WTH?

Why?

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Old School Chicago Soul

Someone sent me the links to these "dusty" clips and Lord knows I'm going to be on YouTube all night searching for more. I totally didn't know the Five Stairsteps were this young when they made these songs (granted I was pretty young myself then). They look like babies and sound so good! Where did this kind of music go?

And for what I didn't know ... The chick in the group starts the song "Ooh Child" ...

It Failed Because It Made No Sense

Like I said before, I don't know who threw this crap of a bill together but it makes NO SENSE! They killed one part of it. I really wish they'd go back to square one and come of with something actually feasible and HONEST before they waste time killing the rest of it.

The Senate on Wednesday killed a Republican proposal to require all adult illegal immigrants to return home temporarily in order to qualify for permanent lawful status in this country.

Also defeated was a Democratic bid to restrict legal status to those who have been in the United States for four years.

The vote was 53-45 to table an amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to require that illegal immigrants go home within two years in order to qualify for a renewable Z visa to live and work lawfully in the United States.

The bill, which could grant lawful status to as many as 12 million illegal immigrants, requires only heads of household seeking permanent legal residency to return home to apply for green cards.

Senators also voted 79-18 to kill a proposal by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would have allowed only those who had been in the country for at least four years to gain lawful status. The bill would make anyone here by Jan. 1, 2007 eligible for legalization.

Both amendments were designed to respond to conservatives who decry President Bush's immigration bill as a form of amnesty.

What head of household, who was here illegally and undetectable, would willingly up and "go home" to a place that they fled because there were no opportunities? It didn't have to be defeated. It would have been defeated in practice. Any illegal stupid enough to fall for that needed to be sent home anyway and probably wouldn't have been smart enough to get here in the first place.

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Somebody Married This Crazy Bitch?

Sorry, didn't mean to call her a bitch (okay, yes I did)! I just can't stand her. I guess that means the very shrill Ann Coulter is next? To top it off, Nancy is breeding too!

CNN anchor Nancy Grace was secretly married – and she's pregnant with twins, according to a report in the New York Post.

Grace, 47, tells the Post that she wed David Linch, an investment banker in Atlanta, whom she met at Mercer College in the late '70s. The pair married in April in a small, private ceremony attended only by their families in Macon, Ga.

According to Grace, she was never planning to marry. "We've been in touch all these years and a lot of time we were separated by geography and time," she says. "It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to get married. I told my family only two days before [the wedding]."

Adds Grace: "I never thought it would happen like this. I thought 'mother' and 'wife' was just not part of God's plan for me."

Grace, who is due to give birth in January, would not reveal whether or not she underwent fertility treatments. But the expectant mom does say finding "such happiness" at this point in her life should inspire people. "Tell women out there that there is hope," she says.

The anchor plans to officially reveal her news on Tuesday's edition of her eponymous CNN Headline News show, the Post reports.

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Who Would Buy That Little Doggy In The Window?

I guess if you look at him long enough he's cute.

Elwood, a 2-year-old Chinese Crested and Chihuahua mix, was crowned the world’s ugliest dog Friday, a distinction that delighted the New Jersey mutt’s owners.

Elwood, dark colored and hairless — save for a mohawk-like puff of white fur on his head — is often referred to as “Yoda,” or “ET,” for his resemblance to those famous science fiction characters.

“I think he’s the cutest thing that ever lived,” said Elwood’s owner, Karen Quigley, a resident of Sewell, New Jersey.

Still ... I don't know. Elwood looks high.

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STOP!

Stop it!

41. Percentage of Americans who believe “Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001,” according to a new Newsweek poll. The number is up 5 points from Sept. 2004. Twenty percent of Americans say they believe today that the U.S. has found chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.

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Sprung!

I am sitting here cracking up. It's after midnight and the breaking news on CNN is that Paris Hilton has left the building! It is a zoo out there and you can hear the helicopters flying around. This entire thing, including the rabid response by so many Americans who acted as though she was public enemy #1, has been sheer comedy!

So, now what? If she's had a revelation and a transformation in the county jail and she becomes a recluse or a saint, what ever will people do?

What is also truly funny is that the overnight news comes from the British news desk and the anchor guy just doesn't get it! They have Lady Di ... and we have Paris. No wonder "they hate us!"

Update: Here's the first link I could find.

Undisclosed Bunker Of His Mind

I cannot make myself watch Fox News Sunday because, inevitably, Bill Kristol and/or Brit Hume say something so ignorant or stupid that I start scrambling for the remote to turn. So, I look to Crooks and Liars for video recaps of the best moments. This week Juan Williams got a word in edgewise and mocked Dick Cheney's bizarre notion that he is above the law.

Williams: …Maybe they have a reason because he stopped complying with the law…emails disappear in this White House and you say well what happened to the emails—oh–no…we have a private account…..This is all a dodge, this is a game in order to I guess to keep Dick Cheney in some kind of a secured, undisclosed bunker of his mind…so that he he can’t let the American people know what’s going on with their government and how decisions are made…who’s visiting his house….who’s visiting his office…Scooter Libby is letting people know who is working for the CIA…

Good Lord Stop This

We went into Afghanistan because they were supposedly harboring Osama bin Laden. Five years later, we've yet to find hide nor hair of him and we are still there ... killing innocent people.

“U.S.-led coalition and NATO forces fighting insurgents in Afghanistan have killed at least 203 civilians so far this year — surpassing the 178 civilians killed in militant attacks, according to an Associated Press tally.”

Jimmy Won't Ease Up

Jimmy Carter is not letting them change his stance on the way Israel is handling the Palestinian question. The MSM is failing us with their reporting of just how bad things are over there. The live stories I've heard on Flashpoints and Democracy Now just make me ill and have totally changed the false view I had of Israel - from how the state was created to how they are behaving now. Even though they try to write him of as old and crazy, I'm glad he's displaying TRUE Christianity and speaking the truth.

Former President Jimmy Carter accused the U.S., Israel and the European Union on Tuesday of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas' new government in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was addressing a human rights conference in Ireland, also said the Bush administration's refusal to accept Hamas' 2006 election victory was "criminal."

Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with Abbas' moderate Fatah movement.

Hamas fighters routed Fatah in their violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week. The split prompted Abbas to dissolve the power-sharing government with his rivals in Hamas and set up a Fatah-led administration to govern the West Bank.

Carter said the consensus of the U.S., Israel and the EU to start funneling aid to Abbas' new government in the West Bank but continue blocking Hamas in the Gaza Strip represented an "effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples."

"All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there's no effort from the outside to bring the two together," he said.

The U.S. and European countries cut off the Hamas-led government last year because of the Islamic militant group's refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel. They have continued to send humanitarian aid to Gaza through the United Nations and other organizations.

In the latest crisis, the U.S., Israel and much of the West have been trying to shore up Abbas in hopes that the West Bank can be made into a democratic example that would bring along Gaza.

During his speech to Ireland's annual Forum on Human Rights, the 83-year-old former president said monitors from his Carter Center observed the 2006 election that Hamas won. He said the vote was "orderly and fair" and Hamas triumphed, in part, because it was "shrewd in selecting candidates," whereas a divided, corrupt Fatah ran multiple candidates for single seats.

