqi freedom, Lebanese independence but we don't seem to be very pro-Taiwanese independence.

But it seemed Bush was not fully aware of the seriousness of the splitting clamor from Taiwan. He appeared quite surprised when President Hu stressed the "independence" nature of Chen Shui-bian authorities and mentioned their wild talks of attacking certain mainland cities and facilities. He shrugged and sighed, "It's ridiculous! They are like mosquitoes who want to attack an elephant!"

Hu made it clear that "Taiwan independence" has posed a threat to Sino-US relations, as well as a direct threat to regional security and stability. The current cross-Straits situation is complicated and sensitive. The Taiwan authority still stubbornly adheres to its separatist stance, saying, "Taiwan is a sovereign state" and refuses to recognize the "92 Consensus" which embodies the "One China" principle. They have been seeking for splitting the island from China by means of "constitutional reform" and "legitimate independence". It is a core interest of China to safeguard the national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Chinese government has consistently adhered to the principle of "peaceful reunification, and one country, two systems", and is willing, with the utmost sincerity, to make all efforts to solve the Taiwan question in a peaceful way so as to realize complete reunification of the motherland. We will by no means tolerate "Taiwan independence" and we will never allow anybody to tear Taiwan away from China.

Bush nodded and smiled upon Hu's remarks, and said that Washington will make sure not to send wrong signals and not to mislead people into believing the US supports "Taiwan independence".

Sweet!

Update: ROTFL! Now we are "dismayed" by China's planned anti-secession law because it is "unhelpful." Whoooo. I wonder if they are scared.

Oh, I'm Over It Bigtime!

There is probably but one reason why I could never be a card carrying Republican. I would never be able to stand next to one like this and sing the National Anthem. What is it that these people don't get? On the one hand you've got people who think that 40 years after civil rights legislation all things are fair equal and that racism is a thing in the past. On the other, you've got core elements of our national leadership who are still daydreaming about the days of warm breezes, the voices of the darkies "sanging" out back and some half-breed house negress playing wet nurse to their child because Miss Laura is too delicate.

"Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham appeared over the weekend at an annual Lincoln Day dinner in Knoxville, Tenn. Why wasn't he back home in South Carolina? Because, Graham said, his home state isn't quite ready to honor the 16th president of the United States. 'We don't do Lincoln Day dinners in South Carolina,' Graham said. 'It's nothing personal, but it takes awhile to get over things.'"

Now I am sure he didn't mean it that way (they never do). But what, exactly, did he mean? If WE have to get over all that's happened since 1863, why the hell can't they? Oh, I'm over slavery. Heck, I'm even over the drunk white boys at college throwing beer bottles at me as I tried to walk from the library (circa 1980). But what I am not over is this persistent fantasizing about the "good old days" by these rednecks in nice suits who keep sucking on this long gone era as though it were a pacifier.

Goodness Gracious!

Freedom Has Many Voices

Waving the same Lebanese flag that the anti-Syrian protesters waved yesterday, thousands more pro-Syrian demonstrators took to the streets of Lebanon today. While the 70,000 protesters who want Syria to pull out of Lebanon were impressive, the 500,000 pro-Syrian citizens have shown the world that their voice, too, must be heard. If we really want democracy in the Middle East, do we not have to listen to the voices of the masses?

"Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese flooded central Beirut Tuesday for a pro-Syrian rally called by Hizbollah that dwarfed previous Lebanese protests demanding that Syrian troops quit Lebanon.

As the mainly Shi'ite Muslim crowds thronged Riad al-Solh square, a security source said Syrian forces had begun moving eastward under a phased withdrawal plan announced Monday.
'The redeployment to the Bekaa Valley has started in line with the first phase,' the Lebanese source said.

The huge Hizbollah rally was the first major show of popular support for Syria in Beirut since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri touched off daily anti-Syrian protests, mainly involving Maronite Christians.

Those protests, which drew tens of thousands Monday, take place in Martyrs Square, just 300 meters (yards) from the scene of the gathering organized by Hizbollah and its allies.
The rival demonstrations, each using the Lebanese cedar flag to show patriotism, reveal deep rifts in Lebanon over Syria's role and international demands for Hizbollah to disarm.

Hizbollah and Lebanese security sources said one million people attended the rally, which Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah called to thank Syria for its 'sacrifices' in Lebanon and to oppose a U.N. resolution saying militias must disarm.

