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.

Jews Welcomed Back to Poland

In 1968, Poland's communist government shut down a patriotic play at Warsaw University. The play had been written by Poland's national poet, Adam Mickiewicz.

That decision led to a student protest at the university which soon evolved into protests nationwide. The communists, with much violence, crushed these protests.

And they blamed the Jews.

There were only 30,000 Jews left in Poland at that time, many of which were Holocaust survivors. The communist government ordered 15,000 Jews to leave the country; the "were given a one-way ticket out of the country and stripped of their citizenship."

One of the Jews involved said, "But with our suitcases we took a little bit of Poland with us ..."

Now, Poland's president, Lech Kaczynski, has invited the expelled Jews to return to Poland and promised to restore their citizenship.

A "welcoming back" ceremony of sorts was held a few days ago at one of the Warsaw train stations from which some of the Jews were forced to leave the country, and Mr. Kaczynski said his citizenship restoration promise was his "personal contribution to reversing the consequences of those sad, shameful events."

The president also noted this expulsion was a huge loss for Poland ... "thousands of often very talented, ambitious, and entrepreneurial people had to leave our country."

Can you imagine how much better off the world would be if the gifts of the millions of Jews killed by the anti-Semites had been allowed to grow and flourish and replenish the earth?

Newman, Augustine and the Truth

John Henry Cardinal Newman died in 1890 but remains revered in Roman Catholic circles as a great educator and seeker of the "truth."

On February 21, during a mass celebrating the 40th anniversary of Newman University College in Birmingham, England, the Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols, said that "Two of the great figures of Catholic education, Augustine of Hippo and Cardinal John Henry Newman, both engaged in a great quest for truth and for freedom."

I don't know from John Henry Newman. But according to the reverend Nichols, "He foresaw the challenge that we face: of living in an age which proclaims that really there is no such thing as truth."

Newman complained that the people of his day were saying that "there is no positive truth in religion; one creed is as good as another; all are to be tolerated for all are matters of opinion."

From that Archbishop Nichols went on to expound thusly: "So our search for truth, and our commitment to that search, is crucial ... for the quality of education we offer ...for the health of our society. Only an understanding of the fundamental unchanging truth about what it is to be a human person can be the foundation of our true freedom."

That doesn't sound too bad until you realize that the "truth" spoken of by Archbishop Nichols and his predecessor, John Henry Newman, is "truth" as defined by the Roman Catholic Church. And if you know anything about the history of the western world for the past 2,000 years, you know that the Roman Catholic Church, for the most part, never came close to the "truth," and, in fact, usually fought the "truth" whenever the "truth" broke through to the light of day.

Now consider that other "great figure" of "Catholic education" the Rev. Nichols referred to: Augustine of Hippo.

Augustine's story is well-known - how he grew up as a licentious, sexual libertine; how he dabbled in various philosophies and theologies; how he abandoned the loves of his life -- his mistress and his son, in order to avoid social and political trouble.

It was in Milan, where he served as professor of rhetoric, that he stumbled across a portion of one of St. Paul's epistles and was suddenly converted to his mother's religion, Christianity.

Augustine left Milan and retreated to the country where he began to write and think. In 391, he traveled to Hippo in North Africa where he was ordained a priest and five years later became the bishop of Hippo.

For the rest of his life, Augustine ferociously fought various heresies he perceived to be threatening his beloved church, including Manichaeism and Donatism. When the barbarians sacked the city of Rome he began his opus, The City of God, which covered 22 volumes and took 12 years to write.

In this work, he outlined his notion of "original sin," which infested human life. He said that "Mankind is divided into two sorts, such as live according to man, and such as live according to God. These we call the two cities... The Heavenly City outshines Rome. There, instead of victory, is truth."

The theology is a mishmash comprised of the litter of ancient debates, little of which is relevant to human beings living in the 21st century. But this mishmash theology, as outlined in The City of God, "became one of the main pillars on which the church of the next 1,000 years was built."

Unfortunately, some of the material that went into the construction of that pillar was hatred of the Jewish people. Hear what St. Augustine has to say about the Jews of his day:

"The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the Scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus."

