Nancy Stands Pat

It's not as though the Democrats don't have a full buffet of things they can bash the Republicans with but I am so glad that I can always count on California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi to speak her mind and take a strong stand.

"Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to express my deep disdain and disgust for comments made yesterday by former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett on his radio call-in show. He said: 'You could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.'

"These are shameful words. I am appalled to have to say them on the floor of the House of Representatives. Secretary Bennett's comments reflect a narrow-minded spirit that has no place within American discourse. These words do not give credence to the tremendously difficult past that African Americans have endured. These words do not reflect the values of hope and opportunity for the future.

"Secretary Bennett does not reflect mainstream American values, he did not when he was Secretary of Education and he does not now. He did not when he referred to our public education system as a bloated 'blob.' He did not when he suggested beheading as a 'morally plausible' punishment for drug dealers.

"Leaders are called to higher standards than Secretary Bennett has demonstrated. As Americans still feel the pain of two hurricanes, as Americans still reel from questions about the role that race and poverty played in the government response to these devastating hurricanes.

"While the entire Republican Party does not adhere to this statement, some of their policies can certainly be attributed to this line of thinking. Policies that gut Medicaid, underfund public education, and ignore the challenges of working families. Policies that are indicative of a culture of cronyism and a lack of accountability. Americans will not tolerate this divisiveness.

"We must stand sentry against any hint of racism, any indication of injustice, and any moment of intolerance. Now is not the time for divisive comments. Now is the time for coming together. Now is the time for healing.

"What could possibly have possessed Secretary Bennett to say those words, especially at this time? What could he possibly have been thinking? This is what is so alarming about his words.

"I urge President Bush to renounce this statement, and I call on Secretary Bennett to apologize. I encourage my Republican colleagues to join me on the floor to reject these words and to speak for a future of tolerance and equality. I invite Secretary Bennett and other Republicans to join Democrats in creating solutions to national problems and meeting national needs.

"These words are a direct hit at our children. Secretary Bennett is a writer. He knows that words have power. He knows how powerful these particular words are. An apology is definitely in order and a rejection of these remarks is also in order from the President of the United States."

That he had to know or at least understand the impact of his word is what puzzles and troubles me too. He knew better!

These People, Those People

I am really, really trying not to get too terribly mad about this but, dammit this man is just going to dig himself into an Al Campanis hole! Now massa and his missus done saved mo' nigras than the entire Black Caucus!

Yes, where would the black community be without heroes like Bill Bennett:

BENNETT: Let me just tell you, when it comes to abortion, my wife's program, Best Friends, has kept more young women from having abortions because they don't get pregnant because they take her good counsel...

HANNITY: Let me...

BENNETT: Than the entire black caucus. She has done more for inner city black girls than the entire black caucus. So I will not bow my head to any of these people.

More on this controversy here.

People! This is what needs to be understood about racism. It isn't about knowing some black people or liking some black people or having let some black people into your house through the front door. It is the air of superiority and condescension, even over matters that one couldn't possibly understand, that makes one racist. It is the failure to acknowledge that, quite possibly, you don't know everything (or even anything) about what it means to be black in America. It is the arrogance with which one defends oneself while implying that ones deeds trump the deeds of black people. It is claiming that you aren't racist in one breath then calling people "these people" in the next.

With all that has happened with the hurricanes and the thrusting of poverty and race into the global spotlight, along with the GOP's tepid attempts to court more black votes, it would seem that some of these people would learn to at least temper their thoughts, words and actions. Following the lazy logic that the Bill Bennett's of the world have to use to be understood by their listeners and viewers, I can almost rationalize letting his original remarks roll off my back. However, the more he talks, the more I find him to be a pompous, and yes racist, ass whose remarks are getting more insulting everytime he opens his mouth. The gall of this ilk of folks just blows my mind! But, on the positive side, we needed Katrina to expose things that people would like to forget. We need the Bill Bennetts to keep on talking so that everyone has a clear idea of exactly who the most influential people in the GOP are. It's always important to know, in no uncertain terms, where you stand. Clearly in America if you are black, poor, old, very young or any combination therein, you can and will be marginalized and seen are as expendable. Bill Bennett can hypothesize about erasing an entire race of people to rid the country of petty crime (while rich white men can dishonestly bilk the country out of millions and kill millions through environmental irresponsibility) and we can bear witness to dozens of old, sickly people drowning -- needlessly -- in their hospital beds during a flood. It's sad that in 2005 this is where we are as a civilized country but it is true.

Can They All Just Get Along?

Guess not! Then again, it seems highly unlikely given this scenario. Rodney King is living with his girlfriend, his daughter and his daughter's mother (baby mama). I'd imagine there would be quite a bit of conflict in that house!

Rodney King, whose videotaped beating by Los Angeles police led to the deadly Los Angeles riots of 1992, was arrested for allegedly making threats following a fight between his daughter, his girlfriend and an ex-girlfriend, police said.

King, 40, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of making criminal threats. He was held on $25,000 bail.

Police were called to the King home shortly after 4:15 p.m. Authorities said King's live-in girlfriend, Dawn Jean, 29, got into a fight with daughter Candace King, 23, who also lives in the home.

The daughter allegedly assaulted Jean, leading Carmen Simpson, Candace King's mother, who also lives at the home, to get involved in the fight, police said.

King allegedly threatened to kill his daughter and Simpson. Authorities said the daughter, who called police, said King was armed with a handgun, but it turned out to be a toy.

The toy gun bit is giving me a chuckle too. I supposed he had the foresight not to get caught with a real firearm.

Why Is It So Hard To Say Sorry?

Look! I know what this man meant! Blacks are disproportionately represented in the penal system for certain types of crimes and, theoretically, if we ceased to exist, there would be fewer crimes. Right? I get the point even though it isn't skin color that causes crime but conditions like racism, like y'alls president said, that cause poverty and the associated ills. Bennett's comment was simplistic and insensitive and it feeds completely into the misnomer that blacks are the sole purveyors of crime in America. Why can't the man just say that his remarks were out of line? Why can't anyone in the Bush adminstration admit to any kind of fallibility?

After pondering on his radio program how aborting every black infant in America would affect crime rates, best-selling author and self-styled 'Values Czar' Bill Bennett is vehemently denying he is a racist and defending his willingness to speak publicly about race and crime.

On the Wednesday edition of his radio show, 'Bill Bennett's Morning in America,' syndicated by Salem Radio Network, a caller raised the theory that Social Security is in danger of becoming insolvent because legalized abortion has reduced the number of tax-paying citizens. Bennett said economic arguments should never be employed in discussions of moral issues.

If it were your sole purpose to reduce crime, Bennett said, 'You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.

'That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down,' he added.

I still have to ask which crime rate? Would it reduce the number of serial killers? Would it reduce the number of pedophiles? Would it reduce the number of missing pretty white girls? Would it reduce the number of people who've lost their livelihoods, pensions and savings due to the Enron and Worldcom types? Aren't the people who commit those kinds of crimes generally white males? This constant linking of blacks to poverty and crime is misleading and inaccurate and you can get rid of every negro in the country and still have poor people and a full jailhouse (the privatization of prisons will ensure that).

My God! If we want to get hypothetical about things, lets get hypothetical about aborting the children of racists! That would, most certainly, end crime as well!

Limbaugh-esque

Had Bill Bennett not written the Book of Virtues (which of course solidifies that he is a man of morals), I'd say that this statement (and thought pattern) is just a tad bit Limbaugh-esque.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

Which crime rate is he talking about? I guess not the Tom DeLay/Bill Frist/Ken Lay variety.

Bush Folks Can't Catch A Break

They also can't catch a clue. I never understood why Bush selected the big, lumbering, manish looking Karen Hughes to be the undersecretary to improve our image in the Middle East anyway. But, the lies they are telling us here aren't working over there.

'This war is really, really bringing your positive efforts to the level of zero,' said Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal, an activist with the Capital City Women's Forum. She said it was difficult to talk about cooperation between women in the United States and Turkey as long as Iraq was under occupation.

Hughes, a longtime confidant of President Bush tasked with burnishing the U.S. image overseas, has generally met with polite audiences -- many of whom received U.S. funding or consisted of former exchange students -- during a tour of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey this week.

In this case the U.S. Embassy asked Kader, an umbrella group that supports woman candidates, to assemble the guest list. None of the activists currently receive U.S. funds and the guests apparently had little desire to mince words. Six of the eight women who spoke at the session, held in Ankara, the capital, focused on the Iraq war.

'War makes the rights of women completely erased and poverty comes after war -- and women pay the price,' said Fatma Nevin Vargun, a Kurdish women's rights activist. Vargun denounced the arrest of Cindy Sheehan, the activist mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, in front of the White House Monday at an antiwar protest.

Hughes, looking increasingly pained, defended the decision to invade Iraq as a difficult and wrenching moment for President Bush, but necessary to protect America.

