They Lie Like They Breathe

No wonder Gonzales kept making those "I'm so stupid" faces during his confirmation hearings. He was sitting there LYING!

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year ago when he appeared to try to avoid answering a question about whether the president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless eavesdropping as a 'hypothetical situation' during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales where the president's authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.

Gonzales said that it was impossible to answer such a hypothetical question but that it was 'not the policy or the agenda of this president' to authorize actions that conflict with existing law. He added that he would hope to alert Congress if the president ever chose to authorize warrantless surveillance, according to a transcript of the hearing.

In fact, the president did secretly authorize the National Security Agency to begin warrantless monitoring of calls and e-mails between the United States and other nations soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The program, publicly revealed in media reports last month, was unknown to Feingold and his staff at the time Feingold questioned Gonzales, according to a staff member. Feingold's aides developed the 2005 questions based on privacy advocates' concerns about broad interpretations of executive power.

Gonzales was White House counsel at the time the program began and has since acknowledged his role in affirming the president's authority to launch the surveillance effort. Gonzales is scheduled to testify Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the program's legal rationale.

'It now appears that the Attorney General was not being straight with the Judiciary Committee and he has some explaining to do,' Feingold said in a statement yesterday.

A Justice Department spokesman said yesterday the department had not yet reviewed the Feingold letter and could not comment.

Tales From The Absurd

What? This guy thinks he is a boxer or an athlete who cannot have sex before a match? Being sent directly to the file cabinet under who the hell cares is this mess!

In a show of political absurdity, Italy's conservative prime minister, singer of love songs and media magnate, Silvio Berlusconi, has pledged not to have sex until the country's April 9 elections.

"I'll try not to let you down," the self-professed ladies man told a television preacher at a rally. "I promise you two-and-a-half months of complete sexual abstinence."

What this has to do with fighting corruption, strengthening the economy and answering to a country weary of war, I have no idea. But for Berlusconi -- the notoriously sexist, antigay, pro-war minister -- it’s about being "pure." Christian conservatives, who (surprise) make up a large part of his base, applauded his oath and thanked him for opposing gay marriage and upholding family values.

Whatever Berlusconi is hoping to score by not scoring, let’s hope the Italian masses see through this strange stragegy and give him the boot.

Eeee-uuuuu! Please get over your old, nasty self!

RIP Coretta Scott King -- 1927-2006

Though we know that death is part of the normal course of life, it is still sad when people from a critical era begin to die off.

Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband's assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died, former mayor Andrew Young told NBC Tuesday morning. She was 78.

Young, who was a former civil rights activist and was close to the King family, broke the news during a phone call he made to the NBC "Today" show.

Asked how he found out about her death, Young said, "I understand she was asleep last night and her daughter tried to wake her up."

King had been recovering at home since suffering a stroke and heart attack in August.

She was last seen in public when she made a surprise appearance at a fundraiser on what would have been her husband's 77th birthday earlier this month.

She smiled from her wheelchair as she was greeted with a standing ovation and thunderous applause from a crowd of 15-hundred at the Salute to Greatness Dinner at the King Center.

Coretta King was a supportive lieutenant to her husband during the most tumultuous days of the American civil rights movement.

The Kings were married in 1953 and had four children, Martin Luther III, Yolanda, Dexter and Bernice. After her husband’s assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, King kept his dream alive by starting the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, based in Atlanta.

Christiane Amanpour Sets It Off!

Drudge posted a hint of this earlier. Tonight, Larry King had a panel of journalists discussing Iraq in the aftermath of ABC anchor Bob Woodruff being injured. No wonder there were rumors that Bush was wiretapping her. The woman was "tellin' it!"

As soon as the transcript goes up, I will update this with some of her key quotes.

---

Update: They've got the transcripts up so here are some things that she said:

... But I just think it is so sad. I mean, by an indicator Iraq is a black hole.

Yes, they have had elections. What kind of a government are they going to come up with. Will it be a national unity government? Or will it be the one that sows the seeds of civil war?

Yes, the U.S. has promised reconstruction, but the United States inspector general for reconstruction is about to come out with a report that is saying that it is just not going at pace and that it is difficult to see, according to this report, how they are ever going to get what they promised done.

Which means, according to a new poll that is coming out today, that most of the Iraqi people are now losing hope that the promised reconstruction is going to happen and that the quality of their lives is going to increase. This is a big drama because hope is the only thing they have in the middle of this spiraling security disaster. And by any indication whether you take the number of journalists killed or wounded, whether you take the number of American soldiers killed or wounded, whether you take the number of Iraqi soldiers killed and wounded, contractors, people working there, it just gets worse and worse."

---

CALLER: Yes, my question is, why hasn't there been more outrage on the part of the American people and the U.S. media, government, on the recent bombing in Pakistan, killing all those women and children? Ignoring sovereignty and international law?

I mean, I haven't seen anything in the American media that has really claimed how awful it was and the anger, the legitimate anger on the part of the Pakistani people. It just floors me that there's no outrage.

KING: Christiane?

AMANPOUR: Larry?

KING: Go ahead. Do you want to take that?

AMANPOUR: You know, I think -- well, certainly there's been a lot of reporting about it. Perhaps not enough for that view of it. As you know, there's not enough international reporting on American television anyway.

But I think to the bigger point, why are we there? We're there because if we're not, whose word are we going to take for it? For instance, over the bombing in Pakistan, and for instance, over the constant atrocities in Iraq.

Are we going to take the Pentagon paid Lincoln Group who are paying positive stories to be written in the Iraqi press? Are we going to take what the administration tells us? Do you remember at the beginning of this war, Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, told us that these insurgents were just a bunch of dead enders who amounted to absolutely nothing.

Well, that was three years ago. You remember on your own show, not so long ago, the vice president of the United States said that the insurgency was in its death throes, in its last throes.

Well, we're there to report what's actually going on and we pay a heavy price for trying to get to the truth. And the truth is what our business is all about. And that's why we're out there, despite the enormous, enormous personal cost to us, to our families, and to our networks.

---

CALLER: That's correct. It seems to me that the civilian media reporters are given more attention than the average, everyday American soldier.

[...]

AMANPOUR: Well, I think it's an incredibly good question. The caller is absolutely right. And, as Bob Schieffer has just said, of course we focus on very well known people and members of our own community.

But the reason that the deaths and injuries of the American soldiers don't get as much publicity is because we are by and large banned from seeing it.

The United States government has made a decision that we are not allowed to see the coffins, that we're not allowed to see the burials, that we're generally not allowed to go to any of the areas where there are wounded, U.S. military hospitals.

Perhaps you can see a little bit more in Landstuhl in Germany. Perhaps when we go to the hospitals in the United States. But it's very, very difficult to get close to that kind of real tragedy that the American servicemen and women are going through as well.

The other panelists on the show also said similar things. Most of them had been there/seen that! Yet, there are still Americans who still have their heads in the sand and will bend over backwards to claim that somehow these reporters, who are risking life and limb to bring them the truth, are somehow exaggerating to make their King Bush look bad.

Yes, I believe that Bush probably was eavesdropping on Ms. Amanpour. She's seen the truth and she was telling the truth. I'm glad that she and the other journalists, who are suffering over seeing one of their colleagues taking a hit, spoke up! Iraq is not going well! It is not going to go well. It's been almost exactly three years and we are still losing people almost everyday.

Avian Flu In Iraq

Lord Jeebus. This is all we need! Granted this is northern Iraq but if it made it there, it can creep into other areas and, possibly, throughout the country.

A 15-year-old Iraqi girl has died of the H5N1 bird flu virus, Iraqi and international health officials confirmed Monday, indicating the arrival of disease in yet another country - one that, in its current war-torn state, may be ill prepared to control spread of the disease.

More alarming still, officials said, the finding suggests that the disease may be spreading widely - and undetected - among birds in countries of Central Asia that are poorly equipped to pick up or report infections. Bird flu has never been reported in animals in Iraq.

As in Turkey earlier this month, the spread of bird flu to a new part of the world was heralded by a human death, a death that was most likely avoidable. Bird flu only rarely infects humans, late in the course of an animal outbreak, and then only after intense contact with sick birds.

'We shouldn't be seeing human cases first, and this points to serious gaps in surveillance,' said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization in Geneva. 'But given the situation in Turkey, I don't think we'd be surprised to see isolated humans cases in surrounding areas.'

The girl, Shengeen Abdul Qadr, died earlier this month in Sulaimaniya, in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, three days after touching dead birds infected with the virus, the Iraqi health minister said Monday. Her uncle, who died last week, is also presumed to have succumbed to the disease, although test results are pending.

A serious bird flu outbreak has killed four people and hundreds of thousands of birds in the Kurdish part of neighboring Turkey over the past six weeks. Trade routes, traversed by trucks and mules, crisscross national borders in a large ethnic Kurdish area, which includes portions of several different countries.

I'll hold off on hitting the panic button but can you imagine? As occupiers of Iraq, we are sooo not prepared to tackle that.

I Take It Back

Okay I take back what I said about the treachery of rampant rapes in other countries. Rape is an issue in America and among Americans no matter where they live:

In a startling revelation, the former commander of Abu Ghraib prison testified that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former senior US military commander in Iraq, gave orders to cover up the cause of death for some female American soldiers serving in Iraq.

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.

The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom. 'There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night,' Karpinski told retired US Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview. It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers. So the women took matters into their own hands. They didn't drink in the late afternoon so they wouldn't have to urinate at night. They didn't get raped. But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said.

Karpinski testified that a surgeon for the coalition's joint task force said in a briefing that 'women in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the port-a-lets or the latrines were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and in 120 degree heat or warmer, because there was no air-conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep.'

'And rather than make everybody aware of that - because that's shocking, and as a leader if that's not shocking to you then you're not much of a leader - what they told the surgeon to do is don't brief those details anymore. And don't say specifically that they're women. You can provide that in a written report but don't brief it in the open anymore.'

For example, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, Sanchez's top deputy in Iraq, saw 'dehydration' listed as the cause of death on the death certificate of a female master sergeant in September 2003. Under orders from Sanchez, he directed that the cause of death no longer be listed, Karpinski stated. The official explanation for this was to protect the women's privacy rights.

Sanchez's attitude was: 'The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory,' Karpinski quoted him as saying. Karpinski told me that Sanchez, who was her boss, was very sensitive to the political ramifications of everything he did. She thinks it likely that when the information about the cause of these women's deaths was passed to the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld ordered that the details not be released. 'That's how Rumsfeld works,' she said.

'It was out of control,' Karpinski told a group of students at Thomas Jefferson School of Law last October. There was an 800 number women could use to report sexual assaults. But no one had a phone, she added. And no one answered that number, which was based in the United States. Any woman who successfully connected to it would get a recording. Even after more than 83 incidents were reported during a six-month period in Iraq and Kuwait, the 24-hour rape hot line was still answered by a machine that told callers to leave a message.

This is positively disgusting!

Oh Baby!

I just saw this on the news! Watch the video. She is so precious.

A baby girl was found floating inside a plastic bag in a lagoon on
Saturday in the city of Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais State in south east Brazil, according to a Brazilian television channel.

TV Globo on Saturday broadcast amateur video footage which appeared to show a baby being pulled alive out of a lagoon by two men.

According to the report, the men found the baby in the water after hearing a noise that sounded like 'a cat'.

The report said that around 14:00 local time, Jose da Cruz, a maintenance worker, heard the noise and called park security.

TV Globo said that an amateur cameraman decided to follow the men and record what was happening.

'I heard a sound of a cat. But, between a child and a cat, the noise is the same. Then, the noise was increasing and it caught my attention,' da
Cruz told TV Globo.

Taking on Rape From Day One

This is one of the advantages of having a female president (at least in theory). They are able to address issues that men cannot possibly have enough compassion or empathy for. I am just disgusted by the stories I hear about the quality of life in various countries throughout the world where rape is common place.

Liberia's new president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, came to power on a huge surge of support from women voters, hopeful that a woman leader would right some of the wrongs done to them during 14 years of civil war.

One of her first pledges was to do something about the scourge of rape, using new legislation that came into force the day after her inauguration.

Rape is not a word you often hear in polite society. It is certainly not something that presidents talk about in their inaugural address.

But after being sworn in on Monday, Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf stood up and said something that galvanised her audience.

"I know of the struggle because I have been a part of it," she said.

"I recall the inhumanity of confinement, the terror of attempted rape."

Sister Barbara Brilliant, a nun and midwife who has lived in Liberia for nearly 30 years - including right through the war - was in the audience and heard the taboo being broken.

"I felt, thank God. It's about time. Even here, we had a situation. We had soldiers who got over the fence," she said.

"The first thing we did was shut off the light, we lay on the floor and we did not dare to breathe. And all we were thinking of was, 'We don't want to be raped.' This is us, at our age!

Bob Woodruff

This was such sad news to wake up to yesterday morning - particularly since he just got the World News Tonight gig. I really hope he is okay.

'Bob and Doug were both wearing helmets and body armor. They were standing up in the back hatch of the vehicle taping a standup, a video log of the patrol. That's when the vehicle hit the roadside bomb,' Martha Raddatz reported on World News Tonight. ABC senior producer Kate Felsen was quoted:

'He wanted to get out there and report the story and not be locked in and taking the information from somebody else who was experiencing it.'

Felsen spoke with both men before they were airlifted to Balad.

'I spoke with both of them, Doug was conscious and I was able to reassure them we were getting them care. I spoke to Bob also and walked them to the helicopter.'

While this is sad, when I found out that he was married with four young children, it caused me to pause. Sure, he wanted to get out there and be in the thick of things. But more journalists have been killed in Iraq in three short years than were killed in the 20 year Vietnam conflict. Is it morally okay for a spouse to put themselves in harm's way when there is a growing family at home? I'm just bothered by the sacrifice the family is expected to take so that one parent can chase war stories.

Nobody Saw It Coming?

I'm still shocked that everyone is shocked. I can't say that I was paying all that much attention to their pending vote, but the fact that this administration was totally blindsided, is kind of scary.

'I've asked why nobody saw it coming,' Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. 'It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse.'

Immediately after the election, Bush administration officials said the results reflected a Palestinian desire for change and not necessarily an embrace of Hamas, which the United States, Israel and the European Union consider a terrorist organization sworn to Israel's destruction. But Ms. Rice's comments seemed to reflect a certain second-guessing over how the administration had failed to foresee, or factor into its thinking, the possibility of a Hamas victory.

Indeed, Hamas's victory has set off a debate whether the administration was so wedded to its belief in democracy that it could not see the dangers of holding elections in regions where Islamist groups were strong and democratic institutions weak.

'There is a lot of blame to go around,' said Martin Indyk, a top Middle East negotiator in the Clinton administration, referring to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and his Fatah party. 'But on the American side, the conceptual failure that contributed to disaster was the president's belief that democracy and elections solve everything.'

Ms. Rice pointed out that the election results surprised just about everyone. 'I don't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by Hamas's strong showing,' she said on her way to London for meetings on the Middle East, Iran and other matters. 'Some say that Hamas itself was caught off guard by its strong showing.'

Personally, I think we ought to stop posturing and threatening this new, democratically elected government. How ridiculous is it to come out of the gate screaming about the very thing we've been promoting as part of our Middle Eastern foreign policy. I'm not sure I believe that the common, everyday Palestinian wants to participate in the destruction of Israel. Hamas was providing citizens with basic things that the other party wasn't. That is why they won. I think most citizens are tired of conflict and would just like to co-exist with some semblance of normalcy and peacefulness. However, if we come out shooting, calling them terrorists, being unwilling to meet with them, we just may contribute to a bigger problem.

More Shocking News!

I'm batting a thousand today with all of these cultural relvelations, I'm not surprised by this either.

We all know men are intimidated by smart women. Now there's proof that they're threatened by funny women, too. A study published this week in the scientific journal Evolution and Human Behavior claims that while men might appreciate witty women, they don't want long-term relationships with them. Why? Because "men see being funny as a male thing," Rod Martin, author of study, told the Independent.

The study, based on interviews with hundreds of men and women in their 20s, found that one-half of the men did not want a partner with a sense of humor.

"The idea that men are more interested in having an audience rather than sharing banter doesn't really surprise me," British comedian Meera Syal told the Independent. "Women see men with a sense of humor as dangerous and sexy, while men see it as threatening. Basically, what it comes down to is that humor is a mark of intelligence."

Not surprisingly, the study found that men were willing to put aside their prejudice against clever women for hookups and short-term flings. So funny ladies, if you're looking for more than a one-night stand, just keep your mouth shut and laugh at whatever he says.

I think men who don't want women with a sense of humor are afraid that they will become the target of the jokes. Perhaps even in bed ...

Here's Shocking News!

I never understand why they need studies to prove the obvious!

'Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president,' said Banaji, 'but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice.'

Vincent Hutchings, a political scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the results matched his own findings in a study he conducted ahead of the 2000 presidential election: Volunteers shown visual images of blacks in contexts that implied they were getting welfare benefits were far more receptive to Republican political ads decrying government waste than volunteers shown ads with the same message but without images of black people.

Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University, who independently assessed the studies, said it remains to be seen how significant the correlation is between racial bias and political affiliation.

For example, he said, the study could not tell whether racial bias was a better predictor of voting preference than, say, policy preferences on gun control or abortion. But while those issues would be addressed in subsequent studies -- Krosnick plans to get random groups of future voters to take the psychological tests and discuss their policy preferences -- he said the basic correlation was not in doubt.

'If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial,' he said. 'We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research.'

He Cannot Violate The Law

I'm mad that all of the Sunday morning news programs come on at the same time. I missed Chuck Hagel on "This Week" but he is one of a growing number of Republicans who are saying "No! George Bush, you cannot break the law!"

Karl Rove wants the American public to believe only one political party disagrees with Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program. But this morning on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said the program was illegal:

HAGEL: I don’t believe, from what I’ve heard, but I’m going to give the administration an opportunity to explain it, that he has the authority now to do what he’s doing. Now, maybe he can convince me otherwise, but that’s OK.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But not yet.

HAGEL: Not yet. But that’s OK. If he needs more authority, he just can’t unilaterally decide that that 1978 law is out of date and he will be the guardian of America and he will violate that law. He needs to come back, work with us, work with the courts if he has to, and we will do what we need to do to protect the civil liberties of this country and the national security of this country.

Hagel joins other prominent conservatives — including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) — who have questioned the legal basis of Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance program.

Stop The Saddam Trial Hoax!