"...the Church admits and avows the Jewish people to be cursed, because after killing Christ they continue to till the ground of an earthly circumcision, an earthly Sabbath, an earthly passover, while the hidden strength or virtue of making known Christ, which this tilling contains, is not yielded to the Jews while they continue in impiety and unbelief, for it is revealed in the New Testament. While they will not turn to God, the veil which is on their minds in reading the Old Testament is not taken away... the Jewish people, like Cain, continue tilling the ground, in the carnal observance of the law, which does not yield to them its strength, because they do not perceive in it the grace of Christ"

And this, from his Confessions, 12.14: "How hateful to me are the enemies of your Scripture! How I wish that you would slay them [the Jews] with your two-edged sword, so that there should be none to oppose your word! Gladly would I have them die to themselves and live to you!"

Augustine may be considered a "father" of the Church. He may be considered a great theologian. He may even be considered a source of the "truth." But...

The "truth" is that Augustine of Hippo was a vicious anti-Semite whose attitudes toward the Jews as expressed in his writings carried a virulent and pestilent anti-Semitic wind that spread across the face of the world to bring horrible suffering and death to millions of Jews from his day to our day.

And why, when he was so wrong with regard to the Jews, would anyone accept anything else he has to say as "truth?"

Iraq - From Saddam to Shia to Iran

President Ahmadinejad of Iran visited Iraq recently to renew ties with the Iraqi leadership. Not so long ago, Iran and Iraq were bitter enemies, engaged in a long and bloody war. The U.S. was on the side of Iraq and fed weapons and money to Saddam.

Iran is a Shia nation. Iraq's government is led by Shia Muslims. Iran and Iraq are getting cozy. Mr. Bush may still be rattling his sabers, but his war to oust the Sunni, Saddam, and save the Iraqi oil fields for his friends has gone awry, and his harried cries about Iran building a nuclear bomb are taken less seriously by the rest of the world every day.

Iran is stepping in to assist in putting Iraq back together again. Thus, Iran has connected a town near Basra with electricity. The British tried for five years get electricity to this town with no success.

Iran has also backed projects to build power plants in Shia-dominated cities in Iraq. In addition, Iran has offered Iraq a $1 billion loan "for projects to be handled by Iranian companies..."

All of this, of course, makes the U.S. look stupid and incompetent as we have been unable to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure in spite of spending billions upon billions since we blew everything up during the brief period of actual fighting.

But all is not sweetness and light. There are those, such as the Sunni Iraqis and American politicos, who believe Iran is trying to undermind whatever stability there is in Iraq - which isn't much. The Sunni minority is not happy that Iran is not interested in assisting areas which consist mostly of Sunnis. In fact, the Sunnis have held angry protests against the Iranian president, claiming that his actions are creating more violence.

All of this again portrays just how complicated and delicate is the situation in Iraq. Unfortunately, the bumblers in Washington still have no clue what to do and every day we throw additional millions of borrowed money down the drain while more of our military men and women along with innocent Iraqi civilians are killed for absolutely no reason whatsoever!

Dancing in the Streets with Steve King

Maybe he ate too much corn as a kid. Maybe he spent too much time alone in the woods. Maybe he forgot the commandment against bearing false witness. Maybe being an Iowan went to his head.

Steve King is a Republican congressman from the caucus state of Iowa. He was pretty much an unknown. He's now gained a certain amount of fame. That may help him get a job with Fox News when he loses his seat in Congress.

His fame comes as a result of his prediction on an Iowa radio broadcase that all sorts of dire calamities would descend upon the world if Barrack Obama was elected president.

How did the perspicacious Mr. King come to that conclusion? We'll let him speak for himself. Nobody else is dumb enough to do it.

"I'll just say this that when you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States -- and I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?

"And I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the, the radical Islamists, the, the al-Qaida, and the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 ...."

Hee, hee. Wait. I think he was serious!

But Mr. King didn't say why radical Islamists and others would "be dancing in the streets." I don't think the phrase referring to the "optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected ..." has any meaning whatsoever: Reminds me of an eighth-grader trying to impress his teacher by using words he really doesn't understand.

Okay, here's the problem. King doesn't like Obama's middle name! Now, who the hell cares about someone's middle name?

Mr. King does! " ...his middle name does matter. It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world, it has a special meaning to them. They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name. They will be dancing in the streets because of who is father was and because of his posture that says: Pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict."

Whew. Lots of dancing. Not a lot of sense from Mr. King. Obama's middle name obviously means a lot to Mr. King, but I doubt that an Islamist in the Middle East gives a flip. Then notice how King slips in that nasty little reference to Obama's father ...

