This Could Get Messy

I hope this woman doesn't wind up dead but it looks like she is more than willing to bring any and everyone down with her. If prosecutors want to go there this madam will GO THERE!

The woman charged in a federal indictment with running a high-class Washington, D.C. call girl service says she plans to call her prominent clients to testify at her trial.

Jeane Palfrey, dubbed the D.C. Madam, says among those she will call to testify are Randall Tobias, who resigned Friday as deputy secretary of state after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of Palfrey's escort service.

Tobias said he "had some gals come over to the condo for a massage" but denied any sex was involved.

Tobias is the second prominent man to be identified as a customer of the Palfrey's "sexual fantasy service." Two weeks ago, Palfrey alleged that military strategist Harlan K. Ullman, creator of the "shock and awe" combat theory and now a scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was also a customer. Ullman has said that the claim was "beneath the dignity of comment."

Also on Palfrey's list of customers who could be potential witnesses are a Bush administration economist, the head of a conservative think tank, a prominent CEO, several lobbyists and a handful of military officials.

"I'm sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, four to eight years, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever," Palfrey told ABC News correspondent Brian Ross in an interview to be broadcast Friday on "20/20." "I'll bring in every last one of them in if necessary," she said.

Do inquiring minds really want to know who is on her list of clients?

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I Absoultely Refuse To Believe This

I know a lot of black women who would rather be alone than date a white guy. I would rather be alone that in love with an imbecile.

And Rice was drawn to Bush. "First of all, I thought he was wonderful to be around," she recalled, sitting on the couch in her State Department office. "He was warm and funny and easy to be around. I thought he had just an incredibly inquisitive mind ... You could barely finish an explanation before he was digging into it."

Bush was also a bad boy. And Rice, according to friends and family, had a thing for bad boys. That was why, as a 20-year-old grad student, she preferred her second Fighting Irish football player boyfriend to her first, said Jane Robinett, Rice's best Notre Dame friend: John "Dubie" Dubenetzky, cocky and handsome with wavy blond hair, was less deferential than Wayne Bullock, the sweet fullback who had moved Condi's boxes into Lewis Hall.

Rice's friends insisted the attraction to Bush was platonic, but Brenda Hamberry-Green, her Palo Alto hairdresser, who had spent years commiserating with Rice over how hard it was for successful black women to find a good man, noticed a change when Rice started working for Bush. "He fills that need," Hamberry-Green decided. "Bush is her feed."

Rumors will fly until the day both of them die and beyond but even though I don't like her, I just cannot believe that her standards are that frickin' low.

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Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

That would have been my choice.

Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom's more sober brother instead, police said Monday.

"The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride's family and local villagers chased him away," Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after Sunday's marriage in a village in Bihar state's Arwal district.

The younger brother readily agreed to take the groom's place beside the teenage bride at her family's invitation, witnesses said.

"The groom apologized for his behavior, but has been crying that word will spread and he will never get a bride again," Singh said by phone.

Then again, it doesn't seem as though the teen bride had much of a choice in the matter.

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She's Leaving

This is sad but, unfortunately, not surprising. The author of the Baghdad Burning blog (and her family) will be leaving Iraq.

The Great Wall of Segregation...

…Which is the wall the current Iraqi government is building (with the support and guidance of the Americans). It's a wall that is intended to separate and isolate what is now considered the largest 'Sunni' area in Baghdad- let no one say the Americans are not building anything. According to plans the Iraqi puppets and Americans cooked up, it will 'protect' A'adhamiya, a residential/mercantile area that the current Iraqi government and their death squads couldn't empty of Sunnis.

The wall, of course, will protect no one. I sometimes wonder if this is how the concentration camps began in Europe. The Nazi government probably said, "Oh look- we're just going to protect the Jews with this little wall here- it will be difficult for people to get into their special area to hurt them!" And yet, it will also be difficult to get out.

The Wall is the latest effort to further break Iraqi society apart. Promoting and supporting civil war isn't enough, apparently- Iraqis have generally proven to be more tenacious and tolerant than their mullahs, ayatollahs, and Vichy leaders. It's time for America to physically divide and conquer- like Berlin before the wall came down or Palestine today. This way, they can continue chasing Sunnis out of "Shia areas" and Shia out of "Sunni areas".