Far from encouraging Hamas' move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the U.S. and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.

"That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech.

"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said.

Carter said the U.S. and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would "conquer Hamas in Gaza" - but Hamas routed Fatah in the fighting last week because of its "superior skills and discipline."

Baby At The Prom?

I am all for family values but I think this is taking it just a little too far!

I guess I really am too damned old because I just find this appalling (clutching my pearls too)!

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You Can't Apply If You Don't Know About The Job

Why do they need a lawyers to help them do this? The Admin at one company where I worked was pretty good at placing obscure ads (in the newspaper in an internet age) all by herself.

A disturbing video… Immigration attorneys from Cohen & Grigsby explains how they assist employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers

(video here)

I think that is how the VP of Engineering was able to hire two "friends" from Bulgaria to do fairly simple software development work ... not to mention that a good chunk of his staff was from India. That was 1999-2000. Today I work at a software company where the Engineering staff is almost entirely East Indian or Chinese. In fact, the Chinese may have a leg up on the Indians. There is not a single American or Indian on the QA team and certain development teams are solidly Chinese.

People used to be concerned about outsourcing to India and China ... and every company I've worked for since 1999 has done that. At my current place, not only do we have an offshore team, most Americans there feel like they are "offshore" right here in Silicon Valley.

A friend, who has been in the industry since the early 80s, in addition to being a software developer, has been reduced to being the liaison from her team to the teams in both India and China - only to be caught in the middle of those two teams battling it out for the "best" of the work that is being shipped overseas. She and a white guy are the only two Americans on her team her day is split between a 4 hour morning shift and a 4 hour shift after dinner ... so she can be available to the teams on the other side of the globe (why the "foreigners" cannot even talk to their "own folks" is beyond her - and me).

So, while the majority of Americans are stressing about illegal Mexicans, knowing good and well that most of them don't even know a single Mexican personally and wouldn't know an illegal Mexican from a Mexican American citizen if one slapped them in the face, I sit at work every single day and listen to the buzz of languages I cannot understand. There is no drive for everyone to speak English in the workplace and with homogeneous teams that aren't American, they don't have to ... which means that when I interact with them, their English is barely understandable because they do not practice it on a regular basis.

Corporations claim that the quality is better when they hire high tech workers from other countries but I beg to differ. Most of the places I've worked since this trend began focus on getting the product out - and not the quality of the output. They treat the people/code like factory workers/output. When you have software that cannot even generate error messages that are free of grammar/spelling errors and broken English, you have crap! I'm in Technical Support (supporting technical people) and I've gone from fielding software bugs that used to be complicated and hard to find to a multitude of "ooops" problems and just plain sloppiness.

Still, I'm not really complaining even though I've had three companies go bust on me in the past 6 years (and was out of work for a year during 2002-2003). I guess still have a job because I can speak and write good English in a country where most Americans go ballistic if they cannot understand someone on the phone who is supposed to be there to help.

The bottom line about is that Corporations are lying about not having Americans to do the work at the low end of the scale and at the high end of the scale. Once these imported workers outnumber Americans in these fields and companies and control who gets interviewed, hired and promoted (as is the case where I work now), no American (no matter how educated they are) will get hired as they won't speak the language of the majority - which isn't English.

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I Get Sick Of Saying "Oh HAY-ELL No" ...

... but Oh hay-ell no!

The 15-year-old son of two doctors performed a filmed Caesarean section birth under his parents’ watch in southern India in an apparent bid to gain a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest surgeon.

Instead, the boy’s father could be stripped of his licenses and may face criminal charges, officials said Thursday.

Dr. K. Murugesan showed a recording of his son performing a Caesarean section to an Indian Medical Association chapter in the southern state of Tamil Nadu last month, said Dr. Venkatesh Prasad, secretary of the association. The video showed Murugesan anesthetizing the patient.

“We were shocked to see the recording,” Prasad told The Associated Press, adding that the IMA told Murugesan that his act was an ethical and legal violation.

Murugesan owns and runs a maternity hospital in the city of Manaparai, Prasad said in a telephone interview from Manaparai. The family could not be immediately reached for comment.

Murugesan, who could possibly be prevented from practicing and face criminal charges for allowing his son to perform the operation, expressed no regret and accused the Manaparai medical association of being “jealous” of his son’s achievements, Prasad added.

“He said this was not the first surgery performed by his son and that he had been training him for the last three years,” said Prasad.

Is this man insane or just vain and egotistical (I know ... same thing)? He has the nerve to brag to the medical association that his son has been doing this for three years ... and that the medical association is just jealous?

HUH?

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Just A Freak Show

I don't know how I came upon two crazy links like this on the same day - and not even in the "oddly enough" section. Here is freak show number one:

A Brisbane woman stabbed a male friend twice in the shower after he refused to stop masturbating in front of her children.

Defence lawyers for Kylie Louise Wilson, 28, said the mother of two "lost it" when her friend of six years, Daniel Peter Blair, went on a masturbation marathon on April 6 last year.

Brisbane's District Court this morning heard Mr Blair had showed up at Wilson's unit at Birkdale unit, in Redland Shire, where he took amphetamines before having a shower.

Whilst in the bathroom, Mr Blair, 32, began pleasuring himself, before moving to Wilson's bedroom, where he rolled around naked on her bed and continued his lewd conduct.

He returned to the bathroom for more and was busted by Wilson, who was attempting to bath her three-and-a-half year-old daughter.

The court heard Mr Blair refused her repeated requests to stop, prompting her to fetch a knife from the kitchen which she used to stab him twice in the left shoulder.

Crown prosecutors said Mr Blair paused only to put on his shorts and flee outside to wait for police to arrive, but was again overcome by the urge.

And these fools lost their lives:

Police today were investigating how a naked couple fell 50 feet from the roof of a downtown office building to their deaths.

The bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver at about 5 a.m. today.

Clothing was discovered on the roof, leading authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released.

Most certainly, I am missing out on some things in life!

Australians Moving Towards Buddhism

Can you imagine what the fundies would do if this trend escalated here?

As the Dalai Lama completes his tour of Australia, his visit has been seen by some as boosting the number of adherents to the Buddhist faith as the religion is now moving towards the Australian mainstream.

The Voice of America (VOA) reported that Tibetan nuns chanting traditional prayers are increasingly common in Australia, as the nation has more Buddhists per capita than anywhere else in the Western world.

Experts who study religious trends in Australia say many converts to Buddhism found the teachings of some Christian churches too rigid and intolerant of questions about the faith, reported the VOA.

In a three-year national study on the religious behaviour of Generation Y published last year, the co-author of the study, Dr Andrew Singleton from Monash University said that Generation Y in Australia is gradually departing from religion where some are turning to alternative spiritualities.

However the number turning towards these alternative spiritualities is not as big as Dr Singleton expected. He said: “It's well-known that there has been a turn away from church attendance and participation in young people. But we thought there was going to be a move towards alternative spiritualities. There are still a number turning towards it, but not as big as you would have thought."

The survey found 20 per cent of young people did not believe in a god and 32 per cent were unsure.

He's Missing In Iraq So Deport Her

Lovely!