I went to bed with my television on and woke up briefly to hear this madness!

Saddam Hussein's trial quickly collapsed into chaos after resuming Sunday with one defendant dragged out of court and the defense team walking out in protest. The former Iraqi leader was then ejected after shouting ''down with traitors'' and ''down with America.''

The new chief judge in the trial, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, sought to show a tough control over the court. He was brought in a shakeup sparked when his predecessor resigned this month after complaints that he was not doing enough to rein in Saddam's frequent courtroom outbursts.

But the stormy session Sunday — the first in a month — was sure to increase doubts over the trial's fairness, already raised by the shakeup that brought in Abdel-Rahman.

After the defense lawyer was removed, the entire defense team left in protest as the judge shouted after them, ''Any lawyer who walks out will not be allowed back into this courtroom.''

Abdel-Rahman appointed four new defense lawyers. But two other defendants, Taha Yassin Ramadan and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, said they opposed the appointment and demanded to leave. They were escorted out.

I don't think they need to have trials for Saddam Hussein in Iraq anyway. At best, he should be shipped to a neutral country, placed under UN control and be tried in a world court. At worst, and I am speaking in terms of reneging what we've promised to the Iraqis who opposed Saddam, I think he should be placed in exile in any country who will take him - just like so many other "brutal dictators." I think this trial is a joke, that the US (and other Western nations)have been complicit in much of Saddam's treachery and that he is no better or worse than some of the other people we are shaking hands with now. Let's stop this farce!

So We Do Negotiate With Terrorists

I guess we learned what other colonialists in Iraq learned. You can't let them damned Shiites have all the power. So, now we're at the table with terrorists.

American officials in Iraq are in face-to-face talks with high-level Iraqi Sunni insurgents, NEWSWEEK has learned. Americans are sitting down with 'senior members of the leadership' of the Iraqi insurgency, according to Americans and Iraqis with knowledge of the talks (who did not want to be identified when discussing a sensitive and ongoing matter). The talks are taking place at U.S. military bases in Anbar province, as well as in Jordan and Syria. 'Now we have won over the Sunni political leadership,' says U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. 'The next step is to win over the insurgents.' The groups include Baathist cells and religious Islamic factions, as well as former Special Republican Guards and intelligence agents, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the talks. Iraq's insurgent groups are reaching back. 'We want things from the U.S. side, stopping misconduct by U.S. forces, preventing Iranian intervention,' said one prominent insurgent leader from a group called the Army of the Mujahedin, who refused to be named because of the delicacy of the discussions. 'We can't achieve that without actual meetings.

Bush is being a hard ass about not dealing with the newly elected Hamas leadership for Palestinians. So, I guess it is only a matter of time before we're at the table with them too!

Bush To Blame For Eve Of Destruction

Two major stories about the state of the global environment are in Sunday's papers.

While most Americans remain preoccupied with war, terrorism, high gas prices--or the coming Pitt-Jolie baby--an issue that may dwarf all of those concerns receives major attention in the Sunday editions of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

One story raises a nightmare scenario for the end of the world, at least as we know it, while the other suggests that the Bush administration doesn't want anyone to know about that.

But I forgot. He's supposedly an Evangelical awaiting the rapture. He'll just be wisked off to heaven if the world implodes.

I Think They Call It Narcissism

This is positively insane. This little boy is not making the grade so his dad concludes that it's because the school doesn't like boys.

At Milton High School, girls outnumber boys by almost 2 to 1 on the honor roll. In Advanced Placement classes, almost 60 percent of the students are female.

It's not that girls are smarter than boys, said Doug Anglin, a 17-year-old senior at athe high school.

Girls are outperforming boys because the school system favors them, said Anglin, who has filed a federal civil rights complaint contending that his school discriminates against boys.

Among Anglin's allegations: Girls face fewer restrictions from teachers, like being able to wander the hallways without passes, and girls are rewarded for abiding by the rules, while boys' more rebellious ways are punished.

Grading on homework, which sometimes includes points for decorating a notebook, also favor girls, according to Anglin's complaint, filed last month with the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

'The system is designed to the disadvantage of males,' Anglin said. ''From the elementary level, they establish a philosophy that if you sit down, follow orders, and listen to what they say, you'll do well and get good grades. Men naturally rebel against this.'

This father ought to be ashamed of himself! Why doesn't he just tell his son to buckle down and do his work? How will roaming the halls without a pass increase his grade point average? Since when is sitting down, following the rules and listening to the teacher not required at all schools? I know those were the rules for everyone when I was in school. This child will never get anywhere if he is taught to use excuses like this!

This reminds me of what is going on out here (and apparently in other parts of the country too). But this time the victims aren't just white boys, they are whites period. Just as whites ran from communities when they got too black or brown, fearing property values and educational standards would go to hell, they are running from Asians because they are outperforming their children

But locally, they're also known for something else: white flight. Over the past 10 years, the proportion of white students at Lynbrook has fallen by nearly half, to 25% of the student body. At Monta Vista, white students make up less than one-third of the population, down from 45% -- this in a town that's half white. Some white Cupertino parents are instead sending their children to private schools or moving them to other, whiter public schools. More commonly, young white families in Silicon Valley say they are avoiding Cupertino altogether.

Whites aren't quitting the schools because the schools are failing academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they're leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests.

The two schools, put another way that parents rarely articulate so bluntly, are too Asian.

Cathy Gatley, co-president of Monta Vista High School's parent-teacher association, recently dissuaded a family with a young child from moving to Cupertino because there are so few young white kids left in the public schools. "This may not sound good," she confides, "but their child may be the only Caucasian kid in the class." All of Ms. Gatley's four children have attended or are currently attending Monta Vista. One son, Andrew, 17 years old, took the high-school exit exam last summer and left the school to avoid the academic pressure. He is currently working in a pet-supply store. Ms. Gatley, who is white, says she probably wouldn't have moved to Cupertino if she had anticipated how much it would change.

Now, if I thought I could be brief in responding to this after all I've been subjected to as a black woman, by white people who are suffering from either superiority or inferiority complexes, I'd say more. But I'm just going to stop now. Thank you (backing away from the podium).

(Wait a minute! Is that woman saying that her son is relegated to a pet store because he couldn't handle the pressure of going to school with Asians)?

Ouch!

The New York Times went off!

A bit over a week ago, President Bush and his men promised to provide the legal, constitutional and moral justifications for the sort of warrantless spying on Americans that has been illegal for nearly 30 years. Instead, we got the familiar mix of political spin, clumsy historical misinformation, contemptuous dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical attempts to paint dissents as anti-American and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big, dangerous lies.

The first was that the domestic spying program is carefully aimed only at people who are actively working with Al Qaeda, when actually it has violated the rights of countless innocent Americans. And the second was that the Bush team could have prevented the 9/11 attacks if only they had thought of eavesdropping without a warrant.

[...]

read on ...

Using Wives As Leverage

Come on people! Come on! Far from not being a good tactic to "win the hearts and minds" of the Iraqis, we can hardly get indignant and self-righteous about insurgents kidnapping Westerners. You cannot go to Iraq and round up women like they are a bunch of hood rats in the projects. If people want to play dumb about why they hate us, let me spell it out:

The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of 'leveraging' their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.

In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family's door telling him 'to come get his wife.'

The issue of female detentions in Iraq has taken on a higher profile since kidnappers seized American journalist Jill Carroll on Jan. 7 and threatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women detainees are freed.

The U.S. military on Thursday freed five of what it said were 11 women among the 14,000 detainees currently held in the 2 1/2-year-old insurgency. All were accused of 'aiding terrorists or planting explosives,' but an Iraqi government commission found that evidence was lacking.

Iraqi human rights activist Hind al-Salehi contends that U.S. anti-insurgent units, coming up empty-handed in raids on suspects' houses, have at times detained wives to pressure men into turning themselves in.

Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, dismissed such claims, saying hostage-holding was a tactic used under the ousted Saddam Hussein dictatorship, and 'we are not Saddam.' A U.S. command spokesman in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said only Iraqis who pose an 'imperative threat' are held in long-term U.S.-run detention facilities.

But documents describing two 2004 episodes tell a different story as far as short-term detentions by local U.S. units. The documents are among hundreds the Pentagon has released periodically under U.S. court order to meet an American Civil Liberties Union request for information on detention practices.

In one memo, a civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described what happened when he took part in a raid on an Iraqi suspect's house in Tarmiya, northwest of Baghdad, on May 9, 2004. The raid involved Task Force (TF) 6-26, a secretive military unit formed to handle high-profile targets.

'During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target's surrender,' wrote the 14-year veteran officer.

He said he objected, but when they raided the house the team leader, a senior sergeant, seized her anyway.

'The 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing,' the intelligence officer wrote. She was held for two days and was released after he complained, he said.

Yes, nursing mothers make good leverage alright! Brilliant!

Update: My! I guess kidnapping wives and children has been a strategy from day one! So we really have created a new generation of "terrorists." Children will have forever etched in their brains, the images of their mothers and/or siblings, being snatched up and manhandled by American soldiers. Gosh, were good!

Remembering Challenger

Yes, I remember this day. Unfortunately, and in retrospect, my memories are rather callous. I was at work when this happened and we found out when a big, goofy, unattractive co-worker(who was promoted to some fake desk job from the mail room because the VP liked his savant-like obsession with cars) either heard on the radio or received a phone call about it, burst into tears and had a total, sobbing melt down at his desk. It wasn't a pretty sight and since he was such a joke, all I could do was laugh - as did most of the rest of us. I think he got some "quiet time" in an empty office. He may have even gotten to leave early because he was so distraught.

So, honestly, my memories of this event are clouded by the antics of a weirdo and, since I worked 2 jobs/7 days a week, I missed most of the media coverage on it. Yeah, color me guilty. I laughed that day.

Coming To A State Near You

Unfortunately, Jesus' General may be on to something:

Target On Target

I support everyone's right to believe what they believe - no matter how stupid it is. But, that stupidity shouldn't have the power to forever impact someone else's life. This pharmacist can be a pro-life poster child but she wont be working at Target!

Pharmacist Heather Williams believes there’s no middle ground when it comes to the so-called “morning-after” pill known as Plan B.

Williams opposes use of that pill, or any other emergency contraception taken after unprotected sex, because they can prevent a fertilized human egg from implanting in the uterus. “For me, life begins with two cells,” Williams said Thursday.

As a part-time pharmacist at a Target store in St. Charles, Williams had refused to fill such prescriptions without incident for the past five years. But she also declined to refer physicians or patients to others who would fill
such prescriptions.

“I just can’t be a link in the chain at all,” she said.

As of Jan. 1, that stance cost Williams her job.

She and her lawyer, Ed Martin, filed a complaint this week against Target with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A lawsuit also is being considered.

Target declined to provide comment Thursday. But Williams emphasized that she was blaming Planned Parenthood — not Target — for her predicament. She cites Planned Parenthood’s heightened national campaign to persuade major pharmacy chains such as Target to agree to fill emergency contraception.

Paula Gianino, chief executive of Planned Parenthood for the St. Louis Region, lauds Target’s commitment to fill such prescriptions, and contends that Williams is at fault because of her refusal to refer patients or physicians elsewhere.

“She could refuse to fill the prescription, but she took it to the next level,” Gianino said. “Target has done everything possible to try to fill patients’ health-care needs and accomodate individual pharmacists.” "

I definitely prefer Target over Wal-mart (I won't step foot in Wal-mart) but I had been debating if I was going to have to drop Target from my list of stores too. I think their stance is an adequate compromise so when I finally get around to getting my new kitchen rugs, I'll check them out (I need a crock pot too).

(link via pandagon)

Forgotten Posts

I was cleaning out drafts of posts that I never finished or published. I deleted most of them but here are a few old ones that I felt merited mentioning anyway.

The Katrina disaster was unlike anything I'd ever seen. Kanye West said that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Well, I don't think George W. Bush cares about poor people or anyone who is struggling to take care of themselves. To me, this picture is the face of the hurricane's most fragile victims.

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The execution of Tookie Williams was covered the world throughout. Stanley Williams had the support of actors, scholars, clerics and rappers. But, from many discussions I had on the net during that saga, there were a lot of people - good, hardworking black people who lived in L.A. in the 70s - who wanted people to know that the legacy of the Crips had impacted them in a way that left them without much compassion for Tookie or his spawns. David over at ISOU had a poignant recollection of his experience with the Crips and their ilk.

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The title of this post was going to be "He Always Saved The Cake For Me."

I believe it was June 16 of last year that I tuned in to the Senate proceedings on C-Span2 (video streaming) just before Robert Byrd (D-WV) made his way to the mike. Though the topic at hand was Guantanamo and Senators were debating the treatment(or poor treatment) of the detainees, Robert Byrd seemed to ramble off on a tangent about fathers and sons. By the time he'd used up his allotted minutes he'd given one of the most touching soliloquies about his father (step father in fact) and some of the fond memories he had of him.

Bob Byrd got married the same year my mother was born and I believe he is the oldest man in the Senate. But his memories were vivid enough to touch and, certainly, enough to visualize. The high point was his recount of how his mother prepared lunch for his step-father everyday for his job in the mines. Each day she packed him a piece of cake. At the end of the day, when his step-father returned home, he would go into his lunch box and give the young Robert his piece of cake.

In the midst of an almost pointless debate about how well we treat/mistreat our "enemy combatants" he managed to soften the day's antics by presenting a tribute to fathers for the upcoming Fathers' Day. I sat at my computer in tears that, after all those years, an aging Robert Byrd still remembered the kindness of his step-father saving him that piece of cake. I always tell people that it is the littlest things that kids remember about their childhood and that story was a touching reminder.

Don't Watch The Show

I like Steve's response to Al Sharpton's mock outrage over the Boondocks MLK episode.

So don't watch the show.

You have BET showing uncut videos which are basically strippers, and silence from the black community. The problem is not the videos, but the network which shows them.

Then you have the absolutely useless editor of Essence who wants to tell rappers what to say.

Earth to critics: black writers and performers work under the same First Amendment as anyone else. If you don't like what people have to say, don't buy their books or watch their shows. You don't have the right to demand a retraction or to tell McGruder what to say on his show.


If you want to talk about denigrating the King legacy, get the King family on the phone and ask them why they have mismanaged their foundation. They still selling Yolanda's book there?

The fact is that McGruder is unsparing about black culture and folkways in a way which is pretty much undecipherable to white America. They may get the jokes, but not the context. It's why Diary of a Mad Black Woman escaped most reviewers while making a fist full of money.

Where were these critics when Bob Johnson attacked him viciously? Nowhere. Now they want to determine what he says.

The first episode mocked the tendency of hero worship in the black community. Another, the fake gansterism of rappers, which ends with the rapper and his former lover kissing. That is pretty fucking radical for black America. The ONLY other place you see black men kissing is Jerry Springer. But there it was, revealing something widely acknowledged in private. Another episode parodied Rumsfeld and Bush as crazy wigger gangstas, who wind up robbing a store owned by a Saddam look-alike over hunting down the 'X Box' killer.

Last week's episode 'The Itis' discussed the problem with eating tons of soul food. The grand father creates a burger with five slices of bacon, cheese and placed between two grilled Krispy Kreme dounts. Needless to say, it turns into crack, with people begging for food and hanging outside his new restaurant.

Besides the gorgeous, anime-level animation, the politcs here are much more aggressive than in the strip. The word nigga is the least reason to complain about the show. The grandfather beats a man to death over an argument, Uncle Rukus is a self-hating black man who would surpass the clowns who work for NRO. In short, there is a lot to dislike about the show.

But, the fact is that this is the first time a non-rapper, non-novelist gets to have a forum to discuss black life from someone under 50. This is a nearly unique perspective on modern African American life and it is not comfortable at times. But it is not ignorant either. It is extremely well thought out and makes points in a way which need to be made.

The King show was NOT critical of King in any way. It was, however, a brutal take on our celebrity driven culture and how trivial many black people have become. It made a point that people need to reclaim their dignity and stop worrying about Diddy's latest aquisition. In fact it lamented his absence in a very real way, an important way. In fact, McGruder showed greater fidelity to King's message than his own family has in recent years.

We have so many people making trivial messages and making millions, yet, these people want to go after McGruder for a word we all use? That's bullshit and it's wrongheaded. There's a deeper message in his work, if you want to find it.

I Am The State

I believe it was Maya Angelou who gave the sage advise: "when people tell you who the are, believe them." Well, George W. Bush did as much in 2000 when he joked: "If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator." In 2006, I think it has pretty much been established that Bush thinks he is not only above the law, he is the law!

We are now learning what President Bush considers to be the limits of his power—nothing.

In public appearances this week, Bush defended his program of domestic spying without court approval, citing the inherent war powers of the presidency under the U.S. Constitution.

The president points to his status as commander-in-chief and the resolution — approved by Congress three days after the 9/11 attacks — authorizing him to use 'all necessary and appropriate force' against the terrorists.

It is an obvious overreach of presidential prerogative; thin justification for what amounts to a snooping foray against Americans and others in the U.S.

It all smacks of France's Louis XIV's famous dictum: 'L'etat, c'est moi'— 'I am the state.'

The administration is on shaky legal ground. Last week, the Justice Department issued a 42-page analysis declaring the president 'will exercise all authority available to him, consistent with the Constitution, to protect the people of the United States.'

The Justice Department brief also contended that some presidential powers are simply 'beyond congressional ability to regulate.'

But the law is the law. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 — which was enacted after in-depth congressional hearings on domestic spying — established a special court to issue warrants for electronic eavesdropping on suspected foreign agents inside the United States.

So far, that court has been basically a rubber stamp for government petitions, rarely turning down a request at crisis times. The court permits emergency wiretaps without court approval for up to 72 hours.

If court procedures tie law enforcement's hands, Congress is open to fixing it. 'I know of no member of Congress, frankly, who, if the administration came and said, 'Here's why we need this capability,' that they wouldn't get it,' said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

But the Bush administration wanted unfettered freedom to spy on who they want, when they want, with no legal constraints whatsoever

Ask And You Shall Receive

Yeah, I'm a little obsessed with faith and religion this week. I must need some Jesus or these brazen violations against him wouldn't keep tossing themselves in front of me.

These "church people" have got to be kidding me! They are requesting that you purchase the Pastor's WIFE high end, upscale gifts or gift certificates from exclusive stores? They are asking you to purchase this woman designer purses? Are they FUCKING (yes, I said "fucking") kidding me?