"I am here to express my opposition to resolution 1559 because it demands the disarming of the resistance. Hizbollah is not a militia. It deters Israeli aggression against Lebanon," 30-year-old demonstrator Mona Srour told Reuters.

Mr. Armageddon

Looks like Condoleezza's recent fence mending globe hopping was just smoke and mirrors. I cannot believe that Bush has nominated an extremist to become the Ambassador to the UN.

Bolton, widely considered the most unilateralist and least diplomatic of senior U.S. officials during Bush's first term, will have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate where some Democrats, a few of whom were said to be stunned by the nomination, are expected to put up a fight.

One aide called the nomination ”incredible”, particularly in light of recent indications, including his talks with European leaders at the end of last month, that Bush and his new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, intended to pursue a more multilateralist policy in his second term and was determined to smooth the rougher diplomatic edges of his foreign policy team.

That notion had been bolstered by Rice's choice of Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, a long-time pragmatist and ”realist”, as her deputy despite Bolton's efforts, backed by Vice President Dick Cheney, to take the job.

The fact that he failed in his quest was taken as a clear sign that Rice was indeed moving toward a more multilateralist policy in defiance even of Cheney, the undisputed the leader of the coalition of aggressive nationalists, neo-conservatives, and Christian Right activists that dominated foreign policy from the Sep. 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on New York and the Pentagon until after the Iraq invasion.

Rice's acquiescence, if not agreement, to serve as her representative at the U.N., however, will require foreign policy analysts here to reassess that judgment.

”This is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse,” said Heather Hamilton, vice president of programmes for Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS), formerly the World Federalist Association, who called Bolton the ”Armageddon nominee”.

This is clearly an administration that doesn't admit mistakes. Therefore, there is no learning from them. The last thing we need is a rude, arrogant, neo-con hawk being our representative to the United Nations. While we ought to be engaging in diplomacy, this guy seems like the only thing he is suited for is destruction.

I guess I need to write my Cali girls in the House and Senate (Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer) to tell them to put on their ass-kicking boots.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I find it absurd and downright laughable that while the United States is demanding that Syria pull it's forces out of Lebanon, we are setting up permanent household in Iraq.

If the U.S. government doesn't plan to occupy Iraq for any longer than necessary, why is it spending billions of dollars to build "enduring" bases?
[...]
When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters last December that he expected U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for another four years, he was merely confirming what any visitor to the country could have surmised. The omnipresence of the giant defense contractor KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root), the shipments of concrete and other construction materials, and the transformation of decrepit Iraqi military bases into fortified American enclaves—complete with Pizza Huts and DVD stores—are just the most obvious signs that the United States has been digging in for the long haul. It's a far cry from administration assurances after the invasion that the troops could start withdrawing from Iraq as early as the fall of 2003. And it is hardly consistent with a prediction by Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, that the troops would be out of Iraq within months, or with Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi's guess that the U.S. occupation would last two years. Take, for example, Camp Victory North, a sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport, which the U.S. military seized just before the ouster of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Over the past year, KBR contractors have built a small American city where about 14,000 troops are living, many hunkered down inside sturdy, wooden, air-conditioned bungalows called SEA (for Southeast Asia) huts, replicas of those used by troops in Vietnam. There's a Burger King, a gym, the country's biggest PX—and, of course, a separate compound for KBR workers, who handle both construction and logistical support. Although Camp Victory North remains a work in progress today, when complete, the complex will be twice the size of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo—currently one of the largest overseas posts built since the Vietnam War.

Ding Dong! Taliban Calling!

I am hardly a subscriber to or news stand purchaser of Sports Illustrated and most certainly not of the world famous "swimsuit issue." However, I believe that anyone who gets their jollies by purchasing this magazine has the right as an American to do so!

"The president of Michigan's American Decency Association is encouraging Christians not to stand by while disguised pornography gets a foothold through local checkout stands. Bill Johnson says now that the yearly Sports Illustrated 'Swimsuit Edition' is in retail outlets everywhere, it is an opportunity to let those stores know the magazine's special edition does not agree with Christian standards and values. Johnson suggests believers ask store managers to remove the issue altogether or at least place it out of sight of young children coming through the stores. Also, he adds, 'It's important to tell the manager you're a regular shopper and that you have other friends who, if they were made aware that the store is carrying this magazine, you're certain they would stand together with you.' Johnson says the kind of exhibition of women as sex objects that takes place in the popular sports magazine's swimsuit issue should bother Christians, because that is the starting place for the lust that drives millions into eventual addiction to hardcore pornography. [Ed Thomas]"

I would love to look under the beds and floor boards of the people who have nothing better to do than compile lists of normal things to call indecent.

