"Winning is everything!" - John McCain

This is not a "Dear John" letter. I'm not leaving John McCain. I didn't plan to vote for him in the first place.

His latest misstatements, however, would have certainly unsealed the deal if I had planned to cast a ballot his way!


A couple of days ago:

In Amman, Jordan, Joe Lieberman steps up close to McCain and whispers in his ear, "'Extremists,' dummy, not al-Qaeda!"

Joe had to do something as McCain had blundered badly! Trying to promote his faux foreign policy expertise, McCain several times said that Iran (which is a Shiite country) was assisting al-Qaeda in Iraq. That statement was incorrect every time he made it.

Al-Qaeda, you see, is of the Sunni persuasion. The Shiites and the Sunnis don't sit down at the same table. They like to kill each other, though. A Shiite would never assist a Sunni. Thus, a major problem in Iraq is that the government is run by Shiites, supported by a Shiite military. The Sunnis are unhappy about that and they tend to blow things up when they're unhappy. Boom! And then the Shiites, mightily pissed, blow up some Sunnis. Boom!

[Someone might mention to our prezident that is called a "civil war!"]

McCain said he was "concerned" about the fact that Iranian "operatives" were "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

The press pressed him to expand on that. He did, much to his embarrassment: It was "common knowledge," insisted John, "and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate."

Lieberman corrected him. John was all wrong, again!

Unfortunately, McCain doesn't know what he's talking about. He should have realized that the reason Iran and Iraq have been making "nicey-nice" of late is because they are both of the Shiite persuasion, and believe that together they may be able to shut out the Sunnis [and the Kurds] altogether.

McCain doesn't have a clue. So much for foreign policy experience!


Let's return, momentarily, to the days of 2000 when McCain was fighting Bush for the Republican nomination. Way back then, McCain didn't have much use for the paragons of the Christian Right.

You may recall that Bush, utilizing below-the-belt politics, crushed McCain in the South Carolina and Virginia primaries. Bush had all the fanatics below the Mason-Dixon line in his pocket: Bob Jones III, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell. To ensure that they stayed there, Bush even went so far as to hold a rally with the extremist, Bob Jones, in Greenville, South Carolina.

McCain was so angry at Bush and at these Christian Rightists that he attacked both Robertson and Falwell, calling them "agents of intolerance." Bush, said McCain, was nothing more than a "Pat Robertson Republican."

Ouch! McCain's anger grew and his temper flared. In fact, in 2001, he was approached by Democrats who tried to persuade him to switch parties. In 2004, there were feelers out wondering if he'd consider becoming Kerry's vice presidential running mate. McCain declined both times.

In 2008, however, McCain has, in Christian religious terminology, backslid bigtime!

Being the ultimate opportunist, essentially amoral when it comes to politics, McCain has been all over the map, and on his knees begging for the support of crackpot Christian Rightists who have shown little enthusiasm for his presidential bid.

He has pandered to Dobson, to Hagee, to Parsley, to Robertson...some of which he called "agents of intolerance" not so long ago. Now their intolerance has been forgiven and forgotten. "Please give me your support," McCain pleaded. And most did.


An even more telling and appalling situation has been McCain's flip-flop with regard to the way the U.S. treats its prisoners, and the use of torture.

About two and a half years ago, Nat Hentoff wrote an article called "A definition of patriotism," in which he praises McCain for his stand against the mistreatment of terrorist suspects, and specifically his stand against torture.

On July 20, 2005, McCain introduced several amendments to the $42 billion Pentagon bill for 2006. His amendments were designed to halt the abuse of detainees held by the U.S. government.

Hentoff writes, "Affirming American values, McCain's first amendment would have established 'the Army Field manual as the standard for interrogation of all detainees held in the Department of Defense (DOD) custody.'"

McCain directly addressed the issue of prisoner abuse in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan.

McCain also offered an amendment that would require every foreign national, detained in a DOD facility, be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross. "This will help us," said McCain, "eliminate the problem of ghost detainees we faced in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in which other government agencies held unregistered detainees in a facility operated by our military."

McCain went on, eloquently: "I believe this provision to be just basic common sense, and I can hardly see how anyone could object ..."

Alas, the White House did object! Frist was ordered to pull the entire Pentagon spending bill off the floor immediately in case the Senate go crazy and pass the bill with the amendments.

But McCain had a third amendment up his sleeve. This would have banned the "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of anyone in American custody." As Hentoff points out, this is "the very language of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which this country has ratified."

Then John, again eloquently, spoke to his amendment on the floor of the Senate:

"We are Americans and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be ... President Bush understands that the war on terror is ultimately a battle of ideas, a battle we will win by spreading and standing firmly for the values of decency, democracy and the rule of law. I stand with him in this commitment."


Well, that comment was very calculating! John knew full well that Bush understood no such thing, that for Bush the so-called war on terror was nothing more than an excuse to try to grab Iraq's oil, and that Bush knew from nothing about "a battle of ideas."

Nor did Bush intend on "standing firmly for the values of decency, democracy and the rule of law." He intended, right along, to do just the opposite.

Why, then, would McCain offer those amendments, knowing the Bush administration did whatever the hell it wanted to when it came to detainees and torture?

Was he trying to embarrass Bush, knowing that Bush would never sign a bill with those amendments included? Was this "pay-back time?"


But the really big question, the ultimate question, the question that raises questions about McCain's fundamental character is why did he change his mind and become an advocate of torture?