'You're concerned about war, and no one likes war,' she said. But, she said, 'to preserve the peace sometimes my country believes war is necessary.' She also asserted that women are faring much better in Iraq than under the rule of deposed president Saddam Hussein.

If I hear this lie from conservative lips one more time I am going to scream in blood curdling fashion. Women are afraid to leave the house since the war began and are increasingly becoming the victims of rape and other brutal acts inspired by religious extremism (that wasn't allowed by Saddam).

'War is not necessary for peace,' shot back Feray Salman, a human rights advocate. She said countries should not try to impose democracy through war, adding that 'we can never, ever export democracy and freedom from one country to another.'

Tuksal said she was 'feeling myself wounded, feeling myself insulted here' by Hughes' response. 'In every photograph that comes from Iraq there is that look of fear in the eyes of women and children. . . . This needs to be resolved as soon as possible.'

The Nerve!

So his mistake was not realizing that it was everyone else's fault sooner?

Brown appeared before a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe.

'My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional,' two days before the storm hit, Brown said.

Brown, who for many became a symbol of government failures in the natural disaster that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people, rejected criticism that he was inexperienced.

'I've overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it,' he said.

Brown resigned earlier this month after being removed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from on-site responsibility. He will remain on the FEMA payroll for two more weeks, advising the agency, said Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.

What an arrogant SOB!

Mexed Missages

WTF?! Now, our Mr. Cowboy/big truck/SUV president wants people to conserve gas.

President Bush has asked Americans to cut back on fuel usage as oil companies and refineries in the hurricane-affected Gulf Coast region work to resume production at facilities.

Although damage from Hurricane Rita was lighter than feared, more than 25 percent of the nation's refining capacity was shut down in anticipation of the storm. Some oil refineries could remain closed for up to one month.

Well, he can kiss my butt! I chose to buy a Honda Civic - years ago - to conserve gas and because of his previous promotion of greed and guzzling, now have to spend more than $30 to fill a 10 gallon tank! Once again, too late and too short on viable solutions.

Southern Hospitality

When Brian Nichols first turned himself in, his hostage spoke of how she impressed him by fixing him pancakes with real butter. Now it seems she also shared a bit of crystal meth with him too.

Ashley Smith, the woman held hostage for hours after the March 11 Fulton County Courthouse shootings, reveals in a book released today that she gave alleged gunman Brian Nichols drugs on the night he held her captive.

Smith, 27, was thrust into a national media spotlight after talking her way out of Nichols' captivity and then calling police. In 'Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero,' Smith shares details of her seven-hour ordeal as a hostage in her Duluth apartment, and for the first time tells of giving Nichols drugs.

Nichols asked her for marijuana, she writes, but she had only a small amount of crystal methamphetamine. She thought offering him the drug might curry favor, but she says she refused to take the drug with him.

'I was not going to die tonight and stand before God, having done a bunch of ice up my nose,' she writes.

Very interesting. I guess you really can depend on the kindness of strangers.

Slur Swap

I guess I couldn't really call myself a reality show junkie if I didn't admit to being equally as hooked to the Super Nanny/Nanny 911 and Trading Spouses/Wife Swap series. Quite frequently the spouse swapping shows feature a black couple and a white couple, and quite often you have a "bougie" black family trading spots with a less educated, working class white family.
Last week's episode was prefaced by the black wife reading the "household manual" left by the other wife and learning that the family frequently uses foul language and racial slurs - including the word nigger (I hate that "n-word" business) so you know there were going to be a few issues. In the end I think the white husband may have learned a few things and the white wife ... well, let's just say the black husband had to keep his wife from snatching the other wife baldheaded. It made for entertaining TV but, in seriousness, the unapologetic stance on having the right to call blacks, niggers in the confines of their own home has led to the white family suffering some consequences from fellow citizens in their hometown.

The Felix family of Syracuse, New York has received a steady stream of threatening phone calls and a number of cars driving by with blaring horns after their episode of "Wife Swap" aired, exposing husband Jeremy’s admission that he used the N-word on a regular basis.

'It's a nightmare. There's been nothing positive about this,' Wilma Felix told The Associated Press, adding her son Jeremy and daughter-in-law Vicki now deeply regret their decision to appear on the ABC show, which netted the family $5,000 for their appearance.

In the episode, Vicki, 27, who is white, traded places for two weeks with Neicey Wiggins, a 40-year-old black woman from North Carolina. During the show, Jeremy Felix, 29, admitted that he used racial slurs, specifically the 'N-word,' at home. On the show, Wiggins challenged Jeremy about his racist language. Eventually, Felix promised to drop the N-word from his vocabulary.

Immediately after the episode aired, Wilma Felix said the family began receiving threatening phone calls and horn-blaring drive-bys.

Although ABC has reportedly provided private security for the family, the couple tells the Syracuse Post-Standard that they have considered moving out of the area.

Related Articles:


Syracuse Post Standard
TV Rules

I Ain't Mad At 'Cha Girlfriend

... at all!

Actors Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were married Saturday, capping their celebrated two-year-long older woman, younger man relationship, two celebrity magazines reported Sunday.

Representatives for Kutcher, 27, and Moore, 42, could not be immediately reached for comment, but both Us Weekly and People magazine reported on their Web sites that the couple were married in Los Angeles area on Saturday.

Us Weekly reported that the wedding was attended by about 100 of the couple's friends, including Moore's second husband Bruce Willis. Also at the wedding were actress Lucy Liu and Moore's three daughters from her marriage to Willis.

I think Demi and Ashton are one of the best suited couples out there!

It's Nice

With all that has been going on, I cannot say that I've been in the most optimistic of moods. Reality shows are normally my escape and even they work my nerves so much I have no idea why I still watch them. But "Everybody Hates Chris" was just a gem of a show! It was funny and, above all, as this reviewer said it was nice.

"I was completely blindsided by the pilot of Everybody Hates Chris, the new sitcom based on Chris Rock's childhood that premieres tonight at 8 p.m. ET on UPN. After an aggressive marketing campaign that suggested this show will single-handedly send Viacom's ghetto network (whose initials have been jokingly translated as 'You People's Network') to a de-luxe apartment in the sky, I was expecting an edgy, fast-paced satire, something in the vein of Fox anti-family-values shows like The Simpsons, Malcolm in the Middle, or Arrested Development.

Much as I love those shows' dark, twisted takes on domestic dysfunction (and continue to maintain that Jane Kaczmarek's ongoing failure to win an Emmy for Malcolm is one of the perennial disappointments of the awards season), Everybody Hates Chris won my heart by trying something even more daring: It's nice. Chris Rock's standup and his hosting gigs at awards shows can have a wild, almost dangerous edge, but the show he executive-produced and narrates in voice-over is unexpectedly sweet-spirited. It's The Cosby Show without the class privilege, or The Wonder Years with a hip-hop soundtrack. It's a kind of throwback to an earlier television era, a comedy about a functional family whose members treat each other with affection and respect (laced with the occasional creative threat: 'I will put my foot so far up your behind you'll have toes for teeth')."

I think UPN definitely has a winner this season!

Shame On Me! Shame On Me!

SHAME on ME! I am linking to the bloody National Enquirer! But, in my defense, so is everybody else! It is reporting that Dubya is off the wagon ... not that I don't blame him because Mr. President's destructive policies are finally starting to catch up with him. And the only reason why it is shameful for me to gloat is that thousands of people are dying here and in Iraq because of his poor decisions. So, yeah! I hope his ass is back on the bottle. Any real cowboy would be. As a matter of fact, he needs to take the same route we thought JR did in the series finale of Dallas! That or he needs to resign and go to the nut house where he belongs.

Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.

His worried wife yelled at him: 'Stop, George.'

Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against 'falling off the wagon' and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.

'When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot,' said one insider. 'He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: 'Stop George!'

...

Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.

A Washington source said: 'The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him — but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months.

'The war in Iraq, the loss of American lives, has deeply affected him. He takes every soldier's life personally. It has left him emotionally drained.

The result is he's taking drinks here and there, likely in private, to cope. 'And now with the worst domestic crisis in his administration over Katrina, you pray his drinking doesn't go out of control.'

Another source said: 'I'm only surprised to hear that he hadn't taken a shot sooner.
...

Another source said: 'A family member told me they fear George is 'falling apart.' The First Lady has been assigned the job of gatekeeper.'

I agree with Laura. We need to STOP George!

You Are NOT The Father!

Okay, everybody was being all Christian-like when Amber Frey surfaced as Scott Peterson's mistress and ignored the rather skankorific habits of Miss "if you really wanna perm get a Toni" once they scrubbed her up for court and the spotlight. Even if I reserve judgment for the child out of wedlock ('cause that ain't my business), at LEAST have a clue who the father is.

The former mistress of convicted murderer Scott Peterson is back in the spotlight after a DNA test showed that her first child was not fathered by the man who was paying child support.