While the U.S. military searches for a soldier missing in Iraq, kidnapped by insurgents possibly allied with al Qaeda, his wife back home in Massachusetts may be deported by the U.S. government.

Army Spec. Alex Jimenez, who has been missing since his unit was attacked by insurgents in Iraq on May 12, had petitioned for a green card for his wife, Yaderlin Hiraldo, whom he married in 2004.

Their attorney, Matthew Kolken, said 23-year-old Hiraldo illegally entered the United States in 2001 to reunite with her husband, whom she had met in her native Dominican Republic and later married at his New York State Army base in 2004.

Her husband's request for a green card and legal residence status for his wife alerted authorities to her status, Kolken said.

She now faces deportation, reports CBS station WBZ correspondent Beth Germano, and would be barred from applying for a green card for 10 years.

Was This A Hate Crime?

It most certainly was senseless! This was a passenger in the car, not the guy who hit the child. Even if he had been the culprit, what kind of vigilante mob mentality, at what is supposed to be a celebration, is this? Would they have attacked this man were he not Hispanic?

Police believe 2,000 to 3,000 people were in the area for a Juneteenth celebration when the attack occurred Tuesday night. The man who was killed had been trying to stop the group from attacking the vehicle's driver when the crowd turned on him, authorities said.

The Austin Police Department identified the victim as David Rivas Morales, 40. The child was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Police spokeswoman Toni Chovonetz said she had no further information, including how many people were involved.

The driver was able to get away from the crowd and is cooperating with investigators, police said.

Juneteenth marks the day Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston in 1865 to share news of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves two years earlier on Jan. 1, 1863.

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'Z' Be Vogue'ing

The paparazzi must be having a good time with this kid. She must turn around every time she hears her name as she is always caught looking at the camera! Work it girl!

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Don't I Wish ...

Must be nice!

You can be the star of Run's House - or live large in Russell Simmons' crib.

Joseph (Rev. Run) Simmons is selling the New Jersey mansion where his MTV series was filmed at the same time his entertainment mogul brother, Russell Simmons, is unloading his own palatial spread in the Garden State.

Neither is cheap.

Joseph Simmons is asking $5.5 million for his columned Colonial in Saddle River, which was the setting for his hit reality series, "Run's House."

His big brother, who split with his model wife, Kimora Lee, last year, wants $23.9 million for his sprawling, 10-bedroom estate just 2-1/2 miles away.

Run's house has six bedrooms and comes complete with a home theater and lounge with a hot tub. The rap pioneer's wife, Justine, supervised a top-to-bottom renovation of the stately brick-and-stucco home.

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Enough Is Enough!

This is too much!

The Army is considering whether it will have to extend the combat tours of troops in Iraq if President Bush opts to maintain the recent buildup of forces through spring 2008.

Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren testified Tuesday that the service is reviewing other options, including relying more heavily on Army reservists or Navy and Air Force personnel, so as not to put more pressure on a stretched active-duty force.

Most soldiers spend 15 months in combat with a guaranteed 12 months home, a rotation plan that has infuriated Democrats because it exceeds the service's goal of giving troops equal time home as in combat. In coming weeks, the Senate will vote on a proposal by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would restrict deployments.

Bloomberg Out Of The GOP

I'm still playing catch up with my posts and have plenty in the pipe that I haven't pushed out but I just wanted to pass on this "breaking news" ...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg left the Republican Party on Tuesday and switched to unaffiliated, a move certain to be seen as a prelude to an independent presidential bid that would upend the 2008 race.

The billionaire former CEO, who was a lifelong Democrat before he switched to the Republican Party in 2001 for his first mayoral run, said the change in his voter registration does not mean he is running for president.

"Although my plans for the future haven't changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city," Bloomberg said.

With an estimated worth of more than $5 billion, he easily could finance an independent presidential bid.

The 65-year-old mayor has increasingly been the subject of speculation that he will run as an independent in 2008, despite his repeated promises to leave politics after the end of his term in 2009. He has fueled the buzz with increasing out-of-state travel, a greater focus on national issues and repeated criticism of the partisan politics that dominate Washington.

"The politics of partisanship and the resulting inaction and excuses have paralyzed decision-making, primarily at the federal level, and the big issues of the day are not being addressed, leaving our future in jeopardy," he said in a speech Monday at the start of a University of Southern California conference about the advantages of nonpartisan governing.

Throughout his 5 1/2 years as mayor, Bloomberg has often been at odds with his party and President Bush. He supports gay marriage, abortion rights, gun control and stem cell research, and raised property taxes to help solve a fiscal crisis after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But he never seemed willing to part with the GOP completely, raising money for the 2004 presidential convention and contributing to Bush and other Republican candidates.

Just last year, he told a group of Manhattan Republicans about his run for mayor: "I couldn't be prouder to run on the Republican ticket and be a Republican."

It would be refreshing to have a seemingly viable third-party candidate. I don't hate Republicans. I just hate the nutjobs who've hijacked the party. I could probably handle somebody like Bloomberg if he is able to best the Democratic nominee.

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Give It A Rest 50!

Here he goes again!

"She doesn't ever say anything that
anybody from the ghetto is gonna ID with. Take a poll. You go out and
find me some young black women who ID with Oprah...She can escape the
fact that she's black because she's a billionaire." -- CURTISSS! on Oprah, again [VH1 Blog]

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I Don't Get This

Do you get this?

Wow. Now it’s not only college students playing with blackface, faculty and staff members are getting in on the act too. This Fresno, CA Christian school even played a game of “catch the runaway slave!” From Fresnobee.com:

Members of Fresno’s black community said they were stunned this week to see pictures of adults in blackface poking fun at slavery during a recent graduation celebration for Riverdale Christian Academy.

The photos, which were posted on the Internet shortly after the June 1 event, show staff and faculty of the small private Christian school dressed as slaves with captions describing activities at the party in Hanford.

“The slaves served lemonade — it was a riot,” read one caption beneath a photo of five women and a man at a lemonade stand. Each had dark face makeup and wore 19th century clothing.

“Someday we gonna be leavin’ when a workin’ day is done,” read another caption posted with a photo of three women holding gardening tools.

A third picture showed a white man in a Yankees jersey and top hat escorting another in blackface with the caption, “bringing home the runaway slave in the Senior skit.”

By now you know the drill with these blackface parties.

Step 1: Declare that you did not mean to offend anyone.

Step 2: Point to the fact that black people were at the party too, so obviously it wasn’t that racist!

These types of articles are becoming so common that I probably have at least five of them saved in draft form because I could never get a good rant going to post about it. I just plain don't get it! I don't get why white people are so fixated with black people (and there have been enough "illegal alien" parties on college campuses lately so Hispanics need to be added to the list of their obsessions too). I cannot fathom EVER in my life dressing up like someone of another race, putting on face paint and depicting something as heinous as slavery. I said I don't get it but why don't they get that this is not right?

... and this time it's not even the students but the staff? Sheesh! They are at a "Christian" school so I hope God will save them from their mindless ignorance.

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No Minarets, No Peace

What, exactly, is this "surge" supposed to cure? Come September will there be anything left of Iraq?

