The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1942 (II)

Germany - 1942 (II)

* June - The New York-based World Jewish Conference tells the world that the whole of Eastern Europe is becoming "a vast slaughterhouse for Jews."

23,000 Jews are gassed at Belzec and Sobibor.

In Sosnowiec, Poland, Germans enter Jewish hospitals, murder newborn babies, and tear patients from operating tables.

In Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland, Rabbi Isaac gathers with a group of Jews in a Jewish cemetery. They hold hands, dance, and drink "to life." Their Nazi captors are enraged and shoot and disembowel all of them.

The above events are typical of daily events in Europe during 1942.

The items below are but a minute sample of Holocaust-related events in 1942.

* June 1 - 6 - The British Broadcasting Company reports that about 700,000 Jews have been killed by the Nazis.

* June 3 - There is a Jewish revolt in Breslau, Germany.

* June 4 - Heydrich dies of blood poisoning from his wounds. The United States declares war on Romania.

* June 8 - In Pilica, Poland, the Jewish Council urges every able-bodied Jew to run and hide in the nearby forests.

* June 12 - Anne Frank turns 13.

* June 19 - Jews in Glebokie, Belorussia stage a revolt. The Nazis take 2500 of them to the forest and kill them.

* June 28 - The Germans begin their summer offensive in Russia.

* June 29 - In Slonim, Belorussia, Jews launch an armed resistance. It fails and the Germans burn almost 15,000 Jews to death.

* June 30 - The London Daily Telegraph prints this headline: "More Than 1,000,000 Jews Killed in Europe."

* June - July - Articles appearing in The New York Times emphasize Christian victims of the Nazis, rather than Jewish victims, even though the number of Christian victims was very small compared to the number of Jewish victims.

* July 2 - Great Britain and the U.S. agree to invade North Africa.

* July 6 - Anne Frank and family go into hiding in Amsterdam.

* July 10 - 100 women at Auschwitz are chosen for sterilization experiments.

The rest of 1942 continues with the murder of Jews. On the last day of the year, the Family Hostage Law was announced in Occupied France. This law said that the male relatives of fugitive "terrorists" who did not surrender to the German authorities would be killed, female relatives would be transferred to work camps and their children would be sent to political reeducation schools.

Notice how the word "terrorist" is used by the Nazis to define someone opposed to their regime!

The Holocaust, for many Jews, meant the death of God. There can be no God in light of the horrors of the Holocaust. And if there were a God, he would not be worth worshipping.

Rabbi Irving Greenberg though it was futile to argue about the nature of God in the presence of a burning child; the only thing a person could do is jump in the fire and pull him out.

Rabbi Emil Fackenheim found a new commandment: Jewish survival.

Rabbi Yitzhak Missenbaum said Jews in the Warsaw ghetto should do everything they could to save their lives.

More tomorrow...

David Vitter & the Traditional Values Coalition

Isn't David Vitter that Republican senator from Louisiana who was found to be consorting with prostitutes on a regular basis?

Oh, that's right, he denied he'd been involved with prostitutes in New Orleans, even though the former madam of a New Orleans whorehouse said he was a client in the 1990s.

Ah, but there's more. It appears that Senator Vitter also patronized a prostitute in the French Quarter in the late 1990s. He denies that too, of course.

He did not, however, deny that he was involved with an escort service in Washington that the feds say was a prostitution ring. He apologized though and said God and his wife had forgiven him.

Unlike the governor of New York, Vitter did not resign and is still a U.S. senator.

Senator Vitter is, as you could probably guess, a truly fine Christian gentleman who constantly looks after the welfare of the less fortunate in our country. Even the hookers said so.

That's why Senator Vitter has sponsored an amendment to a bill being considered in the U.S. Senate called the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

Vitter's amendment would deny funding of abortions with federal monies from Indian Health Services funds, "except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest of a minor."

Vitter's concern here comes through. He certainly doesn't think sacred federal money should be used to help an Indian woman have a clean abortion with a real doctor in a real hospital. Let her find some quack in a back alley!

Senator Vitter and his amendment are strongly supported by the Traditional Values Coalition. The TVC is one of the strongest anti-gay groups in the country and promotes an ongoing vicious campaign against homosexuals and all persons perceived as "liberals."

I wonder if TVC would support Senator Vitter if he was a homosexual instead of a heterosexual serial adulterer?

Florida Is Unevolving

Two Republican representatives in Florida's house are co-sponsoring an "academic freedom" bill which would give Florida science teachers and students the right "to discuss, without fear of punishment, 'the full range' of problems and ideas surrounding Darwin's theory."

When will these religious fruitcakes quit?

Religion! In spite of their protests to the contrary, that's what it's all about, religion!

And now Florida's Christian creationists have an ally in Ben Stein, [TV host and former Nixon speech writer] who has made a documentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," which challenges mainstream science. This documentary, which Stein has shown to Florida lawmakers, is part of the assault on evolution by the Christian right.

The Miami Herald says that "Trailers show images of Hitler when Stein talks about evolution supporters, and the documentary clearly presents Stein's arguments in religious terms."

Is Stein saying that evolutionists are somehow connected to Hitler or Nazism?

Furthermore, some mainstream scientists who appear in the film say they were misled by Stein as to film's purpose.

An Orlando film critic who saw a pre-screening at a mega-church, "trashed [it] as propaganda."

It's just amazing how these Neanderthals will not let go. The two representatives sponsoring this "academic freedom" bill are Alan Hays, a Republican representative from Umatilla, and Ronda Storms, a Republican senator from Brandon. Hays said "I want a balanced policy. I want students taught how to think, not what to think. There are problems with evolution. Have you ever seen a half-monkey, half human?"

That will give you a idea of how ignorant this guy is. And he's also a liar. He doesn't give a rat's ass about "balance." He's about providing a religious view of creation based upon a literal interpretation of the Bible.

I wish these SOBs would at least be honest!

Howard Simon, the head of Florida's ACLU is right on when he says, "It's not as benign as it sounds. It gives cover to teach religion in science classrooms as long as it's presented as science. All they have to do is talk about Creation Science, or the science of Intelligent Design."

Maybe we could round up all these Christian rightists who wish to live in some previous century and send them on a one-way trip to a remote island where they could set up their Christian country, run it according to God's will, and teach Creation Science (an oxymoron if there ever was one!) to their heart's content.

Hah! That would last about one day and then they'd start killing each other for heresy!

Unending Racism

[Photo - Steve Cohen, 9th Cong. Dist., Memphis, TN]

In recent weeks, racists have renewed their attacks on Barack Obama. These attacks will no doubt continue and increase in quantity and vileness.

One might think that victims of racism would be especially careful to refrain from racist comments or sentiments, themselves. That is not always true.

The 9th Congressional District in Memphis, Tennessee is represented by Steve Cohen, a Democrat.

About a month ago, a pastor by name of George Brooks, from Murfreesboro, Tennessee sent out a flier that circulated in the Memphis area which said "Steve Cohen and the Jews hate Jesus," among other things.

Brooks claimed he did this because the 9th Congressional District is "about 90-something percent black." [Actually, the last U.S. census showed the district to be 59.7 percent black.] Whatever the percentage, Brooks obviously assumes that a white person cannot effectively represent the 9th Congressional District.

Why he should care, living outside of the district in Murfreesboro, is another question.

Cohen will be challenged by an African-American labor lawyer, Nikki Tinker, in the Democratic primary on August 5. Tinker's spokesman in Washington insisted that Tinker had nothing to do with the flier.