A Reprimand Is Prescribed

This is where the righteous right goes wacko. Granted, in some states pharmacists have the right to refuse to fill prescriptions when they feel their moral values are being compromised. But, that does not give them the right to prohibit customers from having their prescriptions filled elsewhere.

"A Roman Catholic pharmacist who blocked a woman's attempt to fill a prescription for birth control pills should be reprimanded and required to attend ethics classes, a judge ruled Monday.

Administrative Law Judge Colleen Baird recommended the punishment for Neil Noesen of St. Paul, Minn., who said it would be a sin under his religion to provide a contraceptive.

He refused in July 2002 to fill the woman's prescription himself or transfer it to another pharmacy.

Noesen's attorney, Krystal Williams-Oby, said the finding was unfair to her client and other pharmacists who have a personal objection to dispensing birth control. She said Wisconsin law does not address the issue, nor do state rules established by the Pharmacy Examining Board.

'What the state is doing is holding my client to a standard that does not exist,' she said.

A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood (news - web sites), Chris Taylor, said she was happy the judge found Noesen had violated the code of ethics by refusing to transfer the prescription.

Baird noted that state rules prohibit pharmacists from engaging in practices that could be a 'danger to the health, welfare or safety of a patient or public.' Baird found Noesen put Phiede at risk of an unwanted pregnancy through his actions.

The judge's recommendation goes to the Pharmacy Examining Board, which is expected to rule in April. The board can implement the judge's recommendation, modify it or reject it.

There was no listing for Noesen in St. Paul, Minn., when The Associated Press attempted to reach him for comment Monday. Phiede did not return a message from the AP left with state officials overseeing her complaint."

What I find troubling about the pharmacists who don't believe in dispensing contraception because they feel it is morally wrong or a sin is that they fail to acknowledge that, in addition to being used to prevent pregnancy, many women use it as a very necessary medication. To assume that every woman who has a prescription for birth controls pills or other form of contraception is using it to prevent conception is awfully presumptuous. There are many women with endometriosis, bad acne, crippling menstrual cycles and any number of other ailments that can be remedied with the use of hormone based prescriptions. Personally, at one point I was so anemic that my doctor prescribed that I take two pills per day to prevent me from having another cycle as one more period could kill me. Since I wasn't taking ANY pills at the time, it was literally a matter of life and death that my cycle was halted immediately. Yet, had I gone to the pharmacist in the article, I would have been denied because he assumed that I needed it to prevent pregnancy. In my case, a pro-lifer could have contributed to my death. Moreover, it is all well and good to have beliefs and stick to them. However, to be the judge and jury who decides that no other pharmacist can exercise his moral values and fill the prescription is over the line. We have got to get a leash on this Taliban force in America. Pay attention women!

Hoping You Can Get Fooled Again!

Keep lying and BS'ing until somebody buys it. Heck it worked for Iraq. It can work for peddling Social Security privitization.

"I'm going to keep telling people we've got a problem until it sinks in, because we've got one,' Bush said, underscoring estimates that say Social Security will begin paying out more than it collects in taxes as early as 2018.

Bush's visits to New Jersey and South Bend, Ind., began a two-month blitz in which he and other administration officials are visiting 29 states. The road trip ended a week in which the administration lost momentum on the president's call to revamp the government's 70-year-old retirement system.

The stops Friday were specifically targeted for Reps. Mike Ferguson of New Jersey and Chris Chocola of Indiana, two Republican congressmen who are taking heat on the issue."

I have no problems with reforming a system that will soon have more people receiving benefits than those paying into the fund. However, privitizing will not solve the solvency problem. Why this administration cannot stop trying to use bait and switch ploys on the public is beyond me. The only thing privitization will do, as it has been presented, is line the pockets of his Wall Street cronies.

Oh, For Crying Out Loud !!

Italians, Iraqi's ... same difference, huh? So now we are firing upon and killing folks from one of the few coalitions we have left in Iraq with boots on the ground.

"American forces fired on a car carrying a freed Italian hostage as it approached a checkpoint in Baghdad on Friday, killing an Italian intelligence officer and wounding at least two others, including the just-released journalist.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, an ally of the United States who has kept troops in Iraq despite public opposition at home, demanded an explanation from the U.S. ambassador, Mel Sembler.