I've been ranting about the Catholic church lately and just plain try to stay out of my issues with traditional black churches because I just end up challenging people's beliefs and insulting their intelligence. But you can see this is one of my hot buttons. I'll be quiet now because I'm getting mad!

Who's Looking Out For You?

Pundit Bill O'Reilly is always asking (and penned a book by that name) "who's looking out for you?" Well, I think we are now seeing whose interests are being protected and promoted and it isn't the citizens of middle America. The next time you hear someone on the right complaining about some woman on welfare collecting an extra check, just remember who the biggest welfare recipients are!

It's almost enough to make you laugh—bitterly, of course. Here was Ford Motor Co. announcing yesterday that it had cut 10,000 jobs last year and that it will cut up to 30,000 more. But shedding jobs at muscle-car acceleration rates didn't stop Ford from pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars courtesy of the American Jobs Creation Act.

No, I'm not making this up. Right there, on page 2 of one of its news releases yesterday, Ford said that 'repatriation of foreign earnings pursuant to the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 resulted in a permanent tax savings of about $250 million.'

Hello? How can you simultaneously cut jobs and benefit from the American Jobs Creation Act? Welcome to the wonderful world of Washington nomenclature.

Ford, understandably, declined to expand on its news release. But my calculations indicate that Ford last year brought into the United States about $850 million of profit that it had earned overseas but did not have to share with the Internal Revenue Service.

Big businesses are getting paid while thousands of blue collar workers (mostly white) are going to lose almost everything they've ever known. They wanted Reagan and Bush? They got them. I wonder how it's working for them?

What Mind?

You have to have a freakin' mind in order for there to be doubt (or the lack there of).

President Bush defended anew his program of warrantless surveillance Thursday, saying "there’s no doubt in my mind it is legal." He suggested that he might resist congressional efforts to change it.

"The program’s legal, it’s designed to protect civil liberties, and it’s necessary," Bush told a White House news conference.

Did I turn to PBS to watch Elmo when the President's press conference interrupted my morning programs? Yes, indeed!

Highly Annoying Is Right!

It's also pretty deceitful!

This is getting annoying. Once again, the White House is floating the notion (on page A1, no less) that its soon-to-be-proposed tax deductions for health expenses are somehow "designed to help the uninsured." They are not. Making progress on the 45 million uninsured people in this country will cost about $80-100 billion per year. There's no getting around that number. Bush will not propose anything of the sort.

Tax deductions will do little to help those who currently pay no federal income taxes—or are in the 10 or 15 percent bracket—which includes the majority of the uninsured. Tax deductions will largely help those making over $50,000 who currently can afford insurance but just don't value it enough to get it. If the president's tax deductions look anything like what he proposed on the campaign trail, then, according to CBPP, they will actually increase the number of uninsured by 350,000 while costing tens of billions of dollars. That's all.

These people lie with absolutely no shame or compassion for the outcome!

On Those Who Hate Roe

Please just get it straight! As I've said, I'm no fan of unnecessary medical procedures and in 2006, rape and incest aside, I cannot say I understand why the United States is so far behind the rest of the civilized world in terms of demand for abortion and unwanted pregnancies. However, let's get some perspective on the "religious" rationale behind why women should be forced to carry any and all pregnancies to term. That view wasn't always the case.

If Roe were just about abortion at the national level--if abolishing Roe meant that each state could make its own laws about abortion--I wouldn't be so absolute in my support. But the right has made such a big deal over Roe that it's become a symbol. Of what, I'm not quite sure, so greatly have the "right to lifers"--the irony is so great this needs always to be in quotes--fetishized the fetus.

The thing is, this obsession with the fetus as a full-fledged person is quite recent. Surprised? Check this out:

In the early 7th Century, the Church began codifying what it considered sexual sins and abortion made the list, but was well behind the "sins" of birth control, oral sex, and anal sex. In fact, the punishment for oral sex was at least 7 years of penance, while the punishment for abortion was a mere 120 days.

In the centuries that followed, Popes came on the scene with widely varying viewpoints--changing and re-changing the rules as the mitre passed on. Significantly, Pope Innocent III in the early 1200s ruled that the fetus had no soul until it was "animated" (the "quickening," when the mother can feel the fetus' movements, usually around the 24th week). In his ruling--and this is significant--a monk was found not guilty of homicide for aborting his lover's unborn child under this argument. Pope Sixtus V in 1588 made all abortions illegal, but was reversed again by Pope Gregory XIV, codifying abortions at up to 16 ½ weeks as not equivalent to the killing of a human being, as no soul was present. Even St. Thomas Aquinas himself--arguably the most influential theologian in Roman Catholic Christianity--did not consider a fetus human until the quickening.

This was the way it was for the most part until 1869. That's when Pope Pius IX declared all abortion to be homicide. That's right, for nearly the entire history of Christianity, the Catholic Church was officially tolerant of first-trimester abortion. The change was well after the Enlightenment, after the Civil War, and into the modern scientific era. In fact, it was only as recently as 1983 that all vestiges of the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus" were quietly purged from Canon Law. (Yes, that was 1983... only 23 years ago.)

Well, you say, things change. Science, for example, helps us know more. Sorry, non-start there. The people who hate Roe also hate science. But not, I would wager, as much as they hate women.

I won't even say it's about hating women. I think it is the ancient belief that women just plain aren't equal to a man and that their bodies are, therefore, subject to a man's control.

Move On Al!

The lights and sirens are off, Al. Stop chasing that ambulance!

Now, how did I know that either Jessie or Al would be jumping on this?

"The Rev. Al Sharpton has asked for an apology from Cartoon Network for an episode of edgy animated series 'The Boondocks' that shows the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. saying the n-word.

'Cartoon Network must apologize and also commit to pulling episodes that desecrate black historic figures,' Sharpton, a civil-rights activist and former Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement Tuesday.

'We are totally offended by the continuous use of the n-word in (cartoonist Aaron) McGruder's show.'

Okay! Who is we?

The episode, 'The Return of the King,' aired Jan. 15, the day before the national holiday honoring the slain civil-rights leader. It shows King emerging from a coma and using the n-word in an angry speech venting his frustration toward sexually explicit hip-hop videos, among other things.

In the episode, King is branded a traitor and terrorist sympathizer for his 'turn-the-other cheek' philosophy of nonviolence in response to post-Sept. 11 retaliation. Exhausted, he moves to Canada, but his speech provokes a second civil-rights revolution.

Cartoon Network released a statement Tuesday saying the episode is a tribute to King and 'in no way was meant to offend or `desecrate'' his name.

'We think Aaron McGruder came up with a thought-provoking way of not only showing Dr. King's bravery but also of reminding us of what he stood and fought for, and why even today, it is important for all of us to remember that and to continue to take action,' the statement said.

McGruder, who has been called a 'genius' and 'the angriest black man in America' as he skewered everything from the Bush White House to Black Entertainment Television, began writing 'The Boondocks' comic strip, on which the TV series is based, in 1997.

The strip, known for its risky political and social satire, follows the adventures of two black children living in a white, middle-class suburb.

Sharpton said he could appreciate McGruder and his achievements, but added: 'This particular episode is over the line.'

'The Boondocks' airs Sundays at 11 p.m. EST on Cartoon Network. It is the centerpiece of the Adult Swim late-night block of programming.

Was the epidsode harsh? Yes! But, it was satire. If he has an issue with Aaron McGruder, take it up with him. I hardly think that Dr. King was desecrated or that the Cartoon Network needs to censor McGruder's cartoons because Al Sharpton can't catch a clue. Find a better cause, Al!

Speaking of Zealots

Alright already! I'm reading my Beliefnet feed. Forgive my religious rants! I wrote Mel Gibson off as a nut job when he claimed that he was going to go to heaven because he was Catholic but that his wife, who is Protestant, would not be there with him (even though her behavior has been nearly saintly and his has been far from it ... again, f'd up losers clinging to religion after there's no more devilment to get into). Anyhow, he is building his nut job dad a church so that he can practice a form of Catholicism that is no longer sanctioned.

Hollywood actor/director Mel Gibson is building a church in rural Pennsylvania reportedly for an ultraconservative Roman Catholic congregation.

Gibson put up the money at the request of his father, Hutton Gibson, 87, who has been driving three hours each week from his Summersville, W.Va., home because there was no church of his liking near his home, the Pittsburgh Tribune reported Wednesday.

St. Michael the Archangel Chapel is being built in Pennsylvania's Mt. Pleasant Township. The church is part of a Catholic movement that rejects Vatican II -- the liturgical reforms adopted in the early 1960s.

The Gibsons have chosen as their church leader a former priest who is no longer in good standing with the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, Pa., the newspaper said.

The Rev. Lawrence Persico, vicar general of the Diocese of Greenburg, told the Tribune the Gibsons' church would not be recognized as Roman Catholic.

'A Catholic church, to be truly in communion with Rome, must be in communion with the diocesan bishop,' Persico said. 'I don't know where they get their legal authority. It's not a Roman Catholic church, no matter what they say.

'Union with Rome and the Holy See is very important if you're going to be a Roman Catholic. It's essential.'

So Much For Family Values

Okay, I lied. Here is another story about the church. I guess people cease to be outraged when they are no longer surprised ... and who is surprised about a priest having sex? I'm probably more grossed out by a 73 year old man breeding with a 31 year old woman. (I mean damn! Aren't those wrinkles yucky)?

The affair had all the makings of a first-class scandal: In a quiet corner of rural Ireland, a 73-year-old Roman Catholic priest admitted to fathering a child last year with a local schoolteacher.

Smelling a good story, television crews rolled into the village of Woodford, in County Galway, and tabloid newspapers gleefully denounced 'Father Romeo.'

On radio call-in shows and television current affairs programs, the affair has set off a national debate about the celibacy requirement for Catholic clergy.

Galway residents, however, refused to get worked up about the matter. The priest, the Reverend Maurice Dillane, has remained in hiding, but his parishioners have closed ranks in his defense.

'People are just letting it go,' said Declan Walsh, the only one of six pub owners in Woodford to entertain a reporter's questions on the topic. 'People are understanding. It's 2006. Everybody twists the rules a bit on their way through life.'

The local bishop, John Kirby, met with Dillane, who is recovering from back surgery but is still working as a priest, and with the 31- year-old mother of their baby son. In a terse statement, the bishop asked for 'time and space' to deal with the 'private matter.'

This is where I find the whole "values" thing to be a load of crap. People make such a big deal about so many women choosing to be single parents, about the lack of fathers in the home and about women choosing when and why they become pregnant. Yet, time after time, whenever some old geyser impregnates someone, he gets kudos. If this priest is 73, will he even see his child come of age? How is that contributing to building strong families - which is supposed to be a church mandate?

Old Wounds That Won't Heal

I cannot say that I had any intention of seeing this movie or reading the book. The term Geisha just doesn't sit well with me and I'm just not too interested in the details behind it. However, it seems that it is being banned in China because of old wounds WWI and Japan.

Memoirs of a Geisha, the hit film based on a best-selling book, has run into trouble in China, home to its leading actresses. Prompted by fears that it will further inflame already rampant anti-Japanese feeling, Chinese film censors have cancelled the planned release of the movie next month.

China's two most famous actresses, Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li, play the leading roles in the film, which was initially approved by the censors. But the state-run Film Bureau has changed its mind. Mao Yu, director of the bureau's propaganda and publishing section, believes Memoirs poses 'complex' problems and is 'too sensitive'. There were complaints in Japan about Chinese actresses portraying Japanese women, but there is outrage in China, where many regard geishas as prostitutes. The 26-year-old Zhang, who shot to fame in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and has since become Asia's most famous actress, has attracted venomous criticism from her compatriots.

One blogger said: 'She's sold her soul and betrayed her country. Hacking her to death would not be good enough.' Other bloggers claimed that casting of Zhang as the geisha Sayuri is the equivalent of a Jewish actress playing a Nazi.

With Sino-Japanese relations at their lowest point in decades, the authorities are worried the film will revive lingering resentment over the Japanese treatment of Chinese women before and during the Second World War. Tens of thousands of women were raped by Japanese troops during the infamous Nanjing Massacre in 1937. Thousands more were among the estimated 200,000 Asians forced to work as 'comfort women' in Japanese military brothels during the war.

Violent anti-Japanese protests erupted across China last year after the publication in Japan of a revisionist history textbook that glossed over the country's wartime atrocities.

Looking at their rationale, I cannot say that I fault the sentiment (but tell me they won't have black market DVDs all over the place)!

Deus Caritas Est Means God Is Love

Okay! This will be my last post on religion for the day. I'm not sure how they all ended up clustered on one day and more negative in tone. This is is on the Pope's first encyclical and he decided it should be on love. Now, this is what I remember and revered about my Catholic upbringing.

'In this encyclical I want to explain the concept of love in its various dimensions. In today's terminology, the meaning of love often is far from that which we know as Christians,' he said.

The text, about 50 pages in all, has been described by sources as a spiritual reflection on Christian love and erotic love, the church's work of charity and its mission to announce Christ.

The pope said his goal was to demonstrate that 'love is one movement with different dimensions.'

'Eros, this gift of love between a man and a woman, comes from the same source of the goodness of the Creator as does the possibility of a love which renounces the self in favor of the other,' he said.

Self-sacrificial love can transform erotic love so that 'one no longer seeks his own joy and pleasure, but seeks first of all the good of the other person,' he said.

He said the transformation of eros into charity was a 'journey of purification' that impacts one's immediate family and the larger families of society, church and world.

The pope also alluded to the second part of the encyclical, which examines the church's charitable work in relation to love. He said he makes the point that the personal act of love that comes to humanity from God should be reflected in the church's own actions at an organizational level.

'The church as church, as a community in its institutions, must love,' he said.

He said the church's charity, however, is 'not just an organization like other philanthropic organizations' but expresses 'the more profound act of the personal love God has created in our hearts.'

Girls Still Not Allowed

I couldn't decide which portion of this essay to clip so I am quoting the entire thing. Part of the reason why I am not a practicing Catholic (and/or don't buy into church doctrine) is the archaic stance that women cannot be members of the clergy. It's just plain stupid and, as this author says, is steeped in the view that women are inferior, less than and unworthy. Why on earth would I commit myself to a theology who thinks that by virtue of lacking a penis, I am not a full and equal citizen of God's kingdom?

In claiming church tradition doesn't allow women to be ordained priests, Vatican and Catholic officials would do well to consider the history of their tradition.

According to Dorothy Irvin, a Catholic theologian and archaeologist, the traditional Christian church had women priests and the archaeological evidence of this is preserved for us to see today.

In the Church of St. Praxedis in Rome there's a mosaic depicting four women leaders. One woman, Theodora (ca. 820 A.D.), has the title Episcopa above her head, which means a bishop who is a woman.

In a cathedral at Annaba, in what is now Algeria, is a mosaic covering the tomb of a woman. Along with her name, Guilia Runa, is her title "presbiterissa," which means female priest. The same title is on women's tombs in Rome. Two read, "Veronica presbitera daughter of Josetis" and "Faustina presbitera."

Additionally, a fourth-century fresco in Rome's Catacomb of Priscilla shows a woman being ordained. She's wearing an alb under her chasuble, which is first worn at ordination. Only priests and higher church leaders could wear it. Next to her, with his right hand on her shoulder, is a bishop, identified by his chair and his pallium, also worn during ordination.

Although tradition is a key argument used to oppose women's ordination, another cites the fact the 12 disciples were all male. It contends if Christ wanted women to be church leaders, some of his twelve would have been women.

While initially convincing, the rationalization crumbles when another pivotal distinction of the day is considered: ethnicity. The disciples were also all Jewish. Does this mean when we choose church leaders today, only those with primary Jewish ancestry can be considered candidates?

Every argument the Vatican and other denominational officials give to block women's ordination can be biblically and theologically challenged. Saying "no" to women priests and pastors is nothing more than the "good old boy" system at work in a sacred institution, and remnant survivalism of the sub-Christian thought that leached into the early church influencing the way men and women were perceived.

Elements of gnostic and ancient pagan thought systems saw women as flawed, problematic, and more susceptible to malfeasance than men. The early church failed to adequately challenge and eradicate these permeating cultural distortions and in time scripture was interpreted through the contaminated lens of women's ontological inferiority.

This is reflected in the statements of great early church leaders such as Thomas Aquinas, "Woman is defective and misbegotten"; Gratian, "Woman is not made in God's image"; and St. Augustine, "What is the difference wither it is in a wife or a mother; it is still Eve the temptress that we must be aware of in any woman.... I fail to see what use women can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children."

While the inferiority argument is considered heretical in the church today, the unbiblical prejudicial constructs it upheld still exist. Replaced and repackaged with expressions like "equal in essence, but unequal in function" and "different roles," the dismissal and diminishment of women has a modern home in the modern church.

Very early church tradition had women serving in all areas of ministry. Women's restriction in the church did not derive from tradition, but from the gradual importation of sub-Christian thought from outside the church, into the church.

Until the Vatican and other denominational leaders acknowledge women's call to full discipleship and reinstitute the tradition of women's ordination, they will continue to perpetuate constructs of the heretical thought that diminished and dismissed half the redeemed based on an innate fleshly distinction: femaleness.

I know a few faithful Catholic women who manage to conveniently forget that their church is inherently sexist. I know a catechism teacher who speaks of being hopeful that one day ... I'm just not that kind of girl.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate the Catholic Church and am not vehemently opposed to popping into mass every now and then. But, I don't believe in its tenets enough to work within the church in order to try to change it. I don't think it can change.

A B's Thoughts on Condi

A lot of black women have a hard time figuring Condi out. Like this bitch, I have no quarrels with her impressive resume or her accomplishments. But to me it is like a genius who pursues a life a crime instead of one which can benefit mankind. That Condi is spending the prime of her life promoting the agenda of a man who prides himself on being an idiot, is such a waste.

Beyond a bitch’s obvious problems with Condi’s policy positions, eagerness to infuse religion into American politics and general approach to all things, this bitch finds Condi disappointing.

To see a woman who demonstrated so much drive in her early years take a backseat to a person of lesser intelligence is disturbing. It’s her right to do so, but it’s still disappointing. And this is not simply because she is black…it is this same common decision that bother’s a bitch about all of the women behind scooter.

Walk with me a second. My ass isn’t talking about what they believe or advocate, but rather about the fact that they are advocating for an idiot better than the idiot could do for his own ignorant self.

[...]

This bitch acknowledges Condi’s resume and wishes she didn’t hold herself as if she is holding in a monster shit. But fuck it…who the fuck knows Condi anyway?