How could McCain make such grand and moving statements about how the United States lives by certain humane values and then turn around two and a half years later and urge President Bush to veto a law that forces the government to use the Army field manual (as per his first amendment in 2005) and forbids the use of torture such as waterboarding on detainees held by the government?

The answer is predictably simple. McCain is running for president. As I've said before, McCain will do almost anything to become president. If it means to support George Bush, a man he despises, in Bush's campaign to allow the torture of prisoners in American custody, so be it.

That's very, very sad. Unfortunately, it is also consistent, historically, with how McCain has climbed the political ladder.

To put it another way, for John, winning is everything!

Bush and Iraq - He Still Doesn't Get It!

Yesterday, on the fifth anniversary of the disaster in Iraq, Bush said he doesn't want to "jeopardize the hard-fought gains" of 2007.

What planet is this guy living on?

It appears he believes that if he says something outrageous enough, often enough, more than enough people will believe him. Thus, this to a group of military honchos, plain soldiers and diplomats: "The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just. And with your courage, the battle in Iraq will end in victory."

There's more along those lines: "Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al Qaida out."

What a horrendous twist on the truth! Bush conveniently doesn't mention that al Qaida had no presence in Iraq before his so-called war!

Bush basks in "undeniable successes." He rejoices in how we have "come so far and achieved so much."

All of which is total bullshit, of course!

Finally, this worst prezident ever, said that "War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much."

No, Mr. Bush, they're not arguing. They're laying out, for everyone to see, the cold, hard facts. And while you may think that borrowing $3 trillion to invade and occupy a harmless country is nothing, we're no longer buying the snake oil you're selling, and we're mad as hell that you've sold this country down the river of imperialism, militarism, greed and stupidity.

The party's over, Mr. Prezident. No one believes you anymore.

Preachers and Politicians Praying

On a number of occasions, I have written about what seems to me to be the clearly unconstitutional practice of offering prayers at official political gatherings such as national congresses or state legislatures.

Obviously, what I thought about the matter made absolutely no difference and the practice continues unrestrained in Washington, D.C. and no doubt all of our state capitols.

In spite of the fact that the United States is most certainly not a Christian nation, Christians have more or less ruled the roost in many communities for many years, and have almost nonchalantly assumed the right to set the religious parameters for a variety of venues.

Thus, we have a long tradition of public piety. Preachers pray before legislatures, before school boards, before city councils, before county commissions, before football and basketball and baseball games, before rodeos, before races, before banquets, ad infinitum.

Preachers usually pray after hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning strikes, and other "natural" disasters.

In most cases the preachers doing the praying are Christians of one sect or another. And, the more conservative the sect, the more likely the prayer will conclude with the words, "In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord," or something to that effect as they believe that without the name of Jesus attached the prayer will be ignored by the guy in the sky.

Occasionally, a Muslim, or Rabbi, or other religious poohbah will be invited to say a public prayer, but that happens only in communities where they have a substantial constituency, or where they are known to be innocuous enough to offend no one.

It's all very inane. What is the purpose? Does anyone believe that a god is going to care that some display of public piety is made in his/her name? Is it necessary that a prayer be made before some kind of action can be effective? Are there going to be better laws because some guy in a collar or kippah said a few pious phrases? Actually, it would seem rather clear that prayers before a legislature meets may be detrimental to sound legislation being passed!

And have you ever opened your eyes and looked around when these prayers are being said? Oh, boy, a whole lot of folks are simply not participating and appear very bored and wish they could get it the hell over with so they could finish their business and go play golf.

Nathaniel Hoffman, of the Boise Weekly describes what happens in Idaho. "Every day at Idaho's temporary statehouse, broadcast over loud speakers, you can hear prayer. Sometimes it's the House chaplain recalling the travails of Daniel or perhaps dipping into a New Testament reflection. Or maybe it's the Senate's pastor asking for divine guidance in matters of state."

Hoffman says the prayers often end with some reference to Jesus.

He tells us that in 1983, the U.S. Supremes gave the thumbs-up to legislative prayer in Nebraska. They reasoned that "To invoke divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not, in these circumstances, a violation of the Establishment Clause..."

There are a few legislators in Idaho that aren't happy with the Jesus stuff. And they've mentioned to the House chaplain that not all people share the same faith. His response was, "They don't have to listen."

Other lawmakers don't bother to come to the prayer session at all. And some work on their laptops while the exercise in piety is happening.

Hoffman, not a believer, says "We stand tall in the press gallery, heads unbowed, lips unmoving, emotions ping ponging between agnostic contempt and a desire to rip off our shirt, revealing a thick, imagined chest-sized Star of David tattoo."

I don't think that's probably the response our pious chaplains were hoping for. But, what do they expect when they push Christian prayers on people who are not Christian? And how does that glorify the one they claim to worship?

Again, I refer to the New Testament passage where Jesus says clearly and unambiguously that his followers should not be like the hypocrites who get a high by addressing the almighty in the public square. Rather, he says that his followers should pray in secret, like a closet, maybe, and God, who sees in secret, will reward them in secret.

[As the photograph shows, even Hitler made it a point to pray publicly!]

What about a religious Jew? Are there any guidelines for such a person?

Perhaps. The prophet, Micah, offers some advice which might still be appropos:

"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" (MIcah 6:8)

There you have it: Do justly; love mercy; walk humbly with your God.

Nothing about prayer at all!