In a bold blow to Iraqi hopes for peace, suspected al-Qaida bombers toppled the towering minarets of Samarra's revered Shiite shrine on Wednesday, adding new provocation to old wounds a year after the mosque's Golden Dome was destroyed.

The attack stoked fears of a surge in violence between Muslim sects. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government rushed to contain Shiite wrath against Sunnis: It clamped a curfew on Baghdad and asked for U.S. troop reinforcements in Samarra, 60 miles north of here, and for a heightened American military alert in the capital.

But sketchy reports of sectarian strife began to come in. Police told of at least four Sunni mosques in Baghdad and south of the capital attacked by arsonists and bombers, and of a smaller Shiite shrine bombed north of here.

Wednesday's Samarra attack also threatened to deepen Iraq's political crisis, as the 30-member bloc of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr immediately suspended its participation in parliament in protest.

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There Will Be Hell To Pay

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are getting worse - not better. So all of this news which illustrates the un-American way we've handled our so-called enemies, will only make things worse as our soldiers seem to be in more danger than ever.

he CIA ran secret jails in Poland and Romania to interrogate key terror suspects, shackling and handcuffing inmates, keeping some naked for weeks and reducing contact with the outer world to masked and silent guards, a European investigator said Friday. The CIA called the report "distorted," but stopped short of denying the existence of prisons in the two countries - the agency said it does not discuss the location of its overseas facilities. Poland and Romania also vehemently denied the allegations. "High value detainees" like self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and suspected senior al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah were held in Poland, said the report, which cited CIA sources. It said lesser detainees, but still of "remarkable importance," were taken to Romania. Top officials in both countries knew of the detention centers, said the report by Swiss Sen. Dick Marty, a former prosecutor asked by the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, to investigate CIA activities after media reports of secret prisons emerged in 2005. (AP) Swiss senator Dick Marty, who is heading the investigation into alleged CIA prisons in Europe,... Full Image Marty did not rule out the CIA having more such prisons in Europe, but told reporters he did not include that in his report because his sourcing was insufficient. He accused Germany and Italy of obstructing investigations into secret detentions. The report said its conclusions about the clandestine prisons relied on "multiple sources which validate and corroborate one another." Marty said his team spoke with "over 30 one-time members of intelligence services in the United States and Europe" as well as former or current detainees and human rights activists.

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Al Sit Down!

Update before the post: I guess my view is moot at this point because they've take Paris, kicking and screaming, back to the slammer. I still think it's stupid and will take up too many news cycles where I'd rather see something else, but at least this chapter is over ... until the appeal. The world is safe now isn't it? She might be a basket case now but when she gets out of the clink, she'll be richer than ever and laughing all the way to the bank.

---

It's crusades like this that put Al Sharpton into the ambulance chaser category. What possible interest does he have in this blonde diva?

Responding to outcries over Thursday morning's sudden release of Paris Hilton from jail, the Reverend Al Sharpton plans to meet with LA County Sheriff Lee Baca on Monday.

After learning of Hilton's early out, Sharpton said it had "all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism."

"I think that it's both another glaring display of how race and money seem to get different treatments. There seems to be a different criminal justice system for some than others," Sharpton said.

After only three days into a 23-day jail stint, for violating a judge's orders against driving because of a DUI, Hilton was fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and sent home to the comforts of her 2,700-square-foot Hollywood Hills residence.

DUI aside, we are still talking about a misdemeanor traffic violation - not grand theft auto, not grand larceny, not capital murder. In listening to calmer, saner voices on some of the Paris obsessed cable programs yesterday, there is some question as to whether even regular citizens would have gotten jail sentences for the same type of offense. Looking at GMA this morning, it seems that most non-violent offenders are serving only 10% of their sentences in this county. She didn't need the "medical" excuse. Everyone else is getting out too.

More than outrage over Paris not serving the entire sentence in the local lockup, I am just appalled at the vigor with which people are seeking her crucifixion over ... a TRAFFIC VIOLATION! America's fascination with stick thin women who have bodies like adolescent boys (with a couple of boobs slapped on) positively slays me. She and her sister are rich but they did not ask to be famous. They showed up on the party scene (like most folks their age do in the circle of their peers) and the "media" went wild. She was created by people's fixation with her because of her looks and her money. Now they want to get mad because of her looks and status buy her the same things that looks and status buy everyone else. We know that's life and, sorry, if we are really interested in equal justice, we can find far more meaningful, "cases" to be outraged over.

Bill O'Reilly Is A Frickin' Moron!

What kind of logic is this? This cretin had a MySpace page that pretty much proved he was a psycho. Now, if Bill thinks that white bread means possible serial killer, well, alrighty then!

On the June 7 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly said of Edwin Roy Hall -- the man charged with murdering 18-year-old Kelsey Smith after abducting her from the parking lot of a Target store in Overland Park, Kansas: "[T]his guy who is charged has a child and a wife. You know, he's like white-bread guy. And we're all going, 'What is that?' "

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the adjective "white-bread" is defined as: "Blandly conventional, especially when considered as typical of white middle-class America."

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It's Not Like It Didn't Cross My Mind

You don't trash talk folks who are known for poisoning enemies!

After trading insults with Russian president Vladimir Putin in the lead-up to the G8 summit in Germany, Bush had to miss a session and group photo op yesterday after falling ill with what the White House called "some sort of bug." Was he, like Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko and reform-minded Ukrainian president Victor Yushchenko, poisoned? Apparently, White House counselor Dan Bartlett also sensed the coincidence, asserting defensively that Bush's illness was "probably more viral in nature and highly unlikely to be anything related to food or anything he ate." Question is, does Bush have a taster? 'Cause homeboy needs one. Putin is a dangerous enemy, and Bush doesn't have too many friends at home.

(Note to conspiracy theorists—and Mr. Putin: This post is tongue-in-cheek. )

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Truly A Danger Zone

In this US occupied country where women supposedly were allowed to vote, they are still being killed for not knowing their place.

Two female journalists have been murdered in Afghanistan in less than one week.

Last night, Zakia Zaki, the head of a radio station, was killed in her home. The murder was particularly gruesome as she was shot several times in her head and chest as she slept in the same room with her eight-month and three-year-old sons. The sons both survived the shooting.

According to the Governor of Parwan, where Zaki worked and ran the Peace Radio station, three people entered her home and opened fire.

Monkey Business

The people who don't believe that they descended from primates feature an "Adam" who acts like a wild monkey!

The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.

After learning about his activities Thursday, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears.

"We are currently investigating the veracity of these serious claims of his participation in projects that don't align with the biblical standards and moral code upon which the ministry was founded," Answers for Genesis spokesman Mark Looy said in a written statement.

The actor, Eric Linden, owns a graphic Web site called Bedroom Acrobat, where he has been pictured, smiling alongside a drag queen, in a T-shirt brandishing the site's sexually suggestive logo. The Web site, which has a network of members, allows users to post explicit stories and photos.

He also sells clothing for SFX International, whose initials appear on clothing to spell "SEX" from afar. It promotes "free love,""pleasure" and "thrillz."

Why didn't they know this ahead of time? Are the creationists so backwards that they don't know how to google?