All we see is Condi’s vision of what The Man would prefer her to be. Ever grateful and loyal, she’s a throwback to a generation that defined themselves by the acceptance of the powerful…success by being handed the keys to the club...and respect by getting a seat at the table through dedicated assimilation. And judged on that scale Condi is batting a thousand.

A bitch’s opinion is that Condi is a black woman with a certain resume, a certain wardrobe and a certain public poise…who this black woman judges to be wrong in her beliefs, application of those beliefs and continued pandering to The Man.

The Book Of Denial

I recently saw Aidan Quinn on The View where he talked about this "controversial" show. While I haven't watched it, I still support its right to air. But, it looks like the nutso fundies have run it off the air.

The last chapter of the controversial religious drama 'The Book of Daniel' has been written at NBC. Although the network stopped short of saying the low-rated show was canceled, a spokeswoman said Tuesday it has been dropped from the schedule.

The series, which starred Aidan Quinn as an Episcopalian priest with a pill habit who holds regular conversations with Jesus, has a promiscuous son and a daughter who deals marijuana, proved better at drawing criticism than viewers.

Conservative Christian groups condemned the depiction of Jesus as blasphemous, accusing the writers of portraying Christ as tolerant of sin in talks with the priest. Seven NBC affiliates refused to air it.

'The Book of Daniel' drew an audience of 6.9 million on its first night. By its fourth airing, the number had dipped to 5.8 million viewers.

NBC's move was lauded by the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association, which had condemned the show as a sign of what it called the broadcaster's 'anti-Christian bigotry.'

The group, along with James Dobson's Focus on the Family, asked supporters to lobby their local NBC affiliates to refuse to carry it. In an article posted on its Web site, the AFA credited viewer complaints for forcing the network's hand.

'This shows the average American that he doesn't have to simply sit back and take the trash being offered on TV, but he can get involved and fight back with his pocketbook,''AFA founder and chairman Donald E. Wildmon said in the posting.'

I want to know where these "family values" people live. I know more religious sinners than saints. In fact, I'd dare say that some of the biggest zealots I've known have been some of the worst human beings that I have ever met and religion was a crutch and a weapon to beat others over the head with to keep them from telling them how horrible they are. They want this show off the air because the priest and his family are battling some of the same demons that many of his parishioners battle and he has internal dialogues with Jesus - who turns up in human form.

Now tell me. When was Jesus intolerant? Was not the point of this show to illustrate how understanding Christ was with normal, everyday human beings? Fundies are forever speaking of Jesus loving them no matter what they do wrong (they've got that down pat)? So, I don't understand the problem. Was Jesus supposed to be ranting and raving at the priest? I've said it before, I'll say it again. I must have been asleep from K through college because I have no concept of the Jesus these radical Christians worship.

(P.S. It wasn't like I was ever going to watch it either. I'm too caught up in sicko reality shows to watch a real drama).

Pleasure For Whom?

My issue with this is not so much that it is inherently sexist, it is the whole religious sanctioning behind it that makes me sick. God-fearing or not, men always find a way to rationalize getting a piece of tail.

She is a 49-year-old divorced mother of seven children. He is a well-off farmer, with his own wife and children.

Theirs is a secret betrothal, with perfunctory vows exchanged alone in a bedroom for an ephemeral union.

''Mutaa,' a 1,400-year-old tradition alternately known as pleasure marriage and temporary marriage, is regaining popularity among Iraq's majority Shi'ite Muslim population after decades of being outlawed by the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein.

According to Shi'ite religious law, unmarried women may enter into pleasure marriages with men (married or not) for periods as brief as a few minutes or as long as a lifetime. Dowries, too, range from virtually nothing to millions of Iraqi dinars.

Shi'ite clerics, including Iraq's highest religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, have sanctioned mutaa despite the social stigma attached to the marriages.

Women's activists in Iraq last year fought an effort by constitution drafters to endorse some form of Sharia, or Islamic law, in matters of marriage and family. The new national charter includes an article that allows Iraqis to choose their marital status according to their beliefs, and reinforces the primacy of civil authority in family law.

Whatever the religious legalities involved, people who participate in mutaa, especially women, risk their reputations and prospects for permanent marriage.

ICK!

Dick Fight

Joe Scarborough named Star Jones as his pick for "Joe's Schmo" this evening. Well, I guess if I were famous, I'd be on his schmo list too because I've gone on many a rant about how the world is suffering behind Bush's perpetual dick fights. Star may work my nerves with her antics but I agree with her on this:

'You know what? At some point, one of these men has to put it back in his pants and zip up the zipper.'

She even suggested that Bush hold some kind of talk with the man behind 9/11.

'I won't trust him, but anything that gives me the opportunity to seek peace, I would at least check it out.

'People make deals with the devil all the time. We make deals with people we don't like,' she said.

'You don't negotiate with terrorists,' said Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the show's youngest host.

'You don't negotiate,' Jones interrupted, 'but I do think you figure out when there is a solution that's diplomatic that doesn't result in [loss of] human life.

'What do we have to lose to check it out?' Star said.

'You know what?' she then added, 'At some point, one of these men has to put it back in his pants and zip up the zipper at some point.'

'This isn't somebody whipping it out,' shot co-host Meredith Vieira.

'You know what, I'm a little tired of posturing back and forth,' Jones replied.

In His Own Mind

I still haven't figured out what is so great about Kanye West. Gold Digger was catchy song but the boat load of remakes/remixes spoofing the song were far more entertaining. Now he's posing as Jesus?

Kanye West, with a crown of thorns atop his head, poses as Jesus Christ on the cover of the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone.

The outspoken rapper defends his brash attitude inside the magazine's pages, on newsstands Friday. He is also pictured posing as Muhammad Ali.

'In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield–type stunts,' he says. 'You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?'

West also says his hit song 'Gold Digger' was the best song last year and that it should have been nominated for the Grammy's best-rap-song category: 'That's a gimme Grammy.'

Either his mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby or she kept him on the tit far too long.

How Sad!

On my lunch break I listened to Pacifica Radio who had a segment on the many abuses of Wal-Mart. So here are 25,000 people vying to be used and abused.

The new Wal-Mart Stores Inc. location opening Friday in suburban Evergreen Park received a record 25,000 applications for 325 positions, the highest for any one location in the retailer’s history, a company official says.

Despite the fact the company says these numbers underscore demand for Wal—Mart jobs in the community, critics wonder how many of these positions are lower—paying part—time work.

The only other site that’s come close to the number of applications is a store in Oakland, California that received 11,000 applications for about the same number of positions last year.

Wal-Mart's Chicago-area manager Chad Donath said generally stores receive between 3,000 and 4,000 applications for about 300 to 450 positions. He says Wal-Mart has been participating in job fairs and advertising the positions as it does in other communities but this time “we got an amazing response.”

“That incredible number of applications shows the community thinks Wal-Mart is a great place to work,” Mr. Donath says.

He says 90% of the applications came from Chicago residents. The new 140,000-square-foot store, which is set to open at 7 a.m. Friday, sits by the border of Evergreen Park and Chicago.

He said the 325 jobs include cashier, stocking, sales and back office positions. The average pay for non-management full-time positions is $10.99 an hour.

And George Bush claims the economy is good ...

Daddy Needs A New Pair Of Shoes

First we have to hear about Chechnya wanting to change laws so that a man can have four wives because so many of the men fought and died in the war (My, if men would just stop making war). Now it seems that Korean women just aren't all that interested in marrying Korean men so the men are getting subsidies to find themselves a wife from another country.

"Lonely" male Korean farmers are quite the tragic figures. They can’t seem to persuade any Korean women to marry them. Luckily for them, their empathetic government appreciates male privilege. It feels the crushing weight of their undesirability, and has responded by subsidizing a mail-order bride program that allots $6000 per lonely farmer to import some gash from China or Vietnam.

When a guy can’t “woo” any local girl, it’s more or less a certainty that he hasn’t made any Most Eligible Bachelor lists lately. He’s poor, he’s repulsive, his crappy farm is out in the middle of bumfuck, he’s covered in boils, he’s an asshole, a lunatic, a perv, a redneck, or a layabout. Hell, I’m a layabout myself. I know what I’m talking about. People shouldn’t marry us, no matter how well we woo.

The idea that such an arrangement could be viewed by the prospective Chinese chattel as an improvement over their current situation boggles the mind. How bad must your life have to suck for you to delude yourself that matrimony with a strange Korean reject is a good idea?

Well, it’s not like women in China, especially in rural China, are considered human beings or anything. There, like here, the entire social structure hinges on women’s inferiority, but in the Chinese hinterland there are even fewer humorless hairy dyke sex-negative feminists challenging patriarchal authority than we’ve got here. Thus, as is so often the case in backwoods societies, girls are married off to satisfy family obligations, after which it is considered de rigueur to beat the crap out of them as often as possible. So it follows that suicide is the leading cause of death among Chinese women between the ages of 18 and 34. They’d rather drink a couple of pints of rat poison than endure the punishing angst of these meaningless lives. To younger girls who have watched this happen, I imagine a lonely boil-encrusted Korean hayseed might take on the shape of a port in the storm.

Of course it would never occur to anyone to address the mental distress of women by taking steps to abate the social and economic conditions that oblige them in the first place to sell themselves off to lives of rural drudgery enslaved to total strangers thousands of miles from home. Nobody’s gonna give some Chinese girl $6000 to relieve her loneliness.

Though the religious right would whittle away womens' rights, privileges and status here, we haven't quite plunged back to the days of being chattel that is bought, sold or bartered off. These folks think you can buy a wife like you buy a pair of shoes! Then they wonder why the "shoes" aren't content to sit outside on the doormat. It's insane!

Speaking of Haywire

This Medicare debacle is more than just another indication of how incompetent the Bush administration is, it is proving itself critical for people with physical and mental health issues.

On the seventh day of the new Medicare drug benefit, Stephen Starnes began hearing voices again, ominous voices, and he started to beg for the medications he had been taking for 10 years. But his pharmacy could not get approval from his Medicare drug plan, so Mr. Starnes was admitted to a hospital here for treatment of paranoid schizophrenia.

Mr. Starnes, 49, lives in Dayspring Village, a former motel that is licensed by the State of Florida as an assisted living center for people with mental illness. When he gets his medications, he is stable.

'Without them,' he said, 'I get aggravated at myself, I have terrible pain in my gut, I feel as if I am freezing one moment and burning up the next moment. I go haywire, and I want to hurt myself.'

Mix-ups in the first weeks of the Medicare drug benefit have vexed many beneficiaries and pharmacists. Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, president of the American Psychiatric Association, said the transition from Medicaid to Medicare had had a particularly severe impact on low-income patients with serious, persistent mental illnesses.

'Relapse, rehospitalization and disruption of essential treatment are some of the consequences,' Dr. Sharfstein said.

The Polygamy Solution

Yeah right! Four women would want to share one broke, unemployed man!

The polygamy trend is catching on around the world. In an interview with a Russian radio station, Ramzan Kadyrov, a militia leader and Deputy Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic, said that the depopulation of Chechnya by war justifies legalizing polygamy.

"(Polygamy) is necessary for Chechnya, because we have war. We have more women than men," the pro-Moscow Kadyrov told Ekho Moskvy radio. The Muslim Chechen rebels are fighting to gain independence from Russia and are largely of the fundamentalist Wahabist sect.

In response to the suggestion, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Deputy speaker of the State Duma, said the idea of introducing legal polygamy in Chechnya is "absolutely right," and proposed to spread it for the whole of Russia.

"We must welcome (this idea) and spread (polygamy) for the whole Russia because we have 10 million lonely women." -- insert me ROTFL!!

Zhiriniovsky said it is necessary to "allow the registration of the second and the third marriages without dissolving the first one. We will surely introduce such an amendment to the family code and to the Russian Constitution during the parliament’s spring session."

Many commenters are warning of the effects on women of the "Islamicization" of Europe. Already in some European Union countries, the traditional protections for women and families are being undermined by demands of the growing Muslim population for the adoption of aspects of Islamic "Sharia" law, including polygamy.

In November 2005, Norway’s Directorate of Immigration (UDI) reported that despite its illegality, polygamy is becoming increasingly prevalent in the country. Similar reports are coming from France and the Netherlands has legalized the practice in spite of the recent anti-Muslim backlash in that country.

I think the women should load up a truck and move elsewhere. Besides, they aren't buying into it anyway:

Not all Chechen women share such an opinion, though. The majority of them would like to be "the only woman" for their only man, "a very special someone," like Mr. Kadyrov said. Polygamy has never been a tradition in Chechnya even when it was ruled by the Shariat law. For example, Aslan Maskhadov, the former leader of Chechen terrorists killed by the federal troops in 2005, and Shamil Basayev, the elusive Chechen terrorist No.1, have only one wife.

A contemporary Chechen female is a literate and progressive person. There is quite a number of women in the structure of Chechen authorities, both regional and republican. It seems very unlikely that some of them may wish to become one of the four wives in a polygamous household.

You Silly Boy!

Apparently a kidney transplant transformed this manly man into a girly girl.

A Croatia [sic] lumberjack claims he started 'enjoying housework and knitting' after he was given a female kidney.

Stjepan Lizacic, 56, from Osijek, is suing his local health authority because he says he's become a laughing stock. He says his life changed from enjoying heavy drinking sessions with pals to prefering [sic] housework after the operation.

He told local newspaper 24sata: 'The kidney transplant saved my life, but they never warned me about the side effects. 'I have developed a strange passion for female jobs like ironing, sewing, washing dishes, sorting clothes in wardrobes and even knitting.'

Now, it seems to me that I did read someplace about transplant recipients having cravings or memories that mirror the donors. Homie should be happy to be alive rather than complaing about having a new skill set!

Hillary Needs To Get A Grip!

Molly Ivins says she will not support Hillary Clinton in her run for President. Given Hillary's semi-hawkish stance on the war in Iraq, I have a hard time saying that I will either. She keeps saying that she is not running but clearly, and particularly because the GOP has their bloody claws out already, she is planning a bid. In my eyes, you have to do more than be willing to do anything you can to win (including taking the stance of your enemy on certain issues), but you also have to be willing to lose for taking an opposing stance. I think she is treading too close to the middle on too many things when what we need is a tug back to the left.

[...]

Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, 'There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008.'

This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by 'a string of bad new from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq,' versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman.

Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were 'German dogs.' They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless 'string of bad news.'

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.

[...]

I'm not sure Hillary gets it. We don't want Dubya lite in the office. We want NO PARTS of Dubya at all. If she thinks she is going to win by pandering to mindless yahoos who support the war, she needs to think again. They'd never vote for a woman, particularly one who is smarter than them, anyway.

Wassa Matta U.

Maybe that's where most college students are going because they seem to be coming out stupid!

Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.

Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.

More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.

That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

``It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they're not going to be able to do those things,'' said Stephane Baldi, the study's director at the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization.

Time For Some Black Jesus!

There's always hope but I doubt much will change this man.

A judge sentenced a suburban Cincinnati man to attend services for six weeks at a predominantly black church for threatening to punch a black cab driver and using racial slurs in a fight with the man.

Brett Haines, 36, of Anderson Township, picked church over spending 30 days in the Hamilton County jail. Judge William Mallory Jr. offered Haines the choice last week after Haines was convicted of disorderly conduct.

Haines was arrested in November for threatening cab driver David Wilson and Wilson's wife and telling them he hated black people. Prosecutors said Haines was drunk.

The church services could expand Haines' cultural awareness, Mallory said. He told Haines he must go to six consecutive Sunday services and get the minister to sign a church program to prove he attended.

Wilson, the cab driver, said he would have preferred the jail sentence.

'Church don't change everybody,' he said."

Jail or church, the man will still be out of his element. I'd like to go to those services just to see him squirm.

Boondocks on MLK

I always manage to fall aleep or forget to watch The Boondocks since began airing but I heard a lot about the episodes on the net. Thanks to Myra at The Pinkc.net for uploading these clips of the highlights as well as the subsequent appearance of Aaron McGrueder on Nightline.

Watch the clips then tell me. Did Ray Nagin watch that before he went on his psycho tangent? We know Nagin is a pro-business Republican in Democrat's clothing but is he a thief too?

Obama Backs Hillary

Obama has Hillary's back.

Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday defended Sen. Hillary Clinton for describing the House of Representatives as a 'plantation,' saying he felt her choice of words referred to a 'consolidation of power' in Washington that squeezes out the voters.

The senator told CNN's 'American Morning' he believed that Clinton was merely expressing concern that special interests play such a large role in writing legislation that 'the ordinary voter and even members of Congress who aren't in the majority party don't have much input.'

'There's been a consolidation of power by the Republican Congress and this White House in which, if you are the ordinary voter, you don't have access,' Obama said. '... That should be a source of concern for all of us.'

[...]

Obama, D-Ill., also told ABC's 'Good Morning America' that under GOP control in Washington, 'what one has seen is the further concentration of power around a very narrow agenda that advantages the most powerful.'

JC Watts to Join CNN

I can't say I often agree with the conservative baby daddy (twice over) JC Watts but at least, perhaps, this CNN gig will keep him off of those tacky infomercials.

CNN has found a new conservative commentator: Former Republican congressman J.C. Watts Jr. 'will join CNN as a regular contributor to offer analysis on politics and policy for programs throughout the network,' Jon Klein announced today.

Klein said: 'J.C. is one of the most respected and effective conservative communicators in the nation's capital. We are glad to welcome him to the CNN team and look forward to his insightful contributions to our network.'

The P.R. says Watts is also a Republican strategist and a successful businessman. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor's degree in journalism ...

Clueless in Africa With An Ugly Hat

It's comments like this that make me cringe and want to spit the words stupid bitch!

While touring Africa and defending her husband's use of international AIDS funds to market abstinence, First Lady Laura Bush said: 'I'm always a little bit irritated when I hear the criticism of abstinence, because abstinence is absolutely 100% effective in eradicating a sexually transmitted disease.'

She went on to say: 'In many countries where girls feel obligated to comply with the wishes of men, girls need to know that abstinence is a choice.'

We cannot even get middle-class American girls to understand that abstinence is a choice, yet Bush is suggesting that girls whose only source of income involves having sex, and women whose husbands have never heard of equality in marriage just say no. Many young girls are forced to marry their husbands, and part of that obligation is sex; many other girls are forced into prostituion. A popular belief in Africa, especially South Africa, is that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS, and the men who opt for this 'treatment' are not asking the virgins' permission.