I have nothing to offer followers of other religions. Well, maybe this, the same advice I'd give to everyone: skip the praying. Get to work.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1943 (III)

Germany 1943 (III)


* August 1943 - Armed resistance by Jews transpires at the following slave-labor camps: Sasow, Poland; Lackie Wielkie, Poland; Jaktorow, Poland; and Konin, Poland. In every case, most of those who resisted are killed.

* August 2 - At Treblinka, Jews revolt using a variety of weapons; 350-400 of the camp's 700 inmates escape; all except for 100 are hunted down and murdered.

* August 7 - By this date, almost all 50,000 Jews in Salonika, Greece have been murdered.

* August 17 - Allied forces defeat the Axis forces in Sicily.

* August 25 - At a labor camp in the Ukraine, SS troops choose 24 attractive Jewish women, aged 17-20, for an all-night SS orgy. One of the girls attempts to escape and is shot the next day. The other 23 are murdered soon after.

* August 28 - The Nazis declare martial law in Denmark and end the Danish-German agreement that forbids assaulting Danish Jews.

* September 1943 - The American Council for Judaism issues a proclamation that Jewishness "exists in a religious sense only, and that attempts to establish a Jewish homeland would be disloyal to the homeland nations of individual Jews."

Hundreds of Jews escape from Vilna, Lithuania. Vitka Kempner, a Vilna partisan blows up an electrical transformer in the city, and then travels to Olkiniki, Poland and helps burn down a turpentine factory.

Three Jewish partisans in Paris kill Karl Ritter, "aide to Nazi slave-labor chief Fritz Sauckel."

* September 3 -8 - The Allies invade the Italian peninsula. Italy surrenders to the Allies and the new Italian leader signs an armistice with the Allies.

* September 5-6 - Twelve freight cars filled with shoes taken from murdered Jews are delivered to a warehouse in the Lodz Ghetto.

* September 8 - Italian forces surrender at Rhodes. The Germans move into Athens.

* September 10 - The Nazis occupy Rome.

* September 20 - At Szebnie, Poland, 1,000 inmates are trucked to a field and shot with machine guns. The bodies are burned and the bones are tossed into the Jasiolka River.

* September 22 - The Generalkommissar of Belorussia, Wilhelm Kube is assassinated in his sleep by a bomb left under his bed by a maid, a member of the resistance.

* September 25 - The Soviet Army captures Smolensk, Russia. The chief rabbi of Athens, Eliahu Barzilai, disguises himself as a peasant and escapes from the city.

* September 28 - 29 - Jews living in Rome are ordered to deliver 50 kilograms of gold to the Gestapo. Pope Pius XII offered to lend 15 kilograms of gold if the Jews could not obtain the full amount themselves.

More tomorrow...

When Is a War Not a War? In Iraq

Today is the 5th anniversary of the Bush misadventure in Iraq. Over 300 blogs are involved in a "blogswarm" against the war. You can review and read what these bloggers have to say here. There is also a link on the sidebar of this blog.

What follows is my contribution to the March 19 Blogswarm.


The so-called war in Iraq is not a war. It never was a war. Our Iraq adventure has been circumscribed by two events: an invasion and an occupation.

Patrick Cockburn of CounterPunch explains the invasion, which began on March 19, 2003: While there was some conflict and some resistance, he says, by and large the reason the allied forces marching to Baghdad "had an easy passage ...[was] because the Iraqi army did not fight. Even the so-called elite Special Republican Guard units, well paid, well equipped and tribally linked to Saddam, went home."

Cockburn says the media coverage was "highly deceptive because it gave the impression of widespread fighting when there was none." In the north, Mosul and Kirkuk "were captured with hardly a shot being fired." In the area around Baghdad, "Burned out tanks littered the roads" which made it seem as though there had been much heavy fighting. Not so. In most instances, the Iraqi crews had left their tanks to go home before they'd been hit.

It was all too easy, says Mr. Cockburn.

It wasn't a war, says I.

And the rest, as they say, is history. A history of an occupation gone horribly wrong. Picture this: Bush, sitting in the Oval Office is informed the invasion was a success. He looks around with that little smirk of his, as if embarrassed, then turns to ask Rumsfeld and Cheney, "Ok, what do we do now?"

None of them have a clue.


So, on the 5th anniversary of this horrific, misguided adventure, 160,000 troops remain mired in the bloody chaos of Iraq. They are not fighting a war, they are trying to keep the peace. Keeping the peace, however, is an impossible task because the Bush administration's inept policies have brought the country to its knees, culminating in a full-blown civil war.

Four thousand Americans are dead. Thousands more have been maimed and crippled, their lives shredded into painful days and hopeless nights. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed or wounded. Millions of Iraqis have fled the country. As many as 50,000 Iraqi women, some as young as 13, have turned to prostitution in other countries because they have no other way of surviving.

Chevron is making huge profits from Iraq's oil fields. If the oil bill pushed by Bush/Cheney is passed, Chevron not only will continue to make huge profits, but will be protected by the U.S. military. And wouldn't that make Condi Rice happy, seeing as how she was on the Chevron board a few years ago and even has an oil tanker named after her?

Some observers claim that about 40 percent of those who comprise the Iraqi workforce have no income and are jobless.

Doctors such as Ni'man Mohammed in Baghdad, fully expect a cholera outbreak this coming summer.

The infrastructure of the country is devastated. A French paper tells how Baghdad is covered with sewage - "One of three sewage treatment plants is out of commission ... sewage is forming a foul lake so large it can be seen 'as a big black spot on Google Earth.'"

In some neighborhoods, the water pipes are so old that they cannot pump sufficient water to satisfy minimum requirements for life.