I can't imagine the good people of Iowa would want to claim King as one of their own.

I know for a fact that when he loses his seat in Congress (which can't happen soon enough), I, along with a lot of other folks, will be dancing in the streets.

And I don't even know his middle name!

Where do these morons come from?

When the Saints Come Marching In

We're back on the saints today. Seems there is a concern that sometimes saintly prospects have been "fast-tracked" on the road to sainthood. A few critics even had the nerve to suggest that Pope John Paul II had run a "saint factory."

Oh, oh.

Not to worry. Pope Benedict XVI is laying down the law and ordering his minions to "use stricter criteria when assessing candidates for sainthood and beautification."

No more John Paul II stuff, like "initiating" or encouraging the process of conferring sainthood behind the scenes. Evidently John Paul II liked saints and wanted more of them, and ended up creating more saints than all of the popes before him put together!

So now, according to Benedict XVI, "saints must contribute to making the Church's message 'more credible and attractive'" and miraculous cures must have a "'meticulous' medical investigation," and people who are looking at the life of a prospective saint should be objective and not overlook his/her faults or personal defects or other "contrary findings."

Actually, Benedict is no slouch himself when it comes to sainting people. In his first three years as pope, 577 people have been either canonized or beautified.

As I've said before, this seems to me to be a bunch of hoopla over nothing. Unless you believe in magic, there is no such thing as a "saint." The idea that an institution or a pope or any other shaman can declare someone to be "sainted" is the stuff of legends and mythology.

I wonder, though, if all those saints who were "fast-tracked" through the "saint factory" now need to be more thoroughly vetted? I sure wouldn't want to be caught dead praying to a saint who was unworthy of the name!

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget)

Germany - 1940 (II)

[The photo shows SS chief Himmler visiting the Dachau concentration camp.]

While the U.S. officially shut down Jewish immigration during 1940-41, there were private organizations that set up rescue operations from America. One of these, based in New York, was the Emergency Rescue Committee.

The ERC was able to help about 2,000 Jewish refugees -- Spanish, German and Czecholslovakian -- who were stranded in France. They were given food, clothing, a place to live and medical care.

One man's efforts were exemplary. Varian Fry, who represented the ERC in Marsailles, France, assisted in the escape of 1,000 Jews. In this group were some of the most important cultural figures in Europe, including the artist, Marc Chagall, and writers Heinrich Mann and Walter Mehring.

Beginning in August, 1940, Fry worked for one year helping refugees escape by setting up "clandestine operations complete with encrypted codes of communication and secret passage routes. He even established contacts with the underworld to obtain forged papers and boat passages."

Fry's plans didn't always work out, though. French officials occasionally stopped ships and arrested their passengers.

Fry himself was expelled from France in 1941.


* 1940 - An American isolationist group, The America First Committee, is formed. This group is infiltrated with Nazis and works to keep America out of European affairs. Anti-Semtisim again rears its ugly head in Congress as members of Congress attack Jews in Hollywood for trying to get America involved in opposing Hitler.

Throughout Romania, brutal, bloody anti-Jewish riots take place.

* July 1 - A Jewish ghetto is set up in Bedzin, Poland.

* July 10 - The German Luftwaffe (Air Force) attacks Britain, starting what came to be known as the Battle of Britain.

* August - A law allowing thousands of British children into the U.S. is passed by Congress. FDR calls these children "visitors."

At the Jozefow, Poland labor camp, 400 Jews are executed because they are sick with bleeding diarrhea.

* August 9 - Hitler orders a military build up in Poland, readying Germany to invade the Soviet Union.

* August 10 - Romania passes anti-Semitic laws.

* August 15 - Adolf Eichmann suggests sending Jews to the island of Madagascar. He says they will eventually die out there.

* August 25 - The British bomb Berlin for the first time.

* August 27 - The French government, led by Marshall Petain, and in cahoots with the Nazis, nullifies the law banning "incitement to race hatred."

* September - A Polish underground officer "penetrates the main camp at Auschwitz with the intention of organizing secret resistance groups inside the camp."

* September 1 - The Japanese consul at Kovno, Lithuania, Sempo Sugihara helps 3500 Jews obtain exit visas. When discovered, the Soviets throw him out of Lithuania.