Anthony Flores, 29, has been paying Frey $175 a month for nearly four years, his attorney, Glenn Wilson, said Wednesday. The father of the 4-year-old girl is actually Fresno restaurant owner Christopher Funch, Wilson said.

No one answered the telephone at Porky's Rib House on Wednesday, and Funch did not have a listed home number.

Wilson said Flores was preparing to file a court motion seeking visitation rights, which he has been denied, when the man received word last week that he was not the child's father.

Frey's attorney, Gloria Allred, said Wednesday that her client never intended to deceive Flores.

'Amber, in good faith, always believed that Mr. Flores was her child's father,' Allred said.

See, this is what I don't understand about these women who "believe" a particular man is their baby daddy: if you've had unprotected sex with more than one man during the specific window when you became pregnant, belief and faith are not the tools one uses to determine parentage. Taking into account that being hoodwinked by a sociopath (who managed to fool everyone else too) shouldn't be added to the list of stupid moves, (though I would question bedding down with him within hours of meeting and allowing him access to her child within days), it seems that Miss Frey may not be playing with a full deck. She has a baby gets support from someone who isn't the daddy, she hooks up with a murderer and before the trial has another baby by yet another man. Even though the media managed to turn her into a tragic, innocent victim, she doesn't seem to be any better at catching clues and making better choices. That reporter knows good and well he did not need to add the part about Porky's Rib House. But you can note the vision it conjures up in your mind about Amber and her choice in men.

For Those With A Breasted Interest ...

Apparently a lot of inquiring minds wanted to know! I had no idea there was such a furor of debate over whether Tyra Banks had breast implants.

To satisfy the jealous women and boob fixated men, she proved they were real on her new talk show.

"This just in: Tyra Banks' boobs are real. It was proved beyond a sonogram of doubt Tuesday on live television, where nothing is ever fake.

Banks underwent her courageous breast test on her own 'Tyra Banks Show.' After telling men in the audience to leave (which kind of strikes us as ordering everyone with a tattoo out of a Green Day concert), Banks had Dr. Garth Fisher from ABC's 'Extreme Makeover' perform a touch test and then the sonogram. He concluded: 'Tyra Banks has natural breasts; there are no implants.'

So now that Banks' reputation is secure, one could ask, why would she do this?

Well ...

Reason 1: Banks, a Victoria's Secret model, says she has had it up to her garters with mean-spirited tongue-waggers around the globe speculating that her breasts are, like, way fake. 'I'm tired of this rumor,' she hissed on her show Tuesday. 'It's something that's followed me forever.

Reason 2: The ratings on Banks' show are said to be, um, sagging. So making her hour-long show Tuesday 'all about breasts!' could offer the Nielsen equivalent of a push-up bra.

Either way, as we said, it has now been officially sanctified that Banks' breasts are 100 percent organic.

'By no means am I saying a breast implant is a bad thing, but it's not a choice that I made,' the 31-year-old Banks said. 'But it's something that a lot of the public ... think that I have, and that's so frustrating for me.'

How funny! I always thought that they were hers. From her Victoria's Secret days, I thought I heard that she was a 34C and since my, otherwise petite frame, had somehow blossomed to a 34D, I assumed hers were as real as mine. But, now that I think about it, I've had more than a couple curious and bold folks ask me if I had implants ... none of them bold enough to take me up on my offer to let them feel them for themselves! Thank God I'm no super model!

The Fighting Irish

Phil (Donahue) vs. Bill (O'Reilly): mano a mano.

Damn my girl Oprah! She's the one who ran Phil out of the talk show business. But Phil gave the "loud thing" a true challenge here.

He's correct, "Billy!" Loud doesn't mean right ...

Agreed!

Not that their opinions matter much now but we can gloat right along with them.

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Sen. John Edwards spoke separately Monday on the government's handling of the catastrophe and on the broader issue of poverty in the United States.

In a blistering critique, Kerry said former FEMA Director Michael Brown was to Hurricane Katrina 'what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what George Tenet is to slam dunk intelligence ... what George Bush is to 'Mission Accomplished' and 'Wanted Dead or Alive.' ... The bottom line is simple: The 'we'll do whatever it takes' administration doesn't have what it takes to get the job done.'

...

Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential candidate, said the hurricane was a sober reminder that widespread poverty exists throughout the nation. He said it will persist if the poor are concentrated in specific neighborhoods far from jobs.

'If the Great Depression brought forth Hoovervilles, these trailer towns may someday be known as Bushvilles,' Edwards told an audience at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington.

The former North Carolina senator criticized Bush for suspending the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act that sets wages for workers on federal contracts. Democrats contend the waiver will allow lower pay.

'When the only shot many people have is a good job rebuilding New Orleans, the president intervened to suspend prevailing wage laws so his contractor friends can cut wages for a hard day's work,' Edwards said.

Kerry also criticized Bush for suspending the wage laws.

In his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, Edwards frequently talked of 'Two Americas,' one for rich, the other for the poor. In his speech, Edwards said Bush is wrong to think Americans aspire to create a 'Wealth Society,' but rather they wish for a 'Working Society.'

'To be true to our values, our country must build a working society -- an America where everyone who works hard finally has the rewards to show for it,' Edwards said.

The Big Black Elephant In The Room

This is positively psychotic and either this family was in total denial or totally stupid (except for the cunning woman who invented the lie). I had a co-worker who had a sister who "claimed" to have been raped by a black man and became pregnant. She kept the son and raised him in some rural Ohio town as well. The child wasn't told he had a skin disease, though but I cannot say that growing up believing you were a product of rape would do much for your self-worth either. I just find this story, however, down right disgusting.

"So despite his dark skin, Myers grew up in white, middle-class neighborhoods in Ohio and New York believing he was white.

'For many years I thought I was white. I thought like a white kid. There was a feeling in me that I didn't want to be associated with blacks. I wanted the story to be true,' says Myers, a 45-year-old Orlando tennis teacher.

The secret shrouded in a lie lasted 26 years. Keeping it hidden all those years would turn Judy Myers into a hard, angry, unhappy woman, her family says. It made Dave Myers a defiant, rebellious, hostile child who would grow estranged from his parents, sisters and brother.

Learning the truth would send Myers on a search for identity. And it would convince him that his story is the story of America -- a white America that has been lied to, a black America oppressed and discriminated against, and a society unable or unwilling to discuss race.

When Judy Hartmann told Bill Myers that she was pregnant, he believed it was his.

These days, Maury Povich would be all over this with a DNA test.

And when the baby was born on Feb. 28, 1960 -- five months after their marriage -- he thought his son's skin color was jaundice. And then he thought there might have been a mix-up at the hospital.

And when his wife told him the doctors said it was a skin disease that had turned their boy's skin dark, he thought she was telling the truth. No questions asked.

Scratch to deadpan glare! WHAT ABOUT HIS HAIR STUPID!?

Because that is the kind of man Bill Myers is. He is soft and gentle and pliable, his children say. He accepts life as it comes, assumes the responsibilities of a man, a husband, a father.

As far as he was concerned, Dave Myers was as much his child as the three daughters and son who followed.

If Judy said it was a skin disease, that was the end of the discussion.

'He never said a word,' says Judy Myers, 67, who now lives with Bill in the Villages.

That attitude -- ignoring the obvious, believing the improbable -- filtered down to David and the other children. And in a family where everyone pretended that David was a darker shade of white, race was a taboo subject.

[...]

When a young Dave Myers asked his mother why police in Alabama were spraying black civil-rights protesters with fire hoses, she told him it was because they were hot.

Rolling my eyes! Heffa, I got your "hot!"

Everything Myers saw growing up in Ohio and then the small town of Olean in western New York, convinced him it was better to be a white boy with a skin disease than a black kid."

I feel for the guy. The mother sounds positively treacherous and the father is a pathetic mope!

What She Said ...

Nice Quote

“I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and as a female person are greater than those of people who are neither.”

~Toni Morrison

Trust Networks

For the life of me I cannot remember where I heard Saddam Hussein spewing rhetoric about what would happen if the United States invaded Iraq. I distinctly remember him saying something to the effect that they would fight us in the streets and door to door. Most certainly, that is what has happened as this insurgency only seems to get bigger and better by the day. The ideologues sat in their ivory tower and plotted out something they had no knowledge of. This article in Time is scary. Take time to read it. If you find you cannot access it, email me and I will forward it to you.

Five men met in an automobile in a Baghdad park a few weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in April 2003, according to U.S. intelligence sources. One of the five was Saddam. The other four were among his closest advisers. The agenda: how to fight back against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. A representative of Saddam's former No. 2, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, was there. But the most intriguing man in the car may have been a retired general named Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmed, who had been a senior member of the Military Bureau, a secret Baath Party spy service. The bureau's job had been to keep an eye on the Iraqi military--and to organize Baathist resistance in the event of a coup. Now a U.S. coup had taken place, and Saddam turned to al-Ahmed and the others and told them to start 'rebuilding your networks.'