'Given that the fire came from an American source I called in the American ambassador,' Berlusconi told reporters before the U.S. statement acknowledging that coalition forces shot at the vehicle. 'I believe we must have an explanation for such a serious incident, for which someone must take the responsibility.'"

Decrease The Surplus Population

For an administration who claims to support a 'culture of life,' it sure seems as though it is trying to contribute to the demise of millions of world citizens.

"If recent events are any gauge, the commission - cowed by American hard-liners - will challenge the efficacy of programs, like needle exchange, proven to reduce HIV transmission among active drug users. With the world's fastest-growing epidemics now fueled by intravenous drug use, millions of people at risk for HIV, particularly in Asia and the former Soviet Union, will pay the price.

Shown in dozens of studies in America and elsewhere to reduce transmission without increasing drug use, needle exchange is perhaps the most effective of all strategies to prevent the spread of HIV . Yet in a pattern familiar from debates over sex education, Washington conservatives seem eager to hold up distortions of science as a model for the rest of the world. At last year's meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Europeans and Australians watched in amazement as American delegates declared the evidence for needle exchange 'unconvincing.'
[...]
Having removed condom information from federal Web sites and insisting on abstinence-only sex education at home and abroad, the Bush administration is now poised to override the best available evidence in deciding how best to fight HIV related to drug use. What is needed at this year's Commission on Narcotic Drugs is unanimous commitment to deploying the tools, including needle exchange, known to reduce HIV among drug users, not the American policy of scuttling prevention methods proven to save lives."

Perhaps, like Ebenezer Scrooge, the neo-cons believe that "decreasing the surplus population" is the ultimate strategy and the best way to dominate the world.

A Laborious Process

Gee! Ya think? These people are trying to forge a government in a country that was created by invaders and colonialists for their own purposes. There is no natural reason for these groups to be together. This effort is going to be a chore of chores and it still may never work.

"But forming Iraq's first democratically elected coalition government is turning out to be a laborious process.

Shiite and Kurdish leaders, Iraq's new political powers, failed to reach agreement after two days of negotiations in the northern city of Irbil, with the clergy-backed candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leaving with only half the deal he needed.

The Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, which has 140 seats in the 275-member National Assembly, hopes to win backing from the 75 seats held by Kurdish political parties so t can muster the required two-thirds majority for post top posts in the new government.

Al-Jaafari indicated after the talks that the alliance was ready to accept a Kurdish demand that one of its leaders, Jalal Talabani, become president.

'We, the United Iraqi Alliance, and I personally respect the Kurdish choice for Jalal Talabani to be their nominee for the presidential post. I will convey this honestly to my brothers in the alliance,' he said.

(AP) Ziad Mohammed Jassim stands next to the wreck of his car, that he claims was smashed by a U.S....
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However, he would not commit to other demands, including the expansion of Kurdish autonomous areas south to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

Kurdish leaders have demanded constitutional guarantees for their northern regions, including self-rule and reversal of the 'Arabization' of Kirkuk and other northern areas. Saddam Hussein relocated Iraqi Arabs to the region in a bid to secure the oil fields there."

Dirty Draw's

I really like Anderson Cooper - especially from his days on The Mole - but this is entirely too much information:

"CNN's Anderson Cooper shared something intimate during his chat with Carson Daly on Last Call this week. Carson mentioned an upcoming guest who has been wearing the same jersey for 14 months.

COOPER: I've actually been wearing the same underwear for, like, two years.

CARSON: Oh, you have? That's disgusting.

[LAUGHTER]

CARSON: You can't crack humor like that -- you're on CNN.

COOPER: I work in basic Cable, so I can't really afford any underwear.

Vanderbilt what? Also, Carson asked Cooper if he was being 'groomed.'

Anderson's response: 'A lot of people are taking vacations, so I'm just, like, filling in for a lot of people.' "

Well, maybe he has lots of underwear and washes them well and frequently. If he only has 2 pair, I guess that is kinda nasty.

A Little More Fuel To The Fire

We may not read their news and publications but they certainly read ours. This was a nice big headline on Arabnews.com. Do we really want the Ann Coulters of America spewing this kind of foolishness before the entire world?

Arab bashing reached a new low in Washington last week when Ann Coulter, a loudmouthed, mean-spirited, pro-Bush columnist, decided to defend the White House press pass controversy over faux-reporter James Guckert (a.k.a. Jeff Gannon) by writing in her syndicated column: "Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president."