Immigration Bill Goes Kaput

I found the bill to be a big, infeasible, ball of confusion. So I'm glad they'll have to go back to the drawing board.

A broad immigration bill to legalize millions of people in the U.S. unlawfully suffered a stunning setback in the Senate Thursday, costing President Bush perhaps his best opportunity to win a top domestic priority.

The bipartisan compromise championed by the president failed a crucial test when it could not attract even a simple majority for an effort to speed its passage.

So what's in this bill and why don't I like it?

Illegal immigrants who arrived in US before 2007 (some 12 million):

•can immediately receive a probationary card, which allows them to legally live and work in the US

•are eligible for a renewable Z visa, offering a path to permanent legal residency status


-- On the first two bullets, how are you going to get people to come out of the underground to do this?

•are required to pay $5,000 fine, pass a criminal background check, and be employed

-- Your average American cannot pay a $5,000 fine. How on earth are the lowest paid workers in the country going to pay that? I think it opens the door for shady lenders - legal and undergroud - to prey upon these folks. If they have a criminal record, do you think they are going to buy into this?

•and heads of household are required to return to their home countries within eight years

-- I don't get this at all. In an administration that touts family values at every turn, what is a poor family supposed to do without of their head of household? What will they go back to? What happens to the rest of the family? Are they encouraging the breaking up or uprooting of families? What purpose will returning to their country of origin serve?

For immigrants seeking future entry:

•shifts from system weighted toward family ties toward one with preference for people with advanced degrees, skills

•gives points based on immigrant's education, work experience, English proficiency, and family connections

-- This means more immigrants from India and Asia. Those who fear the browning of this nation will turn on them next.

•allows spouses and children under 21 to reunite with their families

-- Why are they separated in the first place?

•seeks to clear a backlog in visas for family reunification that will help some 4 million families in the first eight years

•initially distributes about 1.1 million family-based (89 percent) and 140,000 merit-based (11 percent) green cards

•after eight years, allocates 550,000 family-based (60 percent) and 380,000 merit-based (40 percent) green cards

Temporary guest-worker program:

•would admit between 400,000 and 600,000 temporary workers per year

•would allow immigrants to work in the US for two years, then require them to return home

•can renew guest-worker visas twice, but workers must leave for a year in between

-- Again, I don't get the point of making them leave and how will we make sure that they do. We have millions here now who have overstayed their Visas. This seems like an opportunity for more of the same.


Enforcement, security provisions:

•activates temporary guest-worker and Z visa programs only after implementing specific security "triggers"

•"triggers" include: 18,000 border patrol agents, 370 miles of additional border fencing, 70 radar and camera towers along the US southern border, and an electronic employee-verification system for the workplace

-- How long will this take to implement and how will it be enforced?

This bill looks like a bucket of crap thrown to the wall to see what sticks. That is why it is a no go. It makes no sense. I'm not sure people really get that it is really almost too late to get this horse back into the barn. Big business wants these people here. Mexico these wants people here. These people, driven by desperation due to, in part, the negative effects of NAFTA draining their prior livelihoods, want to be here - need to be here. We cannot find or deport people here illegally with any efficiency or accuracy. At the same time, it is not fair to them to be paid sub-standard wages and live sub-standard lives while they undercut the economic prosperity of regular American citizens who would gladly take many of the jobs that George Bush claims Americans "won't do."

Always, always follow the money. These people would not be here - legally or otherwise - if they weren't being lured here, invited here, rewarded here (in one way or another). They would be in their own countries.

Sidenote: I think that this average increase in current immigration fees of 66% will hinder the poorer immigrants who were considering seeking citizenship. Will this drive more people into the ranks of the undocumented?

Lady War Reporters Suffer Abuse

Wow! I never even considered that this would be an issue.

The photographer was a seasoned operator in South Asia. So when she set forth on an assignment in India, she knew how to guard against gropers: dress modestly in jeans secured with a thick belt and take along a male companion. All those preparations failed, however, when an unruly crowd surged and swept away her colleague. She was pushed into a ditch, where several men set upon her, tearing at her clothes and baying for sex. They ripped the buttons off her shirt and set to work on her trousers.

"My first thought was my cameras," recalls the photographer, who asked to remain anonymous. "Then it was, 'Oh my God, I'm going to be raped.' " With her faced pressed into the soil, she couldn't shout for help, and no one would have heard her anyway above the mob's taunts. Suddenly a Good Samaritan in the crowd pulled the photographer by the camera straps several yards to the feet of some policemen who had been watching the scene without intervening. They sneered at her exposed chest but escorted her to safety.

Alone in her hotel room that night, the photographer recalls, she cried, thinking, "What a bloody way to make a living." She didn't inform her editors, however. "I put myself out there equal to the boys. I didn't want to be seen in any way as weaker."

Women have risen to the top of war and foreign reportage. They run bureaus in dodgy places and do jobs that are just as dangerous as those that men do. But there is one area where they differ from the boys -- sexual harassment and rape. Female reporters are targets in lawless places where guns are common and punishment rare. Yet the compulsion to be part of the macho club is so fierce that women often don't tell their bosses. Groping hands and lewd come-ons are stoically accepted as part of the job, especially in places where Western women are viewed as promiscuous. War zones in particular seem to invite unwanted advances, and sometimes the creeps can be the drivers, guards, and even the sources that one depends on to do the job. Often they are drunk. But female journalists tend to grit their teeth and keep on working, unless it gets worse.

Because of the secrecy around sexual assaults, it's hard to judge their frequency. Yet I know of a dozen such assaults, including one suffered by a man. Eight of the cases involve forced intercourse, mostly in combat zones. The perpetrators included hotel employees, support staff, colleagues and the very people who are paid to guarantee safety -- policemen and security guards. None of the victims want to be named. For many women, going public can cause further distress. In the words of an American correspondent who awoke in her Baghdad compound to find her security guard's head in her lap, "I don't want it out there, for people to look at me and think, 'Hmmm. This guy did that to her, yuck.' I don't want to be viewed in my worst vulnerability."

I guess if American female soldiers cannot even feel safe around their male counterparts, journalists certainly can't feel safe around strangers.

Another Milestone In Iraq

It's just not the kind that we want to reach. At this rate we will be well over 4,000 by the end of the year and well over 5,000 by the time Bush leaves office. Why?

The four-year U.S. military death toll in Iraq passed 3,500 after a soldier was reported killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. A British soldier was also shot to death Thursday in southern Iraq, as Western forces find themselves increasingly vulnerable under a new strategy to take the fight to the enemy.

The British ambassador to Iraq, meanwhile, signaled his government was ready to talk to those behind the abduction of five Britons in Baghdad last month. Iraqi officials have said they believe the Britons were taken by the Mahdi Army militia, which is largely loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

In a rare televised interview, al-Sadr blamed the United States for Iraq's woes, often referring to it as "the occupier" and accusing it of being behind the sectarian violence, the growing schism between Iraq's majority Shiites and once-dominant Sunni Arabs and economic hardships.

"We are now facing a brutal Western assault against Islam," he said, draped in his traditional black robe and turban. "This agenda must be countered with a cultural resistance," he said.