Cohen had to face a similar smear attempt based on his religion and race in a previous campaign, but he said "the people of the 9th District rejected that and gave me overwhelming support."

It ain't over yet, though. Feelings run deep as shown last August when the Black Baptist Ministerial Association expressed anger at Cohen's vote in favor of the Hate Crimes bill. When Cohen met with the group, one of the ministers, Robert Poindexter of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, said "He's not black and he can't represent me."

Now that's clearly out-and-out racism. And it's a sad commentary on the Christianity of one Robert Poindexter.

Is There An Eavesdropper in the House?

In Washington, D.C. the House of Representatives, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, met late at night behind closed doors.

The House planned to debate "classified intelligence gathering" before they voted on a "warrantless eavesdropping bill."

So, they met in secret. The first time in 25 years.

The Bushites wanted the House to accept the Senate's bill. That's because the Senate has too many spineless members who obeyed Bush and agreed to exempt from lawsuits the telecom companies that cooperated with Bush in his illegal eavesdropping.

Isn't it fascinating that the House felt they had to meet secretly, behind closed doors, to consider a bill to allow the prez and his cronies to illegally eavesdrop on American citizens?

Were they afraid someone would eavesdrop on them?

They should have been. It's likely that every "security" agency in the U.S. government heard every word that was said. There were probably more secret microphones hidden in the halls of Congress than there are secret sexual shenanigans of the Congresspersons.

Bush said if the House doesn't do what he wants, he'll veto the bill. Sadly, I don't think there are enough House members who believe in the Constitution to override his veto.

Update: The House passed the bill and Bush has pen in hand to veto it. Of course, it was just as we thought; everybody in Washington knew the bill had passed before Bush did. They were eavesdropping without warrants!

Bush Cheats Again

It's no secret that, on numerous occasions, the Bush administration has ordered scientists to modify their findings to fall in line with Bushite political theology.

What with all the publicity of such duplicity, you'd think the White House would give it up.

But, no!

One truly bothersome thing about Bush and his friends is the way, consciously or unconsciously, they borrow stuff from the Nazi playbook.

Now, obviously, they're not gassing Jews, but they're not above taking their perceived "enemies" on planes to countries where gassing Jews would probably not be a problem; countries that are not bound by the U.S. Constitution; countries where the vilest tortures are considered fair play.

I got off topic a bit there.

I was going to say that the Bushites have learned a very important lesson from the Hitlerites and that is, lie, lie, lie. Lie openly, lie publicly, lie over and over again. Pretty soon, people will either believe the lies or they will get so tired of hearing them, they'll ignore them.

Here's how it works: Scientists study, conclude, write reports. The Bush people don't like what the scientists write, so tell them to do a re-write. The amended reports are then presented to the country as "fact." Nothing is said as to the White House adulteration of these reports.

Now it has happened again. Ironically, it has happened to the EPA, which usually bows down and marches off to whatever tune Bush is playing at the moment.

The Environmental Protection Agency was prepared to set out its latest smog requirements when Bush intervened at the last minute. The changes were "directed by the White House."

At this point, I'm not concerned about the issues involved - whether the public welfare smog emission standards should be stronger, weaker or the same as the public health standards.
What I am concerned about is a president who insists on playing politics with issues of great importance to human life.

For Mr. Bush, truth is not important, but rather that science fall in line with his theological/political views and that his corporate bedfellows continue to make enormous profits.

The clean air director of the Natural Resources Defense Council said "Never before has a president personally intervened at the 11th hour, exercising political power at the expense of law and science, to force EPA to accept weaker air quality standards than the agency chief's expert scientific judgment had led him to adopt. It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference."

That is true. Unfortunately, it's just another day in the Bush White House where truth and justice take a back seat to political and/or theological machinations.

Russian Army Garage Sale

The United States doesn't scrimp when it comes to military spending. That doesn't mean the money given to the military is spent wisely, it just means they get a lot to throw at various projects and problems.

The U.S. Federal Budget for the 2009 fiscal year amounts to $2,650 billion. The military gets the lion's share - 54%; which leaves 46% for all non-military expenditures.

Is this a great country, or what?

Reagan liked to pontificate by repeating that stupid statement that "Government is not the solution, government is the problem." Actually, he was totally wrong about that as he was totally wrong about most things. We can't get along with government. The problem is not government but the people running the government.

Bush. Cheney. Republicans. Big problem.

A peace-loving country that spends over 50% of its money on the military has a big problem.

In Russia, they do things differently. They have allocated about 15-18 percent of their total budget for military expenditures. The year, 2008 will see a 20% increase in military spending over 2007, but the military's cut of the country's budget will remain at 15.5 - 16%.

That has implications for the Russian army. There's not enough money to operate efficiently.

So, the Russian army plans to auction off some of the property that it owns - "fabulous mansions, guest houses, dilapidated garrison towns, unused shooting ranges and vast tracts of neglected land, on which no human has set foot for years."

Monies raised from this mammoth garage sale will go to provide housing for army officers, some of which have been on waiting lists for a long, long time.

Whether this plan will actually work is questionable. One army officer said "I didn't know the army had anything left to sell. I thought it had all been stolen long ago."


All of this made me think that perhaps we should cut back the amount of money allocated to our military each year. Maybe there are things they could sell to raise funds, and they wouldn't need so much from the budget.

They could conduct a U.S. Military Garage Sale - wait, I think they already do that and end up giving away all kinds of stuff to countries that later turn around and use it against us. That won't work.

Well, let's just cut their budget and see what happens. Maybe if they didn't get so much money they wouldn't buy $20,000 toilets or $9,000 hammers.

Aw heck. That wouldn't work, either. They'd still buy those toilets and those hammers, because the folks who make those toilets and hammers are good friends of the high and mighty poohbahs who inhabit the hallowed halls of Congress and the White House.

I Don't Believe in Father Timothy Radcliffe, Either

Father Timothy Radcliffe is considered by some to be England's "leading Roman Catholic monk," whatever that means.

Radcliffe used to be the chief poohbah for the Dominicans, but now is "an itinerant preacher" and author, and some think he will be named to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Conner as Archbishop of Westminster when the good Cardinal retires.

Radcliffe doesn't think much of today's atheists. He accuses Richard Dawkins, the brilliant British scientist, of "being stuck in the 19th century."

Radcliffe says the biggest problem facing the church today has nothing to do with Dawkins, or atheism, but rather is the need to restore hope in the young. Our world, he claims, is configured by a loss of hope. "It is tempting for people to see no way forward. The two main stories the young encounter are the 'war on terror' and ecological disaster."

Our youth are afraid of the future, for themselves and for their children.

Atheists, according to Radcliffe, had some influence in the 19th century, but they're old hat, now. That's because they have nothing to say to people looking for hope for the future.

"People have seen in many parts of the world, particularly China and the Soviet Union, what the effects are of trying to live in a world without God."

I think Mr. Dawkins would have fun with that one. It would behoove the Rev. Radcliffe to shut his mouth when he doesn't know what he's talking about.

We haven't been living in a world without god, we've been living in a world where god reigns! Hitler was a Catholic, one of Radcliffe's own, right up to the end, and he went to church and prayed and saw what he was doing as fulfillment of God's mission.

Stalin came out of an Orthodox background.

The events of 9/11 were carried out by strong believers in god. They were certain they also were doing the will of god. They knew they would be rewarded in heaven for killing so many infidels at once and striking such a profound blow in the heart of the Great Satan.

The war in Iraq was instigated by a man who has a personal relationship with god. It is such a close relationship that god tells him what to do. The war in Iraq was one of god's instructions to George W. Bush.