Thomas, whose Hearst column is distributed by King Features Syndicate, is of Lebanese descent. The former United Press International reporter has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, and has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She was the first female president of the White House Correspondents Association.

Even her syndicators realized the gaffe. When Coulter's column was posted on Universal Press Syndicate's (UPS) website, someone edited out the race-based slur "that old Arab Helen Thomas," using instead: "that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas."

But the "old Arab" reference still appears the column posted on Coulter’s website: www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi.

Coulter was, perhaps, taking a cue from the White House, which has slighted Thomas several times since 2003. During a televised news conference, President George W. Bush deliberately snubbed several reporters he ordinarily calls upon, including journalists from the Washington Post, Newsweek, and USA Today. But the most conspicuous recipient of the Bush freeze-out was Thomas, who has barbed and grilled every president since Kennedy and almost always gets to ask a question. Bush pointedly ignored her.

Bush then dealt Thomas a second slight. By custom, Thomas concludes White House press conferences at the president’s signal by saying, "Thank you, Mr. President." Bush instead ended the conference with his own sign off, "Thank you for your questions," and killed a decades-old White House custom. Lastly, she was removed from her front row seat, and delegated to a back seat in the press choir.

Take Back The Music

I happened upon the Vibe Awards last fall just at the point where they were about to present the award for Best Video Vixen. I burst into laughter because my mind immediately translated it into "The Video Ho Award." I really could not believe they had actually established a category for the women who wear booty shorts, skimpy tops, high heels and basically gyrate against some man or other women throughout an entire video. While there have long been complaints that music videos do nothing but glorify violence and misogyny, the latest trend does seem to be videos with slews of black girls with over developed rumps wearing clothes that accentuate every curve. I subscribe to the "don't like it, don't watch it" school of thought so generally don't watch it.

However, I now recall an former IBM co-worker once saying that she hated walking outside to take a break because the Indian men, who were outside smoking, always seemed to be leering at her and would always greet her with rather creepy "hellos." Jokingly, I laughed that they were foreigners and had probably seen some MTV video and thought she was like Patra (old school video ho vixen) or something (my body isn't quite stacked like that so I never got that kind of attention).

It's been more than a decade since I made that flippant remark and the videos have gotten even more suggestive and more prevalent. I guess the younger set must really be feeling the impact of those videos because the young women at Spelman College, in conjunction with Essence Magazine, decided to take action and make an effort to take back the music. Stanley Crouch - a black columnist that many blacks love to hate - wrote about it.

"When Bill and Camille Cosby donated $20 million to the historically black Spelman College in 1988, consternation went through the black community because the size of the check was so shocking. No one, even Bill Cosby himself, could have imagined that within two decades the young black women at Spelman would spark what is easily the most important American cultural movement in this new century.

In April of last year, under the leadership of Asha Jennings, who now attends New York University as a law major, the Spelman women gave voice to the fact that they had had enough of the dehumanizing images of black women in rap. They went after the rapper Nelly, who was scheduled to appear on campus, for the images in his 'Tip-Drill' video.

Nelly hid under his bed and chose to stay away from that female ire. Maybe it would blow away. It did not.

On Friday, Atlanta was set afire by the emotion and the hard thinking of black women. Spelman and Essence magazine presented a hip hop town meeting at the Cosby Academic Center Auditorium as part of their Take Back the Music campaign. The campaign is a response across generations that Essence has covered in its last two issues and will continue to address as long as necessary. One can easily see that many women find the overt hatred of females and the reductive, pornographic images of the worst hip hop quite disturbing.

The overflow audience filled three additional rooms. Michaela Angela Davis, an editor at Essence, was the moderator. The panelists were Tarshia Stanley, assistant professor of English at Spelman; Moya Bailey, Spelman senior; Kevin Powell, author and activist; Michael Lewellen, vice president of BET public relations; Brian Leach, vice president of A&R, TVT Records, and hip hop artist and actress MC Lyte.

The event lasted three hours. Said Davis: 'It was most heated and most uncomfortable for those representing the companies. Lewellen and Leach received the most fire from the audience. These women are in pain and are confused. One woman asked, 'What did we do to make you all seemingly hate us so much?' There was a great silence, and a feeling of collective pain filled the air.'

This mysogynistic and brutal turn in music is damaging the image of black American women to the point that they are approached outside of the U.S. like freelance prostitutes.