* September 5 - In Luxembourg, the Germans establish the Nuremberg Laws. Jewish businesses are confiscated and given to Aryans.

Bishop Theophil Wurm, head of the provincial Lutheran Church at Wurttemberg, Germany, writes a second letter to Wilhelm Frick, the German Interior Minister, objecting to "euthanasia killings."

* September 7 - Germany begans the "blitz" bombing of Great Britain.

* September 11 - The Quanza, a Jewish refugee ship, refuels at Norfolk, Virginia. The Quanza was denied entry at New York and at Vera Cruz, Mexico. One of the passengers jumped overboard but was caught by US Army personnel and returned to the ship.

* September 15 - The German Air Force is beaten badly in the skies over London. The RAF (Royal Air Force) takes the lead in the Battle of Britain.

* September 23 - SS chief Himmler establishes a special SS Reichsbank account which will contain gold (including gold taken from teeth), silver, jewelry and money stolen from Jews.

* September 27 - Japan signs a treaty with Germany and Italy. Soon thereafter, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania also join in this pact. These are known as the Axis powers.

* October 3 - France passes anti-Semitic legislation the purpose of which is to force Jews out of public service, teaching, financial occupations, public relations and the media.

* October 4 - Yom Kippur. Germans announce that all Warsaw Jews must move to the ghetto by the end of the month.

* October 28 - Italy invades Greece. The invasion is stopped with the help of 12,000 Greek Jews.

* November 11 - Fifty-five non-Jewish Polish intellectuals are murdered at Dachau.

* November 15-16 - The Warsaw Ghetto is sealed off from the rest of the city.

* November 25 - A ship carrying 2,000 Jewish immigrants is sunk accidentally by the radical Jewish group, Hagana. About 250 people are killed.

* November 26 - British anti-Semitism again raises its ugly head. Lord Lloyd, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, says that people helping Jews by providing illegal transportation to Palestine are "foul people who need to be stamped out."

* December - The Vatican condemns the so-called Nazi "mercy-killings."

* December 5 - A British government official, Sir John Schuckburgh, writes that "the Jews have no sense of humor and no sense of proportion."

* December 12 - When the Salvador, a ship carrying Jewish refugees, sinks in the Sea of Marmora, and 200 Jews drown (including 70 children), T.M. Snow, head of the British Foreign Office's Refugee Section, says "there could have been no more opportune disaster from the point of view of stopping this [Jewish refugee] traffic [to Palestine]."

* December 17 - Drunken SS guards at Sachsenhausen, awaken Jews in the middle of a very cold night and force them to roll in the snow.

A beautiful story from hell: Hala Buchwajc and Motek Lichtensztajin were married in 1940 in the Bedzin Ghetto. They were sent to Auschwitz where they were separated. Then they were transferred to different camps, and they lost touch with each other. Fortunately, both survived the Holocaust, and in 1946 met again, totally by chance, on the streets of London!

More to follow

Spray Paint Crime Reduction Program

Jakarta, Indonesia is a very crowded place. The trains that carry commuters and others are jammed, especially at rush-hour.

Quite often, there is simply no available space inside of the trains.

So some people, even though they have paid their fare, climb up on the roof. Others who are trying to get a free ride climb up there, too. They crouch down and hang on for dear life.

It's a dangerous way to travel. Twenty-three people were killed last year; some by electrocution and others by falling off the train.

The police have had it. They are now enforcing the rules by spray-painting people on the roofs of the trains. Guards patrol the stations, armed with cannisters contained a mixture of water and food coloring - nasty stuff.

W don't have the problem of people riding on top of trains in this country. But we sure have a lot of trouble with graffiti defacing our public spaces. Why not have cops out patrolling with cannisters of spray paint and when they catch these clowns, paint them a bright orange or yellow or green?

And we have lots of problems with speeders and red-light runners, and reckless drivers. It seems to me we could save everyone a lot of trouble by not arresting them, but rather spray painting them along with their vehicles.

With real paint, though! Not this Mickey Mouse water and food coloring!

I'll Have a Hormone Cocktail, Please ...

An Associated Press investigative team has put together an impressive report on drugs in our drinking water.

"A vast array of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans..."

This was news to me. But it is not new news. It was noticed in Europe in the early 1990s when scientists found clofibric acid, a cholesterol-reducing drug in groundwater. There have been a number of other studies dealing with the problem over the years, specifically in 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, to name a few.