The 45-minute meeting was pieced together months later by U.S. military intelligence. It represents a rare moment of clarity in the dust storm of violence that swirls through central Iraq. The insurgency has grown well beyond its initial Baathist core to include religious extremist and Iraqi nationalist organizations, and plain old civilians who are angry at the American occupation. But Saddam's message of 'rebuilding your networks' remains the central organizing principle.

More than two years into the war, U.S. intelligence sources concede that they still don't know enough about the nearly impenetrable web of what Iraqis call ahl al-thiqa (trust networks), which are at the heart of the insurgency. It's an inchoate movement without a single inspirational leader like Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh--a movement whose primary goal is perhaps even more improbable than the U.S. dream of creating an Iraqi democracy: restoring Sunni control in a country where Sunnis represent just 20% of the population. Intelligence experts can't credibly estimate the rebels' numbers but say most are Iraqis. Foreigners account for perhaps 2% of the suspected guerrillas who have been captured or killed, although they represent the vast majority of suicide bombers. ('They are ordnance,' a U.S. intelligence official says.) The level of violence has been growing steadily. There have been roughly 80 attacks a day in recent weeks. Suicide bombs killed more than 200 people, mostly in Baghdad, during four days of carnage last week, among the deadliest since Saddam's fall.
[...]

Drunks And Crackheads!

This family is starting to sound inbred. From the clueless attitudes of Bush and his mommy to the obvious addictive nature of the Bush offspring, these little apples aren't even bothering to fall off the tree.

John Ellis Bush, the youngest son of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, was arrested early Friday and charged with public intoxication and resisting arrest, law enforcement officials in Texas said.

The 21-year-old nephew of President Bush was arrested by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission at 2:30 a.m. Friday on a corner of Austin's Sixth Street bar district, said spokesman Roger Wade.

John Ellis Bush was released on $2,500 bond for resisting arrest, and on a personal recognizance bond for the public intoxication charge, officials said.
'My son's doing fine. It's a private matter. We will support him. We're sad for him. But I'm not going to discuss it on the public square with 30 cameras,' the governor said at the downtown Miami event.

[...]

Noelle Bush, the governor's daughter, was arrested in January 2002 and was accused of trying to pass a fraudulent prescription at a Tallahassee pharmacy to obtain the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. She completed a drug rehabilitation program in August 2003 and a judge dismissed the drug charges against her.

Noelle Bush was sent to jail twice for violating rules during her rehab stint. She was jailed for three days in July 2002 after being caught with prescription pills and served 10 days a month later after being accused of having a small rock of crack cocaine in her shoe.

Perhaps they need to go into family therapy to see what is eating them!

How I Sleep

What Your Sleeping Position Says

You are calm and rational. You are also giving and kind - a great friend. You are easy going and trusting. However, you are too sensible to fall for mind games.

What Does Your Sleeping Position Say About You?

Why?

I'm trying to understand the logic in this? How is sex with a prostitute a government perk worthy of reimbursement? Does this "benefit" only apply to men? What kind of prostitutes specialize in disabled persons? Is there an assumption that disabled persons do not have relationships?

The Danish government is under attack for paying for its disabled citizens to have sex with prostitutes.

The official 'Sex, irrespective of disability' campaign pays sex workers to provide sex once a month for disabled people.

The legal guidelines advise: 'It could be of great importance that the carer speaks to the prostitute together with the person in their care, to help them express their wishes.'

But opposition parties have attacked the regulations, claiming it is an immoral way of spending tax-payers' money.

Social-Democrat spokesperson Kristen Brosboel said: 'We spend a large proportion of our taxes rescuing women from prostitution. But at the same time we officially encourage carers to help contact with prostitutes.'

But Stig Langvad of the country's Disabled Association said the politicians critical of the plan are showing 'double standards'.

He said: 'The disabled must have the same possibilities as other people. Politicians can debate whether prostitution should be allowed in general, instead of preventing only the disabled from having access to it.'

And here we are with states who ban sex toys.

Who Was That Masked Man?

Again, I avoid watching and listening to Dubya like the plague. I have new hours at work so I am home much earlier and, try as I did, I ended up watching bits and pieces of Dubya's bizarre speech. What the hell was that dribble?

Reaching for inspiration as he addressed America Thursday night, George W. Bush didn't declare that 'the era of small government is over,' but then again, he didn't have to. If the promises in his speech were insufficiently loud and clear, they were amplified by the anguished screams from his fellow Republicans.

For years now, Bush has run his government like those free-spending liberals once demonized by the right, only less responsibly. This president doesn't merely tax and spend; he cuts taxes and spends more. The difference in his New Orleans speech -- and what most irked his friends among the right-wing faithful -- was that in his palpable desperation, he no longer even pretends to uphold limited government and fiscal prudence.

In ways both obvious and subtle, this most conservative of chief executives disregarded and even discarded the orthodoxies of his party. It was remarkable indeed to listen as he finally confessed his administration's failures -- and then to hear him proudly list the services that federal agencies are now providing to the hurricane's victims. No expense is too great and no need shall be overlooked, he seemed to imply. Name the amount that will restore his leadership and approval ratings, not to mention his legacy, and he will write the check.

He proudly cited the $60 billion down payment on the relief and reconstruction effort requested by him and voted for by Congress, which 'demonstrates the compassion and resolve of our nation.' According to the conservative lexicon, it is forbidden to refer to federal spending as proof of compassion. On the right, and especially among 'compassionate conservatives,' the true proof of caring is to cut spending and deny services that might engender dependency.

...

'That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality.'

To Republicans who believe that poor people are responsible for their own plight, his blunt admission of racism as poverty's underlying cause was ideological heresy. To them, his demand for 'bold action' to lift people up from destitution -- as a public duty, no less -- must have sounded like a disturbing echo of FDR, JFK or LBJ. To others, including me, it was refreshing to hear him describe the reality that conservatives like him have so studiously ignored or distorted for so long -- and acknowledge forthrightly that government must act to alleviate suffering and encourage change. Perhaps one of his pusillanimous assistants dared to mention that poverty has increased every year since he took office. (Or maybe that little fact turned up in the soundtrack of his Katrina broadcast DVD.)

The satisfactions of Bush's desperate address are likely to be fleeting, however. It is clear that the Republicans in Congress are determined to impose their own narrow agenda on the Katrina crisis, seizing the moment to eviscerate tort laws, undermine environmental protections, enact school vouchers and gut labor protections, all as 'temporary emergency' measures. They are scheming to bestow still more subsidies and concessions on the price-gouging oil industry, evidently believing that the 'incentives' stuffed into the energy bill last month were insufficiently lavish.

Most absurd, they will seek to cut the estate tax, which affects only a tiny and wealthy elite, in the name of assisting the poor and destitute. (And then they will complain that the government lacks sufficient funding for the president's reconstruction plans.)

Bush's ambitions seem destined to foster the same corruption and waste that have accompanied his other big project -- in Iraq. The same crony capitalism that is draining the American effort on the shores of the Persian Gulf has swiftly arrived on the Gulf Coast. Halliburton and Bechtel have been joined by Kenyon, the subsidiary of scandal-ridden funeral giant SCI, which has been hired to gather and tally the dead. As Paul Krugman notes in his Friday column, Bush should aspire to the remarkable efficiency and integrity of the New Deal -- and, it might be added, to the enlightened rationality and generosity of the Marshall Plan.

Expectations must be kept low, of course. Bush is no FDR or Harry Truman -- and Karl Rove, who will reportedly oversee the reconstruction project, is no George C. Marshall.

I don't know who crafted that BS but not only am I not sure I believe a word of it, I don't think he can make good on his lofty promises and plans. The most laughable (and scary to his conservative base)was the part about racism causing poverty. Who planted that gem in the speech? Granted I didn't expect much, but I expected something that would stir his base a little more and I think he made his "situation" with his supporters worse.

I'll Just Laugh This One Off

... because sometimes it is the subtleties that make the biggest impact.

A truckload of evacuees arrives at the Metairie evacuation center outside New Orleans

Over 150 dogs and other animals were evacuated from an animal hospital after their owners had left town without them

Condi Is Strange

I try to stay out of the Condoleezza bashing that basically brands her an Aunt Jemima or an Uncle Tom. Those labels are overrated and overused. I simply disagree with the woman's politics and try to argue my points based on that. But, her fierce loyalty to George W. Bush does get my goat a more than a wee bit. The way she skirts around the obvious in order to avoid criticizing her commander in chief is rather disheartening as I had assumed that she was an independent thinker who would speak against him if needed. So, either she really and blindly believes in him or she is too committed to say otherwise. I find both options disappointing.

Rice said she found it very 'strange' that people have an impression that Bush would decide who gets disaster relief on the basis of race. She added that she herself had been a victim of discrimination and understood the problem.