Now, George is getting more instructions from god about striking Iran nuclearly. Some of that is coming through god's mouthpieces, like John Hagee and the creep from Ohio, Rod Parsley, but it's from god nontheless.

And then, we have the problem of priestly abuse - a horrific scenario that has infested almost every nook and cranny of soon-to-be Archbishop Radcliffe's church! Were not these priests and nuns all believers in god?

A final example has to do with the environment. Whole bunches of religious fanatics, true believers in god refuse to believe that the environment is in trouble. Furthermore, even if it is, it doesn't matter because their belief in god includes the belief that his son is coming back soon to save the faithful and that will mean the end of the world, so why worry about things like environmental degradation?

Don't tell us that Dawkins is so 19th-century, Father Radcliffe. That won't wash.

The truth is the the Roman Catholic Church has never really moved out of the 15th century, and even as this is written is slithering back out of its forlorn place in the 21st century - witness the move to reinstate the Latin mass.

Too often, contrary to what the monk thinks, the problem has not been the absence of god, but the presence of god.

I Don't Believe in Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges is a writer, a foreign correspondent and formerly the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times.

He has now written a piece called "I Don't Believe in Atheists," which Salon says is "charmingly titled."

Please.

Hedges has decided, being the son of a Presbyterian minister and a hard-headed foreign correspondent and all, that the people he calls the "new atheists," such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, are "preaching a fundamentalism as dangerous as the religious fundamentalist belief systems they attack."

I think Hedges is full of you-know-what.

The "secular left" says Hedges, has embraced "the same kind of bigotry and chauvinism and intolerance that marks the Christian right." These leftist seculars, claims Hedges, are "little more than secular fundamentalists."

What exactly does that mean? Well, Hedges would have us believe that the secular leftists - these "new atheists" - have adopted "many of the foundational belief systems of fundamentalists." They believe that human beings are moving forward to some kind of a better society, which is what fundamentalists believe.

Baloney. Hedges gives no examples. I've read all of these men and none believe that humans are gradually getting better and better. I don't think religious fundamentalists believe that, either. Most of them preach just the opposite - gloom and doom: We're going downhill fast, and they point specifically to gay marriage, and abortion, and the lack of Christianity in the government. In fact, they suggest that because we are moving away from God, becoming more evil, God's gonna get us! Some think things are so bad that Armageddon is just around the corner.

Hedges says the Holocaust was the result of a fascist Utopian agenda; it adopted the "cult of science," whatever that means. Then he says that "the New Atheists also make that leap from science into the cult of science, and that's a problem." Is he trying somehow to equate the thinking of the New Atheists with the thinking of the Nazis?

But , exactly how the New Atheists have done that, Hedges doesn't say.

Hedges thinks that it can be dangerous not to believe in sin, and accuses the New Atheists of doing just that. He says they think evil can be eradicated. He says they defend torture. He says that Hitchens is amoral, and Harris is "just intellectually shallow."

It seems to me, however, that Hedges claims a number of things for which he offers no substantiation, and makes all sorts of claims which are either not true or are simply exaggerated.

But the big problem is that nobody cares what Hedges thinks and that makes him angry.

He complained that when he debated Sam Harris at UCLA, the 1500 people present came to the debate liking Sam Harris and left liking Sam Harris. He was pissed.

"I don't think that they heard a word I said, and it's just insulting."

Or maybe they heard quite clearly what he said and came to the same conclusion I did: Hedges is full of horse shit!

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget)

[Most of the material in "The Holocaust Journal" is from The Holocaust Chronicle, Publications International, Ltd., 2003. $24.98 from Amazon]

Germany 1942 - (I)

By 1942, the mass murder of Jews had become state policy in Gemany.

Dr. Gerhart Reigner, based in Switzerland, received word from a German anti-Nazi businessman that the Nazis were planning to move 3.5 millions Jews to the East where they would be exterminated "at one blow."

Reigner asked the American consulate in Geneva to send word to Rabbi Steven Wise in the U.S. about these events and to also forward the information to the American and other Allied governments.

The U.S. State Department thought the message a fantasy and it was never delivered to Rabbi Wise. By the time the media was informed, it was too late. Most European Jews were dead.

1942 was the deadliest year of the Holocaust.

The Final Solution was put into motion at the Wannsee Conference on January 20. Fifteen men answered Heydrich's call to attend. These were not thugs or gangsters, but highly educated, cultured men. Many of them held doctoral degrees from German universities.

The plan, according to Heydrich, was to kill a total of 11 million Jews, "from Ireland to the Urals and from the Arctic to the Mediterranean."

The Nazis could kill more efficiently now, as they had built gas chambers in various concentration camps which used either carbon monoxide or Zyklon B. In 1942 alone, the German butchers killed 2.7 million Jews!

Throughout 1942, every day, every week, every month, the torture and slaughter of Jews continued unabated throughout Germany and the rest of Occupied Europe. Jews were killed in their homes, on the streets, in their synagogues, at work, in the woods, on the beach - they were safe nowhere.

Anti-Semitism, overt and covert, still reigned however, in the halls of the Allied governments. When a conference was called at St. James Palace in London by the Allied governments to discuss Nazi war crimes, the specific problem of the Jews did not arise.

In Germany, there was some opposition. Karl Stellbrink, a Protestant theologian, send out anti-Nazi letters written by Bishop Clemens von Galen. Stellbrink was arrested. A Catholic priest, Josef Metzger, wrote a letter pleading for a new German government, and he was arrested also, by the Gestapo.

* January 1 - The CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) is established in the U.S. to locate and arrest Nazi war criminals.
* January 14 - 1800 European countries are blacklisted by the U.S. government which meant that Americans are forbidden to do business with them.
* January 19 - Soviet forces recapture a German held city close to Moscow and Moscow is saved.
* January 20 - The Wannsee Conference sets up the mechanism to implement the Final Solution. The conference lasts 90 minutes.
* January 20 - Hitler commemorates his 9th year in power with a speech declaring that by the end of the war, all Jews will be dead.
* February 15 - The first mass gassing of Jews begins at Auschwitz.
* February 24 - The SS Sturma, a Panamanian ship carrying Jewish refugees bound for Palestine is sunk after Britain pressures Turkey to keep the ship from landing in Istanbul. 700 Jews drown. There is one survivor.
* March 5 - The British War Cabinet says again that "illegal" Jewish refugees will not be admitted to Palestine.
* March 15 - Hitler claims that his army will beat the Soviets in "every direction in the summer."
* March 27 - Jews from France are deported to Auschwitz.
* April 3 - The last Jews are deported from Augsburg, Germany. Jews had lived in Augsburg since the year 1212.
* April 15 - The state Lutheran Church in Norway condemns Nazism and racism.
* April 20 - At Hitler's birthday party in East Prussia, Herman Goring confesses that he's the one who set fire to the Reichstag on February 27, 1933.
* April 26 - Hitler is made absolute dictator by the Reichstag -- he is given total power in executive, legislative and judicial matters.
* May 9 - Ezra Pound, an American poet working for the fascists in Italy, sends a message to America: "You would do better to inoculate your children with typhus and syphilis" than permit more Jews to come to the U.S.
* May 11 - 12 - American Zionists meeting in New York City demand that the British give sovereignty to Jews in Palestine. The British ignore the demand.
* May 26 - England and the Soviets sign a "mutual assistance" treaty.
* May 27 - Jozef Bagcik and Jan Kubis, Czech partisans, ambush Reinhard Heydrich in his car in Prague. Heydrich is killed.
* May 29 - In Vichy France, Jews are locked out of all restaurants and cafes, sporting areas, public squares, and libraries.
* May 30 - Great Britain sends its first bombers on a raid over Cologne, Germany.