Electricity is almost non-existent. Even though those in charge have spent billions of dollars since the invasion, the national grid is only capable of producing enough energy to provide about two hours of continuous power a day. Iraqis have been warned to not expect improvement until 2011.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children have been orphaned; perhaps as many as 4 or 5 million.

The government is splintered and splintering as various factions face off against each other. The government functions only in a minimal way.

As Mr. Cockburn says, "Baghdad today is a collection of hostile Sunni and Shia ghettos divided by high concrete walls. Different districts even have different flags. Sunni areas use the the old Iraqi flag with the three stars of the Baath party and the Shia wave a newer version, adopted by the Shia-Kurdish government. The Kurds have their own flag.

Bush and company never understood the depth of the divisions in Iraqi society. They still do not. Or they do not care.

Again, from Patrick Cockburn: "After the Sunni guerrillas blew up the Shia shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006 sectarian fighting turned into a full blown civil war. Mr Bush and Mr Blair strenuously denied that this was so, but by any standard it was a civil war of extraordinary viciousness. Torture with electric drills and acid became the norm. The Shia Mehdi Army militia took over much of Baghdad and controlled three quarters of it. Some 2.2 million people fled to Jordan and Syria, a high proportion of them Sunni."

Scott Ritter says "Iraq is dying; soon Iraq will be dead. ... "any hope of a resurrected homogeneous Iraqi nation populated by a diverse people capable of coexisting in peace and harmony is soon to be swept away forever."

The so-called "purple finger revolution" of January, 2005, was a joke. It didn't prove Iraq had become a democracy as the Bushites bragged for it was a sham election that "produced a government trusted by no one ..."

And so the war goes on. Not our war, the civil war. And Americans continue to die and be maimed in a futile attempt to keep the peace between enemies whose identities and loyalties are continually shifting and evolving and among people whose most hearty wish is that we would go home!


Into this chaos comes John McCain, not to campaign for the presidency, he says, but on a "fact-finding" trip. He wears a flak jacket (or flack jacket). He meets with the Deputy Prime Minister and with the top U.S. military honcho. Nothing is released as to what they discussed.

McCain, not campaigning (well, except for that photo-op in London and several photo-ops showing him in his flak jacket) says he's worried that "militants in Iraq might try to influence the November general election."

How would they do that? Persuade the voters to choose the Democratic candidate?

Part of the reason for the trip was to get a better picture of the situation in Iraq. He said the Americans were not getting a "full picture" of how things are improving in Baghdad. But as bombs went off in the city, and when reporters asked him about his statement that it was safe to walk some Baghdad streets, he became a bit "testy." He did, finally, admit that when he traveled he was escorted by U.S. military units.

He must have missed some vital pieces of that "better picture." McCain claimed that operatives out of Iran are "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back" to fight U.S. troops in Iraq. That is not true as Iran is mostly Shiite and al-Qaeda is Sunni.

On several occasions, he said that Iran was supplying al-Qaeda. Again, not true. Evidently Mr. McCain is not aware that Iran, which is mostly Shiite, would not supply or assist al-Qaeda, a Sunni militant group. If anything, Iran may be assisting Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Let's hope he's not elected president as we do not need another leader totally ignorant of the people and the history of the region!

Even worse, McCain really believes, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, and five years of total failure, that the U.S. can ultimately make things work in Iraq. He's willing to commit troops toward that endeavor for 100 years!

God help us!


But no one exemplifies the arrogance and brutishness that has resulted in the Iraqi disaster more than Dick Cheney. He, too, stopped over briefly in Iraq, meeting with the head honchos, and speaking the same gibberish that he's spoken for the past five years.

Things are coming along swimmingly, he said. The Iraqis have made important advances, he said. There's been a dramatic improvement in security, he said (that just before a bomb exploded nearby!)

Cheney restated "unwavering U.S. support for the Iraqis as they continue down what he called a 'difficult but historic route to democracy.'"

That's all bullshit, of course.


What's the answer? Maybe we could start by impeaching our lying, immoral president and vice president who got us into this mess. As I recall, Bush gave the American people close to three dozen different reasons why we had to invade and occupy Iraq, every single one of them a lie.

But impeachment or not (and with so many spineless Democrats in Congress it looks like impeachment is not going to happen), we must bring the troops home, now!

Josh Holland cites an article from the Washington Post on the findings of U.S. military contractors in five Iraqi cities. You could say we are not the Iraqis favorite people:

"Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of 'occupying forces' as the key to national reconciliation."


The answer, then, is not the Bush/Cheney/McCain answer. They didn't even get the question right. One of Cheney's stops on this latest Iraq trip was the office of the Prime Minister where the discussion centered on "negotiations ... to spell out the legal basis for the presence of U.S. troops on Iraqi territory ... the so-called 'status of forces agreement.'"

That's exactly what most Iraqis do not want - the presence of U.S. troops on Iraqi territory.

Scott Ritter, discusses the competing groups within Iraq, and says that the "winner will be the Sunni resistance [opposing the current Shia leadership] ... as it continues to exploit the chaotic death spiral of post-Saddam Iraq for its own long-term plan of a Sunni resurgence in Iraq.

"That the Sunni resistance will continue to fight an American occupation is a guarantee. That it will continue to persevere is highly probable. That the United States will be able to stop it is unlikely.

"And so, the reality that the only policy direction worth of consideration here in the United States concerning Iraq is the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of American forces ..."