The Bush administration has already endangered the lives of thousands of women and girls by restricting the counseling and educational activities of family planning clinics. Laura Bush's advice to African girls truly adds insult to injury."

It's this kind of thorough lack of understanding of another culture that prompted her husband and his cronies to go barreling into Iraq and get us stuck in a quagmire with insurgents. GOD! Couldn't she have at least taken her head out of her behind for this trip?

Hillllllll-ary!

Like I said, the rhetoric was flowing freely yesterday and Hillary Clinton wasn't stingy with hers. People know the power of imagery in words and using a word like "plantation," I am sure, sent the message her black audience wanted to hear.

'When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about,' Clinton, D-N.Y., told the crowd at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. 'It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard.'

Speaking to a group of Hurricane Katrina evacuees in the audience, Clinton offered an apology 'on behalf of a government that left you behind, that turned its back on you.' Her remarks were met with thunderous applause.

'We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence,' she said. 'I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country.'

Now, I know what she meant. I can't say I immediately think of slavery, though. I call my job "the plantation." I work for someone else, have to follow their rules and do what they say. I can be fired at will and may or may not get a raise even if the workload increases. It's basically a figure of speech among many black people I know so I'm not tripping.

But, the pundits and critics are all over this as well but before we let the right wingers twist it into something it isn't, it seems to have been a popular analogy among GOP'ers too. Newt Gingrich used the term and, according to Atrios, a lot of other folks did too.

Gore Goes Off

Yesterday, Dr. Martin Luther King Day, was a great day for rhetoric and among the people who caused a big stir with their words was former Vice President Al Gore. It is extremely ironic that we are in the midst of this wiretapping scandal as we celebrate the contributions of a man who was illegally and maliciously wiretapped.

[...]
As we begin this new year, the Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress precisely to prevent such abuses. It is imperative that respect for the rule of law be restored in our country.

And that is why many of us have come here to Constitution Hall to sound an alarm and call upon our fellow citizens to put aside partisan differences insofar as it is possible to do so and join with us in demanding that our Constitution be defended and preserved.

It is appropriate that we make this appeal on the day our nation has set aside to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who challenged America to breathe new life into our oldest values by extending its promise to all of our people.

And on this particular Martin Luther King Day, it is especially important to recall that for the last several years of his life, Dr. King was illegally wiretapped-one of hundreds of thousands of Americans whose private communications were intercepted by the U.S. government during that period.

The FBI privately labeled King the 'most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country' and vowed to 'take him off his pedestal.' The government even attempted to destroy his marriage and tried to blackmail him into committing suicide.

This campaign continued until Dr. King's murder. The discovery that the FBI conducted this long-running and extensive campaign of secret electronic surveillance designed to infiltrate the inner workings of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and to learn the most intimate details of Dr. King's life, was instrumental in helping to convince Congress to enact restrictions on wiretapping.
We need to be reminded that we are not too far removed from the governmental wickedness of the past. Bushco is doing all he can to replicate the worst deeds of his predecessors.
And one result was the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA), which was enacted expressly to ensure that foreign intelligence surveillance would be presented to an impartial judge to verify that there was indeed a sufficient cause for the surveillance. It included ample flexibility and an ability for the executive to move with as much speed as the executive desired. I voted for that law during my first term in Congress and for almost thirty years the system has proven a workable and valued means of affording a level of protection for American citizens, while permitting foreign surveillance to continue whenever it is necessary.

And yet, just one month ago, Americans awoke to the shocking news that in spite of this long settled law, the Executive Branch has been secretly spying on large numbers of Americans for the last four years and eavesdropping on, and I quote the report, 'large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States.' The New York Times reported that the President decided to launch this massive eavesdropping program 'without search warrants or any new laws that would permit domestic intelligence collection.'
[...]

We must remember that we are not very far removed from the governmental wickedness of the past. Bushco seems bound and determined to replicate the dirty deeds of the worst of his predecessors.

It's About Time, It's About Space

Thank God that people who may be able to make a difference have stopped hiding under their blankets. I don't live in Ohio but I'd like to move there just to vote for Paul Hackett!

Paul Hackett, the Iraq war veteran and Ohio U.S. Senate candidate who shocked the nation and energized the Democratic Party last summer with his candor, stands by his views on religious fanaticism reported Sunday in the Columbus Dispatch.

“I said it. I meant it. I stand behind it. Equal justice under the law for all regardless of who they are and how they were born is fundamental to our American spirit and our American freedoms. Any person or group that argues that the law should not apply equally to all Americans is, frankly, un-American.”

“The Republican Party has been hijacked by religious fanatics, who are out of touch with mainstream America. Think of the recent comments by Pat Robertson – a religious fanatic by any measure – that the United States should assassinate a democratically elected leader in Venezuela, and that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment because Sharon wished to trade land for peace.”

“Since the Republican Party has been utterly unable to stand for something positive, they have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, and have pandered to religious fanatics not to vote for something they believe in, but to vote against their fellow Americans with whom they disagree. Those among us who would use religion and politics to divide rather than unite Americans should be ashamed.”"

He needs to take this show on the road because people in ALL STATES in America need to hear his message!

WTF?

I hear that Ray Nagin done lost his mind. I hope that's the case because this mess just sounds crazy!

Mayor Ray Nagin suggested Monday that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that "God is mad at America" and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting.

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country," Nagin, who is black, said as he and other city leaders marked Martin Luther King Day.

"Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves."

Nagin also promised that New Orleans will be a "chocolate" city again. Many of the city's black neighborhoods were heavily damaged by Katrina.

"It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans – the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans," the mayor said. "This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."

Nagin described an imaginary conversation with King, the late civil rights leader.

"I said, 'What is it going to take for us to move on and live your dream and make it a reality?' He said, 'I don't think that we need to pay attention any more as much about other folks and racists on the other side.' He said, 'The thing we need to focus on as a community – black folks I'm talking about – is ourselves ...'

Naturally, folks are calling him a racist and, as a black person, I know he was just trying to relate to "his people" and assure them that New Orleans would return to normal, that they shouldn't be afraid that they were going to be permanently displaced and that they wouldn't be replaced and cheated by rich white folks (because I definitely think that may be a plan in the works). BUT, in addition to the Pat Robertson type comments about God, his remarks just weren't kosher. I do think that he may have lost a few screws after the hurricane. How many Mayors have lost almost their entire city? But, the wolves are after him now and he may have to step down.

(Sidenote: Nagin is not a Democrat. He is a long time Republican who ran for mayor as a Democrat ... So, don't get it twisted. He's a twisted conservative).

If You've Lost Cronkite

Yup! The ship is sinking. For whatever reason people have stopped allowing the Bush administration to manipulate them into silence. Retired CBS news anchor, Walter Cronkite, says it's time to go!

Cronkite said one of his proudest moments came at the end of a 1968 documentary he made following a visit to Vietnam during the Tet offensive. Urged by his boss to briefly set aside his objectivity to give his view of the situation, Cronkite said the war was unwinnable and that the U.S. should exit.

Then-President Lyndon Johnson reportedly told a White House aide after that, 'If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.'

The best time to have made a similar statement about Iraq came after Hurricane Katrina, he said.

'We had an opportunity to say to the world and Iraqis after the hurricane disaster that Mother Nature has not treated us well and we find ourselves missing the amount of money it takes to help these poor people out of their homeless situation and rebuild some of our most important cities in the United States,' he said. 'Therefore, we are going to have to bring our troops home.'

Iraqis should have been told that 'our hearts are with you' and that the United States would do all it could to rebuild their country, he said.

I Go To Work

Unless the company I am working for declares MLK Day a paid holiday, I go to work. Yeah, I know lots of black folks pat themselves on the back by taking the day off (even if it means using a vacation day or a sick day) but I make a habit of going in. Every year, a non-black person makes some reference to the holiday as though it is some black day and I shouldn't be there. Today it was an East Indian guy who saw me in the break room and suddenly goes, "Hey! it's a holiday!" I just looked at him and said "Yes, it is." Now, I am happy that everybody remembers and acknowledges it to me ('cause I doubt anyone else has been reminded) but until people see it as a day for everyone - not just black people - my black ass will be in bright and early every year. Dr. King fought for my right to be there.

In rememberance, here are the words of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi on Dr. King:

'As our nation celebrates Martin Luther King Day, we remember his vision for an America of opportunity and equality. We also know that his work was left incomplete, as his life was tragically cut short. So on this day and every day, it is not enough simply to remember his ideals and his many accomplishments. We must adopt them and continue them. We must make them our own.

'Behind the strength of his resolve and the unwavering commitment to justice, Dr. King was a driving force behind the enactment of one of the most crucial civil rights laws ever enacted, the Voting Rights Act. As Congress prepares to reauthorize this landmark legislation this year, we are reminded of the challenges that remain to remove the barriers to participation. Because every vote counts, every vote must be counted.

'Dr. King believed that the government had a fundamental responsibility to meet the needs of its people. He had the vision of an America with true equal economic opportunity. In his 'I Have a Dream' speech, Dr. King spoke of the 'fierce urgency of now.' He said, 'This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.' Those words were true in 1963, and they are true today.

'So at this moment, and in Reverend Martin Luther King's name, let us recommit to casting wide the net of justice, and ensuring opportunity for all Americans. We all must help America fulfill Dr. King's dream.'

Touching!

Well, isn't this special?

President Bush celebrated the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday by taking in a gospel performance and viewing the Emancipation Proclamation.

The president peered through a glass case at the original Emancipation Proclamation, which was on display for just four days at the National Archives. Abraham Lincoln signed the document declaring the end of slavery in the midst of the Civil War on Jan. 1, 1863, and it is only occasionally brought out of storage because the poor quality of the paper and ink make it vulnerable to light.

“It seems fitting on Martin Luther King Day that I come and look at the Emancipation Proclamation in its original form,” Bush said. “Abraham Lincoln recognized that all men are created equal. Martin Luther King lived on that admonition to call our country to a higher calling, and today we celebrate the life of an American who called Americans to account when we didn’t live up to our ideals.”

Grasping At Straws

Despite being constantly fed the line that we won't cut and run, the gang that couldn't shoot straight is desperate to find a way to get us out of Iraq without looking like the total idiots that they are. Their solution? Trying to find Arab peacekeepers to replace US troops.

The U.S. is reportedly seeking to convince Arab countries to send troops to Iraq to replace U.S. forces after the formation of a new Iraqi government.

Cairo-based Arab diplomatic sources said U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney who will start a Middle East tour on Sunday including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Oman, will discuss the matter with Arab leaders.

The sources told United Press International Friday Cheney will raise with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders the possibility of dispatching Arab and Islamic troops to Iraq to pave the way for the reduction of American forces.

Washington hopes Arab forces would participate in keeping peace in the regions from which it will pull out its troops, and as such send a positive message to Iraq's neighbors that it does not intend to keep its forces in the Arab country, the sources said.

Cheney will visit Egypt on Sunday for a few hours during which he will meet President Mubarak only, Egyptian officials said without elaboration.

Cheney's last visit to Egypt took place in March 2002 as part of a regional tour to win Arab support for war against Iraq which Washington waged a year later to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.

The U.S. administration is facing growing pressures from Congress and U.S. public opinion to pull out troops from Iraq as quickly as possible, but officials hinted to a possible reduction of troops, arguing that an early withdrawal would give wrong signals to insurgents.

Cheney's visit coincides as well with Egyptian and Saudi efforts to ease tensions between Syria and the West over the results of the international inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri which named Syrian officials as suspects and requested to interview Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Gee whiz! How brilliant! The bulk of Arabs in the middle east are Sunni. Yes, send them in to the Shia dominated Iraq to keep peace.

(link via The News Blog)

Who's Next? His Mama?

Because nobody really believes him, he's got his wife towing the line of BS that the daft among us might believe if they hear it from her.

First lady Laura Bush said Sunday that the U.S. government is right to eavesdrop on Americans with suspected ties to terrorists, but a top Senate Republican joined a chorus of lawmakers who think domestic spying is on shaky legal ground.

'I think the American people expect the United States government and the president to do what they can to make sure there's not an attack by foreign terrorists,' Mrs. Bush said just before landing here to begin a four-day stay in West Africa.

President Bush is concerned that media disclosure of the program will cripple work to foil terrorists, she said. 'I think he was worried that it would undermine our efforts by alerting terrorists to what our efforts are,' Mrs. Bush said.

And Speaking Of Outrage ...

This is what happens when a woman gets sick and tired of being sick and tired of torture, threats, rape and abuse!

There was only one family that Akku Yadav's gang didn't torment - that of Madhukar and Alka Narayane - because from this squalor they sent all five of their children through college. In a neighborhood where many are illiterate and no one had ever gone to college, that was a heroic achievement, and it made gangsters wary about preying on them.

A daughter, Usha Narayane, now 27, studied hotel management and seemed destined to become a hotel manager. But one day in 2004 while she was on vacation back in the slum, Akku Yadav attacked the next-door neighbors. The gang warned Usha not to go to the police - and that's when she went to the police.

Akku Yadav returned with 40 men and surrounded the Narayane shack. He waved a bottle of acid and threatened to disfigure Usha's face, and to rape and kill her. She barricaded the door, shouted insults at him and telephoned the police, who didn't immediately come.

Finally, Usha turned on the gas, grabbed a match and threatened to blow up everyone if the gang broke into the house. The gangsters backed off.

The neighbors, seeing somebody finally stand up to Akku Yadav, gathered in the street. Soon a mob burned down Akku Yadav's house, and he turned himself over to the police for protection.

The point of the article is that educated women are empowered and emboldened. We need this to happen throughout the world.

Carrying the Weight of the World

Rashunda asks where the "liberal" outrage is over this?

An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi has denied the charges.

In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.

The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.

I post numberous articles about the rape, murder, abuse and injustice committed against women throughout the world. I'm not sure that the individual stories of brazen misogeny can be blamed on liberal ignorance and indifference. There needs to be a massive cultural shift throughout most of the world and, as the rights of women in America are coming under attack, we all need to be vigilant that women don't lose ground at home.

Anita Hill On Harriet Miers

It's definitely a moot point but the latest issue of Ms. Magazine has a piece by Anita Hill on the significance of the Harriet Miers nomination and her subsequent withdrawal.

I’m not cynical enough to assume that the president deliberately undermined Miers’ nomination—and I’m not arguing that Miers should have been confirmed or even nominated—but I believe that George Bush’s presentation of Miers reflected his own cynical view of women’s, and perhaps minorities’, qualifications for such a prestigious position. And I’m concerned that the failed Miers nomination will make it that much harder for future women judicial nominees.

It’s certainly possible to criticize Miers’ qualifications for the Supreme Court without resorting to sexism, but I’m suspicious that such criticism was waged so early and vehemently by conservatives, without an opportunity for a public hearing in which Miers could prove her ability. I am also suspicious of her liberal critics who ignore the value of experiences different from their own. I am reminded that the late Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall and, much earlier in our history, Louis Brandeis faced similar criticism about intellectual ability and lack of appropriate legal experience when they were nominated to the Court. Even today, gender, race and religion cloud our assessments of intelligence and competence.

Whatever the criticism of Miers’ nomination, however, I believe that it was predictable given the way the president introduced her to the public. In previously announcing John Roberts’ nomination, President Bush touted him as the gold standard for nominees. Bush declared that he was chosen from “among the most distinguished jurists and attorneys in the country,” and cited his “intellect, experience and temperament.” The presence of Roberts’ wife and two children rounded out the picture of what the president wanted the public to accept as the rarefied image of judicial leadership.

In contrast, President Bush introduced Miers by citing “the past five years” of service to his administration. He gave her few accolades for her outstanding legal mind, her specific legal experiences and her long career. Physically, she appeared as a single woman without family members— as though kin other than a spouse and children are insignificant ...

Soul Train 2006

Yes, I know that times have changed. Gospel music now has a hip hop genre. Young people are hearing and accepting The Word in a different format than was presented to me back in the day. BUT, should scantily clad, hoochie looking women (of all races) be gyrating to it on Soul Train?

(When I wake up in the middle of the night, I should not turn on the television or the computer. Who knew that Soul Train aired at 5am on The WB)?


Reference: Looking For You

Shameless and Shameful

These people have no decency.

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), the former Marine who is an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, has become the latest Democrat to have his Vietnam War decorations questioned.

In a tactic reminiscent of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth assault on Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) during the 2004 presidential campaign, a conservative Web site yesterday quoted Murtha opponents as questioning the circumstances surrounding the awarding of his two Purple Hearts.

David Thibault, editor in chief of the Cybercast News Service, said the issue of Murtha's medals from 1967 is relevant now 'because the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement.' Thibault said: 'He has been placed by the Democratic Party and antiwar activists as a spokesman against the war above reproach.'

Cindy Abram, a spokeswoman for Murtha, said, 'We certainly believe that the questions being raised are an attempt to distract attention from what's happening in Iraq.' As for how Murtha won the Purple Hearts, she said: 'We think the congressman's record is clear. We have the documentation, the paperwork that proves that he earned them, and that he is entitled to wear them proudly.'

Cybercast is part of the conservative Media Research Center, run by L. Brent Bozell III, who accused some in the media of ignoring the Swift Boat charges, but Thibault said it operates independently. He said the unit, formerly called the Conservative News Service, averages 110,000 readers, mainly conservative, and provides material for other Web sites such as GOPUSA. 'We won't run anything against anybody if we don't have the goods,' he said.

They are absolutely revolting!

Going Color Purple

Until you do right by me, everything you think about is gon' crumble ...

I swear! Celie must have put some roots on George Bush. This is just unbelievable and downright sickening! Everything he touches crumbles into disaster.

Two weeks into the new Medicare prescription drug program, many of the nation's sickest and poorest elderly and disabled people are being turned away or overcharged at pharmacies, prompting more than a dozen states to declare health emergencies and pay for their life-saving medicines.

Computer glitches, overloaded telephone lines and poorly trained pharmacists are being blamed for mix-ups that have resulted in the worst of unintended consequences: As many as 6.4 million low-income seniors, who until Dec. 31 received their medications free, suddenly find themselves navigating an insurance maze of large deductibles, co-payments and outright denial of coverage.

Yesterday, Ohio and Wisconsin announced that they will cover the drug costs of low-income seniors who would otherwise go without, joining every state in New England as well as California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota and New Jersey.