I always hear the Iraqi pro-war crowd interviewed on television from foreign capitals (they can only appear on television from the safety of foreign capitals because I defy anyone to be publicly pro-war in Iraq). They refuse to believe that their religiously inclined, sectarian political parties fueled this whole Sunni/Shia conflict. They refuse to acknowledge that this situation is a direct result of the war and occupation. They go on and on about Iraq's history and how Sunnis and Shia were always in conflict and I hate that. I hate that a handful of expats who haven't been to the country in decades pretend to know more about it than people actually living there.

I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night.


On a personal note, we've finally decided to leave. I guess I've known we would be leaving for a while now. We discussed it as a family dozens of times. At first, someone would suggest it tentatively because, it was just a preposterous idea- leaving ones home and extended family- leaving ones country- and to what? To where?

Since last summer, we had been discussing it more and more. It was only a matter of time before what began as a suggestion- a last case scenario- soon took on solidity and developed into a plan. For the last couple of months, it has only been a matter of logistics. Plane or car? Jordan or Syria? Will we all leave together as a family? Or will it be only my brother and I at first?

After Jordan or Syria- where then? Obviously, either of those countries is going to be a transit to something else. They are both overflowing with Iraqi refugees, and every single Iraqi living in either country is complaining of the fact that work is difficult to come by, and getting a residency is even more difficult. There is also the little problem of being turned back at the border. Thousands of Iraqis aren't being let into Syria or Jordan- and there are no definite criteria for entry, the decision is based on the whim of the border patrol guard checking your passport.

An airplane isn't necessarily safer, as the trip to Baghdad International Airport is in itself risky and travelers are just as likely to be refused permission to enter the country (Syria and Jordan) if they arrive by airplane. And if you're wondering why Syria or Jordan, because they are the only two countries that will let Iraqis in without a visa. Following up visa issues with the few functioning embassies or consulates in Baghdad is next to impossible.


So we've been busy. Busy trying to decide what part of our lives to leave behind. Which memories are dispensable? We, like many Iraqis, are not the classic refugees- the ones with only the clothes on their backs and no choice. We are choosing to leave because the other option is simply a continuation of what has been one long nightmare- stay and wait and try to survive.

On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?

It's difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.

As I've done before, I've quoted her entire post as I have no idea if or how long her blog will remain up and running. I hope she and her family find more peace and freedom in Syria, Jordan or wherever they land to start a new life.

Another Day, Another Nine Dead

Working "the surge:"

A car bomb exploded Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala as the streets were packed with people heading for evening prayers, killing at least 58 and wounding scores near some of the country's most sacred shrines. Separately, the U.S. military announced the deaths of nine American troops, including three killed Saturday in a single roadside bombing outside Baghdad. With black smoke clogging the skies above Karbala, angry crowds hurled stones at police and later stormed the provincial governor's house, accusing authorities of failing to protect them from the unrelenting bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents. It was the second car bomb to strike the city's central area in two weeks. Near the blast site, survivors frantically searched for missing relatives. Iraqi television showed one man carrying the charred body of a small girl above his head as he ran down the street while ambulances rushed to retrieve the wounded and firefighters sprayed water at fires in the wreckage, leaving pools of bloody water. The Americans killed in Iraq included five who died in fighting Friday in Anbar province, three killed when a roadside bomb struck their patrol southeast of Baghdad and one killed in a separate roadside bombing south of the capital.

The deaths raised to 99 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died this month and at least 3,346 who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

A Day Late And Millions Of Lives Short

Is he kidding?

Poor George Tenet. Flogging his book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, on 60 Minutes, Tenet tells Scott Pelley about how his phrase "slam dunk" was misused by the Bush administration. Tenet, you see, didn't mean that Hussein had WMD, he only meant it was a "slam dunk" that a public case could be made that Hussein had WMD.

I can't really see that the distinction matters, but Tenet apparently does. "I became campaign talk," Tenet tells Pelley, "I was a talking point. 'Look at what the idiot told us, and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous. Let's stand up. This is why we did it. This is why, this is how we did it. And let's tell, let's everybody tell the truth."

Great -- except he's about four years too late. Tenet seems to believe there's a major distinction between lying and standing by silently while others lie, and then proudly receiving a Medal of Freedom from the liars.

If George Tenet wants to have any credibility at all, he needs to take that medal and shove it up President Bush's behind!

The Highway Collapsed

I was up early this morning and could not figure out what the heck happened even though this was on every local channel. Unless there is an earthquake, how do highways collapse?

A stretch of vital highway for San Francisco Bay-area commuters collapsed on Sunday after a gas tanker truck crashed and ignited flames that shot more than 200 feet (60 metres) high, officials said.