And it won't do to say that civil war will erupt if we leave - civil war is underway! In fact, back in 1920, British forces occupied Iraq. David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, warned that if the British army was withdrawn from Iraq, there would be civil war. The British presence, thought Lloyd George, was necessary to cool the conflict between the Iraqi factions.

Lloyd George was wrong, just as our King George is wrong. What happened in the 1920s is that the factions quit fighting each other and united in a revolution against the British occupation forces.

Iraq is a no-win situation for the United States. Bush and company do not learn from previous mistakes, and as this is written are planning for a more or less permanent U.S. presence in Iraq. And that, say some folks, could result in a replay of Britain's experience.

The "war" in Iraq, which is not a war but involves an occupation force serving as a police force, could become a real war - the U.S. against a united Iraqi front (sponsored by Iran, Iraq's new "friend" in its fight against the "great Satan!"


The Iraqi people want us gone. Iraq's national security advisor has asked for a timetable as to complete American withdrawal. "The vast majority of Iraq's parliament, religious leaders and political leaders want to know when the U.S.-led coalition troops will leave." (from Erik Leaver and Raed Jarrar, "Iraq's Sectarian Bloodshed 'Made in the USA.'"

The only viable option: Complete. Withdrawal. Now!

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1943 (II)

Germany 1943 (II)

The ghettos continue to be emptied and the Jews deported to the death camps. In the Warsaw Ghetto, about 700 Jews staged an ultimately futile resistance, but a number of Germans were killed and wounded. As word spread about the Warsaw uprisings, many Jews were elated that people were fighting back.

The Polish resistance did not assist Polish Jews because so many in the resistance were anti-Semitic. The United States and Britain, although aware of what was happening, were silent.

* April 27 - In Italy, Ezra Pound, the noted American poet, continued to air his anti-Semitic rants. He said the Jews were rats, bedbugs, worms, parasites ... who give off a terrible "power of putrefaction."

* April 29 - While en route from one prison to another near Krakow, Poland, Jewish women attack their male SS guards. Two escape, but most are killed.

* April 30 - 2,000 Jews from Wlodawa, Poland arrive at the the Sobibor death camp and immediately attack the SS guards. All the Jews are killed by machine guns and grenades.

* May 1943 - The Soviet Army advances against the Germans in Eastern Europe. Again, anti-Semitic US State Department officials delay the license necessary to transfer money to allow the escape of 70,000 Jews from Romania.

* May 1 - Inspired by the Warsaw uprisings, a number of Jewish writers and artists get together in the Vilna (Lithuania) Ghetto for an evening of poetry, the theme being "Spring in Yiddish Literature."

* May 6 - The grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, tells the Bulgarian foreign minister to send Bulgarian Jewish children to Poland instead of Palestine.

* May 19 - Eleanor Rathbone, in the House of Commons, attacks the British government for its lackadaisical attitudes toward the Holocaust and says that if the Allies refuse to help, they are complicit in the death of the Jews.

* May 24 - The Germans stop their U-boats from sinking Allied Atlantic convoys.

* May 30 - Dr. Josef Mengele begins his duties at Auschwitz. Known as the "Angel of Death," Dr. Mengele specialized in twins. While anyone with a deformity was immediately killed, twins were sent to Mengele for "painful and grotesque experiments."

* June 5 - 1266 children under the age of 16 are deported from Holland to Sobibor. When they arrive, they are gassed immediately.

* June 21 - Himmler orders that all Jewish ghettos in the USSR be "liquidated." August Hirt, a German professor, rounds up 103 Jewish men and women at Auschwitz. They are sent to a camp near Strasbourg, France where they are gassed. Their bodies' soft tissue is removed and their skeletons are hung in the Reich Anatomical Institute of Strasbourg for the study of the Jewish race.

July 1943 - The American Women's International League for Peace and Freedom says that the American people and the American government are guilty of atrocities "because they are complacent cowards covered 'with a thick layer of prejudice.'"

* July 10 - Allied forces land in Sicily.

* July 11 - Hitler's secretary, Martin Bormann, send out a directive that henceforth all mention of Jews must not mention any "final solution," but rather that Jews are being used for various kinds of labor.

* July 17 - Bishop Theophil Wurm of the Evangelical Church in Wurtemberg transmits a letter to the Nazi headquarters in which he asks that the persecution of "members of other nations and races" be stopped immediately.

[The Nazis set up Jewish orchestras in the death camps. These orchestras would play happy songs as the trains rolled in with their human cargo, which would ease their fears. Auschwitz had six orchestras. In a camp in the Ukraine, the Nazis had a special tune composed called "Tango of Death" which was played as prisoners were marched to the killing ground.]

* July 22 - The plan to help 70,000 Jews escape from Romania is finally shot down because Roosevelt does not want to upset the British who strenuously objected to it.

* July 23 - The Germans lose the biggest tank battle in history at Kursk, Russia.

* July 25 - Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist dictator, resigns. He is arrested.

* July 28 - A Polish-Catholic resistance fighter, Jan Karski, who had been in the Warsaw Ghetto, comes to the U.S. to share what he knows with American leaders. He realizes during his interview with President Roosevelt that the latter already knew a great deal about the Holocaust.

From the Wingnut Front Lines - The Family Research Council

You may have heard the ultra-Right Christian wingnuts are losing ground, losing influence, losing touch with their base.

Not so, says Tony Perkins, prez of the Family Research Council. In fact,Tony along with Bishop Harry Jackson has written a new book called "Personal Faith, Public Policy," which argues the Christian Right is not losing anything, but "is growing and rejuvenated."