Hamas Turn the Ball into a Bomb

Hamas - that's the Palestinian terrorist bunch who currently control Gaza. They're the SOB's that have shot some 4,000 rockets into the southern Israeli town of Sderot. They're the nasties that hide behind their women's skirts when Israel fights back.

Hamas is laying out conditions for a truce with Israel.

Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, said Israel must quit their military operations in Gaza and re-open its borders if it wants Hamas to stop the rocket attacks. He said this deal must be "reciprocal, comprehensive and simultaneous," and the "ball is in Israel's court."

Who the hell do these clowns think they are? They are terrorists. They are bombing innocent people. Israel has said repeatedly it would halt military operations when Hamas stopped the bombing. Hamas continues bombing and blames Israel for responding militarily.

Hamas is also the group that uses every method possible to get weapons and killers into Israel. They use tunnels to smuggle goods and weapons into Gaza from Egypt. In fact, when a group of Palestinians was renovating one of these old tunnels the other day, it collapsed, killing one terrorist and injuring another.

Egypt, because of a certain amount of pressure from the U.S. and Israel, destroyed six of these tunnels last week.

Hamas wants the borders between Gaza and Israel opened so they can sneak suicide bombers and weapons into Israel to create death and destruction.

Hamas is dedicated to the annihiliation of Israel and the death of all Jews.

The ball is not in Israel's court. It has never been in Israel's court. The ball has always been in the hands of the terrorists. They turn it into a bomb or a rocket. They use it to rain down death and destruction.

You cannot negotiate with terrorists. You cannot negotiate with people who are dedicated to erasing you from the face of the earth.

Terrorists cannot lay down conditions for a truce. All they can do if they truly want peace is lay down their arms!

Arab Holy Wars - Forevermore

This from a friend:

"On the day that Israel declared its independence in 1948, Azam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League, declared a holy war. He said Arab states rejected partition and intended to set up in Palestine. He then said:

'This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.'"

Sixty years later, Arab groups throughout the Middle East remain dedicated to the extermination of Israel and all its inhabitants.

Sixty years later, Israel has evolved into a modern, dynamic, and democratic country, providing the world with a variety of scientific, medical, and other benefits produced within its borders by numerous Israeli and international companies dedicated to making this world a better place.

Can you say the same for any Arab country?

James Hagee's Gas Attack

In his Altercation, Eric Alterman provides a few answers to the question, "Who is John Hagee?"

You may recall that when Hagee was accused of being anti-Catholic recently, he reacted with "righteous indignation," and claimed that he had lots of fiends, oops, I mean friends, who were Catholics; or something like that.

I'm not sure he denied that he said this or that he didn't mean it when he said this: that Hitler and the RC church were part of a conspiracy to "exterminate the Jews."

I had not read his "anti-Christ" beliefs before so they were an enjoyable surprise. It's hard to believe he's serious, but he is. That's because he's quite obviously insane. Here's what Hagee has to say "On the Antichrist:"

"He's [the anti-Christ] going to make a seven-year treaty with Israel and set up his image to be worshiped in Israel. And that is where I'm convinced that a Jewish person who understands who he is shoots him, because the Bible says he's wounded in the head and recovers wondrously, emulating the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. At this point in time when he comes back to life he has the personality of a Hitler. He now pursues the Jewish people. The Jewish people then go to Petra, which is a place in Jordan that is a natural fortress. And that God is going to provide for them there protection from him. And as he gets ready to pursue him, the Bible says that he, the Antichrist, hears tidings from the east that disturb him. The tidings from the east is that... the Chinese army is marching up the Euphrates River, 200 million of them, and they're moving toward the battle of Armageddon, because they want the oil that will make them a superpower."

You can read more of Hagee's rantings here.

Just remember, he's as crazy as a loon! (So what does that make John McCain?)

Big & Little Brothers Are Watching You!

An analysis of web companies put together for The New York Times, explains in some detail the mass of consumer data sent to internet companies daily.

"The new analysis indicates that web companies are, in effect, taking the trail of crumbs people leave behind as they move around the internet, and analysing them to anticipate people's next steps. So anybody who searches for information on such disparate topics as iron supplements, airlines, hotels and soft drinks may see ads for those products and services later on."

Did you know this?

The executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, Marc Rotenberg, says "...it's scarier than you might suspect. We're recording preferences, hopes, worries and fears."

What do the web companies say? Do you need to ask? No problem! They have policies in place and consumers will be protected. Hah!

The problem is that the internet runs on data. The company with the most data on the most customers, wins. And that's because they can more effectively market products and services to those customers.

Massive amounts of personal information are being collected daily on everyone who uses the internet. Much of this information may be innocuous. But much of it may not be, as it includes your interests and preferences with regard to politics, religion, sex, drugs, modes of travel, or whatever you have searched for on line.

Information is power. Information is control. No one, at this point, knows how this information will be stored, identified and used. That's what's scary!

What might be the result if a particular anti-democratic political party or group gained power and obtained this information to use to further solidify their control?

And please don't say it can't happen here. Hell, it's already happened here! And like lambs being led to slaughter, we are ripe for further assaults on our freedoms!

Blood Pudding or Blood Sausage

This is one of those stories which I will not vouch for. It's from the dailymail.co.uk.

Supposed two German air force sergeants made black pudding from their own blood. They conceived and carried out their bloody creation at their base near Munich.

The pudding consisted of a mix of their blood, onions, bacon, spices and breadcrumbs.

The sergeants, perhaps a bit lightheaded from losing all that blood, went on the Internet with their concoction and soon received hundreds of requests from cannibals for the recipe. Obviously, they had a good thing going, so figured they'd make sausages using the blood of friends and family members and market them on line.

The German defence ministry said the two men have been suspended and are facing courts- martial for cannibalism.

I am come to realize anything's possible. And after delving deeply into the history of the Holocaust, a little blood sausage really isn't that much of a deal in Germany.

You can find the story here.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget)

Germany - 1941 (III)

In July 1941, German forces invaded Latvia. At that time, Latvia had 95,000 Jews. Ninety percent of those Jews were killed within six months.

The city of Riga contained 40,000 Jews. By December, only 4800 had survived. Here's how it went. The Germans didn't do all the killing. Latvian "civilian" nationalists led the attacks on the Jews in Riga - arresting, beating, torturing, and raping them. They also engaged in burning down synagogues filled with people. Thousands of Jews were drive to the beaches or the woods where they were shot to death.

All of that killing still left about 32,000 Jews in the city. The Germans herded those 38,000 into a run-down ghetto. In November they separated "productive workers" into a smaller ghetto set apart from the larger ghetto which contained the "unproductive" Jews. Shortly thereafter, using modern blue buses, they transported the "unproductive" Jews to the Rumbula Forest where they shot all 27,000.

By the end of 1943, almost every single Latvian Jew had been murdered by the Nazis.


August 1941 - After slaughtering a number of Jews at Cesis, Latvia, German troops and security police hold a Totenmahl (death banquet).

In Slobodka, Ukraine, German troops fill a synagogue with dead cats. Jews are told to tear up the Torah scrolls and throw the pieces on top of the dead cats. The Nazis then burn the building.