Flames on a lower ramp melted the upper deck of a highway on the Oakland/Emeryville side leading to the double-decker Bay Bridge that connects the heavily populated East Bay to San Francisco. As the steel structure weakened, a concrete slab fell onto the ramp below.

The driver of the truck, which an official said may have been speeding, was hospitalized with burns and was reported to be in stable condition. Officials said the scant traffic in the middle of the night prevented further injuries and accidents.

They are working on commuter contingency plans for the next few months, telling drivers to avoid the web of highways known as the "Oakland Maze."

"Undoubtedly, today's incident will cause severe difficulties for Bay Area commuters," Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "The state will take every action possible to minimize the impact on commuters and repair the overpass as quickly as possible."

A Comfort To All

One minute they are fighting with the US, the next they are selling our soldiers their women.

Japan's abhorrent practice of enslaving women to provide sex for its troops in World War II has a little-known sequel: After its surrender - with tacit approval from the U.S. occupation authorities - Japan set up a similar "comfort women" system for American GIs.

An Associated Press review of historical documents and records shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution. The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan's atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.

Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down.

The papers show the brothels were rushed into operation as U.S. forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.

"Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation troops," recounts the official history of the Ibaraki Prefectural Police Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo. "The strategy was, through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls."

Hmmm! Weren't we just trying to condemn them for this WWII practice? Our men were knee deep in those assaults too.

It's Not About Being Jewish

This is a very long and interesting article about Jews in Iran and may help some people understand that to many who have issues with Israel, it isn't about Jews or Judaism. It's about Israel.

Enmity runs deep between arch-foes Iran and Israel. And that confrontation complicates the lives of Iranian Jews, who make up the largest community of Jews in the Middle East outside the Jewish state.

Iran's Jews are buffeted by inflammatory rhetoric from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about "wiping Israel off the map" and denying the Holocaust, and a politically charged environment that often equates all Jews with Israel and routinely witnesses the burning of the "enemy" flag.

But despite what appears to be a dwindling minority under constant threat of persecution, Iranian Jews say they live in relative freedom in the Islamic Republic, remain loyal to the land of their birth, and are striving to separate politics from religion.

They caution against comparing Iran's official and visceral opposition to the creation of Israel and Zionism with the regime's acceptance of Jews and Judaism itself.

"If you think Judaism and Zionism are one, it is like thinking Islam and the Taliban are the same, and they are not," says Ciamak Moresadegh, chairman of the Tehran Jewish Committee. "We have common problems with Iranian Muslims. If a war were to start, we would also be a target. When a missile lands, it does not ask if you are a Muslim or a Jew. It lands."

The continuous Jewish presence in Iran predates Islam by more than a millennium. One wave came when Jews sought to escape Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar II around 680 BC; others were freed from slavery by Cyrus the Great with the conquest of Babylon some 140 years later.

Historically, say Jewish leaders, anti-Semitism here is rare, a fact they say is often lost on critics outside, especially in Israel, where many Iranian Jews have relatives. Still, the Jewish community has thinned by more than two-thirds since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, to some 25,000; the largest exodus took place soon after the Islamic Republic was formed, though a modest flow out continues.

"Our problem is that the Israel issue is not solved, and that affects us here," says one Iranian Jew who asked not to be named ...

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I Don't Get It Either

I wasn't surprised that Rosie announced she would not be returning to The View for another year. I didn't expect her to. She'd only signed a one year contract and I didn't expect that she'd want to do it beyond a year. What I also didn't expect was the media blitz behind her announcement. Why was that news? People are obsessed with Rosie and I don't know why!

Reaction to the announcement that Rosie O'Donnell is leaving The View took the TV star by surprise, she said on Thursday's episode of the ABC show.

"Yesterday's announcement was a tad bit bigger than I expected," she said as co-host Joy Behar read off a lengthy list of news programs that had discussed O'Donnell's departure.

"I just didn't watch it," O'Donnell, 45, said about the widespread TV coverage. "Once you buy into it, it becomes lodged in the hard drive of your brain. [But] to be breaking news on CNN?"

She said there were more important issues to be covered than her failed contract negotiations with ABC, such as the health problems of 9/11 rescue workers, some of whom, on Wednesday, taped their stories for The View's Friday broadcast.

Instead, she said, after she left the studio on Wednesday, 65 press crews were "attacking [my] car like I'm Lindsay Lohan or something."