The Spelman women made their voices heard and have inspired thinking young men to fight the stereotypes and question the images. This is no less than an extension of the civil rights movement. But true change will only come when white females begin to identify with the dues their black sisters must pay as this hostility and exploitation continues to be splattered through radio and television. White women have to open up on white men, who buy four out of five rap recordings. Once they declare it uncool for white guys to support the dehumanization of black women, we will see much more than a sea change.

I'm an optimist. I think the tide is about to turn."

I found the link to that colun on Steve Guilliard's site. I was actually a little surprised by his assessment of the article and even more appalled by many of the comments. It seems some people feel that a) Spelman women are just a bunch of uppity black women and b) they should find something other than music to worry about. I posted a comment too but by this afternoon, I was more convinced that the campaign against this type of music needs to continue.

It appears as though 50 cent is trying to start up another feud amongst rappers (including one of his own) and shots rang out during one of his radio appearances leaving one person injured. There comes a point where "isht" just gets old. Shooting, "Tupac vs. Biggie" fueds and random violence are so ... 90s! It needs to stop ... now!

Note: And I do realize that my using the term "ho" means that the culture has impacted me too!

Clue Number One

... that this is a stupid bill. This fool got the idea from Rush Limbaugh.

Rep. Brian Duprey (R-Hampden) has submitted a bill to the State Legislature to shield potentially homosexual fetuses from discrimination. LD 908, “An Act to Protect Homosexuals from Discrimination,” attempts to protect homosexuals from death because they might carry the gene that could lead to homosexuality.

This bill as drafted would make it a crime to abort an unborn child if that child is determined to be carrying the “homosexual gene.” Duprey said that no such genetic marker has yet been discovered. But considering rapid advancements in genetic mapping research, he wants legislation in place should such a breakthrough occur. “If the homosexual gene is ever determined to exist,” he said, “I want to ensure that a woman could not abort an unborn child simply because that child is determined to be carrying this gene.”

Duprey received the idea for this bill when listening to the Rush Limbaugh radio show. “I heard Rush saying that the day the ‘gay gene’ is determined to be real, that overnight gays would become pro-life,” Duprey said.

“Most people would agree that to kill someone just because that person might be gay would constitute a hate crime,” said Duprey. “I have heard from women who told me that if they found out that they were carrying a child with the gay gene, then they would abort. I think this is wrong. Those unborn children should be protected.”

Rep. Duprey is serving in his third term representing the towns of Hampden, Newburgh and Dixmont. He is the lead Republican on the Labor Committee.

(link from http://www.paulwilczynski.com/)

So how is this going to work? His party is against homosexuals and homosexual marriage. However, if there comes a time when a "gay gene" is found, they want to have a law on the books which states that a homosexual fetus cannot be aborted because he heard some women say that they would abort if they found they were carrying a gay child. Suddenly they are going to be concerned about gay discrimination? Does that mean if that child is born homosexual they will be allowed to marry since it is proven to be something beyond their control?

Meanwhile, in a time called now, the President has submitted a budget which makes a host of cuts that will impact the poorest citizens of this nation - namely children - but he has no bill for that? Gees! This fixation on sexuality - past, present and future - is abnormal. It's just not right. I wonder if there is a gene for that?

Those Darn Trial Lawyers!

Though this will soon all be the fault of lawyers, I think that a big reason why we are still holding all of those alleged enemy combatants (that haven't provided any information or been charged with any crime) is because of all the horror stories they will tell when they get out.

"Human rights lawyers will file a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of eight men who say they were tortured by U.S. forces in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, sources familiar with the case said.

The lawsuit charges that officials at the highest levels of the U.S. government shoulder ultimate responsibility for the physical and psychological injuries sustained by the men while in American custody.

It was the latest development in a scandal over ill-treatment of U.S. war prisoners that has drawn criticism from around the world.

The case will be filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First in U.S. District Court. The two groups scheduled a news conference later on Tuesday to announce details.

The groups did not state who would be named in the lawsuit, but sources familiar with the case said it was Rumsfeld.

'The men represented in the lawsuit were incarcerated in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they were subjected to torture and other cruel and degrading treatment, including severe and repeated beatings, cutting with knives, sexual humiliation and assault, mock executions, death threats, and restraint in contorted and excruciating positions,' the two groups said in a statement."

We are smack dab in the middle of multiple crises in the Middle East (directly - as in Iraq or indirectly - as in the occupied territories, Syria and Lebanon) and then want to ask "why do they hate us so much?" Gee! I don't know!