The mounting U.S. casualties, most by makeshift bombs placed in potholes on roads or in fields where troops conduct foot patrols, come as American troops work with Iraqi forces on the streets and in remote outposts as part of a joint crackdown on sectarian violence

That our soldiers are patroling the streets just waiting to be attacked pains me. This is not why we are supposed to be there.We are not supposed to be there at all.

Paris Is Out!

I'm sorry. I'm not surprised and not mad at her. I've always thought that this was a "stunt" by the DA to show that Paris was not above the law. Seriously, there are folks driving around with a multitude of tickets, suspended licenses, expired registration, no insurance and, aside from the time served until bail is posted, nobody is staying in jail. I don't know why they wasted this child's time -- and mine with all the media coverage!

TMZ has learned that Paris Hilton has not only had her sentence cut short, she is already out of jail!

Unimpeachable sources tell TMZ the deal was sealed yesterday, and that Hilton made her exit early early this morning.

She was originally sentenced to 45 days in jail, but that was reduced to 23. She served a total of three days -- the normal stay for a violation of this kind.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department will hold a news conference in an hour to discuss what went down.

So, she learned something, huh? Puleese!

Update: So she was out to serve a 40 sentence under house arrest but now the LA City Attorney is trying to make her go back.

Oh, the drama!

Voice Of Reason

I'm glad Bloomberg isn't buying into the "there is a terrorist around every corner" fear mongering.

While questions continue to arise about the alleged plot to blow up a fuel pipeline beneath JFK Airport and surrounding neighborhoods, some are questioning why New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn't had a louder voice since the plot was foiled on Saturday.

On Monday, Bloomberg finally weighed in, but his response was not what some would have expected.

"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life," he said.

That "What, me worry?" attitude pretty much sums up Bloomberg's advice to New Yorkers on the terror plot. As far as he was concerned, the professionals were on it, so New Yorkers shouldn't let it tax their brains.

"You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist," he added.

What Do Female Suicide Bombers Get From Allah?

I'm sure I've asked this question before. We mock male Muslims for supposedly believing that martyring themselves for the cause will give them access to endless virgins in heaven. But, what the heck do female suicide bombers get? Forty babies?

Alert guards gunned down a black-clad woman at a police recruiting station Tuesday, a would-be suicide bomber who then exploded before their eyes. But another bomber succeeded, detonating an explosives-laden car at a checkpoint in Ramadi and killing six policemen.

The U.S. commander here acknowledged sectarian violence was on the rise.

Just asking because I think girlfriend should have done more research before she blew herself up.

How Dare They Focus On The Poor?

They're insane I tell ya! What was that Scrooge said about of poor when it was suggested that they'd rather die than be sent to the "poor house?"  "Let them be done with it and decrease the surplus population?" These nuts have no regard for the poor but want to pretend they care about innocent babies who will probably be born into poverty?

Oh yes, they did. The American Life League (ALL) -- in a press release, not muttered comments hastily "clarified" by a scrambling spokesperson -- stated the following: "It is shameful that Christians would rally around the physical needs of the poor and ignore the deaths of untold millions of babies."

The statement is a criticism by Erik Whittington, the group's youth outreach director, of Pentecost 2007: Taking Vision to the Streets, a conference (running through today) whose goal is to place "poverty at the top of our nation's agenda." The conference speakers include "liberal evangelist" Rev. Jim Wallis, and it is sponsored by groups that support cuckoo liberal causes like fighting malaria.

Whittington announced that the League's youth arm would be protesting the conference in order to demonstrate the importance of "putting abortion, not poverty, at the top of the list of social concerns." Now we have it in writing: On the ALL's list, "cart" is officially above "horse."

For more humdingers of the week, see Feministe.

I'll try to take a quick stab at this. Poverty is one of the many reasons why some women pursue abortions. Eliminate poverty, provide greater access to contraception, good healthcare and jobs with a living wage and maybe, just maybe, abortions will become nominal. These fetus obsessed people would prefer to see millions of children born into poverty with no way out only to breed more children into poverty with no way out. Yes, that is exactly what Jesus would do, right?

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Steve Gilliard's Obit In The NY Times

I'm not sure if he knew how popular he was but he made the New York Times. He will be missed.

Steven Gilliard Jr., a political journalist who found his calling as a combative and influential blogger on the left, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 42.

He died after having been hospitalized at Lenox Hill Hospital since February because of heart and kidney failure, said his cousin Francine Smith, a spokeswoman for the family.

From his perch at The News Blog, whose advertisements and donations paid for his modest living expenses, Mr. Gilliard offered his powerful readership a blunt and passionate take on the events of the day. He was one of fewer than a dozen liberal political bloggers to make a living from his blog, said Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the founder of the Daily Kos Web site, to which Mr. Gilliard had been an early contributor.

Mr. Gilliard was born in Harlem and attended Hunter College Elementary School and Hunter College High School before graduating with a degree in journalism from New York University.

After working in print journalism, Mr. Gilliard migrated online, working for a Web site, Net Slaves, that chronicled the lot of the tech worker during the dot-com boom. His involvement in online political writing received a critical boost when Mr. Moulitsas chose Mr. Gilliard to help create material for the Daily Kos site at a time when it had 4,000 visitors a day; it now has 500,000 a day.

Mr. Gilliard eventually left Daily Kos to create The News Blog.

Mr. Gilliard’s survivors include his parents, Steven Gilliard Sr. and Evelyn Lillian Gilliard of Manhattan, and two sisters, Valerie Gilliard and Roberta Smalls, both of Massachusetts.

In what is a now-familiar story among Internet collaborators, many of the thousands who posted online reactions to Mr. Gilliard’s death wrote that they had known little about him, even the fact that he was black. Others, though, mourned the loss of an African-American voice in the liberal blogging world. Those closest to him offline similarly knew next to nothing about his life as blogger.

“Most of the family didn’t know what he was doing on the Web site,” said his cousin, Ms. Smith, who said his parents did not own computers.

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The Thin Line Between "Hot Pursuit" And Incursion

I've got a feeling that it is going to be a long, hot summer:

Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who attack Turkey from bases there, two Turkish security officials said. Turkey's foreign minister denied its troops had entered Iraq.

Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, characterized the action as a ''hot pursuit'' raid that was limited in scope. They told The Associated Press it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks as Turkish troops built up their force along the border.

One official said the troops went less than two miles inside Iraq and were still there in late afternoon. ''It is a hot pursuit, not an incursion,'' one official said.

Another official said by telephone it was ''not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands.'' He also said the Turkish troops went into a remote, mountainous area.

I guess this is yet another front in the "global war on terror." I wonder if the Turks have anyone tossing them a few coins towards this effort?

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What's He Talkin' 'Bout Willis?

Obama's trying to get all MLK and what not. Is this just rhetoric ordoes he have a workaround?

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a "quiet riot" among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago.

The first-term Illinois senator said that with black people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still displaced 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, frustration and resentments are building explosively as they did before the 1992 riots.

"This administration was colorblind in its incompetence," Obama said at a conference of black clergy, "but the poverty and the hopelessness was there long before the hurricane.

"All the hurricane did was to pull the curtain back for all the world to see," he said.