The AP study is comprehensive and includes the latest data in its conclusions. It is a growing problem as the world population expands and the use of drugs increases. People take drugs and these drugs are exegeted down the toilet. While the wastewater is treated, the treatments do not remove all traces of the drugs.

A few fearful observations:

* The U.S. government has no standards re: drugs in water and does not require testing of water for drugs.

* Some cities and communities do test for drugs, but these are often for only one or two specific pharmaceuticals, or they fail to check for drug residue.

* Bottled water and water filtration are not necessarily free from pharmaceuticals.

* According to the EPA, "there are no sewage treatment systems specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals."

* Evidence suggests that chlorine, often added to purify water, makes drugs more toxic.


Now what does the drug industry say about all of this? You can guess, I'm sure.

No problem! There's little or no risk to humans.


Wrong! Research indicates that small amounts of drugs affect human embryonic cells, human blood cells, human breast cancer cells - the latter growing more quickly.

There's further evidence that drugs in the water supply negatively impact wildlife.

" ... some experts say that medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, they were crafted to act on the human body."

We don't know enough yet. The time-line is too short. " ... while drugs are tested to be safe for humans, the timeframe is usually over a matter of months, not a lifetime."


Where's the Environmental Protection Agency when we need it? Oh, that's right; under the Bush administration they have more important things to do than protect the environment!

A Mere Two or Three Trillion Dollars

On February 28, the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee "held a hearing to examine the true cost of the war."

Among those testifying were Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner and former World Bank Chief Economist; Robert Hormats, National Security Council adviser, and Rand Beers, who served on the NSC under Democratic and Republican presidents.

You can read the entire report here. It is 29 pages and in PDF form. It is worth reading.

Some people estimate the total cost of the war will reach $2 trillion. Others, including Joseph Stiglitz, think the total cost is going to read the $3 trillion mark.

[In a new book, Stiglitz argues that the Iraq was is now costing $12 billion per month!]

The testimony of these men focused, in part, on how the monies poured into the Iraqi war could have been used more productively. Stiglitz said "For a fraction of the cost ... we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half century or more."

Hormats noted that both Social Security and Medicare could have been put "on a more sustainable basis." He went on the describe the committee's calculations this way: The money spent on the war each day is enough to...

* enroll 58,000 additional children in Head Start for a year...

* help pay for a year of college for 160,000 low income students through Pell Grants...

* fund the annual salaries of some 11,000 more border patrol agents...

* pay for another 14,000 police officers

A further cost of the war is related to the soldiers returning home that need medical care. Stiglitz pointed out that 40% of the 700,000 soldiers involved in the first Gulf War, which lasted only one month, are now eligible for disability benefits. "Imagine," he said, "what a war - that will almost surely involve more than 2 million troops and will almost surely last more than six or seven years -- will cost."

Another point made in the hearing was that the Bushites have gone out of their way to hide the cost of the war. They have done this by avoiding the normal budgetary process, instead "financing the war almost entirely through 'emergency' appropriations that get far less scrutiny."

The war in Iraq has been financed in the worst possible way - by deficit spending -- by money we don't have!

It has truly become, in the words of Bob Herbert, "America's $2 trillion nightmare."

[Thanks to Bob Herbert of the New York Times News Service for some of this info.]

9/11 - Warned and Wanting!

[Thanks to the Sydney Morning Herald for much of this information. It derives from a new book, The Commission - The Uncensored History Of The 9/11 Investigation by Philip Shenon. It will be published on Monday, March 10, by Little, Brown. $35]

Some of us have known some of this for a long time and have written about it on previous occasions.

The Bushites were warned on numerous occasions before 9/11/2001, by the CIA and other agencies, that a terrorist attack was likely, but they failed to take any action whatsoever.

The 9/11 commission revealed that George Tenet, director of the CIA, warned Bush in his briefings on a daily basis that a terrorist attack was imminent. Bush was also provided this information in the presidential daily briefings. The 9/11 commission said that in over 40 of these briefings there were references to Osama bin Laden.

The CIA prepared a newsletter on intelligence matters that was almost the same as what the president received and this was given to "about 300 senior national security officials and members of Congress."

In August of 2001, a briefing warned that al-Qaeda attacks involving hijackings were possible.