Rosie received coverage, almost daily it seemed, on cable programs like Scarborough Country and whatever Tucker Carlson's latest mutation is. They dissected her every word and took every opportunity to bash her in some way. Donald Trump's fixation with her was/is positively juvenile and I still cannot believe my eyes and ears everytime I hear him on the tube ranting about her. Rosie's views are not much different than the average liberal blogger's views. Why is she labeled as being so out there?

I am sure she will get her own show where she doesn't have to share the stage with an ensemble. The View was a good way to get her feet wet again and a good way for Barbara to boost the sagging ratings. We'll see what the show does for the next season. Maybe they'll tap someone like Whoopi to sit at the table.

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Why Do They Hate Us?

Because they know that America is filled with inbred looking albinos like John Gibson who disregard their humanity.

On the April 23 broadcast of his Fox News Radio show, John Gibson argued that the Iraqi people -- whom he described as "knuckle-dragging savages from the 10th century" -- are at "fault" for the situation in Iraq. While discussing Iraq, Gibson said: "The one thing that drives me up the wall is [people] saying, 'Look at all the deaths you Americans have caused in Iraq.' No! 'Scuse me? We invaded the place, we knocked over Saddam, and then Iraqis began killing each other." Later in the show, Gibson agreed with a caller that the Coalition Provisional Authority's 2003 decision to purge the civil service of all former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and disband the Iraqi army "was a mistake." Gibson then stated: "[B]ut who is doing this killing? Give me a break. These are Iraqis killing each other. So what did we do? If you're saying it's our fault that we unmasked them as knuckle-dragging savages from the 10th century -- fine! I'll take credit."

Ugh!

Dubya Got It Honestly

His mother is an idiot!

And yesterday, the former First Lady said it was okay for Mitt Romney to be "Mormon" (a term that is avoided by members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, but used by Larry King) because there are "wild people" in every religion. (Barbara should know--she is one wild Episcopalian.) She went on to explain: "I mean it was in 1897 that bigamy was outlawed in that church. You know we have a lot of Christian wild people too, and a lot of Jewish wild people and a lot of Muslim wild people. The Mormon religion takes care of its own, they don't have people on welfare."

In the world of Bush, that is the ultimate compliment.

Huh?!

Stop Snitching ... Puleese!

When I went to my sorority's international conference last summer in Detroit, I remember getting off of the local people mover at the convention center with a young man who was sporting a "stop snitching" t-shirt. Being who I am, I couldn't help rather outwardly giving this guy the once over with my eyes and displaying an active look of disapproval. Luckily he didn't give me a look of defiance but, rather, he seemed to become a little self-conscious.

Do these kids even know what they are promoting and do they actually believe it? I think with some it's just a sick fad.

At first glance it defied belief. There was platinum selling rap artist Cam'ron brazenly telling 60 Minutes this past Sunday that if he knew the identity and the whereabouts of a mass killer, he wouldn't lift a finger to help police catch him.

Presumably that meant that if Seung Hui Cho rapped and partied with Cam'ron, and then Cho blurted out to him that he intended to commit murder and mayhem at Virginia Tech, Cam'ron wouldn't squeal to the police.

This is too serious to wave off as mindless blather of an airhead rapper out to sound hip, cool, and controversial, and of course sell more records. Cam'ron sells a lot of records to a lot of impressionable young and not so young men. They hang on his image and words. Worse, his silly anti-snitch plea touches a nerve with many blacks.

I saw this Cam'ron person on Anderson Cooper 360. (Honestly, I think I had him confused with basketball player Carmello Anthony. I truly don't, and can't/won't, keep up). This has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen and while I kinda, sorta understand not fraternizing with "the enemy" because the cops, very often, aren't the good guys in many communities, I think what pains me more is that news organizations are giving clowns like this a bigger platform than they deserve. Let somebody steal one of his giant diamond earrings and I'll bet he'll be calling the cops! He needs to stop frontin'!

Wouldn't It Be Pretty To Think So?

Dennis Kucinich is an odd bird who has absolutely no chance of winning the Democratic nomination but I'm glad he's taking this stand.

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich motioned to impeach Cheney today. Cheney, not Bush, he explained, because "if we were to start with the president and pursue articles of impeachment, Mr. Cheney would then become president.... you would then have to go through the constitutional agony of impeaching two presidents consecutively."

This is a one-man move, since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said impeachment is off the table. The party has strongly denied that it would ever impeach, in order to prevent the possibility from mobilizing the Republican base. Even though the motion is dead in the water, it's a powerful political statement.

Since Kucinich is putting himself in the limelight for another presidential run here, it's worth mentioning that he is not the liberal gold standard his radical supporters think. He has actually voted pro-life at every opportunity.