'This new prescription drug plan was supposed to be a voluntary program to help people who didn't have coverage,' said Jeanne Finberg, a lawyer for the National Senior Citizens Law Center. 'All this is doing is harming the people who had coverage -- America's most vulnerable citizens.'

Hailed as President Bush's signature domestic achievement, the program, which began Jan. 1, offers drug coverage for the first time to 43 million elderly and disabled Americans eligible for Medicare. At the same time, 6.4 million low-income beneficiaries who were receiving their medications through state Medicaid plans were switched into Medicare for their drug benefits and told they would not be charged the standard $250 deductible or co-payments.

But interviews with two dozen people -- state officials, pharmacists, advocates for seniors, and Medicare clients -- revealed a host of problems. Many poor seniors were never enrolled or were enrolled in plans that do not cover their medications. Others received multiple insurance cards, creating confusion at the pharmacies. Some were charged the deductible and unaffordable co-payments. And some, such as Laurine League, left empty-handed.

Wait A Minute! I Thought Howard Stern Went To Sirius

Thinking like this is the reason why Rush Limbaugh has had how many wives?

On the January 10 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh asked the women in his audience: 'How many of you in the secrecy and privacy of your own dreams and hopes would love to be hired as eye candy?' Limbaugh's question was part of a discussion about a January 10 report on the conservative news website NewsMax.com about six women who filed a lawsuit for sex discrimination against their company, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Securities, a division of Germany's Dresdner Bank. According to the article, the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan by five employees working in New York and one working in London, asserts that they were hired as 'eye candy,' and that one woman was openly called 'the Pamela Anderson of trading' by her boss.

Later in the broadcast, Limbaugh returned to the subject when he said:

LIMBAUGH: I'm not talking -- I know how many of you want to be sexually harassed -- that's not what I was asking. But, I mean, I -- if, if, if somebody wants to hire you to look good for whoever is the first to walk in the door every day, why not, if that's your asset?

Let me answer that! If I want to be eye candy, I'll get a job as a pole dancer. For now, I like being a Silicon Valley geek and looking/dressing the part because the creepy white dudes on my job gross me out and can't do a damn thing for me if I dress so that my 34Ds are accentuated.

Who's Your Favorite Clown?

It's Just Wrong!

Why is Master P still on Dancing With The Stars? Huh? Why?

I missed the first week and caught it last night. Good God! He is HORRIBLE! It's not just that he is big and clunky (and I know he stepped in at the last minute when his son got injured) but he refuses to dress properly. So, I'm ready to go NBA dress code on his ass because he looks like a FOOL with that casual suit, black SNEAKERS and backwards baseball cap! People! I'm surprised he didn't get voted off last week but this week it's just WRONG that he didn't get the boot tonight!

I guess I am so irritated by this because my sorority sponsors a debutante ball every year and we watch regular black teens get transformed into graceful (for the most part) fox trotters, cha cha-ers and waltzers in the span of eight weeks. They wear full dress tails and shiny dress shoes. If our kids can do it, SO CAN MASTER P! If he cannot dance, he can at least dress the part!

He has GOT to leave next week or I don't think I can watch another episode. His remaining presence there isn't just wrong, it hurts my feelings!

(P.S Jerry Rice, if you want to get black about it, looks absolutely smashing - in dance and in attire)!

On Alito

I agree ...

I have followed the Alito hearings closely. Democrats on the Committee did their jobs by asking tough questions about important issues: civil rights, privacy, environmental protections, the danger of unchecked presidential power and others. Unfortunately, Judge Alito's responses did little to address my serious concerns about his 15-year judicial record.

I have not forgotten that Judge Alito was only nominated after the radical right wing of the President's party forced Harriet Miers to withdraw. The right wing insisted that Justice O'Connor be replaced with a sure vote for their extreme agenda. Four days of hearings have shown that Judge Alito is no Sandra Day O'Connor.

Senate Democrats will meet next week to discuss the nomination.

Oh, Cry Me A River!

I guess it would be one thing if Mrs. Alito were a frail, petite little thing who nearly passed out while the Senate Confirmation Committee questioned her precious husband, but she looks like a big girl who can take care of herself! Did we see Clarence Thomas' equally as sturdy wife breaking down as they portrayed him as a porn watching, sexual harassing pervert? No! They asked Alito what they had every right to ask and that was why was he touting, to the Reagan administration, his membership in a club whose mission was to keep the admission of women and minorities to Princeton at a minimum.
Granted, the hearings are long and grueling and Alito looked like either a liar or an absent minded idiot over his forgotten membership in a good ole boy club, but this partisan portrayal of Democratic Senators as ugly ogres who make helpless women cry is ridiculous.

Mrs. Alito broke down as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (arguably melo-)dramatically defended her husband, Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito, from what Graham implied were Democratic suggestions that Alito endorsed the discriminating views of a controversial Princeton alumni group to which he belonged. As NBC's Ken Strickland reports, Graham silenced the room when he asked Alito, 'Are you really a closet bigot?' 'I'm not any kind of a bigot,' Alito replied. Graham agreed and went on to praise Alito and bemoan how grueling the confirmation process is, at which point Mrs. Alito became emotional and left the room.

Her exit may become the seminal moment of hearings which up until now, to close observers, have seemed no more or less intense than many other Supreme Court confirmation hearings -- except for the outpouring of 'fact-check' e-mail from both sides that are making the process seem like a nightmarishly long presidential debate. Republicans are quietly reveling in how Mrs. Alito's tears have led the news. (One pro-Alito group, before cluing into the strategy of letting the scene speak for itself, immediately e-mailed reporters thundering, 'When will the media shame these people for their behavior?')"

How could the same pundits, who want to paint this handsome woman as some delicate flower, be the same ones who had a field day when Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana broke into tears while flying over a totally decimated New Orleans (Sorry but seeing a city totally wiped out and smelling death is a lot more gut-wrenching that watching hubby interview for a job)?

No Woman Left Behind

As conservative zealots rev up their engines to defile, defame and destroy Hillary Clinton's alleged efforts to become America's first woman president, even one of the most conservative and sexist countries in our hemisphere prepares to elect a woman. I am not sure what kind of brutal social despair we are going to have to fall into in order for Americans to find the prospect of a female president palatable but clearly a revolution is in order. Michele Bachelet seems like a most unlikely candidate and her ascent is nothing short of courageous and miraculous!

But Michele Bachelet is no figure of any literary laureate's imagining. Three decades after being tortured by Chile's military, the 54-year-old Socialist has emerged as the clear favorite to win Sunday's election for the presidency of her country.

A new poll shows that Bachelet has consolidated her significant lead over rightist billionaire Sebastian Pinera. The survey, released today by Market Opinion Research International (MORI), found that 45 percent of those polled said they would vote for Bachelet over her rival. If she wins, she would not only would make history as the first woman to lead her country, but would also send a strong message to a Latin America dominated by machismo and revenge—and one which is shifting steadily to the left.

Bachelet's message is one of reconciliation. Although she says that she is still haunted by the physical and psychological pain of being 'mistreated' during General Augusto Pinochet�s dictatorship, she has expressed pity toward her torturers who, she says, now carry a 'bag of guilt' so heavy they cannot look her in the eyes. She realized this, she recalls, when she found herself face to face with one of her torturers in the elevator of her new apartment block several years ago. 'I have tried to channel the pain into a constructive realm,' Bachelet has said repeatedly.

[...]

Bachelet's political track record has included a focus on women's rights in a region where millions of females remain uneducated, silent and under the control of their husbands. As defense minister, she increased the number of women working in the armed forces. As health minister, she legalized the sale of the morning-after pill by prescription. Some other new laws that she supported have transformed Chilean society: the divorce law, a law banning sexual harassment in the workplace, and a law making domestic abuse a crime punishable by more than a decade in jail. During the presidential campaign, she promised subsidized childcare, expanded support systems for abused women, and a cabinet in which 50 percent of the members would be female. "Women can be closer to the people's needs," she argues. "We are more concerned about the citizens who want the politicians to be more ethical, and people expect that from women."

As we await the almost certain confirmation to the Supreme Court of a man who is destined to turn back the clock on civil rights for women and minorities, I watch with sadness and shame as the rest of the civilized (and maybe not so civilized) world moves forward.

Beyond Wow For Women!

While the rights of women and women's progress seems to be going backwards in the United States, Norway is enacting a "take no prisoners" approach to balancing out the gender gap in the country's corporate board rooms. In two short years, 40% of board members must be women.

On the first day of this year - and in the teeth of strenuous opposition from many Norwegian businessmen - Norway's leftist government put into effect one of the more radical attempts to achieve sexual equality: requiring that within the next two years, 40 percent of the board members of the large, publicly traded private companies of Norway be women.

'The government's decision is to see to it that women will have a place where the power is, where leadership takes place in this society,' Karita Bekkemellem, Norway's minister of children and equality, said in an interview here.

'Of course,' she continued, 'this is very forceful affirmative action, but it will set an example for other centers of society.'

All I know is that if there were any such ruling here, things would get downright hostile!

The US Culturally Insensitive?

I am not sure how useful this little tidbit is as the damage is already done but I think it might be useful for the next time weinvade and occupy an Arab nation.

One of the British Army's most senior officers to serve in Iraq has written a scathing critique of the US military, accusing it of cultural insensitivity bordering on 'institutional racism'.

His former colleagues were self-righteous and showed a catastrophic inability to understand local values, said Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, who spent a year as deputy commander of the team training the Iraqi army.

US commanders failed to understand that their men needed a knowledge of Arab culture and counter-insurgency techniques. This had helped to alienate the Iraqi people and probably helped to fuel the insurgency, he argued.

Instead of trying to win 'hearts and minds' they saw 'destruction of the enemy as a strategic goal in its own right', the brigadier said in an article in the US army magazine, Military Review. The objective should have been 'to understand how to manage a population', he said.

[...]

She Drives 'Em Mad!

I know even The Boondocks has joked about finding Condoleezza a man but this is not a cartoon. This man is Vladimir Zhirinovsky: the leader of the Liberal and Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). It's sad that no matter what, women are always reduced to their f'ability and whether they are taking on a traditional, submissive role. At the same time, this is downright hysterical!

'Condoleezza Rice released a coarse anti-Russian statement. This is because she is a single woman who has no children. She loses her reason because of her late single status. Nature takes it all.

'Such women are very rough. They are all workaholics, public workaholics. They can be happy only when they are talked and written about everywhere: 'Oh, Condoleezza, what a remarkable woman, what a charming Afro-American lady! How well she can play the piano and speak Russian! What a courageous, tough and strong female she is!

'This is the only way to satisfy her needs of a female. She derives pleasure from it. If she has no man by her side at her age, he will never appear. Even if she had a whole selection of men to choose from she would stay single because her soul and heart have hardened. Like Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, or Alexander the Great of Macedon Ms. Rice needs to fight and release tough public statements in global scale. She needs to be on top of the world.

'Ms. Rice was always interested in Russia. Now she needs to prove that she does have a certain amount of knowledge about Russia. Her goal number one is to observe USA's interest. If Russia rises, it means that the USA falls down. Europe has united, China is growing speedily and Russia possesses immense power in terms of fuel resources. The US administration cannot do anything about it.

'The USA experiences the crisis of ideological and moral values. Americans try to talk about positive family values, although the actual state of things is disastrous. That is why they need to protect themselves with such public personas as Condoleezza Rice who gains pleasure from political commotions.

'The civilized world needs to think about a decision when single politicians are not allowed to stay in power. This was a common practice in the Soviet political system. The matter of international relations is very subtle and exquisite. One single word or phrase may play an extremely important role in politics. This is not the place, where one can sublimate their personal sexual problems.

'Complex-prone women are especially dangerous. They are like malicious mothers-in-law, women that evoke hatred and irritation with everyone. Everybody tries to Vladimir Zhirinovskypart with such women as soon as possible. A mother-in-law is better than a single and childless political persona, though.

'This is really scary. Ms. Rice's personal complexes affect the entire field of international politics. This is an irritating factor for everyone, especially for the East and the Islamic world. When they look at her, they go mad.

A Colonial Mentality

Well, here's a novel concept!

Western opposition to Iran's nuclear programme is rooted in a 'colonial mentality' and the Islamic republic will not back down to mounting pressure, top cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said.

Quoted by the official news agency IRNA, the former president said Iran had decided to resume sensitive nuclear work and 'break the colonial taboos regarding our peaceful nuclear energy (programme) since the West's opposition to our peaceful nuclear energy is rooted in their colonial mentality.'

'They want to deprive Islamic nations of having nuclear energy knowledge and always keep them backwards,' said Rafsanjani on Thursday, who served as Iran's president from 1989 to 1997 and now heads the Expediency Council, a top political arbitration body.

Iran's nuclear programme, he asserted, was 'the desire of our nation, we will pursue it.'

The War On Poverty

I know the poor in the red states aren't paying attention. But maybe once that pocket book gets pinched, they will realize who is on their side and who is not

In the first of the stories, Johnston reports that the IRS has stopped releasing information that shows "how thoroughly" it audits "big corporations and the rich" and how deeply it discounts the taxes it assesses after such audits. For decades, Johnston says, the IRS has made this information available to a Syracuse University professor who has, in turn, made it available to the public. But in May 2004, the IRS said it would no longer provide this information, despite a 1976 court order that required it to do so.

The information clampdown shouldn't come as a surprise to those familiar with the way the Bush administration views government transparency. Over the last five years, the administration has, among other things, eliminated statistics on global terrorism from the State Department's annual report on global terrorism; deleted data about racial profiling from a report about racial profiling; and tried to discontinue a Labor Department report on layoffs. In each of those cases, the administration moved to shut down the information flow when the data to be released would have been politically embarrassing. The IRS insists that it is withholding the audit information only out of concern for the costs of providing it. But anyone care to wager that, if and when the IRS faces a new court order to release the information, we'll begin to see some other reasons that the Bush administration didn't want to release this information anymore?

Speaking of which , Johnston's second story hits another subject that the IRS would probably rather not have the public discussing: The IRS's taxpayer advocate, Nina Olson, told Congress this week that the agency has devoted what Johnston calls "vastly more resources to pursuing questionable refunds sought by the poor -- which under the highest estimate is $9 billion -- than to the $100 billion in taxes not paid each year by people who work for cash and either fail to file tax returns or understate their income."

Along the way, Olson told Congress that the IRS has, over the last five years, frozen tax refunds owed to 1.6 million poor Americans. Most of those filers had claimed the earned-income credit, and most had done absolutely nothing wrong: A sampling by Olson's staff found that 66 percent of the Americans whose refunds were being withheld as "fraudulent" were entitled to the refunds they sought -- or even more. The amount of money involved isn't insignificant, at least to the families that aren't getting it. Olson's study found that that the average annual income reported on the frozen returns was $13,000. The average frozen refund was $3,500.

Oh, That Kurdistan!

To hear us tell it, Kurdistan is damn near a model Western democracy. But, it seems they suffer from the same ills of Muslim extremism that other Islamic states/regions do. Who feels the brunt of it? Women, of course!

'Here in Kurdistan, there is a lot of violence against Kurdish women,' Ali says in delicate English. She's an Iranian Kurd by birth, a swimmer by training, and superbly educated by Iraqi standards, lending a quiet confidence to her words. Asked who is perpetrating this violence, she doesn't hesitate: 'Men, of course. Husbands, brothers, fathers, managers. All men.'

Abuse drives many Kurdish women to suicide, says Ali. 'Here in Kurdistan, most women, when they want to kill themselves, they burn themselves. I don't know why.'

Regional assemblywoman Vian Dizyee does. She says that in a society where women have few resources at their disposal, sophisticated methods of suicide are impossible. So women self-immolate using household items like cooking fuel and matches.

'We try to find solutions,' Ali says of ZEEN, an eight-hour-a-day operation that broadcasts call-in programs, news, and music—all for and by Kurdish women—to this 10,000-year-old city of 1.2 million and its surrounding villages. 'When a lady burns herself, on the radio we talk about why, about what must we do to solve this problem.'

Ali pauses. Her wide, dark eyes are sad. When she speaks, it's in a pillow-soft tone. 'We want to teach girls to not kill themselves.'

Kurdistan's sexual landscape is like its literal landscape: diverse and potentially lethal.

In the poor villages outside cities like Erbil and Sulaymaniyah and in poor urban neighborhoods, the sexual mores are those of any traditional Muslim community. Girls roam with their brown skin exposed to the sun until they show signs of sexual maturity, at which point they're draped in black and kept indoors until they marry. They trade one prison for another, remaining in their husbands' houses making babies until age robs them of their sexuality. Meanwhile, if they speak out, take a lover, or demonstrate any other un-Muslim behaviors, they're beaten—or killed.

'The culture oppresses them,' Dizyee says. That oppression is couched in marriage. This, Ali says, is the root of the suicide problem.

Okay Stop!

Have these people lost their WHOLE minds?

An Oklahoma university has proposed a policy that would allow officials to fire employees who get a divorce, Oklahoma City television station KOCO reported.

Oklahoma Christian University is already getting some attention for a letter it sent to faculty that stated:

'Because the Christian mission of the university is most effectively fulfilled through mentoring and example, all married faculty and staff should strive to model (healthy) marriages to students.'

University President Mike O'Neal said this doesn't mean everyone who gets a divorce would lose his or her job. He said the university would look at each individual case.

It would be one thing if the "red state" divorce rate wasn't greater than or equal to that of the "blue states," but this kind of self-righteousness is ridiculous and hypocritical.

Are Catholic Priests Brain Dead?

What is it that the Catholic Church does not get about AIDS and unwanted children? The countries where Catholicism is either flourishing or still a mainstay are the ones being ravaged by the effects of AIDS. But, while I cannot say I've even thought of a law where people are required to carry a condom, I must say that it is a real daring approach to a very big problem.

Roman Catholic priests in a Colombian town are furious over a councilman's proposal that people 14 and older must carry a condom at all times to reduce unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

William Pena, a councilman in Tulua, said Wednesday he will present a formal proposal requiring all men and women - even those just on a visit to the town - to carry at least one condom. Those caught empty-pocketed could be fined $180 or ordered to take a safe sex course, he said.

'Sexual relations are going on constantly,' Pena told The Associated Press in an interview. 'If you carry a condom, chances are you'll use it during the day. It's not going to be there forever.'

Tulua has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in Colombia, he said. The proposal will be debated by other town leaders and could go into effect by March.

Roman Catholic priests in the Cauca Valley town, 150 miles southwest of Bogota, were fuming over the plan.