At a National Press Club gathering, Perkins boasted that "The range of issues on which its [Christian Right] leaders are willing to take a stand is expanding, and we are building new coalitions as we seek to lead the way with biblically-based solutions to the nation's problems. In the book [Personal Faith, Public Policy], we lay out a comprehensive strategy to bring people together across racial and denominational lines to address the most urgent issues, including life, defending marriage, religious freedom, immigration, poverty, racial reconciliation, and the environment."

Aren't you excited that they're seeking "biblically-based solutions" to our country's problems? That could mean that if things got too bad, Tony and his ilk would seek out the most righteous person and he/she would build an ark and take two of every kind into the ark, and then blow up all the dams around the country to flood the country and kill the rest of the people who, because of their failure to live up to God's biblical laws, deserve to be put to death.

That's how God did it; a "biblically-based" solution!

But I want to be on the ark!

Let's look at these issues more closely from the viewpoint of the FRC. "Life," of course, means no abortions. "Defending marriage," is code for no gay marriage. "Religious freedom" refers to the Right's desire to pray in public schools, post the Ten Commandments in courthouses, etc. "Immigration," well, can't have all those illegals getting all those government benefits, right? "Poverty" should be the dealt with by churches and other non-taxable entities, not the government. "Racial reconciliation" - frankly, I'm not sure where they mean by that. The "Environment," is not really a problem as liberal scientists can't be believed and the world will end shortly anyhow.

Two issues deserve a bit more discussion here. Homosexuality and gay marriage drive Tony and his Christian Right compadres straight up the wall! Tony likes to promote what he calls "family values," but, unfortunately, his "family values" leave some families - like gay families - out in the cold.

Pam Spaulding tells a story in an Alternet post of Tony and the FRC pissing around in the northeast. Seems a gay couple got married in Massachusetts. They are now in Rhode Island and want a divorce. The problem is that Rhode Island doesn't recognize their marriage. It's up to the courts to determine if the marriage can be dissolved in Rhode Island.

Tony and his FRC got in the act by filing a brief which argued that Rhode Island cannot recognize the marriage (in spite of the fact that Rhode Island has no law forbidding same-sex marriage).

Here's FRC's reasoning (or non-reasoning):

"Following the logic of the applellants and their supporters, man/animal marriage and man/deceased woman marriage must be permitted under Rhode Island law simply because the General Assembly has not expressly prohibited it."

Pam, incredulous, asks this question: "Tony and Co., when you are able to explain how animals and corpses can grant consent to enter a union of any kind, please let us know."

[She also notes that this so-called "family values" organizaton paid $82,000 to "David DuKKKe for his mailing list."]

But there's more. These wingnuts really do have many loose screws!

Jonathan Merrit is studying for his master's degree at Southeastern Seminary, a Southern Baptist school in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He is "called," he says, to some form of Christian ministry.

Jonathan is concerned about the environment, specifically the impact of global warming.

Jonathan was "rebuked" by Tony Perkins who believes that the "environmentalist movement promotes abortion and homosexuality." What?

Perkins more or less admits to the realilty of global warming but thinks nothing should be done to halt it as that would delay the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Mugsy, from Brave New Films, says Perkins says "you should be prepared to be Raptured, not 'throw away the keys to your SUV and jump on the Al Gore bandwagon.'"

I knew that! But I guess I'd rather ride the Al Gore bandwagon than the Wingnut Express!

Can Irish Priests Drink and Drive?

There is a move afoot in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to lower the legal blood alcohol level for drivers. The recommendation is that the current 0.08 percent level be dropped to 0.05 percent.

That sounds reasonable unless you're a priest. Priests are obligated to consume all consecrated wine that is not distributed at Mass. In many instances, that could be an almost full chalice, which would render the priest drunk under the new blood level standards.

Complicating the issue is the fact that some priests serve several congregations. They say Mass in one parish and then drive to another, where they say Mass again, and may drive to a third and say Mass a third time. God, they must be roaring drunk by then!

This recommendation to drop the legal blood alcohol level for drivers got a lot of attention, a lot of publicity and a lot of comments.

The situation was exacerbated when the Rev. Brian D'Arcy, a priest from Enniskillem, said this to the Irish Times: "I don't like to use the word wine, as it is Christ's blood in the Eucharist -- but it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream."

Whoopee!

Here are some of the comments received:

"Surely the blood of Christ would not contain sufficient alcohol to put the priest over the limit unless either Christ had been on a bender or transubstantiation isn't true?"

"If the wine does not taste like blood, does not test like blood in what way can it be said to be blood? What is the point of Jesus/God arranging for the wine to be blood and at the same time arranging for it to be totally indistinguishable from wine? What exactly is the point? At what stage in the digestive process does the blood of Jesus turn back into wine, or doesn't it? "

"...So what is it [this Eucharist thingy]? Well, even though it's concealed behind a facade of pious ritual replete with hymns and incense, and even though it might be disingenuously under-pinned with a lot of metaphysical or theological mumbo-jumbo, it is essentially cannibalism..."

"'Drunken Irish priest' is a tautology."

"The teaching on transubstantiation is a Roman Catholic invention...The fact that thousands of priests WORLDWIDE get drunk with 'holy hangover' is already an abomination to the Lord. What they drink is simply that--alcohol."

"Transubstantiation = Paganism."

"Unsubstantiated transubstantiated bulldust."