This from the 9/11 commission investigators: "It was especially troubling ... to realise how many of the warnings were directed to the desk of one person: Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser. Emails from the National Security Council's counter-terrorism director, Richard Clarke, show that he had bombarded Rice with messages about terrorist threats. He was trying to get her to focus on the intelligence she should have been reading each morning in the presidential and senior briefings."

Here are some headlines and timelines of information in the senior briefings.

* Bin Ladin Planning Multiple Operations (April 20)

* Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack (May 3)

* Terrorist Groups Said Co-operating on US Hostage Plot (May 23)

* Bin Ladin's Networks' Plans Advancing (May 26)

* Bin Ladin Attacks May be Imminent (June 23)

* Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats (June 25)

* Bin Ladin Planning High Profile Attacks (June 30)

* Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays (July 2)

While the Pentagon and the State Department took action to meet the possibility of terrorist attacks, the White House was inert. Rice did nothing of consequence other than request more meetings.

"There is no record to show that Rice made any special effort to discuss terrorist threats with Bush." The record suggested, instead, that it was not a matter of special interest to either of them that summer."

Our prezident, never the brightest bulb, in an interview with Bob Woodward of WaPo, basically admitted that he was not as prepared. "I was not on point," said Bush, "but I knew he [bin Laden] was a menace, and I knew he was a problem ... I was prepared to look at a plan that would be a thoughtful plan that would bring him to justice ... But I didn't feel that sense of urgency, and my blood was not nearly as boiling."

Obviously.

Bush, Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others in the Administration's cabal were too busy plotting the overthrow of Saddam and swooping up the Iraqi oil fields to worry about bin Laden.

That's the reason that Rice consistently tried to mislead the White House Press Corps as to the contents of the briefings the Administration received prior to 9/11.

Suffice it to say that if the White House had read, digested and taken the intelligence warnings seriously, it is very likely that 9/11 would never have happened.

But they were too busy planning an illegal and disastrous war against a country that held absolutely no threat to the United States.

How does one describe such incompetence?

Gas? $4 Bucks a Gallon? Asks Bush

Gas is $4 a gallon?

That's the word from California.

It has finally dawned on Prezident Bush that maybe the economy ain't what it should be. On March 8, 2008, the prez said "It's clear our economy has slowed."

You think?

What a revelation! This from the guy who doesn't know what a gallon of gas costs! He must be reading off cue cards.

Mr. Bush went on to pretend to sympathize: "Losing a job is painful and I know Americans are concerned about our economy. So am I," he said.

But it's not the poor Joe out there who's lost his job that Bush cares about, it's the "economy." Showing the world again how out of touch he is, he said " ... we recognized the problem early and we provided the economy with a booster shot."

Sheesh! The government has no money! The government is so far in debt our ancestors will be paying it off in 3008! This prezident wants to take credit for borrowing more money to give it to taxpayers so they can turn around and spend it, which, he thinks will solve the problem.

Grab your rears with both hands, 'cause we're not only in a recession, but with Bushite leadership, we're falling fast into a black hole. 63,000 jobs were lost last month, and the stock market is slip-sliding away.

Now poor Average Joe just lost his job, and he's sitting home wondering how he's gonna make his mortgage and buy gas and groceries and the prezident, to reassure him, says that sometime in May he'll get a few hundred bucks which Joe knows won't pay off his gas bill, which the prez doesn't want him to do anyway. He wants him to go out and buy something.

Then, the prez grins that shit-eating grin and says we still need to cut taxes for the super rich, the fairly rich, and the modestly rich.

Don't you just love "compassionate conservatism?" What was the price of gas again?

The Will of God Again

She's 25, the same age as her husband. They have two beautiful little boys. She is going to die in about three months. Cancer.

"... she's not afraid," says her husband.

She says, "We have a lot of faith that God will get me through this -- either way. If he wants to take me home, I'm ready to do His will."

They've done all they can. All that's left is the waiting. They pray for a miracle.

While not an unusual story, it is still a very sad story.


But there is no way I will ever believe that there is a god who is killing her to take her "home."

What kind of god would do that?

And if God can kill her, he can certainly kill the cancer.

Why doesn't he?

And if God can take away cancer, he certainly could have stopped it from starting in the first place.

So why didn't he?

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget)

Germany 1940 (I)

(The photo pictures Jewish children used by the Nazis in medical experiments.)