Obama's criticism of Bush prompted ovation after ovation from the nearly 8,000 people gathered in Hampton University's Convocation Center, particularly when he denounced the Iraq war and noted that he had opposed it from the outset.

Repeatedly, he referred to the riots that erupted in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four police officers of assault charges in the 1991 beating of Rodney King, a black motorist, after a high speed chase. Fifty-five people died and 2,000 were injured in several days of riots in the city's black neighborhoods.

"Those 'quiet riots' that take place every day are born from the same place as the fires and the destruction and the police decked out in riot gear and the deaths," Obama said. "They happen when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates. Despair takes hold and young people all across this country look at the way the world is and believe that things are never going to get any better."

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4.2 MILLION Iraqis Displaced

Like I said, the fewer Iraqis, the fewer folks with whom we have to share the oil.

More than 4 million Iraqis have now been displaced by violence in the country, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday, warning that the figure will continue to rise.

The number of Iraqis who have fled the country as refugees has risen to 2.2 million, said Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. A further 2 million have been driven from their homes but remain within the country, increasingly in "impoverished shanty towns," she said.

Pagonis said UNHCR is receiving "disturbing reports" of regional authorities doing little to provide displaced people with food, shelter and other basic services.

"Individual governorates inside Iraq are becoming overwhelmed by the needs of the displaced," Pagonis told reporters in Geneva, where UNHCR has its headquarters.

More than half of Iraq's 18 governorates are preventing displaced people from entering their territories, either by stopping them at checkpoints or by refusing to register them for food aid and other basic services.

Astrid van Genderen Stort of UNHCR said checkpoints are increasing in northern governorates, specifically along the "green line" that divides Kurdish-controlled zones from the rest of the country. Displaced people are also being stopped on the roads leading out of the cities of Karbala and Najaf, which are both south of Baghdad and considered holy by Shiite Muslims.

While many of the checkpoints were originally established for security reasons, they are being increasingly used to prevent displaced Iraqis from moving around the country, van Genderen Stort said.

DISPLACED PERSON' OR REFUGEE:U.N. defines the difference

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Dreams Evaporated

Iraq will soon be the perfect place for American imperialism and capitalism to flourish. All but the poor and downtrodden will leave.

Four years later, Iraq's college graduates are ending their studies shattered and eager to leave the country. In interviews with more than 30 students from seven universities, all but four said they hoped to flee immediately after receiving their degrees. Many said they did not expect Iraq to stabilize for at least a decade.

"I used to dream about getting a Ph.D., participating in international conferences, belonging to a team that discovered cures for diseases like AIDS, leaving my fingerprint on medicine," said Hasan Tariq Khaldoon, 24, a pharmacy student in Mosul, in the north. "Now all these dreams have evaporated."

The Skankiest Top Model Ever

The first season of America's Next Top Model was bare bones and low budget ... and they certainly picked a winner that reflects that.

TMZ obtained these photos of "America's Next Top Model" Adrianne Curry, aka Mrs. Peter Brady, grinding her goods on a stripper pole this weekend at the Giantto and Von Dutch Watch Showcase party at Light Nightclub in the Bellagio. She's a natural!

I wonder how the hubby feels about her public raunch?

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No Child Left Behind If You Cheat

I guess these folks figured out that nice guys finish last! LOL!

• The test scores of more than 50,000 students show evidence of cheating. Some of those students were the innocent victims of others copying their answers. But experts say most were likely either deliberately copying answers or had their answer sheets doctored by school staff.
  
• That total is a small percentage of all Texas students. (Two-thirds of Texas schools showed no evidence of cheating.) But the suspicious scores are focused on the state's 11th-grade tests. Those are the ones students must pass to earn a diploma.
  
  At more than 100 high schools, at least one in 10 juniors was flagged for having extremely suspicious answer patterns on the TAKS graduation tests. Many of those students graduated last month.
  
• Cheating is concentrated in the state's two largest districts – Dallas and Houston – and in charter schools.


• Even after accounting for their larger size, cheating is more than three times as common in Dallas and Houston as it is in the state's other large urban school districts. In Dallas, one out of every six high school juniors was flagged for cheating in 2006.
  
  And in the state's lightly regulated charter schools – which are funded with tax dollars but run by private companies or groups – cheating was detected at almost four times the rate of traditional public schools. Cheating was more common at underachieving schools, where the pressure to boost scores is the highest.


• Most of the cheating appears to be driven by students copying off of each other, in pairs or small groups. But at a handful of the most flagrant schools, cheating is systemic. On several subject tests, one Houston charter school had 80 percent or more of its answer sheets flagged for cheating – a scale that seems difficult to contemplate without the passive or active involvement of an adult.

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Another Fine Mess

How on earth did we get to this place with Russia?

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to target Europe with missiles, including potentially nuclear weapons, in a dramatic escalation of his Cold War-style showdown with the United States.

Mr. Putin, in an interview at his country residence outside Moscow, said he considers U.S. plans to build an eastern European anti-missile site to shoot down Iranian missiles a provocation aimed at Russia.

Asked what he might do to retaliate, he said he would return Russia to the Cold War status where missiles were aimed at European targets.

"It is obvious that if part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States is located in Europe, and according to our military experts will be threatening us, we will have to respond," he said.

"What kind of steps are we going to take in response? Of course, we are going to get new targets in Europe."

Dubya has ruined our relationship with the entire world!

When Bloggers Die

Wow! RIP Steve.

Steve Gilliard, 1966-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog (www.thenewsblog.net), passed away early Saturday morning, June 2nd. He was 41.

To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.

We will post more information as it becomes available to us.

Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.

Steve meant so much to us. We will miss him terribly.

Pookie and Ray Ray Strike Again?

Oh Lawd! Here we go! Our magnificent Department of Homeland Security has captured some suspects of this alleged plot. This mess doesn't sound any kind of feasible or executable. Do you feel safe now?

Federal authorities said a plot by a suspected Muslim terrorist cell to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport, its fuel tanks and a jet fuel artery could have caused "unthinkable" devastation.

But while pipeline and security experts agreed that such an attack would have crippled America's economy, particularly the airline industry, they said it probably would not have led to significant loss of life as intended.

Authorities announced Saturday they had broken up the suspected terrorist cell, arresting three men, one of them a former member of Guyana's parliament. A fourth man was being sought in Trinidad as part of the plot that authorities said they had been tracking for more than a year and was foiled in the planning stages.

"The devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable," U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf said at a news conference, calling it "one of the most chilling plots imaginable."

[...]

Despite their efforts, the men never obtained any explosives, authorities said.

"Pulling off any bombing of this magnitude would not be easy in today's environment," former U.S. State Department counterterrorism expert Fred Burton said, but added it was difficult to determine without knowing all the facts of the case.

This sounds like they monitored a few crazy brothas talking trash with no real plan or capability. Puleese! Find me some REAL "terrorists!"

A Smart Alek

I saw this little obnoxious boy on CNN yesterday morning. I say obnoxious because instead of responding to the greeting extended by Kiran Chetry after the lead in, he replied with some version of "did you say my name wrong?" Soledad's replacement was a little taken aback by his seemingly rude response. But, etiquette or not, he won the Bee ... which is no small feat.