Kucinich said the imperative for impeachment is to prevent Cheney from leading us to war with Iran. Maybe this is too optimistic, but at this point, Congress has got to be too Democratic and too jaded to fall for that one again. If not, well, what's the use in cutting off the head of the hydra?

I Don't Believe This

Either we captured Bin Laden a long time ago or he is dead. I just plain don't believe he even exists anymore except when Bushco needs some phantom image of him to invoke fear in Americans.

A top Taliban commander said al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was behind the February attack outside the U.S. military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, during the visit there by Vice President Dick Cheney, according to an interview shown Wednesday by Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera.

Bin Laden planned and supervised the attack that killed 23 people outside the base during Cheney's visit, said Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's main military commander in southern Afghanistan who has had close associations with al-Qaida.

"You may remember the martyr operation inside the Bagram base, which targeted a senior U.S. official. ... That operation was the result of his wise planning. He (bin Laden) planned that operation and guided us through it. The operation was a success," Dadullah told Al-Jazeera.

He did not say how he knew that bin Laden planned the attack, and it was not immediately clear when the interview took place.

Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino said it was "an interesting claim but ... I haven't seen any intelligence that would support that."

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Not Even Worthy Of A Response

Rush Limbaugh needs a life - devoid of drugs.
<blockquote>Rush Limbaugh yesterday delivered a jaw-dropping video called "Barack, the Magic Negro." Will he follow in Don Imus' footsteps?

The video, shown to subscribers on his web site, focuses on the Rev. Al Sharpton's vocal discredit of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as an effective leader.

The video (watch it here), entitled "U Da Real Negro Al, Screw Obama," was a parody by Paul Shanklin, a well-known conservative political satirist famous for his voice impersonations, who tries to imitate Sharpton's voice and includes a slideshow of images of Sharpton and Barack pointing out the differences in their "blackness." Toward the middle of the video, Shanklin harmonizes "Barack, the Magic Negro," a twist on the 1963 hit song, "Puff, the Magic Dragon" performed by Peter, Paul and Mary, which seeks to suggest that Barack is somehow a manufactured black man.
Though you really want to ignore these kinds of things, Rush and his ilk spread this stuff to the lowest common denominator in listeners and it stokes the fire of their pre-existing hatred of anyone who is not white and male. It's a sad, sad commentary on our society that we are still here in 2007 and that this kind of ridiculous behavior is even tolerated in any circles at all.

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Success By What Measure?

President Moron speaks again.

In an interview last night on PBS, President Bush complained that people who measure progress in Iraq by how many car bombs and suicide attacks occur are giving a “huge victory” to the enemy by making it more difficult for him to promote the war to the American public.

“If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings,” Bush said, “we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory.” He repeated later that people who “judge the administration’s [escalation] plan” based on such acts of violence “have just given Al Qaida or any other extremist a significant victories [sic].”

Bush said that these images of brutal violence on television are “one of the problems I face in trying to convince the American people” that the war is worthwhile. Watch it:

If this isn't the most convoluted assessment of things I have ever heard, I don't know what is. We unleashed a pack of crazies in Iraq and despite a surge in our troop levels, the violence hasn't subsided and has increased in many places. What, exactly, is the measure of success? No more Iraqis left to kill?

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Elaborate Lies

I wake up in the middle of the night and catch clips of what I read earlier in the day. I want to know WHO authorized these lies! It's disgusting.

An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star was cut down by friendly fire in Afghanistan said Tuesday a commanding officer had ordered him to keep quiet about what happened.



The military at first portrayed Tillman's death as the result of heroic combat with the enemy. Army Spc. Bryan O'Neal told a congressional hearing that when he got the chance to talk to Tillman's brother, who had been in a nearby convoy on the fateful day, "I was ordered not to tell him what happened."



"You were ordered not to tell him?" repeated Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.



"Roger that, sir," replied O'Neal, dressed in his Army uniform.



The revelation came as committee members questioned whether, and when, top Defense officials and the White House knew that Tillman's death in eastern Afghanistan three years ago was actually a result of gunfire from fellow U.S. soldiers.



The committee also heard from Jessica Lynch, the former Army private who was badly injured when her convoy was ambushed in Iraq in 2003. She was later rescued by American troops from an Iraqi hospital, but the tale of her ambush was changed into a story of heroism on her part.



Still hampered by her injuries, Lynch walked slowly to the witness table, took a seat alongside Tillman's family members and said the heroism belonged to others who fought in Iraq, such as her roommate Lori Piestewa, who died in the same ambush in which Lynch was captured.