No, she doesn't. Mostly, she has led a charmed life, which she has legitimately earned by the intellect and diligence she is lucky to possess but that is not universally shared.

She recalled being told by a high school teacher that 'maybe I was junior college material.'

Undervalued, poor thing. Professional bias against women, who were admitted to higher education in respectable numbers only because of federal civil rights laws, was as likely to be the culprit there as bias against the color of her skin.

Every ambitious woman I know of a certain age has run into some variation of that. Me too."

Well I've been called an Uncle Tom and an oreo too but that doesn't mean that I cannot call a spade a spade. She may not agree that Bush "doesn't care about black people" but I find it highly unlikely that she finds it "strange" that people (including many white people) believe this to be the case.

You've got to come up with something better than that, girlfriend.

The Real Hurricane Looters Have Only Just Begun

First off, yeah, much to my chagrin, I'm quoting Jesse Jackson. But he (as he often is) is right!

But while the victims are simply trying to get their bearings, the barracudas are circling. Naomi Klein, who witnessed this in Iraq, calls it 'disaster capitalism.' Congress has appropriated $62 billion already. Hundreds of billions more will be spent on reclaiming the Gulf Coast, rebuilding and relocation. The feeding frenzy has begun.

Already Halliburton is on hand with a no-bid contract for reconstruction. Fluor, Bechtel, the Shaw Group - Republican-linked firms - are lining up for contracts. Lobbyists like Joe Allbaugh, close friend of George Bush, and James Lee Witt, close friend of Bill Clinton - both former heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency - are advising their corporate clients to get teams on the scene. Normal rules of contracting and competition are being waived in the emergency. Big bucks are on the table. It is a time to be wired politically.

The ideologues are in the hunt, too. Newt Gingrich is circulating memos calling for turning the region into a massive enterprise zone, slashing corporate taxes, reducing regulations. The oil lobby is pushing for drilling in Alaska and off the shores of the United States. Right wing activist Grover Norquist calls for cutting taxes on the wealthy even more to stimulate the economy. Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff Flak suggests conservatives use the crisis to try out their favorite ideas - vouchers for education and health care.

President Bush characteristically issued an executive order effectively lowering the wages of reconstruction workers - and hiking the profits of their companies. He wiped out the requirement to pay prevailing wages in the disaster region, apparently thinking that $9 an hour for construction workers was too high a price to pay. The government can save money, no doubt, by exploiting illegal immigrant labor.

[...]

We shouldn't let disaster capitalists make a killing while those who suffered the greatest devastation are left out of the mix. We need a serious plan to rebuild vital infrastructure, to make New Orleans sustainable, to develop affordable housing and mass transit, to rebuild schools. Tax breaks and enterprise zones will end up building floating casinos and luxury condos. We need public investment, linked to a Civilian Construction and Conservation Corps that gives priority to housing, hiring, training and putting to work the poor people who lost.

The Bush administration's inaction and indifference after Katrina hit abandoned the poor and added to their suffering. It would be tragic now if action by the Republican Congress and the Bush administration added to the misery. These people already have had their past swept away by Katrina's furies. We should ensure that their future is not erased by right wing ideologues rewarding disaster capitalists and excluding those who suffered the most from the deal.

In more than one heated discussion with a redneck type, I've charged that the same folks who will try to get the death penalty for a nigga that stole their wallet, will cower helplessly in a corner if their pension plan is gutted, an insurance company gives them the shaft, a contractor bilks them or a company lays them off with a pittance of a severance. They never seem to realize that thievery is thievery and that corporate greed wreaks far more damage and costs them exponentially more than some random thug who, for whatever reason, takes up petty theft.

So, while people like Karen Hughes claim that the world will remember the looting of plasma TVs, average Americans will stand by - without action or complaint - and watch the greedy rich line their pockets with profits from this disaster.

Dudley Did Right

Why couldn't FEMA? This is downright laughable! The Canadian Mounted Police can show up on horses but not our own government.

Just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans and only a 15-minute drive from Bourbon Street, the parish received no U.S. government assistance for almost a week after Hurricane Katrina struck.

The 6,000 residents stranded in its mix of marshland, oil refineries, blighted houses and sprawling new subdivisions were left to fend for themselves, including 34 people who died in a nursing home here.

'I guess nobody knew we were here,' said St. Bernard Parish Councilwoman Judy Hoffmeister, who on Wednesday recalled being trapped on the roof of a building, awaiting rescue, on the night of the storm. 'Why wouldn't somebody say, 'Where's St. Bernard?' '

At first, the only rescuers on hand were the residents and officials of St. Bernard Parish. Two days after Katrina hit, a team of Canadian Mounties from Vancouver showed up to help, and a sprinkling of officials from neighboring parishes paid visits, but it would be days before there was any sign of assistance from the U.S. government.

'I'm saying, where's the Department of Defense?' said parish Sheriff Jack Stephens. 'The Canadians can show up, but the Department of Defense can't get to St. Bernard Parish?'

Dubya has a whole lot of 'splainin' to do tonight. I'm sure someone will write him a really nice speech. But no matter what he says, the damage has been done.

Mother May I ... Pee?

I'm going to give the President the benefit of the doubt (I know, I know not like me) but I'll assume that this alleged note to Condi is code for something else.

In what seems destined to become one of the most joked about photos of the month, a well-known Reuters photographer today seems to have captured President George W. Bush scribbling a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a session at the United Nations. On the note is a message revolving around the need to take a "bathroom break."

"U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war."

The photo, which naturally is already making the rounds of the Web, can be found here.

More From Our Free And Peaceful Allies

I'm just a wee bit confused about how someone get's themself raped. But I am sure that somewhere in the minds of men, who have no real use for women, it is a planned and deliberate act.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that women in Pakistan get themselves raped for getting a visa to Canada and becoming a millionaire.

'You must understand the environment in Pakistan. This has become a moneymaking concern...a lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped,' the Daily Times quoted Musharraf as saying in an interview with The Washington Post.

He further said that Pakistan should not be seen in isolation as far as rape cases are concerned, as it happens even in the US, Canada, France and the UK also.

'Pakistan should not be singled out when the curse is everywhere in the world,' he said adding that reports or figures about rape in the US, Canada, France and Britain show that 'it is happening everywhere'.

To a question about rape victim Mukhtar Mai, he said that she was free to travel now, and that he had no regrets about slapping on her to travel abroad. He said Mukhtar Mai had come 'under the sway of organisations determined to harm Pakistan's image'.

Yes, rape happens everywhere. In fact, I was watching Donny Deutsch's show on CNBC a couple weeks ago and Dr. Drew Pinsky rattled a stat that said that 35% of men said they would rape a woman if they thought they could get away with it. Although that is really scary (and I've heard that others have heard higher stats), we do prosecute rapists (though still tough) and don't honor kill the rape victims or expect them to kill themselves.

She Ain't Messin' With No Broke Princes

Prince Albert! Dude, I see this on Maury Povich all the time. Hood rats/rural rats claim that some skank tricked them and/or that they are not the "baby daddy." But, here's a trick for rich, educated heirs to a throne who screw women around the globe: If you don't want children, get fixed or wear a damn condom!

Prince Albert II of Monaco told the New York Times that he was tricked into fatherhood by his West African ex-girlfriend of five years, Nicole Coste, after she stopped taking her contraceptive pills.

'Yes, I think I was set up,' said Albert, who officially became ruler of his Mediterranean state in July. That was also the month the 47-year-old bachelor found out he had a son with Coste, a former Air France flight attendant from Togo who gave up all the dirt on their long-rumored relationship to the French celebrity magazine Paris Match.

The child, Alexandre, was born in 2003; his mother has two children from a previous marriage.

Albert told the Times that he was still 'coming to terms' with his accidental fatherhood. He said he had seen the child only once since the story became public 'because of his mother's attitude toward me.'

'It's not a very pleasant situation,' he said. 'My only concern now is the well-being of the kid.'

Gosh! It's bad enough that he's known as a jet-setting, ho hopper but it's just plain nasty that he has unprotected sex and, in this day and age, doesn't take responsibility for his own contraception.

Pay the piper!

Shaq And The Po Po

... Or shall I say, Shaq is the po po?

Shaq assists as police arrest man accused of assaulting gay couple
MIAMI BEACH (AP) — Shaquille O'Neal has been credited with an assist away from the basketball court, following a suspect who allegedly assaulted a gay couple and alerting police.

The 7-foot-1 Miami Heat center, who is in the process of becoming a Miami Beach reserve officer, was driving on South Beach about 3 a.m. Sunday.

That's when he saw the man, riding as a passenger in a silver Honda, yell antigay slurs at the couple, said Bobby Hernandez, spokesman for the Miami Beach Police Department.

The man then got out of the car and threw a bottle, hitting one of the pedestrians, who was not seriously hurt. The suspect got back in the car and it sped off, but O'Neal followed.