Having spelled "serrefine" to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Evan O’Dorney is ready to tackle an even more unusual challenge for a 13-year-old boy.
"In the fall," said his mother, Jennifer, "he’ll be taking calculus."
Evan, a home-schooled eighth-grader from Danville, Calif., breezed through the competition Thursday night to become the nation’s top speller. He said he knew the winning word _ a noun describing small forceps _ the moment the pronouncer said it, but he was more enthusiastic when he spoke about an upcoming math camp this summer and the calculus class he’ll be taking at the University of California at Berkeley.

Though I didn't watch it, my personal favorite from the contest is this little boy ...

Can He Look Any More Stupid?

The only reason I'm glad that Al Gore lost in 2000 is because I didn't realize what a total tool Joe Lieberman was until it was too late. Thank GOD he is not our Vice President. Look at this clown!

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Ain't 'Cha Mama On The Pancake Box?

I think I am a little more concerned about our whack job President going off the deep end and thinking he's King of the world than I am this age old issue of Aunt Jemima. But, the article linked below really is quite interesting ... and it doesn't take much to sign the petition if you are so inclined.

Ann is working to put a stop to Aunt Jemima (and the mammy image of black women in popular culture).  You can read her entire post on the history of Aunt Jemima here, and you can sign the petition here.

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This Ain't No After Church Bake Sale

The ladies of "The View" were talking about this yesterday. Hmmmm

A New Franken, Wis., church organist and choir director was fired from her position for selling sex toys that she said can benefit cancer survivors.

Linette Servais, 50, said the priest who fired her from St. Joseph Catholic Parish told her the sale of the items is not "consistent with Church teachings," the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Thursday.

However, Servais said she didn't see anything morally wrong with her involvement with a company called Pure Romance. She said she joined the company after a brain tumor and the ensuing treatment left her sexually dysfunctional and she found the marital aids were beneficial.

"After I got over the initial shock, I prayed over this a long time," Servais told the Journal-Sentinel. "I feel that Pure Romance is my ministry."

Servais, one of 15,000 consultants employed by the company to sell its products at parties, said the priest told her to either give up the sales job or surrender her position with the church, which was largely performed without pay.

Servais said she sees it as part of her Christian duty to sell the items to women who need them, the newspaper reported.

Now I wouldn't go so far as to say that selling sex toys is a Christian duty but how does the Church, which preaches that women are not to use birth control and are obligated to bear all children, expect them to participate in the act that is a sacred part of matrimony?

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This Chick Was Half Dead At 0.27

There were eye witnesses yet there will be no charges.

The details are as follows: In early March, three 20-year-old women were on their way out of a college house party when a girl told them there were eight guys alone in a room with a 17-year-old girl. They decided to knock on the French doors to the room, which were draped with a sheet and being held closed from inside. They say a baseball player from De Anza College -- one of several students inside -- opened the door and said, "You girls don't know what the fuck is going on. Get the fuck out of here." One of the women, Lauren Chief Elk, noticed the sheet didn't quite cover the entire door and was able to peek in. "When I looked in, I saw about ten pairs of legs surrounding a girl, lying on the mattress on the floor and a guy on top of her with his pants down and his hips thrusting on top of her," she told KTVU Channel 2. "And when I saw that I knew immediately something wasn't right. It just didn't look right."

Another witness, April Grolle, said, "I saw that this young girl did not want to be in there, and that's when we just went 'We're getting this girl out of there.'" They managed to break down the door and found the girl lying on the bed with "vomit dribbling down her face." Chief Elk said, "We had to scoop vomit out of her mouth [and] lift her up. Her pants were completely off her body." She continued, "She had her one shoe on, her jeans were wrapped around one of her ankles and her underwear was left around her ankles. To the left of the bed there was some condom thrown on the ground." The women then dressed the alleged victim and drove her to a local hospital.

D.A. Dolores Carr said what happened that night was "abhorrent" and that the women displayed "honor and courage," but that there simply isn't enough evidence to go to trial. "The credibility and memories of witnesses are easier to attack," she wrote in an editorial. "Having more witnesses is not always an advantage if their recollections differ." She added that while it is considered sexual assault when a victim is too intoxicated to consent, "we must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim was so impaired that she could not understand what she was doing." And oddly, forensic tests showed the vomit did not actually belong to the alleged victim. Still, according to one protester, the girl's blood alcohol level was 0.27 following the alleged incident -- which is within the range for a potential loss of consciousness and memory blackout.

No comment but someone needs to Facebook the hell out of those boys.

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Pot, Kettle

Kettle, Pot!

"Men in Trees" actress Anne Heche claims that she deserves sole legal custody of her 5-year-old son Homer because her soon-to-be-ex husband, Coley Laffoon, masturbates too much. Seriously.

In court papers filed earlier this week and obtained by TMZ, Heche claims that she can "no longer ignore an escalating pattern in Coley's behavior, including a particular preoccupation with sexually graphic material and masturbation."

In her previously file documents, Heche claims Laffoon, rather than being Mr, Mom, dumps Homer at day care or with a nanny and watches porn and plays ping-pong all day.

Laffoon says Heche is "delusional" and is more concerned with her career than caring for their son.

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If You Want To Smell What The Rock Is Cooking

... you might have a chance now. He and the wife are parting ways.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and wife Dany Garcia Johnson have separated, they have announced in a statement to PEOPLE.

"While certain aspects of our relationship have changed, we are both vitally important to each other's lives," their statement reads. "We will continue to advance and manage our business interests, our philanthropic efforts and most importantly the raising of our child together, as a loving team. We've been fortunate enough to spend the last 17 years together as a couple and look forward to spending the rest our lives together as best friends and business partners."

Yeah, yeah, blah, blah ... My guess is that "The Rock" is a ho and she got sick of it ...

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This Is Not Cute!

Look folks! Babies are not dolls! Breeding them like dolls does not make them cute! This chick needs an intervention.

When it comes to children, one Dallas mother knows about having them in pairs.

The odds are one in 500,000 but she's giving birth today to her third set of twins at Baylor University Medical Center.

But with the joy comes great challenges.

Inside the wood frame house, life resembles the nursery rhyme of the old woman who lived in a shoe.

But here, young mom Amanda Gonzales cares for four-year-old Natalie, three-year-old twins Adam and Sebastian and two-year-old twins Rachel and Raquel.

Two more twin girls are scheduled for a c-section birth today.

"I've always taken care of kids since I was little, I think that's where I got it. When I used to babysit a lot of kids, I wanted to have my own, a lot of kids," she said.

Gonzales enters the rare club of having fraternal twins three times.

She took no fertility drugs.

The father of the latest set of twins hopes he's ready.

"Just focus, trying to have my mind right. Try to have my mind right, you know," said Joshua Brown.

But with neither the 21-year-old father nor the 20-year-old mother employed - all the children are supported by welfare - the young family faces financial and emotional obstacles.

With the headlines fresh of the latest North Texas parent to kill her children, Amanda believes she can handle the stress - so does her mother.

"I've always talked to her and told her about it, if you ever get depressed that bad, you've got people you can you can talk to, your sister, your brother, her boyfriend," said Joan Gonzales.

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