"The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate lies," Lynch said.

Cheney Should Be The Last Somebody ...

Who even listens to Cheney?

Jim Manley, Spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, released the following statement today after comments made by Vice President Dick Cheney:

Vice President Cheney should be the last person to lecture anyone on how leaders should make decisions.

Leaders should make decisions based on facts and reality, two words that seem to be foreign to the Vice President

This is the same guy who said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and that we would be greeted as liberators. And it's the same guy who continues to assert that Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda long after our own intelligence agency conclusively refuted this notion. To suggest he lacks credibility would be an understatement.

The Vice President's and others' attacks on those who disagree with their failed policies are signs of desperation. They are lashing out because they know the days are numbered for their failed strategy and that the American people and a bipartisan majority are determined to force this Administration to change course in Iraq.

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Released From Limbo

See! It's BS like this that keeps me intellectually unable to be a true practicing Catholic. I seem to remember this "limbo" mess from religion class in 6th grade. I cannot fathom what kind of doctrine would tell people that if their baby died before it was baptized, it wouldn't go to heaven and would be stuck in limbo forever. I thought it was a mean idea when I was a kid and I think it is utterly ridiculous now. At least the new Pope is now declaring it an invalid concept but how is it that one man is even able to decide this kind of thing? It was a crock then and releasing the faith from such a crock is hardly what I'd call an accomplishment!

Limbo, the state between heaven and hell where almost eight centuries of traditional Roman Catholic teaching consigned the virtuous but unbaptized, is expected to be abandoned soon by Pope Benedict XVI.

The only one entitled to sanction the limbo’s abolition, the Pope has blessed a 41-page report of the International Theological Commission, titled, "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized."

An advisory body to the Vatican, the 30-member commission concluded that the concept of limbo reflected an "unduly restrictive view of salvation."

"There is greater theological awareness today that God is merciful and wants all human beings to be saved. Grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ's special love for the little ones," the report, posted on the Catholic News Service Web site, said.

Following a three-year study, the document concluded that "serious theological and liturgical grounds" provide hope that "unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision."

Limbo, which comes from the Latin word meaning "border" or "edge," has never been defined as church dogma.

Nevertheless, it has been a strongly debated issue since the time of St. Augustine, who persuaded a church council in 418 A.D. to reject any notion of an "intermediary place" between heaven and hell.

Augustine’s view was based on the assumption that only baptism removes the stain of original sin ­— which all children are born with. Thus, unbaptized babies would simply go to hell, though their punishment would be the mildest of all.
Immortalized by Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy as the "first circle of hell," where souls were not punished but doomed never to see God, the idea of limbo was still strong in 1905. At that time, Pope Pius X stated: "Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer, either."

Belief in limbo began to change with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), in which the church conceded that everyone — baptized Christians or not — could actually have a chance to be saved.

The idea of scrapping limbo and examining the afterlife fate of unbaptized infants was first proposed by Pope John Paul II. Indeed, the new Catholic Church's catechism, issued in 1992, does not contain any mention of limbo.

"Limbo has never been a definitive truth of faith. Personally, I would let it drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis," then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and now Pope Benedict XVI, wrote in the 1980s.
According to Vatican sources, the commission's findings could be ratified by the Pope by the end of the year.

While urging parents to continue to baptize their children, the document also states that the salvation for unbaptized babies who die is an urgent pastoral question since their number is greatly increasing and parents can experience deep anguish thinking that their unbaptized children are in a place where God is not present.

As the document stated, "People find it increasingly difficult to accept that God is just and merciful if he excludes infants, who have no personal sins, from eternal happiness."

From which lie will the faithful be released from next?

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The Surge Is Working

But not for us.

Nine U.S. soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded Monday in a suicide car bombing against a patrol base northeast of Baghdad, the military said.

The attack occurred in Diyala province, a volatile area that has been the site of fierce fighting between U.S. and Iraqi troops, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, according to a statement.

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As If The Devil Didn't Have A Big Enough Hand In This Tragedy

These demonic loons who spew a hate-filled brand of "Christianity" are planning to disrupt the funerals of those slain at Virginia Tech.

The families of those killed in the Virginia Tech massacre may not be able to grieve in peace at the funerals of those they lost. An anti-gay religious group known for protesting at the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq is planning on appearing at services for those killed on Monday as well.

The Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), which is not affiliated with any national Baptist organization, announced plans to protest at victims’ funerals only hours after 32 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. They also may protest at other events on the Virginia Tech campus.