'He flagged down the Miami Beach officer on duty there, and the officer was able to apprehend the subject,' Hernandez said.

Michael Gonzalez, 18, was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon. A phone number for Gonzalez could not be located and it was not known if he has an attorney. The Honda's driver was not charged.

O'Neal, who hopes to be a police chief or county sheriff one day, was already being fitted for his Miami Beach police uniform before the incident.

'For this incident, I don't want to be credited as an individual who does police work,' O'Neal said in a statement. 'I want to be credited as a Miami Beach police officer.'

Sweet Isn't It?

All out war and no mercy ...

After a dozen explosions ripped through the Iraqi capital Wednesday, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq purportedly declared all out war on Shiite Muslims, Iraqi troops and the country's government in an audio tape released on Internet.
Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attacks, which killed at least 152 people and wounded 542, targeted at laborers assembled to find work for the day.

The bloodiest attack killed at least 88 people and wounded 227 in the heavily Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah where the day laborers had gathered shortly after dawn.

The speaker on the released audio tape, introduced as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, also said his militant forces would attack any Iraqi it believes has cooperated with an ongoing U.S.-led offensive in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar.
'If proven that any of (Iraq's) national guards, police or army are agents of the Crusaders, they will be killed and his house will demolished or burnt — after evacuating all women and children — as a punishment,' the voice said in the new tape, which surfaced on an Internet site known for carrying extremist Islamist content.
‘There will be no mercy’

The speaker announced 'all-out war against Shiites everywhere. Beware, there will be no mercy.' "

Party Over Here!

I wonder if we'd have a better rehabilitation rate here in the US if our prisons were more like this:

The relaxed regime at a prison housing some of Holland's most dangerous criminals is causing controversy.

Pictures of tattooed prisoners enjoying a 'social evening' and beer embarrassed the authorities which are sensitive to claims abroad that they are soft on crime.

One inmate at Esserheem serving 14 years for murder said: 'We have a party every weekend in our own prison bar. We can enjoy wonderful snacks, ice cream, beers, play cards or billiards and listen to music. If the weather is warm we can play tennis.'

Another prisoner spoke of 'perfect' fresh food and said: 'We can buy everything in the prison shop including sushi and sake.'

A senior Dutch police official who declined to be named said Esserheem was an exception, but 'foreign offenders, in particular those involved in drug-related crime, will be even more inclined to appear before Dutch courts rather than be extradited to their own countries'.

A Faulty Premise

Two and a half years into a war that has lost a couple thousand US soldiers, it seems as though the grand plan of the ideologues of the Project For The New American Century may be going down in flames simply because they pursued a course of action based on a flawed premise.

The United States is engaged in what President George W. Bush has called a 'generational challenge' to instill democracy in the Arab world. The Bush administration and its defenders contend that this push for Arab democracy will not only spread American values but also improve U.S. security. As democracy grows in the Arab world, the thinking goes, the region will stop generating anti-American terrorism. Promoting democracy in the Middle East is therefore not merely consistent with U.S. security goals; it is necessary to achieve them.

But this begs a fundamental question: Is it true that the more democratic a country becomes, the less likely it is to produce terrorists and terrorist groups? In other words, is the security rationale for promoting democracy in the Arab world based on a sound premise? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be no. Although what is known about terrorism is admittedly incomplete, the data available do not show a strong relationship between democracy and an absence of or a reduction in terrorism. Terrorism appears to stem from factors much more specific than regime type. Nor is it likely that democratization would end the current campaign against the United States. Al Qaeda and like-minded groups are not fighting for democracy in the Muslim world; they are fighting to impose their vision of an Islamic state. Nor is there any evidence that democracy in the Arab world would 'drain the swamp,' eliminating soft support for terrorist organizations among the Arab public and reducing the number of potential recruits for them.

Even if democracy were achieved in the Middle East, what kind of governments would it produce? Would they cooperate with the United States on important policy objectives besides curbing terrorism, such as advancing the Arab-Israeli peace process, maintaining security in the Persian Gulf, and ensuring steady supplies of oil? No one can predict the course a new democracy will take, but based on public opinion surveys and recent elections in the Arab world, the advent of democracy there seems likely to produce new Islamist governments that would be much less willing to cooperate with the United States than are the current authoritarian rulers.

The answers to these questions should give Washington pause. The Bush administration's democracy initiative can be defended as an effort to spread American democratic values at any cost, or as a long-term gamble that even if Islamists do come to power, the realities of governance will moderate them or the public will grow disillusioned with them. The emphasis on electoral democracy will not, however, serve immediate U.S. interests either in the war on terrorism or in other important Middle East policies.

It is thus time to rethink the U.S. emphasis on democracy promotion in the Arab world. Rather than push for quick elections, the United States should instead focus its energy on encouraging the development of secular, nationalist, and liberal political organizations that could compete on an equal footing with Islamist parties. Only by doing so can Washington help ensure that when elections finally do occur, the results are more in line with U.S. interests.

This is a long, but informative analysis of the premise of democracy as a cure for terrorism. Click here to read the rest.

Gee Whiz! Do I Have To?

Was it Astro or Dino who was always mumbling under his breath? Well, that is how Bush looked as he struggled, like a constipated geriatric on a toilet, to get out his acceptance of responsibility for the multitude of things that the federal government did wrong. I don't know who forced him and I hand't seen the footage before this but it's obvious he didn't really mean it. He's beyond pathetic!

A Hurricane In His Own Right

Prior to the election last November, I made myself believe that George W. Bush could not possibly win and would have willed it into reality if that were possible. Now, as we watch Iraq spiral into further sectarian violence and a place that is unsafe, and soon to be unfair for women, and as a hurricane destroyed an American city, I cannot fathom how this country can withstand Maureen another 3.5 years of this man.

President George W. Bush continued to try to spin his own inaction Tuesday, but he may finally have reached a patch of reality beyond spin. Now he's the one drowning, unable to rescue himself by patting small black children on the head during photo-ops and making scripted attempts to appear engaged. He can keep going back down there, as he will again on Thursday when he gives a televised speech to the nation, but it will never compensate for his tragic inattention during days when so many lives could have been saved.

He made the ultimate sacrifice and admitted his administration had messed up, something he'd refused to do through all of the other screw-ups, from phantom weapons of mass destruction and the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guant�namo to the miscalculations on the Iraq occupation and the insurgency, which will soon claim 2,000 young Americans.

How many places will be in shambles by the time the Bush crew leaves office?

The man is a human Schleprock and given the current devastation we've caused around the world and are enduring here in the US, I suspect that things can and probably will get worse.

Yeah Right!

Bush calls on UN to show more integrity ...

Afraid To Leave The House

I just wanted to go through the television set for the brief segment I could stomach of listening to Bill Kristol on one of the Sunday morning shows cavalierly saying something about women having the right to vote will basically ensure their rights. Does he not understand that having the right to vote does not mean equal treatment under the law or in society.

'It was the worst day in my life and I lost something that I will never get back again – my virginity and dignity,' she said. Jamila has been psychologically scarred and is pregnant with the child of the attacker and will soon to undergo an abortion.

She is just one of hundreds of cases of sexual abuse in the country that have taken place since the US-led invasion in 2003 when thousands of criminals were set free from the prisons, officials say.

Insecurity in Iraq has given criminals an easy environment in which to operate again, locals say. Most of the attacks are on university students, according to the authorities.

'When we say that we want Saddam Hussein back in the government they think that we are insurgents, but the truth is that with him there was security and never a case of rape,' Jamila said.

Leave Refused

I'm not sure how many of these soldiers knew that part of their service would entail losing thier homes and then kept away from their families in a time of need, desperation and disaster. It would seem that if we were doing as well as the President would have us believe, they could spare a few hundred soldiers a few days to go home to check on their families.

Scores of Mississippi National Guardsmen in Iraq who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina have been refused even 15-day leaves to aid their displaced families, told by commanders there are too few U.S. troops in Iraq to spare them, according to guardsmen.

About 600 members of the Mississippi Guard's 155th Brigade Combat Team, posted south of Baghdad, live in the parts of southern Mississippi and southeast Louisiana hit hardest by Katrina, Maj. Neil F. Murphy Jr., a spokesman with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, said by e-mail Saturday. The brigade is attached to the expeditionary force.

Guard members and relatives said in e-mails or telephone interviews that virtually all of the roughly 300 soldiers of the 155th Brigade's B and C companies had their homes destroyed or severely damaged in the hurricane. Eighty Mississippi Guard members have been granted emergency leave, Murphy said. The rest have been refused leave, told by their brigade command that all other forward operating bases 'are tapped out and cannot send troops,' one Mississippi Guard member wrote in an e-mail that was shared by a family member.

Real Men Don't Whine

What is with these goons? We are supposed to be setting an example for the world in terms of Democracy and equality yet the ones waving the flag the most flamboyantly, are the same ones pissing and moaning about women not letting them be big dick in charge anymore!