By 1940, the writing was on the wall, so to speak, for the Jews. Still, some clung to the hope that they could find salvation by work -- that if they became useful, even essential, to the Germans, they would be spared.

Although this concept bought them some time, it was not to be. Nazi "logic" said "that all racial threats to German purity and power could not be tolerated and must be removed."

Nowhere did this become more evident that in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland, where 164,000 Jews were crammed into 1.54 square miles. When the ghetto was sealed by barbed wire, the Jews realized that so far as the Nazis were concerned, they were "fundamentally unwanted creatures."

From that point, there was no question the Jews would be murdered en masse.

Many have wondered how the Germans could become so brutal and barbaric, given their religious and cultural background. For example, Rudolf Hoss, who became commander of Auschwitz in May of 1940, was from a devout Catholic family who had hoped he would become a priest. Instead Hoss joined the SS in 1934 and rose steadily in that bureaucracy.

His work at Auschwitz involved murdering more than three and a half million people. His superiors said he was "a true pioneer in his field." But Hoss "insisted ... he 'never personally hated the Jews.'" He was just doing his duty as they were "enemies of the German people."

Even as he perfected the mass-execution process through more effective gassing techniques, Hoss lamented the long hours he had to work, and complained he didn't have enough time to play with his children.


In June of 1940, the Nazis marched into Paris, through the Arch de Triomphe and down the Champs de Elysses. For the 100,000 plus Jews in Paris, this spelled disaster. Quite quickly, the Nazis, through a census system, located all the Jews in the city. They were ordered to wear yellow star armbands and were given a nighttime curfew. Many were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

How were the Nazis able to so quickly and effectively identify 100,000 people within the city of Paris? They were assisted by the American company, International Business Machines, and IBM's Hollerith machine.


1940 - Six euthanasia centers are established in Germany to murder Jews, the mentally ill, the aged, those with physical ailments, and the handicapped.

Estonia is annexed by the Soviet Union.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt turns over the problem of Jewish immigration into the United States to the anti-Semite Assistant Secretary of State, Breckenridge Long. Long is unhappy to think of more Jews coming into the United States.

Great Britain's secretary of state for war, Leslie Hore-Belisha, a Jew, resigns because of the anti-Semitic feelings of many in the British government. Lord Halifax and Alexander Cadogan were pleased wtih the resignation saying "Jew control of our propaganda would be [a] major disaster."

* January 6 - In Warsaw, Jews have no heat and are forced to burn Jewish books for fuel.

* Januar 12 - SS troops and Gestapo nasties shoot to death 300 inmates of an insane asylum.

* January 18-25 - Again, in Warsaw, 255 Polish Jews are arrested at random, taken into the woods and shot.

* February 8 - The Jewish ghetto at Lodz is established.

Spring - German gypsies are deported from western and northwestern Germany.

* April - Germany invades Denmark and Norway. The Norwegians and Danes try to keep the Germans from harming Jews.

* April 1 - Thousands of Jewish refugees find a haven in Shanghai, China.

* April 8-11 - In the Katyn Forest close to Smolensk, Russia, 26,000 Polish officers are massacred by the Soviets.

* April 23 - In Stuthof, Poland, captive Jews are forced to jump into open latrines. A number drown and others are beaten to death.

* April 27 - In England, H. F. Downie, an official with the British Foreign Office, says that Jews are "enemies just as the Germans are, but in a more insidious way." He goes on to claim that Nazis and Jews "are linked together by secret and evil bonds."

* April 29 - The Lodz ghetto is sealed off.

* May 10 - The Germans invade Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Winston Churchill becomes the British Prime Minister.

The poet, T.S. Eliot writes that "Jews are the modern world's foremost 'Forces of Evil.' He claims that they have 'made the modern world vile.'"

* May 15 - In Holland, thousands of Jews from several countries find themselves trapped behind German lines. The Dutch Army surrenders.

* May 16 - A Nazi murder spree called Extraordinary Pacification Operation is set into motion, the purpose of which is to do away with Polish intellectuals.

* May 20 - The Auschwitz concentration camp gets up and running.

* May 27 - German troops murder 100 British POWs at Le Paradis, France.

* May 28 - Belgium surrenders.

* May 1940 - March 1941 - 40,000 Jews are deported from Krakow, Poland.