The Rev. Jesus Velasquez said it would only encourage sexual relations and ridiculed it as absurd. 'I would have to have a condom even though I'm a member of the clergy,' he was quoted as saying in the newspaper El Tiempo.

Uh, where has this dude been?

Another town priest, the Rev. Roberto Sarmiento, said improved sex education would be a better solution.

'Nobody can force someone to carry a condom in their pocket,' he said. 'They should instead carry the responsibility of what sexual relations mean.'

Ramiro Cano, a 19-year-old laborer in Tulua, said Wednesday the proposal was the talk of the town and most young people he talked to support it.

'I try to always carry a condom on me, especially if I go to a discotheque, in case I can pick someone up,' Cano said.

The proposal is perhaps the most radical in a series of pro-condom efforts across Colombia, where 190,000 people are infected with the HIV virus, a figure only surpassed in Latin America by Brazil, according to the World Health Organization.

The capital city of Bogota handed out more than 2 million free condoms last year as part of a campaign titled 'Use it instinctively - make yourself sexy.'

In the city of Tunja, where 17 percent of all pregnancies last year were to women under 18 years of age, condom dispensers will be installed in bars and movie theaters starting in February."

For a church which claims to be pro-life, their archaic rules in modern times are more supportive of a pro-death stance.

Now Bremer Is A Fall Guy

Well, he certainly didn't turn down that Presidential Medal of Freedom bestowed upon him, along with George Tenet, for f'ing up in Iraq! He needs to quit his bitchin'.

Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, says that senior US military officials tried to make him a scapegoat for postwar setbacks, including the decision to disband the Iraqi army following the US invasion in 2003.

In a memoir published on Monday that broke a more than year-long silence, Mr Bremer portrays himself in a constant struggle with Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, and military leaders who were determined to reduce the US troop presence as quickly as possible in 2004 despite the escalating insurgency.

He also writes how Mr Rumsfeld was 'clearly unhappy' that Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, had taken control of Iraq policy from the Pentagon in late 2003.

A Pentagon spokesman on Monday confirmed that Mr Bremer had sent Mr Rumsfeld a memo based on a report by the Rand Corporation consultancy that recommended 500,000 US troops would be needed to pacify Iraq - far more than were sent. But Mr Bremer's advice was rejected by military leaders and Mr Rumsfeld.

Mr Bremer's account of his 13 months as Iraq's governor is at times vituperative - scathing of the Iraqi exiles who formed the initial Iraqi Governing Council, resentful of Democrats in Congress who sniped at his efforts, the press for focusing on the negative and feeding on leaks, and bureaucrats in Washington who obfuscated when he was trying to rebuild an entire country.

'They couldn't organise a parade, let alone run a country,' Mr Bremer writes of the Iraqi politicians.

Even allies come in for some criticism, including Britain for being 'weak-kneed' in avoiding a showdown with a militant Shia cleric.

What emerges clearly from the diary is that there was no detailed postwar reconstruction plan, that the US lacked decent intelligence to deal with an insurgency it failed to predict, and the naivety of Americans who were shocked at the dismal state of Iraq's economy and infrastructure after years of sanctions.

Mr Bremer accuses Pentagon officials of setting him up to take the fall for the postwar failures in Iraq, even though the decision to disband the army was personally approved by Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, and cleared by Mr Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush.

Brad's Baby Mama

I'm trying not to be judgemental but ... I just don't approve.

Though they have never even admitted being a couple, ANGELINA JOLIE, through her reps, has confirmed to People magazine that she is pregnant with BRAD PITT's child.

According to the mag, on stands Friday, Both Jolie and Pitt's representatives confirmed the pregnancy.

Hollywood's most sought after stars first became close while working on last summer's box office hit, 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith,' consistently dodging rumors that they were more than friends.

Since then, they have been photographed together, with Angelina's children across the globe -- everywhere from an African beach to the English countryside and Malibu.

Back in December, Pitt filed paperwork seeking to be the adoptive father of Jolie's already adopted children, four-year-old MADDOX and baby ZAHARA.

Pitt and ex JENNIFER ANISTON 's divorce was finalized October 2, 2005. The former power couple initially announced news of their split back in January, 2005. 'We would like to announce that after seven years together we have decided to formally separate,' they said in a joint statement. Aniston officially filed for divorce in March, citing irreconcilable differences.

I was no big Jennifer Aniston/Brad Pitt fan club member but for some reason I just found his behavior during their whole break up distasteful. While I think Angelina is very pretty, I just have to question the sanity of anyone who'd wear a vile of Billy Bob Thorton's blood around their neck ... and Brad left Jennifer to breed with that? Even if they do get married, what are the odds on the union lasting for any extended period of time?

What Is Her Point?

I don't mean to get vulgar but what is this heifer's problem? None of this would be an issue had she not been sleeping with another woman's husband. Anything that happens after that is a karmic consequence of a poor decision and unscrupulous behavior. She needs to move on!

A former lover of President Clinton on Monday lost her effort to revive a defamation case against his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and two of the former president's top aides.

Former cabaret singer Gennifer Flowers came to public attention during the 1992 presidential campaign when she described a 12-year affair with Clinton, who later acknowledged a relationship with her.

Flowers charged that during the 1992 campaign Hillary Clinton had helped coordinate campaign attacks against her. Flowers also said James Carville and George Stephanopoulos made defamatory statements about her.

Sorry! I'm not sorry for her. She defamed herself by committing adultery with a womanizer. She needs to get her own husband and a life!

Oh, I'll Bet They Are Quaking in Their Boots

First of all, who the heck is scared of Scott McClellen? He doesn't even hold his head up like a grown man during his daily press briefings. Secondly, what the hell are we going to do about Iran? Initiate another pre-emptive war? Blow 'em up and risk Iran and Iraq turning into a house of fire against us? No country on this earth is buying the United States' wolf tickets!

The White House warned Iran yesterday that it risked a 'serious escalation' in its nuclear standoff with the UN and the west after Tehran broke the seals on equipment at its uranium enrichment facility.

Iran's decision to break the seals, installed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, at the underground facility at Natanz, in defiance of a European-brokered agreement for a nuclear freeze, risked triggering international sanctions, the White House's press secretary, Scott McClellan said.

'Any resumption of enrichment and reprocessing activities would be a further violation of Iran's agreement with the Europeans,' Mr McClellan said. 'So such steps would be a serious escalation of the nuclear issue by Tehran.'

The warning came from an administration that has pursued a hard line against Tehran from the early days of George Bush's presidency, when he called Iran part of the 'axis of evil'. More recently Mr Bush described the conservative Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, as an 'odd guy'.

Yesterday, the White House warned that action by the security council, for which it has pressed for more than a year, could become inevitable. 'If the regime in Iran continues on the current course and fails to abide by its international obligations there is no other choice but to refer the matter to the security council,' Mr McClellan said.

Britain, Germany and France were also considering their response with Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, scheduled to meet his European counterparts tomorrow to discuss whether to call an emergency IAEA meeting. Tehran claimed as the seals were broken yesterday that it was seeking to use the enrichment facility for electricity generation, and not to make a bomb. That met with scepticism yesterday in Europe and the US.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA's chief, told his agency's governing board that Iran intended to begin small scale uranium enrichment, a process which could be used to make a nuclear weapon.

Aborting Girls

I was just having a pro-life/pro-choice discussion on one of my yahoo groups and while I believe in a woman's right to choose, it really bugs me that people are deciding to abort simply because they don't want a girl child.

Here's a very disturbing story from Canada's Globe and Mail: According to British medical journal the Lancet an estimated half a million female fetuses are aborted in India every year by parents who want more 'economically beneficial' boys. The Globe and Mail says that this translates into 'at least 10 million 'missing girls' since ultrasounds and other sex-selection tests became available two decades ago -- a striking example of modern technology facilitating age-old prejudices.'

Researchers, led by Dr. Prabhat Jha, director of the Center for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, based their findings on a 'massive' fertility and mortality survey that included information from more than 6 million people. They found that 'when a first child was a boy, the number of second children was equally split among girls and boys. But if the first-born was a girl, the number of girls born subsequently fell off precipitously,' according to the Globe and Mail.

Interestingly, researchers found that though 'anti-girl bias is usually associated with the rural poor,' the study shows it is far more widespread among affluent urbanites. Households where the mother had a better education -- and presumably the money to afford tests like ultrasounds or amniocentesis -- were much less likely to give birth to a second daughter if their first child was a girl.

The article says that India's patriarchal society is to blame because it emphasizes the need for male heirs to help earn money for the family. Girls, on the other hand, are seen as 'economic and social burdens' because they will eventually marry, leave home and require a large dowry. The article quotes an Indian maxim that states: 'Grooming a girl is like watering a neighbor's garden.'

Dr. Shirish Sheth of Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai, who wrote a commentary that accompanied the Lancet article, said that 'female infanticide of the past' has now been 'refined and honed to a fine skill in this modern guise.'

I suppose choice is choice but America's pro-lifers would really have convulsions if this type of thing became a regular practice here.

Crack Is Whack!

This story is positively incredulous and ridiculous.

Police say they freed her from the container in an October drug raid. Jones said she had an overnight bag and her cell phone.

Jones also said she was undaunted by Wigmore's tattoos, his Nazi talk, and the fluorescent swastikas painted on the ceiling.

"He was cool peoples to me," she said. "I miss him... . I love him."

While police have said they uncovered "a substantial amount of drugs" inside the container, Wigmore said police had found only three "dime bags" of crack cocaine in a dresser drawer in the house.

Police also said Jones had been found on a platform bed guarded by a vicious white pit bull that was ready to attack if she got down. But Jones, Wigmore, and even the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office said the dog was outside at the time. Jones said she often petted the dog and fed it.

Wigmore, 36, is charged with more than a dozen crimes, including two counts of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of kidnapping, and two counts of criminal restraint. He also faces several serious drug charges, including manufacturing and selling drugs out of the container. The charges combined carry more than 100 years in prison time, although it is unlikely Wigmore would be sentenced to such a term if convicted of all of them.

In separate interviews last week, Wigmore and Jones described the box as a cozy one-bedroom efficiency protected by the pit bull, Snow, and an infrared surveillance camera bought at Home Depot for $49.

They said they had routinely locked themselves inside and smoked crack cocaine while watching DVDs on a 32-inch color television. They used a 5-gallon bucket with a toilet seat screwed to the top to go to the bathroom. Sometimes, Wigmore read Jones books about Hitler, she said.

"He would tell me all about" Nazi Germany, Jones said, "but he was like, 'That's not me. Maybe that was me a long time ago, but that's not me now.' "

Wigmore said his SS and Nazi tattoos, including a soccer-ball-size swastika on his chest, were "symbols of power" and his German heritage. He said he had nothing against blacks or Jews, but believed their cultures "are wiping out the white race." He said he had been "heavy" into an Aryan group during a 2000 prison stint on drug charges but wasn't anymore.

"The n-word is ignorant," he said.

Although Jones sometimes performed oral sex on Wigmore, both said they were mostly "get-high buddies." Jones would stay in the container twice a month for days at a time, she said.

For breakfast, Wigmore would make French toast from thick slices of bread he bought from an Italian market. They would order take-out Chinese food or panzarottis for lunch. In the evenings, they would eat Hungry-Man TV dinners with crispy apple cinnamon desserts, to Jones' delight, she said.

"I'd wine and dine her. Breakfast in bed, man. Just like in here," Wigmore said during the interview at the jail.

Inside the container, he said, he kept a gym locker stuffed with potato chips and other munchies. Jones could store her Dark & Lovely shampoo there, too, he said.

People, please get off the drugs. Please!

The Revolution Has Begun

I cannot stand Howard Stern. I find him disgusting, gross and un-funny. But as long as this is the United States of America, I believe in his right to be as obnoxious and vulgar as he wants to be. I wish him lots of luck and prosperity with his new show on satellite radio and hope Sirius' subscriptions skyrocket into the stratosphere. As of this morning with Howard's new show, the battle is ON!

He took pot shots at free radio, the Federal Communications Commission, even TV personality Pat O'Brien. Howard Stern debuted on satellite radio Monday, stirring up trouble and talking dirty.

But this time, he won't get bleeped.

'I don't compete on terrestrial radio anymore,' said Stern, who is finally free of government decency laws on Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (SIRI) 'It's so over.'

The media maverick began his new radio show by putting to rest rumors - in true satellite style - that he got married to his longtime girlfriend, model Beth Ostrosky.


'I am not married. It's a nice feeling that we get along great. We're very happy and I don't want to (blank) it up,' Stern said.

Stern has promised everything from stripper poles to live sex on his new show. But he used only a moderate amount of swearing and said his show was more about ideas, not the f-word. Cursing, he said, would be part of the natural progression of speech.

'I feel this is a culmination of dreams for me,' Stern said in an on-air news conference.

'The only limit is our mind.'

At the time his October 2004 deal with Sirius was announced, the company said it could be worth up to $500 million over five years to headline two Sirius channels.

At the start of the show Monday, Stern dished up some phone sex with Playboy bunny Heidi Cortez, who has her own phone-sex nighttime show lined up on Sirius. He also played tapes of the infamous obscene phone messages left by O'Brien before the TV host entered alcohol rehab.

Stern also introduced George Takei as his new on-air personality. Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on 'Star Trek' and who last year publicly said he is gay, will serve as announcer. After the first week, he will record segments for the show but will not be in the studio.

'The revolution has begun' in new radio, Takei said Monday.

Even before his first day on the job, the shock jock recruited listeners for the $13-per-month service: The Sirius audience expanded from 600,000 at the time the switch was announced to more than 3.3 million subscribers, Stern said Monday. At the same time, Sirius stock has roughly doubled.

The Importance of Being Ernie

Just passing along this interesting article about the sole black legislator in the state of Nebraska. Check him out.

When Ernie Chambers returns to work this January, it will be with the knowledge that he isn’t long for the world, at least the world of the Nebraska Legislature, where he has served for 35 years, longer than any other member, current or past. Five years ago, Nebraskans passed a constitutional amendment calling for term limits. Unless the law is overturned, Chambers will be tossed out of office at the end of 2008. With his departure, the unicameral body (Nebraska is home to the nation’s sole one-house legislature) will lose more than institutional memory, because Chambers is distinctive, to start with, and does not attempt to blend in. He wears sweatshirts and jeans amid a forest of suits and ties; his gray beard contrasts with the clean chins of most of his brethren. He’s been described as "left of San Francisco" in a state that for decades has been tightly tucked under the blanket of conservative Republicanism. And, also, he’s black, the lone African American in the Legislature.

Depending on your perspective, that fact means everything or nothing. To Chambers, it is the characteristic by which his enemies, who are legion, define him, and for which they despise him. "They don’t like who I am, and they don’t like what I do," he says.

But they do help him do it, albeit reluctantly. Because of Chambers, the Legislature routinely backs bills its members wouldn’t otherwise have dreamed of supporting. He cajoled his colleagues into abolishing corporal punishment in schools, correcting the state pension system so that women would be treated equally with men, and backing a switch from at-large municipal elections to district-based voting so that nonwhites would have a chance to serve. Under his sway, Nebraska led the nation in the 1980s in divesting in companies that did business with apartheid-era South Africa. Every session he introduces a bill calling for an end to the death penalty. He once got the Legislature to approve it, but could not overcome the governor’s veto. He later led the Legislature in halting the execution of juveniles and the mentally retarded, ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court’s nationwide bans.

[cont ...]

Just Don't Be Fat AND Dumb

According to the sexist rules of mutual exclusivity, women would choose to be thin over intelligent instead of bucking the system and choosing both. Even as younger black women seem to be increasingly assimilating into this kind of madness that used to be considered a "white girl thing," I'd say, still, that most black girls would rather be "thick" AND smart.

The majority of women would prefer to be slimmer than have a higher IQ, instant wealth or a date with the celebrity of their dreams.

Nineteen out of 20 of the female population say that they place a higher priority on having a smaller waist than on their intelligence.

From a wish list that included never having money worries again, dating the A-list star of their choice or a genius-level IQ score, 51 per cent of women still plumped for a slimmer figure, according to a survey for the website tescodiets.com.

At a time when one in three women is overweight and a further one in five is obese, experts said that there was still too much pressure on the female population to be slim.

Barbara Wilson, head of nutrition at tescodiets.com, said: "Women's role models tend to be models and actresses, so there is more emphasis than ever placed upon physical perfection.

"These statistics reveal just how much pressure women feel there is to be slim in today's society."

The website has identified today as the most popular date in the year for starting a diet following the excesses of Christmas.

One in three women admitted that they spend more time worrying about their weight than their finances, jobs or families. And while 29 per cent said their biggest dread was going to the dentist and 16 per cent cited looking for a new job, a massive 40 per cent admitted their worst fear was having to try on clothes in a shop's communal fitting rooms.

One on three had lied to their friends about how much they weigh and one in four had tried to deceive their partner about their size.

Separate research by the magazine LighterLife has found that nearly half of women give up on their New Year diet within just a week of starting it. One in five female dieters admit that they have hidden food and eaten it in secret while pretending to maintain their new regime.

Bar Hewlett, founder of the LighterLife company, said: "Our survey reveals the extent of women's desperation.

"There have been women who hide food in the washing machine, under the plastic bag inside a cereal packet and even up their sleeves.

"The secret of losing weight and keeping it off is resolving the emotional issues that encourage you to overeat in the first place and having support from people in the same position."

The extent to which British women are confused about what the kind of female body they believe to be attractive and what they want for themselves was also revealed last week.

Singer Beyonce© Knowles was voted by women as having the sexiest figure, alongside other curvy stars such as Charlotte Church, Dawn French and Nigella Lawson.

The survey for the Ann Summers retail chain found that 87 per cent of the female respondents believed that society had an unhealthy obsession with diet and dress size.

Deanne Jade, principal of the National Centre of Eating Disorders, said: "Women are inconsistent about how they really feel about their bodies.

"They may be able to accept curves on a star, but on their own bodies it just seems like fat."

I know that Beyonce' is considered to be "bootylicious" but Nigella Lawson? (Okay, skip it. She's not emaciated or a toothpick with boobs. I forgot that is what slim means these days. Yuck!).

(link via Shakespeare's Sister)

A Mouse On Fire

Is this karma or what? While you hate to have the "that's what he gets" attitude, it does seem awfully fluky that throwing a mouse into a bonfire could result in the flaming mouse running back into the house and setting it on fire.