The organization, founded and led by Fred Phelps, believes the United States has condemned itself to destruction by accepting homosexuality and other “sins of the flesh.” Phelps’ daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the Virginia Tech teachers and students who died on Monday brought their fate upon themselves by not being true Christians.

“The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,” Phelps-Roper said. “You don’t need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell.”

I'm not one to encourage violence but if someone wanted to go full frontal on the lot of these crazies, I might be able to look the other way.

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Tim Wise Weighs In On Imus

Like his others, it's a long essay so I'll just quote one of his talking points.

White Hypocrisy, Personal Responsibility, and Shifting the Blame to Black Folks

One thing has been made clear by the Imus incident: namely, white folks are incapable of blaming other whites for white racism and racist behavior. Despite all the demands by whites that blacks take "personal responsibility" for their lives, their behaviors, and the problems that often beset their communities--and especially that they stop blaming whites for their station in life--the fact is, we can't wait to blame someone else when we, or one of ours, screws up. So please note, from virtually every corner of the white media (and from black conservatives who are quick to let whites off the hook no matter what we do), the conversation has shifted from Imus's racism to a full-scale assault on rap music and hip-hop. In other words, it's those black people's fault when one of ours calls them a name. After all, they do it themselves, and Imus can't be expected not to say "ho" if Ice Cube has done it. At this point, I'm halfway expecting to hear Bill O'Reilly say that white folks wouldn't have even heard words like nigger if it weren't for 50 Cent.

But this kind of argument is not only absurd on the face of it, even more to the point, it's a complete affront to the concept of "personal responsibility." It ranks right up there with telling your mom that "Billy did it too," back when you were ten, and playing ball outside, and broke your neighbor's window. As I recall, mom didn't really give a rat's ass, and responded by saying something about Billy, a bridge, and whether his desire to jump off like a damned fool would inspire similar stupidity on your part.

By seeking to shift blame for Imus's comments, or those of Michael Richards, or whomever, onto black folks, white America has shown our duplicity to be something over which we have no shame. Of course, we've been doing it a long time. Witness the way that whites are quick to point out--whenever the issue of slavery is raised--that "blacks in Africa sold other blacks into bondage," as if that would make blacks every bit as culpable as the folks whose wealth was built by the slave system; as if Europeans had only come to Africa for the weather, and had been coerced into the transatlantic slave trade. Or consider the way that whites blame indigenous people for the mass death they experienced after the invasion of the Americas, by saying, with no sense of misgiving, "Well, it wasn't our fault, I mean, they mostly died of disease," as if native folk would have contracted these diseases short of the desire by whites to conquer the planet for our own aggrandizement. Or consider the way that whites seek to rationalize racial profiling, by arguing that since blacks have higher crime rates, individual and perfectly innocent blacks really can't complain when cops target them, and should instead blame their own for the way blacks get viewed, and treated; same thing with Arabs and terrorism. It's their fault, in other words, personal responsibility be damned.

Rap has been an especially useful scapegoat, such that whenever whites act out in a racist way we seem quick to blame rap. In fact, sometimes, when whites commit violence we blame rap too, as with the two school shooters in Jonesboro, Arkansas in the late 90s, who were reported to love rap music, as if that would explain their decision to ambush their classmates. When whites throw "ghetto" parties on college campuses, which denigrate the humanity of persons living in this nation's poorest and most marginalized communities, they routinely claim to be merely mimicking what they've seen on MTV. Snoop Dogg made 'em do it, see? Or perhaps it was Jay-Z, or Biggie, or 'Pac. Odd how the Sopranos never get blamed when white folks kill someone, nor the Saw movie trilogy, or, for that matter (since we're on the subject of music), Johnny Cash, who sang about shooting a man in Reno "just to watch him die." Hell, Johnny even sang that song in a prison to a bunch of inmates, with no apparent concern for inciting violence on their part.

And speaking of Cash, the rush to blame rap is especially intriguing given the history of violent themes in country music--a genre that is never blamed whenever some white, NASCAR lover commits murder. Consider country legend Porter Wagoner, whose song "Cold Hard Facts of Life," tells of a man who kills his wife for cheating on him. Or better still, "The First Mrs. Jones," in which Wagoner's protagonist, speaking to his new wife--who has just left him--tells her how he stalked and murdered his former betrothed, after which killing he buried her body parts in the woods. In other words, unless the "second Mrs. Jones" comes back to him, she's going to join the first one, pushing up daisies in the forest. If Young Buck dropped a song like this, white America would be screaming about how he was encouraging violence against women. But for Wagoner, a revered member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, no such concern attaches. He's just "telling a story."