"In Holy Communion, we receive the Glorified Body of Christ....that was transfigured at Tabor, that rose from the dead, that passed through closed doors, and multilocates at will...Therefore in the chalice we have ...the living Body of Christ: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity...By making Himself edible, Christ is able to fully assimilate us such that St. Paul could say truly: I live now not I but Christ liveth in me."

"Let's not forget that Jesus was a Jew, as were all his disciples. And for a Jew drinking blood is an abomination. A Jew would no more drink blood than he would eat pork..."

"With all due respect, I'm forced to say this shows how impossible it is for a logically thinking, common-sense person to argue rationally with believers of a religious faith...if you can believe in magic (and let's be quite clear ...it's magical if water changes to wine), you will literally believe anything. End of discussion."

Here endeth this post.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1943 (I)

Germany 1943 (I)

By January, 1943, only 55,000 Jews (out of 400,000) remained in the Warsaw Ghetto. On January 9, Himmler visited the ghetto and ordered that another 8,000 Jews be deported to the death camps. When the Germans tried to carry out that order they were met with armed resistance by the ZOB [Jewish Fighting Organization].

Zivia Lubetkin, who helped found ZOB, survived the Holocaust and wrote of her experiences in a book, "In the Days of Destruction and Revolt." Lubetkin says that, although outnumbered, they fought back: "We ... actually witnessed the German conquerors of the world retreat in fright from a handful of young Jews equipped only with a few pistols and hand grenades."

But on the Passover eve, April 19, the Germans returned. About 700-750 Jewish fighters drove the Germans back using guns, grenades and "Molotov cocktails." The Germans then set fire to the ghetto. It was not until May 16, however, that the Germans were able to declare the ghetto no longer existed.

Lubetkin escaped through the sewer system to the "Aryan" side of Warsaw and lived to fight another day.

Jewish resistance sprang up in other camps and in other areas. Jews everywhere began to realize there was no escape, so they would resist until they were killed. Himmler, aware of this, decided to speed up the destruction of Jews in the Lublin area of Poland. On November 3, 1943, the Nazis corralled 42,000 Jews and shot them. One historian said this was "the single largest killing operation against Jews in the entire war." The Germans gave it the code name, "Erntefest," or "harvest festival."

In 1943, 400,000 Jews would be murdered by the Germans.

Also in 1943, Himmler is named Reich minister of the interior. Pope Pius XII says the only thing the Vatican can do is pray for those who are oppressed. The SS pays "designated prisoners" three cigarettes for hanging other prisoners. During the war, BMW made plane engines at a Dachau subcamp using slave labor. The United States, by now well aware of the scale of the Jewish massacres, still refuses to admit Jewish children to America.

* January 3 - The Polish president asks Pope Pius XII to publicly denounce the German killing of Jews. Pius says nothing about the Jews nor about persecuted Polish Catholics.

* January 4 - The SS orders all human hair shaved from Jewish heads in the concentration camps be sent to the firm of Alex Zink at Roth, Germany, for processing.

* January 14-24 - Churchill and Roosevelt meet at Casablanca to discuss an Allied invasion of Europe.

Roosevelt, however, suggests that the French government in North Africa discriminate against local Jews just as Hitler did in the 1930s. Roosevelt said that "the number of Jews engaged in the practice of the professions ... should be definitely limited to the percentage that the Jewish population in North Africa bears to the whole of the North African population." Additionally, Roosevelt said that keeping just a certain percentage of Jews in the professions "would further eliminate the specific and understandable complaints which the Germans bore toward the Jews in Germany..."

* January 17 - Bishop Konrad Grag von Preysing is the only Roman Catholic bishop in Germany actively opposing the Nazi regime.

* January 23 - Libya is liberated by the British.

* January 27 - The US Army Air Force (8th USAAF) launches the first America air raid on Germany.

* January 30 - Ernst Kaltenbrunner takes over for the late Reinhard Heydrich. He is just as evil, if not more so, than Heydrich.

* February 2 - The German 6th Army surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad.

* February 6 - In a report to Himmler of items taken from Jews at Auschwitz and other camps in the Lublin area: 155,000 women's coats, 132,000 men's shirts, over 6600 pounds of human hair.

* February 10 - Anti-Semites in the U.S. State Department send notice to the U.S. legation in Switzerland that the American consul should no longer send information about Jewish atrocities to private persons in the U.S.

Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau's staff calls the cable of Feb. 10 "the most vicious document we have ever read," designed "by diabolical men" and meant to hide information about the "Final Solution." They also said, "We don't shoot [Jews]. We let other people shoot them, and let them starve."

State Department employees involved in refugee policy were described as "an underground movement ... to let the Jews be killed."

* February 13 - The Romanian government offers ships to the Allies to transport 70,000 Jews to new areas. The offer is rejected by the U.S. and the British.

* February 22 - The Bulgarian government agrees to deport 20,000 Jews from Macedonia and Thrace. About 11,000 are actually deported.

* February 27 - Early March - After public protests by non-Jewish wives, Jewish men arrested in Berlin are released - Goebbels and Hitler are afraid of public disorder. One must raise the question as to what might have happened if large numbers of Germans had protested the persecution and killing of the Jews.

* March 1 - A huge "Stop Hitler Now" rally is held in Madison Square Garden in New York City.

* March 10 - The SS orders all Bulgarian Jews to be sent to Poland. The Bulgarian government resists and the Bulgarian Jews are saved.