The Dean of St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin, Father Bernhard Lichtenberg, protests the euthanasia program. Later, in October, he says he wants to share the fate of the Jews who are being deported to the east so he can pray for them there. The Gestapo accomodates the good Father by arresting him. (He will later die on his way to a concentration camp/)

Gerald Nye, a U.S. senator, denounces the "Yiddish controllers' of American theater and movies. Senator Burton Wheeler attacks Jews in the movie business by calling them "Hollywood Hitlers." Champ Clark, another U.S. senator, sets up an investigation into Hollywood's "unpatriotic" Jewish filmmakers.

These anti-Semitic fools are representative of a large part of the American population. Surveys show that many Americans believe if the U.S. has to go to war, it should be against the Soviet Union, not Germany!

Throughout the rest of 1941, tens of thousands of Jews are slaughtered in a variety of ways in Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Poland, the Ukraine, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Russia.

Most telling and most despicable is the fact that in many countries, local citizens assisted the Nazis by identifying Jews, hunting down Jews and killing Jews. This was true in France, Estonia, Slovakia, Romania, the Crimea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Ukraine, Poland, and the Soviet Union. In the Ukraine, local citizens were often given the task of killing the Jewish children.

August 15 - 26,000 Jews arrive at Viliampole, Lithuania from Kovno. Each is allotted three square feet of living space.

August 24 - Winston Churchill, Britain's Prime Minister, announces that German troops have executed thousands of civilians in the Soviet Union. He did not mention the Jews as he did not want to give away the fact that England had broken the German radio code.

September - In Paris, the Germans set up an exposition called "The Jew and France," which depicts Jews as hideous ogres condemned to wander the world forever because they killed the Christ and now want to control the world. In a few days, more than 100,000 Parisians visit the exhibit.

At Auschwitz, an executive van is developed which directs carbon monoxide to the sealed rear cargo area.

September 3 - Three hundred Jews and 600 Soviet POWS are "euthanized" at Auschwitz.

September 4 - Jewish resistance members in the Ukraine assassinate a German commander. Another group blows up a large cache of German arms.

September 7 - Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, says "If we must have preferences, let me murmur in your ear that I prefer Arabs to Jews."

September 13 - The Germans have become suspicious that England has broken their codes, thus order that all reports of Jewish executions be send by courier.

The America First Committee conducts a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Charles and Anne Lindbergh attend and Charles blames the Jews for "agitating for war...for reasons that are not American....Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government."

October 19 - The Soviets declare Moscow is in a "state of siege."

October 22-23 - The Romanian headquarters in Odessa, Ukraine is blown up and 66 German troops, along with 17 Romanian officers are killed. The Nazis exact a terrible reprisal by killing 5000 Jews and other civilians the next day.

October 25 - Jews at Tatarsk in Russia revolt against murderous peasants and SS kill squads. The rebellion is put down by a coalition of forces. All Jews in Tatarsk are murdered.

October 26 - All persons who keep pigeons in Kiev, Ukraine are killed on the assumption that pigeons could be used to send messages.

[In occupied areas, the SS kidnapped blond, blue-eyed children and sent them to Germany for adoption. Thousands of children were involved in this campaign to preserve "racially valuable" Aryan elements in the German population.]

November 28 - Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, meets with Hitler and agrees to cooperate in exterminating Jews and offers Hitler Arabs to fight for Germany.

December - The Night and Fog decree allows the Germans to execute any "obstructive non-German civilians in occupied nations."

SS chief Heinrich Himmler suggests that 31 million non-Germans be deported from Eastern Territories to create living space for German colonists.

The Jesuit journal, Civilta Cattolica, published in Rome under the auspices of the Vatican, tells Catholics to remember that Jews are supposedly those primarily responsible for murdering God and that Jews repeat this crime by means of ritual murder "in every generation."

December 6 - The Soviets establish a million-man counter-offensive outside of Moscow.

December 7 - The Japanese attack U.S. naval bases in the Pacific - Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and Clark Field in the Philippines.

December 8 - The U.S., Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Japan.

December 9 - China declares war on Germany and Japan.

December 11 - Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The United States declares war on Germany and Italy. About 90% of Americans military resources will be sent to Europe to fight the Nazis.

Mid-December - Hitler appoints himself as supreme commander of the German Armed Forces.

December 22 - The U.S. changes the Selective Service Act so that men between 20 and 44 are eligible for military service.

The murder of Jews continues...

When a Judge Plays God

It isn't a matter of whether you agree with the jury or whether you think Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian is guilty or innocent. It's a matter of simple justice according to the Constitution of the United States.

Dr. Al-Arian has been jailed for five years even though not one charge against him has held up in court. Following a six-month trial that ended about a year ago, Al-Arian was acquitted of eight of the charges against him and the jury failed to agree on the rest.

Again, my opinion or the opinion of anyone else as to Dr. Al-Arian's guilt or innocence is irrelevant. The fact is that the U.S. Government failed to make their case against him.

It was a god-playing judge who decided he should stay in jail!

The tragedy for our justice system is that Al-Arian has spent five years in prison without being convicted of any crime!

A further tragedy is that if it can happen to him it can happen to anyone.

For additional information go here, and here.

Stuck on You (or Your Toilet)

Just when you think you'd heard it all!

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

A 35-year old woman in Ness County, Kansas, sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years!

Sheriff Bryan Whipple told how, when found, the woman's skin had become affixed to the toilet seat. "We pried the toilet seat off with the pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," said Whipple. "The hospital removed it."

Evidently the woman had decided she was going to stay on that toilet. The reason is not clear. Her boyfriend brought her "food and water, and asked her to come out of the bathroom" every day.

She would reply, "Maybe tomorrow."

Last February 27, finally, the boyfriend called the coppers and said there was something wrong with his girlfriend. He did not explain why he waited two years to contact the authorities.

The girlfriend is said to be in fair condition at a Wichita hospital and will not cooperate with medical personnel or police.

This story certainly gives new meaning to the phrase, "Stuck on you."

Voodoo Economics

My friend, a middle-aged geek, has four boys, all in their teens. My friend has little or no money of his own and doesn't like to work much, so the boys have gone to work to hold the family together.

They give about 20 percent of their income to my friend, who then agrees to provide them with one meal a day, feed the dog, cut the grass and clean the pool.

My friend, for some odd reason, was reading about President Reagan the other day, and he decided to make some changes. He told his boys he was "cutting their taxes." They would only have to give him 10 percent of their income.

They thought that was wonderful, of course, praised his incredible intelligence and his generosity.

It wasn't long, though, before they had second thoughts. One week, good old dad wasn't able to provide their usual meal. The next week, he said he didn't have enough money to buy dog food and the dog, unhappy and hungry, bit the oldest boy in the leg.

On the third week, the boys came home and found that the grass had not been cut and the yard was overgrown and weedy.

The pool turned green and filled with slime the fourth week.

The boys called a family conference the fifth week.

"What's going on?" asked the youngest boy. "Why aren't you fulfilling your obligations, Dad? What are you doing with the money we give you."

"Hey," said my friend, "I'm doing the best I can. Now that I'm getting less money from you guys, I've had to trim some services. There just hasn't been enough cash to do all the things you need me to do."

"Well, that's just crazy," said the oldest boy. "Why did you cut our payments in the first place?"

"I read this book that said when Reagan was president he cut taxes and that meant people had more of their own money to spend and everyone was happy."

"No, dad," said one of the middle boys. "That book must have been written by a Republican. What happened was that services on which people depended were cut, and everybody was hurting and then Bush Senior came in and made it worse, and it took a Clinton about eight years to fix the economy."

"Well, I'll be darned," said my friend. "OK, we'll go back to the way things were. But I'll need 22 percent from each of you this week. Inflation, you know!"