As a result of the repudiation of Judeo-Christian values, we are witnessing the ascendance of the feminine in Western society.

There are two reasons for this. One is the overriding belief in equality, which to those who reject Judeo-Christian values means sameness. Judeo-Christian values emphatically affirm the equality of the sexes. In fact, given that the creation story in Genesis proceeds from primitive to elevated, the last creation, woman, can easily be seen as the most elevated of the creations. Every man knows how much a good woman helps him transcend his animal nature.

Judeo-Christian values do not conflate equality with sameness. But the Left rejects any suggestion of innate sexual differences. That is why the president of Harvard University nearly lost his job for merely suggesting that one reason there are fewer women in engineering and science faculties is that the female and male brains differ in their capacities in these areas. A secular liberal who advocates affirmative action based on sex, Harvard's president nevertheless also has -- or had, until his humiliation at the hands of his faculty -- a belief in seeking truth.

And the truth is that men and women are profoundly different.

One of these differences is that women generally have a more difficult time transcending their emotions than men. There are, of course, millions of individual women -- such as Margaret Thatcher -- who are far more rational than many men; but that only makes these women's achievements all the more admirable. It hardly invalidates the proposition.

[...]

To say that the human race needs masculine and feminine characteristics is to state the obvious. But each sex comes with prices. Men can too easily lack compassion, reduce sex to animal behavior and become violent. And women's emotionality, when unchecked, can wreak havoc on those closest to these women and on society as a whole -- when emotions and compassion dominate in making public policy.

The latter is what is happening in America. The Left has been successful in supplanting masculine virtues with feminine ones. That is why 'compassion' is probably the most frequently cited value. That is why the further left you go, the greater the antipathy to those who make war. Indeed, universities, the embodiment of feminist emotionality and anti-Judeo-Christian values, ban military recruiters and oppose war-themed names for their sports teams.

A sentiment such as 'War is not the answer' embodies leftist feminine emotionality. The statement is, after all, utter nonsense, as many of the greatest evils -- from Nazi totalitarianism and genocide to slavery -- were quite effectively 'answered' by war. (Virtually every car I ever have seen display the bumper sticker 'War is not the answer' was driven by a woman.)

[...]

That is one reason our schools are in trouble. They are increasingly run by women -- women with female thinking moreover. Such thinking leads to papers no longer being graded with a red pencil lest students' feelings be hurt; to self-esteem supplanting self-discipline as a value; to banning games such as dodge ball in which participants' feelings may get hurt; to discouraging male competition; to banning peanut butter because two out of a thousand students are highly allergic to peanuts.

In a masculine society governed by Judeo-Christian values (which include a masculine-depicted and compassionate God), feminine virtues are adored and honored. In a feminized society, male virtues are discarded.

Then both sexes suffer.

Just one more consequence of the war against Judeo-Christian values.

The only people who seem to be "suffering" are men who are insecure about their manhood in the first place. Since Dennis Prager has gender roles and the associated levels of masculinity and femininity mapped out so clearly, he should know that one thing real mean don't do is whine! Suck it up, dude!

Hell Must Be Getting Pretty Cold

Or Bush is getting mighty scared.

"President Bush said Tuesday that 'I take responsibility' for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.

'Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government,' Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.

'To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility,' Bush said.

The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina.

Don't Let The Door Knob Hit You

Embattled Brown Resigns As FEMA Chief

Buh-Bye!

Banning All Marriage

This isn't a call to ban gay marriage. It is a call to ban ALL marriages. Seems this party thinks that marriage is about ownership and not love.

A new political party in Sweden says it will abolish marriage if it gets into power.

The Feminist Initiative, which expects more than 20% of the vote in next year's election, claims marriage 'is not about love, but about ownership'.

FI founder Tiina Rosenberg, said: 'Instead of marriage we want to promote a co-habitation law that ignores gender and allows more than two people in a partnership.'

But she said in allowing relationships to involve more than two people, the FI did not want Sweden to fall back into a 'patriarchal structure' with one man having a harem of women.

'A man who lives with eight women in a patriarchal structure, where the man decides and the women obey is not what we are aiming for,' said Rosenberg.

And in order to encourage men to vote for them as well, the party's all-female board is also calling for the introduction of a six-hour working day.

The six-hour work day, I could handle, but I don't need a ban on marriage to keep me from getting married.

WTH?

Insane!

A 43-year-old Indian woman has been rescued after being locked up by her family in a single room for more than a quarter of a century.

Her family members in the eastern Indian state of Orissa said she was mentally ill and had to be kept apart because of her 'wild behaviour'.

Annapurna Sahu was confined in an abandoned outhouse - only a few feet high and without proper flooring.

The family said she was not mistreated and was given food and water regularly.

Eyewitnesses present during the rescue operation in the town of Dhenkanal, 100km (62 miles) from state capital, Bhubaneswar, said Ms Sahu was living in inhumane conditions.

She was reportedly naked when she was found.

Her brother, Ganeswar Sahu, said she had to be segregated from the rest of the family after she started abusing others.

Yes, Yes and Yes!

For some reason I let myself get caught up in debates about mediocre rappers like Kanye West and Master P and their reactions to the hurricane but this article expresses a lot of what I have been arguing for the past few days.

President George W. Bush is so out of touch with folks who don't live like he does, so disconnected from average Americans, that he doesn't understand that people with no savings can't afford a limit on Social Security; that people without jobs cannot count on employer-funded health insurance; that people without means, without cars, without family, cannot simply walk away from their homes.

People who are poor do not live like you, Mr. President. It is those people, poor and black, poor and white, poor and Cajun, who were left to drown in New Orleans.

Part of Bush's problem is his friends. He appointed Michael Brown as Federal Emergency Management Agency chief after Brown was forced out of his previous job as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. Brown's greatest strength: being friends with Joe Allbaugh, manager of Bush's 2000 campaign, according to the New York Daily News.

The friend thing bugs me to death. It is the REAL affirmative action. I see it in the workplace. I see it everywhere. This is what people don't get about the need for true affirmative action. Everyplace I have worked has depended on people recommending their friends for jobs. Most white people don't even know a person of color - let along call them a true friend. I've seen tons of unqualified people get jobs because they knew someone. There is a myth that minorities are unqualified and it has been my experience and witness that those people's credentials were stronger than any friend who held a comparable position. It's actually quite insulting. This time it was deadly!

My issue is that not only does Bush hire friends or friends of friends, he doesn't accept responsibility for their ineptness or mistakes. "Brownie" did not do a good job. Michael Brown was not qualified to do the job. Thousands are dead because of friendship and patronage job appointments.

Not To Be Petty

I was wondering why Rita Cosby got a job on MSNBC. Despite her voice, I actually half way liked her on Fox (compared to the other folks). I guess they got sick of her or MSNBC thought stealing her would be a coup. But, now that she is on MSNBC, I cannot stand her voice and am wondering how she got a job on television to begin with. Granted she's blond, but in a Barbie fixated world, girlfriend is kinda big.

CNN's Aaron Brown stood out as a voice of calm in the aftermath coverage, Tim Goodman writes. 'It became clear that, among other attributes, Brown's interviewing skills far outstripped those of so-called anchors like MSNBC's Rita Cosby.'

Then Goodman lets loose: 'Why in the world is this woman fronting a news program? From her horrible voice to her inability to report or interview, her pathetic performance covering the Katrina fallout should result in the firing of one or more people at MSNBC who believed it was a good idea to pluck her from Fox. Send her back to Aruba. (Remember Natalee Holloway?)'

Bush ... The Communist

What's that were always saying about Fidel Castro and his state sponsored parades and rallies? Why is it that, during a devastating disaster, firemen are being used to do PR for an agency that failed miserably at preventing the deaths of thousands?

Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: 'What are we doing here?'

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.

Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.

Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.

On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.

Too Sexy For Her Job

I went to Catholic schools in the 60's and 70's and watched one of the meanest nuns ever to wear a habit, when I was in second grade, transform into a mini-skirt and go go boot wearing hot mama who flirted with policemen and took us to the beach in the summer (I heard she later left the convent) by eighth grade. This woman from Italy, in 2005, isn't even a nun. But they think she's too cute to teach religion. What would Jesus say about judging a book by its cover?

Was it her looks or lifestyle that led the Roman Catholic Church to cause a minor media frenzy by firing an Italian religion teacher this year?

Caterina Bonci said Church authorities decided she was just too attractive and dressed too sexy to teach religion after 14 years on the job.

The Church says it sacked the 38-year-old blonde from the central Adriatic city of Fano because she is divorced.

No matter who is right, Bonci has been all over the Italian media demanding to go back to her job teaching religion to children in state schools on behalf of the local diocese.

She said she has never hidden her 2000 divorce from Church authorities, dresses down when teaching and defended her right to dress how she likes in her private life.

'I don't see what it matters if a teacher is good looking or not as long she is qualified,' she told Reuters by telephone.