Then there's Johnny Paycheck's classic, "Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill," or Jimmy Rodgers who sang, "If you don't want to smell my smoke, don't monkey with my gun," or several of the violent ditties recorded by Spade Cooley in the 1950s: a man who didn't just sing of violence, but also practiced what he preached, by beating his wife to death in front of their teenage daughter in 1961. That rap is viewed so much more negatively than any other genre of music--so many of which have had their fair share of disturbing, violent and sexist imagery--attests to the racialized way in which danger has come to be understood. Only a fool could think race wasn't the primary reason for the double standard. In fact, research has found that when lyrics with violent themes are presented to whites in a focus group, as being rap lyrics, the participants respond far more negatively than when the same lyrics are presented as the lyrics they actually are: from a folk song, sung by whites.

But blaming rap is not only conveniently opportunistic, and intellectually dishonest, given all the pandering about personal responsibility. It also ignores the reasons why rap music sometimes--though not as uniformly as some seem to believe--peddles images of violence, or lyrics that are sexist. After all, if eighty percent of all rap music purchases are made by whites (and that is the conventional wisdom), then white consumers must be responding, via their purchases, to an already held impression of black people. Without such a pre-existing mental schema firmly in place, the images of blacks as gangstas, pimps, dealers and "hos" wouldn't resonate nearly so much as to make possible billions of dollars of sales annually. In other words, perhaps whites need to consider the possibility that the thug image has been marketable, and thus created a financial incentive for black artists to play to that trope because these images comport with the negative things that much of white America believes about blacks in the first place. Things which they believed, it should be noted, long before Cool Herc threw his first house party in the Bronx.

If white folks were interested in buying CDs by rap artists who sang about radical social transformation and community uplift--and yes there are many, many such artists out there--then that's the music that would be churned out in larger numbers. But white consumers aren't, by and large, looking to buy songs about overthrowing the system from which we benefit. White boys in the stale and lifeless 'burbs would rather listen to songs about guns and drugs, and being a thug, through which music they can live a more exciting life, if only in their fantasies. So in the ultimate irony, it is white buyers who make that kind of rap profitable, but instead of asking for any responsibility from them, we blame the artists for doing what they're supposed to do in a capitalist system, which is respond to market demand, no matter the social consequences. Naturally, of course, it isn't capitalism that gets the blame--a thoroughly European creation that has brought misery to millions, as did state socialism (another issue from the womb of Europe)--but rather, the black folks who have taken the bait offered by the market system. Even better is to read Cal Thomas's column from this week, in which he blamed liberal values and permissiveness for the coarseness of rap music, rather than the values trumpeted by the right, like profit-making.

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Don't Think They Saw This In A Rap Video

Via P6, this is nasty. Is this how white men treat their women?

Burim Bezeri, Adrian Missbrenner and Robbins were charged with the assault of the Naperville girl, then 16, during a night of heavy drinking at Missbrenner's home. Sonny Smith was accused of videotaping the incident. Prosecutors offered evidence in the case that the girl was provided alcohol, then woke up naked in bed and didn't remember what had happened. Two days later she went to police.

Bezeri, in statements to police, admitted spitting on the girl while she lay unconscious and putting a lighted cigarette inside her body. Missbrenner and Robbins were acquitted of assault charges in the case. Smith was convicted of manufacturing child pornography.

We've got to stop acting as though misogyny, sexual abuse, assault and misconduct are solely owned by one group.

Proving That America Isn't Racist

True to form, the crazies who feed on the venom spewed by the Imus' of the world, are coming out of the woodwork.

The Rev. Al Sharpton has increased security at his office after receiving threats in response to his campaign to have Don Imus fired.

"We have received several threats that we consider serious," Sharpton told the Daily News in Sunday's edition. "I have been stabbed once, so we don't take anything too lightly."

Sharpton was stabbed in the chest in 1991 during a protest in Brooklyn.

Charlie King, acting executive director of Sharpton's National Action Network, said a caller telephoned the civil rights leader's radio show on Saturday and threatened to "hunt him down and shoot him like an animal."

I love it!

Department of Justice Riddled With Fools

Unbelievable! Check out this Bill Maher clip!

On "Real Time" last night, Bill Maher laced into Monica Goodling and the Bush administration for appointing more than 150 graduates of a tier 4 law school to prominent position in the US government.

Madness!

Why?