A story in the local paper today described how this year's budget for the state of Florida will be slashed by about $1.5 billion. Part of that decrease is due to tax cuts, and part of it is due to declining revenues.

"Everything from schools to prosecutors to feel pinch," said the headline. Because the state legislature is dominated by Republicans, the focus is on what services to cut, not on how to find other sources of revenue.

There has been no discussion of re-instating taxes on investments that used to bring money into the state's coffers; there's been no discussion of stopping the tax-free shopping days that occur every year just before schools starts; there's been no discussion of increasing taxes in any area.

All the people who depend upon state services are going to be hurt. The first areas to be cut will be, as you might guess, children and family services.

Voodoo economics!

The Vatican's a Sinful Place!

Did you ever notice how religions are mainly concerned about sin? Of course, every religion has its own definition of sin. Actually, various sects within religions have their own definition of sin. It's really hard to know whether you're sinning or not.

Just the other day, right after I shaved, someone said that God didn't want men to shave their beards; that shaving was a sin. Darn!

Then, that evening my wife and I went to a nightclub and someone told her God thought her skirt was too short. Jeez!

Right after that, as I was about to sip my martini, a Bible-toting fellow gently took my glass away and said, "That's a no-no! God doesn't like strong drink!" Yikes!

The following week, I neglected to go to Mass and the priest called and told me that God was gonna get me! Crap! I'm not even Catholic!

Sin is a problem!

But never fear. Over there in Rome in that Vatican place they can tell you what sin really is 'cause they are apostolically descended and have the keys to heaven from the Almight herself!

They change their minds sometimes, so that can be a problem. The Vatican people used to say God didn't want you eating meat on Friday, so everybody went out and caught fish. Then, not so long ago, they said meat was really OK. That made a bunch of people mad, 'cause they had always hated fish and they said they wished the priests would make up their minds!

For a long time the Vatican poohbahs let priests get married, but then decided that wasn't what God wanted after all, and said priests who got married did a bad thing. A few years ago, they had a thing called the Index which listed all the books it was a sin to read. Now, they say, heck, it's not really a sin, go ahead and read what you want.

So, one never knows.

You can be sure there are real sins out there, though. There are things like sloth, and lust, and gluttony and pride and greed. There are sins of commission, when you just go ahead and do something bad, and there are sins of ommission, when you forget you were supposed to do something good.

Being a good Catholic is hard work! Bush should be a Catholic. He does a lot of hard work.

Sorry, I got sorta off the topic there.

Let me tell you about Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti. He heads up the Apostolic Penitentiary, which sounds like he's the warden for a priestly jail, but that's not the case. The Apostolic Penitentiary is where they decide things like what's a sin, and tell you when your conscience should bother you, and offer absolution if your conscience didn't stop you from screwing up.

Girotti informed the world just the other day that the Vatican has spelled out some new sins for Catholics to worry about. (Actually, the Vatican thinks all Christians should worry about them, because, as I said, the Vatican is apostolic and all.)

One of these "new" sins has to do with "violations of the basic rights of human nature," via genetic manipulation. That probably has to do with stem cells and cloning. Girotti also referred to drugs that "weaken the mind and cloud intelligence." (Is Simply Sleep included in that category?)

The Vatican has trouble speaking in plain English (or plain Italian, or plain Latin) so you have to kinda guess what they mean, but there are also sins committed against the environment, and I think the growing gap between the rich and poor is a sin, but I don't think I'm involved in that one.

Girotti was asked about "scandal and sin within the church," which probably referred to the thousands of bad priests doing bad things to little boys and girls, and how those evils were covered up by bad bishopricks and other hierarchicals.

Abortion is still at the head of the list. Sorry about that. If you have one, I suppose you could seek out the Apostolic Penitentiary for absolution.

One final problem. The RC Church delineates between two kinds of sins: venial and mortal. Venial are the easy ones, more like mistakes, or ones that don't hurt other folks too much, except that abortion and murder can be considered venial. Hmm. Venial sins are easily forgiven. They are?

Mortal sins - they're biggies. I wonder if they would include child molesters? Anyway, mortal sins will send you to hell faster than Benedict can say "I'm the pope!" If you die before you have confessed a mortal sin to a priest and received absolution, you're a gonner!

I think I'll grow a beard, anyway.

No Hamsters in Vietnam!

Do they eat hamsters in Vietnam?

I'm not sure. But there is a growing demand for hamsters as pets. No one seems to know why, except that more people in Vietnam have a little extra cash and it is the Year of the Rat in China.

Vietnamese authorities don't want hamsters. They come into Vietnam without being properly vetted, and therefore, are considered "a potential source of disease."

Please.

This is a country that has more strange diseases than a dog in Hanoi has fleas! Furthermore, all kinds of stuff finds its way into Vietnam illegaly - like fake chicken eggs, or fake anti-malaria drugs...

Be careful, though, 'cause if you get caught with one of these furry little buggers it'll cost you almost 30m dong ($1,900) which is "almost double the average annual wage in Vietnam."

Rats!

James Dobson & Arnold Schwarzenegger Outraged!

James Dobson, the ultra-right Christian poohbah who heads up the ultra-right Christian "Focus on the Family" organization is outraged.

Let's back up a bit. For some time, now, Dobson has been calling for Christian parents in California to pull their children from California's pagan public schools. "School 'em at home so they learn to love Jesus and count to ten at the same time," said Dobson. (Well, he didn't actually say that...)

In fact, though, Dobson wanted to bring California's public schools down! Get rid of 'em. Knock the system to hell! School your children at home!

Oops. A California appeals court has ruled that the state's education code says "parents must enroll their children in a public or private school. If they're being home schooled, they must be taught by a credentialed teacher or face possible fines or criminal charges."

Oops, again. Home-schoolers in California have been merrily disobeying the law because it hasn't been enforced. So, who needs teachers who know what they're doing? Any old parent can school their children? Right?

Wrong.

That's why Poohbah Dobson is "outraged." It's just heartbreaking that some 166,000 of California's home-schoolers may have to trot back into a regular classroom and learn how to get along with other kids and teachers and administrators, and how to discipline themselves to be on time and to actually follow a course outline and do what the teacher says.

Dobson thinks "The court is guilty of an imperious assault on the rights of parents." Wow, he is really pissed. "How dare these judges have the audacity to label tens of thousands of parents criminals -- the equivalent to drug dealers or pickpockets -- because they want to raise and educate their children according to their deeply held values."

Let's think about this a minute. For one thing, I'm not sure if I'd put drug dealers and pickpockets in the same category. But we'll not nitpick. Did the court really put parents in that category? No, the court followed California law. The parents put themselves in that category because they broke the law!

So, if the parents are breaking California law, then they must be some kind of criminals. We kinda have a rule, here in this country, that you can't break any old law you want to just 'cause you don't like it.

And would Dobson say what he did if parents wanted to teach their children Nazi values? Or Islamist fascist values? Or communist values? Should not those parents have the same right to home school their children according to Dobson's argument?

Isn't it interesting that this ultra-right Christian poohbah, who claims to walk the high road, is actually fighting for certain Christians to able to break the law?

And why would this ultra-right Christian poohbah, who claims to be so concerned about the "family," want to have unqualified, uncredentialed people teaching children?

You know the reason as well as I do. It matters not if the children of California learn anything so long as they learn the ultra-right Christian way of life. Dobson and his Focus on the Family doesn't really care about these children except that they grow up to be little "focussers" themselves. Dobson's not about education, but about indoctrination!