* June 4 - A concentration camp is established at Neuengamme, Germany. British and French troops are evacuated at Dunkerque, France.

* June 10 - Italy enters the war as "a junior ally to Germany."

* June 14 - The first inmates, including non-Jewish Poles, such as teachers and priests, arrive at Auschwitz. Paris falls to the Nazis.

* June 22 - France surrenders and signs an armistice with Germany.

* June 26 - The anti-Semite US Assistant Secretary of State, Breckinridge Long tries to stop the granting of visas to Jews who want to come to the U.S. He orders American consuls "to put every obstacle in the way [to] postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of visas."

More to follow

The North Koreans Need a Wall

In this country, we build a wall to keep the Mexicans out. In North Korea, they need a wall to keep their own people in.

A story has appeared in newspapers and other media around the world, including the United States. It goes like this:

About two weeks ago, fifteen people attempted to flee North Korea to China because they were hungry and they had relatives in China who could help them. The North Koreans shot these 13 women and two men to death on a bridge near the town of Onseong.

Is it true?

The only source for this story is a newsletter put out by the Good Friends, a humanitarian aid group based in Seoul, South Korea. I have been unable to locate a copy of that newsletter and information about Good Friends is non-existent. One newspaper said it was a Buddhist group.

I have no reason to doubt the story, and we know from other sources that food is scarce in North Korea, and that the North Koreans have been known to shoot people for rather minor offenses.

But it is disconcerting to be unable to determine if any media source confirmed the information. It seems the story popped up somewhere and was then picked up by the media and reported as fact. Many of the articles are almost identical.

While it may not seem like that big a deal, it is unhappy because if reflects a trend . The more I learn of the media in the United States, the more I realize that they have lost their way. Forthrightness, honesty, integrity, fairness, the confirmation of sources, making sure of the facts -- these things that in years past defined real journalism -- have disappeared down some hole of corporate greed and/or political gain.

And it's not just the Republican Party mouthpiece, Fox News. It's NBC and CBS and ABC and MSNBC and all the rest. With rare exceptions, the newspapers share the shame, the blame and the guilt. It has become damn near impossible to get the truth from the mainstream media in the United States.

Thank goodness we have Media Matters and Alternet and Honest Reports and all the other, alternative sources, to find out what is really happening and how the major news outlets are skewing the information we need to know to become informed citizens.

A Cover Up of Jewish Women

Beit Shemesh is an ultra-orthodox Jewish area just west of Jerusalem.

Sheera Frenkel, writing for the TimesOnLine, tells how some of the women in this community are covering themselves head-to-toe, not unlike the Muslim women we wrote about a couple of days ago.

This new style is part of what Frenkel calls "a budding movement of about 100 women ... who have begun covering their bodies. Some cover just their hair and neck; others wrap their entire face, save their eyes, with the loose cloth."

It's a religious thing. As one woman explained, "The full body, or full face covering that people think is only part of the Arab world actually startred with Jewish women. Muslim women are imitating Jews to try to gain God's favor with modesty. The truth is that the women of Israel are lessening in God's eyes because the Arabs are more modest in dress. If the Jews want to conquer the Arabs in this land they must enhance their modesty."

It is curious to me that people get so concerned about clothing. I know in Christian circles folks used to fight about what was proper to wear when attending church. A few years back most Christian women wore some kind of head covering. Men, on the other hand, would never think of covering their heads inside a religious structure.

Even Christians priests and pastors and their flocks got into it over the type and style of vestments most appropriate to gain the approval of their deity. I've known churches that split over these issues!

But why? Why would any god care about such trifles? Furthermore, if you read the Bible literally, then it's obvious god created the first people with no clothes whatsoever. And they seemed to do just fine. Well, 'til that sneaky serpent came along...

Maybe what would be most pleasing to god would be to go around naked! (God, wouldn't that be awful?)

Olliver North to God ... The Democrats Did It!

This is old news, but just in case you didn't hear about it, Oliver North said on Fox News that the blame for the bombing in Times Square could be laid at the door of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, because, led by Nancy Pelosi, they "went on vacation rather than voting on the Protect America Act."

That's a whole gob of manure. Surveillance continues and the spy guys can set up new surveillance by getting a warrant from the FISA court, which is about simple as the mind of Rush Limbaugh.

My question is: Why does anyone give a rat's ass what Oliver North, a convicted felon, says about anything?