'In school, I dressed normally. In my private life, I have every right to dress any way I want.'

I'm With The Great Big Black Guy ...

Bush is such a wuss! His parents have to get on Larry King to defend him. Then, because his first trip to the Gulf Coast didn't add to his credibility, he shows up with a big, fat, black preacher to shield him from the thousands of blacks who've been displaced by this tragedy! Can this man ever stand up without a script or someone to hide behind?

Bush didn't venture into New Orleans, which he also skipped on his first visit. But after days of televised suffering by African Americans in the city, White House officials ensured that the television pictures of Bush's trip would include shots of the president with African-American survivors.

Bush toured the Baton Rouge shelter with T.D. Jakes, one of the nation's most prominent black preachers. Jakes' Dallas church, The Potter's House, has 30,000 members. The president hugged and chatted with displaced New Orleans residents as he strolled through the makeshift but orderly facility at the Bethany World Prayer Center.

Though I am not a follower of his, I used to give Rev. Jakes a wee bit of credit. After this, NOT!

Like Clueless Mama ...

Some people are ready to impeach little Georgie over this horrendous display of incompetency and insensitivity so his mommy and daddy had to go on Larry King Live to talk the little titty baby up. The problem is that all it showed is where he got his total disconnect from anyone who isn't rich and privileged.

"In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: 'Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston.'

Then she added: 'What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

'And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.'

Yes, perhaps quite a few of the evacuees (who are living on the floor of an Astrodome) will find a way to make the best of things and find a life in Houston. However, and in true familial obliviousness, it is absurd of Barbara Bush to suggest that people losing everything they have and know is working out well for them.

Nobody's Coming To Get Us

I hate that I was up the first thing this morning shedding more tears about this disaster. But the President of Jefferson Parish was on Meet The Press this morning and, like so many others over the past few days, broke down on air.

I want to give you one last story and I’ll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.” Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody’s promised. They’ve had press conferences. I’m sick of the press conferences. For god’s sakes, just shut up and send us somebody.

For shame! For shame! For shame!

Watch the video!

Not This Time

I, too, sing America.
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

And if you don't know, now you know!

An Amen Moment

I avoid FoxNews like the plague and definitely would never deliberately turn to that channel when Hannity and Colmes is on. But, I guess I saw Geraldo (in distress) and stopped. What I witnessed redeemed my faith in journalists (as has been the case all week as I've seen reporter after reporter melt down on camera due to what they've witnessed in the Gulf Coast region). Even through all of this and the OBVIOUS lack of response or concern about the people of New Orleans, Sean Hannity was trying to spin. Shepard Smith wasn't having it and shouted him down. I don't know what piece of the devil's work Sean Hannity has contracted himself out for, but it was wonderful seeing someone shut him up!

Out Of The Chaos Comes Dubya

It's really sad that someone could be so far removed from any concept of personal loss and tragedy that even after you show up DAYS LATE for a disaster, you still haven't a clue what to say (or what not to say). People have losts their homes, jobs and relatives and all he can relate to is the wealthy Senator Trent Lott's porch.

We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

He's just useless!

The Whole World Is Watching!

It's as though FEMA, the National Guard and every other agency charged with rescuing citizens and cities in distress are all sitting down reading upside down copies of My Pet Goat. Was it a collective brain freeze? Did the cat get all of their tongues? Was the scope of the disaster so horrific that it left them paralyzed. There have been both hurricanes and floods (not to mention wild fires) all over the country. Were the visions of "so poor, so black" people so frightening that no one could lift a finger to act? Does anyone realize how utterly ridiculous this looks to the rest of the world? If one little city cannot handle a natural disaster, how comforting it must be for the "terrorists" to know how inept our ability to respond will be if and when they decide to attack us again.

Many newspapers highlighted criticism of local and state authorities and of President Bush. Some compared the sputtering relief effort with the massive amounts of money and resources poured into the war in Iraq.

'A modern metropolis sinking in water and into anarchy -- it is a really cruel spectacle for a champion of security like Bush,' France's left-leaning Liberation newspaper said.

'(Al Qaeda leader Osama) bin Laden, nice and dry in his hideaway, must be killing himself laughing.'

A female employee at a multinational firm in South Korea said it may have been no accident the U.S. was hit.

'Maybe it was punishment for what it did to Iraq, which has a man-made disaster, not a natural disaster,' said the woman, who did not want to be named as she has an American manager.

'A lot of the people I work with think this way. We spoke about it just the other day,' she said.

Commentators noted the victims of the hurricane were overwhelmingly African Americans, too poor to flee the region as the hurricane loomed unlike some of their white neighbors.

New Orleans ranks fifth in the United States in terms of African American population and 67 percent of the city's residents are black.

'In one of the poorest states in the country, where black people earn half as much as white people, this has taken on a racial dimension,' said a report in Britain's Guardian daily.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, in a veiled criticism of U.S. political thought, said the disaster showed the need for a strong state that could help poor people."

Speaking Up and Going Off!

Last night I saw Anderson Cooper snapping off as he reported the state of affairs in New Orleans. This morning Soledad O'Brian tore into the FEMA director as well (he claimed he only found out about the problems at the convention center yesterday). I am glad to see that reporters and political pundits on the ground are speaking up about the disgrace that this natural disaster ushered in.

The last twelve hours of news coverage has been nearly overwhelming. Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn, others, even unapologetic partisans like Joe Scarborough and Tucker Carlson -- everyone is asking where the government is. (No, I haven't turned to Fox News. I don't have the heart, today.) Anderson Cooper lost it interviewing Sen. Mary Landrieu, countering her litany of thank-yous to a series of politicians with his own encounter with rats eating a body that had been left abandoned in the street for 48 hours. Paula Zahn boggled at FEMA director Michael Brown's declaration that the reason about 15,000 shelter seekers at the New Orleans Convention Center have gone without food or water since the day of the hurricane is because FEMA didn't even know the refugees were there until today.

Not Requesting International Assistance At This Time

I've heard people ask what countries were going to help us since the US is already helping everybody else. A poor country like Jamaica is offering help, along with Canada, but we said no thank you!

Jamaica was among the nations offering what help they could. But the Kingston embassy, while stating its appreciation for the support, politely declined the offers, saying in a statement: 'The United States Government is not yet requesting international assistance at this time.'

The embassy suggested, however, that persons and organisations wishing to help may still contact the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, www.fema.gov, coordinator of the recovery efforts.

No Need To Rebuild New Orleans

Though he looks like he never met a bowl of gumbo he didn't like, it seems like Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, is not sure he sees the merit in rebuilding New Orleans!

House Speaker Dennis Hastert dropped a bombshell on flood-ravaged New Orleans on Thursday by suggesting that it isn’t sensible to rebuild the city.

'It doesn't make sense to me,' Hastert told the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago in editions published today. 'And it's a question that certainly we should ask.'

[...]

The Illinois Republican’s comments drew an immediate rebuke from Louisiana officials.

“That’s like saying we should shut down Los Angeles because it’s built in an earthquake zone,” former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., said. “Or like saying that after the Great Chicago fire of 1871, the U.S. government should have just abandoned the city.”

Hastert said that he supports an emergency bailout, but raised questions about a long-term rebuilding effort. As the most powerful voice in the Republican-controlled House, Hastert is in a position to block any legislation that he opposes.

'We help replace, we help relieve disaster,' Hastert said. 'But I think federal insurance and everything that goes along with it... we ought to take a second look at that.'

Well, seeing as a good number of the "refugees" are so poor and so black, and coupled with the fact that New Orleans is just one big bowl of a city waiting for a lake to flood it, I guess I see his point! Given another big hurricane, we'd just have one big bowl of nigga soup again, right?

And Oh So Black!

I am getting punch drunk at all the stuff that is coming out of people's mouths regarding Katrina! I won't even guess how he meant it but I'm dying here!

Wolf Blitzer on CNN, just now: 'You see that picture [of people stranded on roofs or wading through water] over and over and over again but no matter how many times you see that picture, you simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals ... almost all of them are so poor, and so black...'

ROTFLMB[lack]AO!

Gees! Men Are So Sensitve These Days

I guess this is pretty over the top but it's not like there haven't been more than a couple of sexist shows that depict women in an unflattering light over the years.

The BBC has been forced to apologise after 200 viewers complained about a hidden camera show in which women train their husbands like dogs.

BBC2's Bring Your Husband to Heel features dog trainer Annie Clayton using traditional dog-training techniques to improve husbands' behaviour.

The show, based around the premise that men share 85% of their DNA with dogs, uses hidden cameras to film the men, who think they are taking part in a documentary about relationship roles.

Dozens of viewers complained on the BBC's Points of View website, branding it 'sexist, offensive and degrading'.

'I am utterly appalled by this programme,' said Paul Hayman. 'I can take a joke like anyone else but dedicating a programme to assisting wives to train their husbands like dogs is outrageous.