And he's nasty; he's not above threats: "This is an all-out assault on the family, and it must be met with a concerted effort to defend parents and their children. We will team with key allies and use every means at our disposal to make sure that not just every Californian, but every American, is aware of this miscarriage of justice. We will encourage them, by the hundreds of thousands, to make their voices heard on this matter."

Why is he so upset? Millions of people go through our public schools, and while some public schools need some help, most of these folks do all right (unless their parents are whacked-out ultra-right Christians who keep telling them that what they're learning isn't true).

Candi Cushman [Candi?], an "education analyst" for Focus OTF Action, inadvertently, perhaps, tells the world the truth - why Dobson and his ilk are so "outraged."

"This takes away recourse from thousands of parents in California who want to escape the government-enforced indoctrination in public schools. The Legislature recently passed a law that basically ensures that students get a one-sided, positive portrayal of homosexuality and same-sex 'marriage.'"

There you have it. It's all about homosexuals and gay marriage. That's the real basis of their outrage.

The trouble is that these ultra-right Christian poohbahs and their helpers lie. The law that Ms. Candi is talking about merely states that gay people should not be discriminated against. Now, is that so hard for people who claim to follow Jesus?

Hard to believe, isn't it?

Oh, almost forgot. Gov Arnie is also "outraged."

Why don't these outraged folks try to have the law changed instead of insisting that they have the right to break it?

[The following is a caption that appeared under a photo illustrating an AOL article dealing with this issue:

"Ellen Cate 7, solves an arithamatic problem... Ellen is home schooled by her mother." (My emphasis).

Methinks whoever wrote that caption was home schooled, too. Probably by a parent who is a mathamitics scholar.]

Bush Sends Cheney to Promote Peace in Mideast

That's the way to do it. Send the greatest warmonger in the administration to promote peace. Only in Bushdom!

Cheney is supposed to make sure that the people in the Middle East understand that "the United States is committed to a vision of peace" in that area of the world.

Good luck with that! Let's start with Iraq, OK?

Oh, oh. There's something else on the agenda - oil! So that's why Cheney's going to Oman and Saudi Arabia first. Hmm. I think the Saudis already told Bush to go jump when he asked them to increase production...

Maybe Cheney can threaten them with an pre-emptive invasion or something...you know, bring regime change to bring democracy to the land of Mecca...

And why would the Palestinians or the Israelis trust anything this administration had to say? Is Hamas going to stop the rocket attacks because Mr. Cheney asks those terrorists to do so in a nice way?

"I'm optimistic," said Bush.

"We're not," said most of the rest of the world.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget)

Germany - 1941 (II)

The Einsatzgruppen were special mobile killing squads made up of SS, SD, police and other security personnel. They were to carry out Hitler's resolve to destroy communism and Soviet Jewry.

These units had orders to execute Communist leaders and "Jews in the party and state apparatus." As the Germans marched through the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen followed and with the assistance of anti-Semitic collaborators, conducted mass murders of Jews.

Approximately 1.3 million Jews were killed, one by one, by the 3000 men organized into four Einsatzgruppen in the summer of 1941. As they moved into an area, they rounded up the Jews, took them to a secluded area, appropriated all clothing and valuables, and then murdered them each one by shooting them as they stood atop ravines or mass graves they themselves were often forced to dig.

Most of the Einsatzgruppen officers were professional men. There were lawyers, a physician and a clergyman. Some of them were arrested after the war, but many were not.

They exemplify how low human beings can sink into evil and depravity.


* June 18 - Turkey and Germany sign a friendship pact.

* Summer - Himmler, head of the SS, tells Rudolf Hoss that Hitler wants the Jewish question solved once and for all, and the SS is to carry out the order. Auschwitz is the camp to carry out most of the killings. It was determined that mass gassing was the most efficient method to kill large numbers of Jews.

* June 22 - Germany invades the Soviet Union. The invasion is called Operation Barbarossa. The Einsatzgruppen follows the army and does its work. In the Soviet village of Virlbalis, for example, all adult Jews are rounded up and machine-gunned. Children are grabbed by their ankles and then their heads are thrown into walls or the street. Some of these children are buried alive.

Throughout the rest of 1941, Jews are brutally tortured and murdered in all of the countries under German control: Lithuania, Poland, the Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Holland and Russia. The details are overwhelming and sickening. An evil sickness hangs like a mist in the air infecting all who breathe it in. It's not just Germans doing the killing, but collaborators in all these countries - many of them Christians yet in the clutches of pure hatred.

* June 27 - Nazis occupy Bialystok, Poland for the second time. A German motorized unit burns hundreds of Jews alive by setting fire to a synagogue.

In late June, in the U.S., Father Charles Coughlin rejoices in Hitler's invasion of Russia saying it is "the first strike in the holy war against communism."

* July - The British learn of Nazi massacres of Soviet Jews by breaking the German codes.

* July 1 - August 31 - Personnel from the Einsatzgruppen, the Wehrmacht, and a Romanian unit, Esalon Special, kill over 150,00 Jews in eastern Romania.

* July 10 - The 1600 residents of Jedwabne, Poland, are taken by their Polish neighbors, marched to the center of town, tortured throughout the day, then herded into a barn which is set on fire with kerosene.

* July 12 - England and the Soviet Union sign a treaty to work together to defeat Hitler.

* July 25 - Jews in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, throw gasoline bombs at Nazi cars.

* July 31 - Hermann Goring writes to SS Security Chief Heydrich to "evacuate and eliminate all European Jews presently in German-held territory. The letter mentions a 'complete solution' to European Jewry."

More later...

James Dobson's Rock and a Hard Place

[Photo pictures Dobson at a conference to heal gays]

James Dobson, the ultra-right Christian poohbah who heads up the Focus on the Family organization, said rather forthrightly that he would not vote for John McCain, if John McCain won the Republican nomination.

It now appears that John McCain has won the Republican nomination.

James Dobson, ultra-right Christian poohbah, cannot vote for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama because they both are "anti-family" according to the criteria laid down by the Dobson crowd. In ultra-right speak, "anti-family" means one is pro-choice when it comes to abortion. Actually, both Clinton and Obama like families just fine.

Shirley Dobson, who is the wife of James Dobson, the ultra-right Christian poohbah, is this year's "chairman of the National Day of Prayer." She has "spearheaded" an offshoot of the National Day of Prayer called the "Pray for the Election Day" campaign.

Steve Jordahl, who wrote a brief article explaining all this back on January 11, presents the campaign thusly: "Looking for something to do as you're sitting at that stoplight? How about praying for the upcoming elections and our national leaders."

Dobson (Shirley) says "This is probably one of the most important initiatives that we've had in the last few years."

The National Day of Prayer task force suggests you put a small red dot on your cell phone, iPod, watch, etc., and every time you see that little red dot, pray.

Dobson (James) thinks this is an extremely important election and he's got the Supreme court at the top of his prayer list because "The winner of this presidential election may make as many as five appointments." Dobson is also worried as to "how the election will affect the sanctity of human life [translation: he's anti-abortion], the definition of marriage [translation: he's against gay marriage], and religious liberty [translation: he wants prayer in the public schools, the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and laws based on the Bible]."


But ol' Jimmy is between a rock and a hard place. He can't vote for McCain, as he has said loud and clear that McCain is simply not conservative enough, or religious enough, or pro-whatever enough for the real, true Christians in this Christian country.

And he can't vote for either Hillary or Barack 'cause they are leftist liberals who will rip out the heart of whatever fabric of righteousness is left in Washington.