In a blazing display of karma, a New Mexico man lost his home Saturday after cruelly tossing a mouse into a pile of burning leaves.

Luciano Mares told firefighters he caught the mouse in his home, and threw it into the bonfire to be rid of the pest. But the rodent exacted his revenge by running back indoors — on fire.

It was finally overcome beneath a window. Flames spread up the curtains, eventually engulfing the house and its contents. Nobody — other than the mouse — was injured. It took trucks from a pair of fire stations two hours to extinguish the blaze.

Be mindful of your actions folks. You never can tell ...

Voodoo Politics

Now, if a non-Christians were running around "touching holy oil" to the seats of Senators, the religious right would be crying devil worship, Satanism and voodoo spells. How on earth is their sneaking and "blessing" chairs any different?

Insisting that God 'certainly needs to be involved' in the Supreme Court confirmation process, three Christian ministers today blessed the doors of the hearing room where Senate Judiciary Committee members will begin considering the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito on Monday.

Capitol Hill police barred them from entering the room to continue what they called a consecration service. But in a bit of one-upsmanship, the three announced that they had let themselves in a day earlier, touching holy oil to the seats where Judge Alito, the senators, witnesses, Senate staffers and the press will sit, and praying for each of the 13 committee members by name.

'We did adequately apply oil to all the seats,' said the Rev. Rob Schenck, who identified himself as an evangelical Christian and as president of the National Clergy Council in Washington.

Cut From The Same Cloth

I wasn't even going to dignify Pat Robertson's recent hateful remarks regarding the fate of Ariel Sharon but it seems that his Islamic partner in religious zealousness is making equally as idiotic comments. To my surprise, the Washington Post has finally had enough and thinks, as I do, that Robertson and Ahmadinejad of Iran arecut from the same cloth.

Christian television evangelist Pat Robertson and the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have a well-established affinity for the outrageous. This time their mutual embrace of indecency places them in a category all to themselves. As Ariel Sharon lies hospitalized and critically incapacitated by a massive stroke, Mr. Robertson, one of America's best-known religious extremists, and his Iranian counterpart -- no slouch when it comes to religious demagoguery -- suggested that Israel's prime minister had it coming. Speaking on his TV show, 'The 700 Club,' on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Mr. Robertson said the Bible 'makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who 'divide my land.' ' Mr. Sharon, Mr. Robertson asserted, 'was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course.' As Mr. Robertson was offering up his thoughts about a man fighting for his life, Iran's president was expressing unrestrained hope that Mr. Sharon would simply die.

Pat Robertson and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are probably beyond the point where they can be reached by embarrassment or shame. But they are not beyond the kind of strong condemnation that they have richly earned. We need not recite the records of contemptible remarks made by both men in the past. There is little reason to believe that either will cease his disgraceful behavior. Mr. Ahmadinejad, the president of a country with a lamentable human rights record and a nuclear program, is dangerous, where Mr. Robertson is only pathetic. But they share a self-righteousness that blinds them to the distance that they have placed between themselves and the majority of people who find their remarks repulsive. It's sufficient to know, we suppose, that at a time when messages of hope are flowing from around the world to the bedside of Ariel Sharon, Pat Robertson and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still have each other.

Despite the fact that they'd protest to the contrary, both of these men must worship the same sick God.

One Down ...

DeLay Steps Down as House Majority Leader

Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay decided Saturday to give up his post as House majority leader, clearing the way for new leadership elections among House Republicans eager to shed the taint of scandal, two officials said.

These officials said DeLay, R-Texas, was preparing a letter informing fellow House Republicans of his decision. These officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to pre-empt the formal announcement.

DeLay is battling campaign finance charges in Texas and was forced to step aside temporarily as majority leader last fall after he was charged in his home state. He has consistently maintained his innocence and said he intended to resume his leadership post once cleared.

His about-face came amid growing pressure from fellow Republicans who were concerned about their own political futures in the wake of this week's guilty pleas by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt, the party whip who temporarily has filled in for DeLay, was expected to run for majority leader.

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, a former member of the leadership, is also likely to run.

Elections are likely the week of Jan. 30, when lawmakers return to the Capitol.

DeLay intends to remain in Congress, these officials said, and plans to seek a new term in November.

DeLay acted hours after a small vanguard of Republicans circulated a petition calling for leadership elections and citing DeLay's legal problems as well as his long ties to Abramoff.

If So, Why?

Via Americablog, the Christiane Amanpour plot thickens. IF they spied on her, WHY?

So, now that the subject is out on the table, we decided to look at why the American government would want to spy on the CNN reporter.

Well, given the current administration's views on civil liberties and Arabs, the most cynical answer we could offer is because she is of Iranian descent. But while her father was an Iranian airline executive, Amanpour was born in London and mostly raised there, attending Catholic schools, and her family fled Iran in 1979 "during the Islamic Revolution."

Not exactly a terrorist profile.

The least cynical answer would be because her recent reporting would have brought her into direct contact with members of al Qaeda. In August 2002, not long after Bush began to authorize the warrantless spying program, Amanpour worked with CNN's Nic Robertson on a special that was billed as an inside view of al-Qaeda.

Actually, it was Robertson who did the heavy lifting on this one, smuggling 64 purported al-Qaeda videotapes -- showing terrorist training exercises and the like -- out of Afghanistan. But Amanpour played a role, according to this Aug. 19, 2002, article in Electronic Media.

There are some taped demonstrations of bomb making, for which written instructions had been found by CNN's Christiane Amanpour after President Bush's war on terrorism opened Afghanistan to the international press. There are lessons in firing small arms, rappelling down what looks like a cliff and assassinating someone.

Do you feel comfortable with the government spying on reporters for American-based news organizations, even if they are working abroad and are part of a chain that leads back to al-Qaeda? We don't, although we know there are many who would disagree with us. After all, some people say that Bush wanted to drop bombs on al-Jazeera.

Then there is the issue of Amanpour's husband, Jamie Rubin, former official in the Clinton administration State Department. You may have forgotten (we did, frankly), but Rubin re-emerged in 2004 -- as a foreign policy advisor to John Kerry. Do husbands and wives use the same telephones and computers? Is the Pope German?

But frankly, the concept that scares us the most, as a journalist, goes back to that lovely quote from the Fox News spokeswoman at the very top of this post -- and the episode that inspired it. Because Christiane Amanpour was highest profile, and also the most forceful, critic of the media's pliency toward Bush after the 9/11 attacks.

Here's what she said in Sept. 2003:

"I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."

The next day, Fox blasts her as an "al-Qaeda spokeswoman." And two years later, we are left to wonder if she was spied upon by the American government.

Coincidence?

We sure hope so.

Treating Dogs Better

A few of my friends and I - married and single - with 0-1 children often lament that the wrong people are having kids. I know single women who want kids but don't want to be single moms. I know married couples who've carefully weighed having more than one due to the amount of time, money and effort they want to invest in the productive upbringing of each one. Yet, some people seem to have no problem having kids then treating their pets with more care and attention.

A husband and wife who found a dog sitter for their new puppies, but left their 9-year-old son home to care for his younger autistic brother while they celebrated the new year in Las Vegas, were arrested Wednesday, police said.

Jacob Calero, 39, and his wife, Michelle De La Vega, 32, left Calero's sons — Joshua and Jason, 5 — at their San Ramon home early Friday while the newlyweds headed out of town for a five-day trip, police said.

The children's mother, Cristina Calero, died of breast cancer in 2003 and Jacob Calero married De La Vega last year.

Joshua, interviewed Wednesday at his maternal grandmother's apartment in Manteca, said his dad and stepmother got each other puppies for Christmas, and went so far as to bring the pug and the poodle-Maltese mix to De La Vega's mother before leaving town.

"I thought they loved them more than us," the boy said.

The grandmother, Libbey Holden, said she called police after she suspected the couple had left the children behind.

"I had big concerns," Holden said Wednesday, sitting in her apartment filled with family pictures, including smiling portraits of her late daughter. "These kids are helpless."

Police said they found the children asleep in their beds Saturday night, a day after being left alone. A gas fireplace was turned on, but they found nothing out of the ordinary.

"It appears that the food and the environment were set up for them to be alone," San Ramon Police Sgt. Brian Kalinowski said.

The older boy said he was instructed to not answer the front door, so officers had to use a ladder to enter the home through an unlocked sliding glass door on a second-floor balcony.

Neighbors went to the house Saturday after hearing the younger boy screaming "Help me! Help me!" in the family's garage, Kalinowski said. Finding no one home, they took him to their house and left a note behind. When Joshua returned after about an hour, he took his brother home.

Arresting the husband and wife on suspicion of two felony counts each of child endangerment was a "no-brainer," Kalinowski said. They were each being held at the Martinez jail in lieu of $200,000 bail.

Joshua, who said he was glad his father was arrested, explained that he and his brother ate cereal for breakfast and cooked frozen dinners in the microwave for other meals. He said his dad and stepmother left while they were asleep. They had asked him to watch his younger brother, but didn't tell him where they were staying, he said.

"They shouldn't leave us alone," Joshua said, sitting in the living room of his grandmother's apartment. "I didn't know who I could call in an emergency. Even if I called my father, he's far away, so there wouldn't be much he could do."

Holden said she tried calling Calero, but couldn't reach him. Worried, she consulted friends, and finally decided to call authorities.

Officers began calling Calero's cell phone Saturday, but he didn't call back until Tuesday.

"It seems to me that, as a parent, you would take a plane, train or automobile to come back to your kids as soon as possible," Kalinowski said. "We get the sense that they felt no urgency for them to return home."

They flew from Las Vegas early Wednesday and were arrested at Oakland International Airport about 11 a.m. Both have requested lawyers and have refused to talk to police, Kalinowski said. Felony child endangerment carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

Joshua said it wasn't the first time he and his brother were left home alone. Last fall, his dad and stepmother kept him out of school for a week so he could baby sit his brother while they went away.

Calero is a plumber and De La Vega works in a dental office, police said.

Assed Out Of Iraq

There was no magic to the formula that former occupiers of Iraq used by placing the Sunni's in power and after invading Iraq under the pretense of bringing true democracy, we see what others have seen. The influence the neo-cons thought we'd have is evaporating in a nice little mushroom cloud of smoke. All the time, money, lives and lies for what?

As the weight of the Shiite Islamist victory in Iraq's election is still being calculated, US influence in the country - in reconstruction, security, and politics - is steadily receding.

While a diminished US role in Iraqi affairs was inevitable, the speed of the retreat raises some risks to the establishing of a stable, US-friendly Iraq. The Shiite parties that dominated the vote in December have closer affinity to Iran than to the US. At the same time, the Bush administration is planning sharp cuts in reconstruction aid, a major point of leverage in Iraqi affairs.

'I think it's pretty clear our influence is waning as far as agenda setting,' says Noah Feldman, a law professor at New York University and a former top US adviser on the writing of Iraq's Constitution.

What then are America's best hopes for steering Iraq in a direction favorable to US interests? Some analysts say the US may reach out to its erstwhile enemies - the Sunnis.

'I wouldn't be the least surprised if the Americans cut a deal with Sunni [political figures with ties to the insurgency] to cut the Shiites down to size,' says Dan Plesch, a research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm ...

In my eyes, there is only one reason why Bushco wouldn't have used the legal means to evesdrop on suspected terrorists. They must have been spying on other folks as well. Perhaps regular, upstanding citizens or the press:

In an interview with NYT reporter and author James Risen recently, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked this very pointed question about the Bush administration's domestic spying program:

MITCHELL: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?

RISEN: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that

MITCHELL: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?

RISEN: No, no I hadn't heard that.

After AMERICAblog highlighted the excerpt this afternoon, the reference to Amanpour was removed from the transcript. (Here is the edited version.)

Here are questions that deserve answers tonight:

• Why did Mitchell ask specifically about Amanpour?
  
  
• Does Amanpour believe she was eavesdropped upon? Does she have any evidence of this?
  
  
• Why did MSNBC.com remove the reference to Amanpour from the transcript?
  

This is getting deep and will get deeper!

A Mama's Boy Indeed

Okay, in the midst of all of this tragedy and political strife, we need some laughs. This story sounds rather scandalous at first but on second thought it's actually kinda sweet.

Skirt-chasing playboy Daniel Anceneaux spent weeks talking with a sensual woman on the Internet before arranging a romantic rendezvous at a remote beach -- and discovering that his on-line sweetie of six months was his own mother!

'I walked out on that dark beach thinking I was going to hook up with the girl of my dreams,' the rattled bachelor later admitted. 'And there she was, wearing white shorts and a pink tank top, just like she'd said she would.

'But when I got close, she turned around -- and we both got the shock of our lives. I mean, I didn't know what to say. All I could think was, 'Oh my God! it's Mama!' '

But the worst was yet to come. Just as the mortified mother and son realized the error of their ways, a patrolman passed by and cited them for visiting a restricted beach after dark.

'Danny and I were so flustered, we blurted out the whole story to the cop,' recalled matronly mom Nicole, 52. 'The policeman wrote a report, a local TV station got hold of it -- and the next thing we knew, our picture and our story was all over the 6 o'clock news. 'People started pointing and laughing at us on the street -- and they haven't stopped laughing since.'

May As Well Pin This On Bush Too

Heck, at this rate we can pretty much be assured that everything that can go wrong during Bush's administration, will go wrong. This is just another example.

Bloomberg reveals:

Federal authorities issued 21 citations last year for a build-up of combustible materials at the West Virginia mine where 12 men died, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics.

The mining explosion should call attention to the Bush administration’s inadequate enforcement of federal mining safety regulations. Mining safety in the U.S. has improved dramatically since the Mining Safety and Health Act was signed in 1977. By the time that President Clinton signed the International Labor Organization’s Convention 176 concerning safety and health in mines, mining deaths dropped from 425 in 1970 to 85 in 2000.

Phil Smith, the communications director for the United Mine Workers of America, said that while citations were issued, the fines assessed for safety violations are too small to force large corporations to make improvements. “The problem with the current laws is enforcement.” According to an AFL-CIO analysis, the Bush administration cut 170 positions from federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and has not proposed a single new mine-safety standard or rule during its tenure.

And there’s a reason for that. The Washington Post reported that West Virginia coal firms raised $275,000 for Bush.

Last September, Bush rewarded the coal industry by placing coal industry veteran Richard Stickler in charge of MSHA. Stickler spent about 30 years as a coal company manager with Beth Energy. Mines managed by Stickler were marked by worker injury rates that were double the national average, according to government data cited by the United Mine Workers union.

Like Father, Like Son

While the religious right fights to force women to bear the children of their rapists, here is a good reason why women need to maintain their right to choose.

A Queens lawyer, stalked by the son she put up for adoption nearly 40 years ago, confronted him in court yesterday - and testified he was conceived when she was raped by an ex-fianc�.

'It was a considered decision [not to keep the baby] based on the child was being born to parents whose relationship had become hostile,' she told a Brooklyn Federal Court jury.

The 61-year-old woman, whose name is being withheld at her request, never lost her composure as she revealed the circumstances of Roger Siegel's birth and how he haunted her after tracking her down through court records.

In 1966, she said, she was a high school teacher upstate who had recently broken off an engagement. She said she later agreed to meet with her ex-fianc�and was raped during the visit.

The lawyer said she put the baby up for adoption so there would be no lasting tie to the birth father.

'I thought about [the baby] always, that he would be healthy and his parents would have the joy that comes with children,' she said.

Siegel tracked down his birth mother in 2002 by convincing a court to unseal the adoption records for medical necessity. After exchanging letters, she assured him there were no hereditary illnesses to worry about, then made an 'agonizing' decision to cease contact.

But Siegel, 39, couldn't take the rejection. The feds say he responded with 1,000 voice mails and hundreds of faxes filled with hate.

She broke off her engagement with someone she suspected was the devil and ended up being terrorized by his spawn 40 years later.

Going To Hell In a Collection Basket

Okay, this isn't the same story I heard on the news this morning where a thief robbed a church service at gunpoint and made the children collect the loot from adults. This isn't quite as brazen but somebody is still going to hell for this.

Someone stole close to $8,000 in cash and checks from the collection basket at The Church of the Guardian Angels just after a crowded Christmas Eve Mass on Saturday (Dec. 24) afternoon, according to police and church officials.

'I don't know how someone does this and lives with their own conscience,' Monsignor James Moran said. 'We do have programs for the poor and needy.'

The large, brown wicker basket filled with donations had been placed on the altar during the service and was left there while Moran went to the front door to greet parishioners after the standing-room-only service.

When he returned to the altar about 20 minutes later, the basket was in precisely the same spot beneath the brightly colored stained glass windows and the soaring wooden ceiling. But it held only some coins, Moran said.

I don't care which God people worship. A church, synagogue or mosque should be off limits - even for thieves!

Freaks!

Anyone who could come up with this conspiracy theory is obsessed with homosexuality and, in my view, if you are obsessed with something it is probably because it holds some personal truth for you.

The religious right is now attacking Barbie for promoting "gender confusion." According to the men at the Concerned Women for America, Barbie is urging kids to go bi:

"This is directed at children aged four to eight... that's a really young age to be directing something along the lines of bisexuality."

Yes, Barbie is making four year olds want to have sex with other four year olds of the same gender. And the Concerned Men would prefer that children have sex with four year olds of the opposite gender, I guess.

What's really going on here is that the religious right has been attacking Mattel for months, just like they went after Ford and Microsoft and Allstate and Kraft and every other major American company. This is just another way for them to attack Mattel and get Mattel to do something bigoted to make amends.

But claiming that Barbie is promoting bisexuality to four year olds, that's just whacked.

By the way, since when do 4 years old go online to order their own Barbie?

And Forgive Us Our Debt

Juan Cole has several predictions for 2006. Most revolve around the Middle East, China and Russia but this one, I feel, is the most serious and pressing ...

The United States will continue to lose global political influence because its government is running large deficits and going ever deeper into debt. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower routinely used the threat of calling in loans from war-devastated Europe to get his way. He threatened UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden with loan cancellations if the latter did not get back out of the Suez in late 1956. He threatened DeGaulle with loan cancellations if the latter didn't get France out of rebellious Algeria before it went Communist. Nowadays the US is a massive debtor nation, and has lost that kind of leverage with all but the poorest and most beaten-down countries. The US nuclear arsenal is relatively useless because it cannot actually be used, and the US military is bogged down in Iraq. America remains a superpower for the third and fourth worlds, but is often a helpless, pitiful giant as far as places like Western Europe and China are concerned.