I guess it'll take a thunderbolt from God to get this election turned around. Stay tuned and see if the prayers get the deity's attention and the United States is saved from the pagan Democrats, and other riff-raff.

Fox News: Panties, Yes; Pants, No.

Jessica Wakeman over at the Huffington Post, has a funny diatribe about Fox News and its anchor-esses.

While viewing Fox News as part of her job (equivalent to cleaning a latrine in the Marine Corps), she caught a bit of banter between a male anchor and a female anchor.

The male anchor asked the female anchor, "Have you ever worn a pantsuit? Are you a pantsuit woman?"

The female "anchoress," Ainsley Earhardt, "tucks her hair behind her ears and replies, "I have! But, see, here at Fox we like to be feminine, so we don't wear the pants."

Ms. Wakeman rightly considers that "a really creepy characterization of femininity..."

I guess Ms. Earhardt just didn't know what else to say, so she told the truth. She's paid to sit around and look "feminine," not to be a journalist or a real reporter.

There are no real reporters working for Fox News.

Earhardt is merely "eye candy" for the rednecks out in the boonies, who, slouched down in their corduroy recliners, clutch a bag of chips and a quart of beer, and grunt along with Bill O'Reilly.

Ms. Earhardt could try out for a job with Naked News, but I think they look for people who not only don't wear pants, but don't wear skirts, too.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget)

Germany - 1941 (I)

In the early fall of 1940, my father bought a brand-new, 1941 Plymouth, for about $800-900. As a young lad, I thought it was the most beautiful machine I had ever seen. I rode with my father to the hospital in that 1941 Plymouth to bring home my mother and my brand-new sister.

It was a wonderful time and so far as I was concerned, all was well with the world. I had no idea, and couldn't have comprehended if I had known, that on the other side of the planet, children my age were being beaten in the streets, separated from their parents and siblings, freezing to death on trains, gassed to death in tiled showers - just because they were Jews.

By the end of 1940, some 100,000 of Germany's Jews had been murdered. That number would rise exponentially in 1941 as mass murder of Jews became official German state policy.

In 1941, about one million Jews would lose their lives.

This was the year of Babi Yar, "a ravine-filled area located in northwestern Kiev ... Ukraine's capital city." A German eyewitness tells how "the Germans, aided and abetted by their Ukrainian collaborators, rounded up [33,771 Jews in Kiev on September 29 and 30, 1941], and forced them to strip, leave their valuables behind, and enter 'a ravine that was about 150 meters long, 30 meters wide, and a good 15 meters deep."

The eyewitness, a truck driver for the Germans, said "no distinction was made between men, women and children." And when they went down into the ravine, they were made to lie down on top of those already shot. "This all happened very quickly. The corpses were literally in layers. A police marksman came along and shot each Jew in the neck with a submachine gun at the spot where he was lying."

The truck driver, Fritz Hofer, said the Jews approached Babi Yar thinking they were being resettled. Then it was too late.


* 1941 - A Roman Catholic priest, Maximilian Kolbe, a prisoner at Auschwitz, offers to take the place of a condemned non-Jewish inmate. Kolbe dies of a phenol injection.

* January - The Nazis deny heating fuel to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and many freeze to death.

* January 9 - Hitler sets aside his plan to invade England.

* January 21-24 - Iron Guard Legionnaires in Romania launch a coup d'etat. Violence against Jews erupts and thousands of Jews are beaten and more than 120 are killed.

* January 22 - In Bulgaria a law is passed requiring Jews to give up public positions and forcing Jewish doctors, lawyers and other professionals to give up their jobs. A tax is also imposed on Jewish businesses and homes.

* January 30 - On this, Hitler's 8th anniversary as chancellor, he repeats his plan to destroy all the Jews in Europe.

* January 31 - 3,000 Jewish deportees arrive at the Warsaw Ghetto. In early 1941, the population of the Warsaw Ghetto grows to 400,000. Jews are limited to 183 calories per day (Germans get 2310 a day; foreigners 1790; Poles 934).

* January - August - In the Warsaw and Lodz Ghettos, 18,000 Jews die of starvation.

* February - The ration of daily bread for Jews is reduced to 3 ounces.

* February 6 - Erwin Rommel is given command of the German Afrika Korps in North Africa.

* February 19 - German police entering an ice cream parlor in Amsterdam, Holland, are sprayed with ammonia.

* February 22-23 - In response to the ammonia spraying, SS troops enter the Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam. 400 Jews are arrested, beaten, and some are deported to Buchenwald, where they are tortured to death. Others are sent to Mauthausen, Austria where most will be tortured and then executed in the camp's stone quarry.

February 25 - Thousands of Dutch citizens participate in a general strike to protest the deportation of Duth Jews.

* March - Hitler tells his generals to conduct an "unmerciful" and "unrelenting" war against the Soviet Union.

* March 3 - A Jewish Ghetto is set up in Krakow, Poland. One of the owners of the ice cream store in Amsterdam is executed by a German firing squad.

* March 7 - Jews in Upper Silesia (Poland) are sent to German mines to work.

* Spring - Another ghetto is established in Kielce, Poland. German troops execute 250 Jews who were carrying out acts of sabotage. Hungarian troops and German civilians randomly murder 250 Jews and 250 Serbs in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Many Yugoslavian Jews join up with the anti-Nazi partisans led by Josip Broz (Tito).

* March 25 - Yugoslavia joins the Axis countries.

* March 29 - The anti-Semitic General Commission on Jewish Affairs is established in France.

* Late March - Another ghetto is set up in Lublin, Poland.

* April 1 - A pro-Nazi government is established in Iraq under Rashid Ali al-Gaylani.

* April 2 - Count Pal Telecki, the Hungarian Premier, commits suicide rather than cooperate with the Nazis.

* April 6 - The Germans invade Greece and Yugoslavia. Jews in both countries are driven from their homes.

* April 16 - Germans, along with local Muslims, loot and destroy the main synagogue in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Aron Beckerman becomes the first Jew to be shot by the Germans for resistance in France.

* April 17 - A Jewish policeman in Warsaw is bayoneted and shot by German soldiers after asking a soldier to return a sack of potatoes he had taken from a Jewish woman.

* April 18 - Yugoslavia surrenders to the Germans.

* April 21 - A German sentry orders a mentally ill woman to dance in the Lodz Ghetto. She complies. He then shoots her in the head.

* April 27 - Germany conquers Greece.

* May - Jews who fought against Germany in the French Foreign Legion are deported to slave-labor camps in the Sahara to build railroads. In Bucharest, Romania, 120 Jews are killed in the streets. In Zagreb, Yugoslavia, Jewish cemeteries, synagogues and businesses are destroyed.

* May 10 - Rudolf Hess, flies to Scotland (without permission) where he intends to meet with Winston Churchill and try to negotiate an end to the Anglo-German war. He is captured and put in prison.

* May 14 - Some 4,000 Jews are deported from Paris, most to a camp at Pithiviers, France.

* May 15 - Polish Jews who have traveled on a sealed train from a POW camp to Konskowola are murdered after the Nazis discover four of the POW's have escaped.

* May 20 - In France, Jews are forbidden to engage in wholesale or retail trades; they cannot own banks, hotels, or restaurants.

In Berlin, the Central Office of Emigration notifies all German consulates that Hermann Goring has banned emigration of Jews from France and all other occupied territories. In this directive, Goring is quoted as discussing the "doubtless imminent final solution," which is the first time any official mention has been made of the Nazi's plans to kill all the Jews in Europe.