* March 13 - Dissidents try to blow up Hitler with explosives hidden in brandy bottles on Hitler's private plane. The bottles do not blow.

* March 23 - The archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, tells the House of Lords that England should get rid of all quotas on Jewish immigration into Britain.

By the spring of 1943, Nazi kill squads have murdered some 2 million Jews in Eastern Europe.

April - 1943 - Pope Pius XII says that Jews are "demanding and ungrateful." The Bermuda Conference, called to supposedly fix the refugee problem, ends up doing nothing. In fact, the U.S. and British representatives decided ahead of the conference to downplay Jewish atrocities. They just didn't give a damn!

Right, Righteous, Republican Rascals

It is no secret that there are a bunch of right, righteous, Republican rascals trying to take over our government and install a theocracy modeled according to their interpretation of the Bible.

In such a theocracy, because they define the United States as a "Christian" nation, any constitutional barriers to that would be removed, as would any constitutional barriers to the melding of church and state. Laws would be based on the Old Testament which means that homosexuals, adulterers and other biblical miscreants would receive the full brunt of godly punishment - some Reconstructionists have even called for the death penalty.

With the meltdown of the Bush presidency, the recession which has arrived in spite of Bush's denials, the ungodly war in Iraq which seems never-ending and sucks up huge gobs of borrowed monies, the program of the Reconstructionists or Dominionists, as they are sometimes called, has been delayed slightly.

Kevin Phillips, in his book, "American Theocracy," notes how [in the late 1980s and 1990s] the Republican party emerged "as a powerful vehicle for religiosity and church influence, while state Republican parties, most conspicuously in the South and Southwest, endorsed so-called Christian nation party platforms.

"These unusual platforms, ... set out in varying degrees the radical political theology of the Christian Reconstructionist movement, the tenets of which range from using the Bible as a basis for domestic law to emphasizing religious schools and women's subordination to men."

Phillips points to the 2004 platform of the Texas Republican Party. "It reaffirms the status of the United States as a 'Christian nation,' regrets 'the myth of the separation of church and state,' calls for abstinence instead of sex education, and broadly mirrors the reconstructionist demand for the abolition of a large group of federal agencies and departments, including the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency."

If the Texas Republicans had had their way in 2004, the United States as we know it would have ceased to exist. That bothers me just a little bit!

The danger posed to our Democracy by these right, righteous, Republican rascals is no idle threat. And while the advancement of their cause may be delayed, it is not stopped.

Democracy is extremely fragile. It's destruction and replacement by right-wing Christian fascism, while not certain, is certainly possible. That, too, can happen here!

Judge Nixes Graduation Prayers in Texas

In Round Rock, Texas, the school district allowed high school seniors to vote whether or not they wanted prayers said at their graduation ceremonies. Seniors at three high schools voted "Yes." Seniors at a fourth high school voted "No."

On behalf of several parents and a former student, the ACLU sued the school district claiming that "prayers at a school-sponsored event violated 'the boundary between church and state that is necessary in a pluralistic society."

U.S.District Judge Sam Sparks ruled that the school district may not hold an election or vote by students "to have a prayer, benediction, invocation 'or other religious communication' in any graduation unless the Supreme Court rules in future cases that such votes can be held."

"Thank God!" said God!

The judge could not have ruled otherwise, for indeed, such prayers are unconstitutional. But you have to give him some credit because Texas is overrun with Right, Righteous, Republican Rascals.

Evolution is Racist says Ham

You remember Ken Ham. He's the guy in the clown suit with the clown theology who believes that God said "Shazam!" and everything was created in six days about 6-12,000 years ago.

Ham's the guy who thinks some guy named Noah floated around in a big boat with two of everything for 40 days and 40 nights (well, that's one story) while God murdered every other creature in his creation.

Ham is the guy who built the Creation Museum, a place where dunderheads can go and get their fix of creationist nonsense so they can better deal with all those rabid, racist evolutionists.

Wait! Did he say racist?

Yup. Ham and another guy by name of Charles Ware, who is prez of Crossroads Bible College in Indianapolis, Indiana, have written a book called "Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots."

In this tribute to nonsense and snake oil, Ham and Ware claim that evolution inspired the Nazi belief in racial superiority and the murderous policies of ol' Joe Stalin in the USSR.

This is true! Really!

Ham believes, fundamentally, and first of all, that evolution is bad, bad, bad because it contradicts a literal interpretation of the Old Testament stories in Genesis. He doesn't deal, so far as I know, with the other, more poetic creation stories in the Bible.

Ham says that Darwin's theory re: natural selection elevates some races "higher on the evolutionary scale" and others "closer to the apes." That's racist, says Ham.

Ham also says that Darwin did not start racism, but "did more than any person to popularize it."

Ham and Ware should be laughed off the planet. They provide an excellent example of the kind of immoral, amoral, stupid, ridiculous, nonsensical crap that "evolves" from people dedicated to upholding thousand-year old mythical constructs that have no scientific relevance whatsoever.

These men are so stupid they think humans and dinosaurs coexisted! Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education in California, noted that Hitler seldom, if ever, spoke of evolution.

She said that "Darwinian evolution is based on natural selection, which means that any population can adapt to its environment." Even idiots like Ham and Ware ought to be able to look around and grasp the truth of that. Hell, I've had to adapt to the knowledge that there really is such a monstrosity as a "creation" museum in the United States!

Scott also said that "The ironic thing for the creationists is that Hitler grounded Aryan superiority as a God-given quality."

In fact, Hitler believed that God was behind his policies, that he was carrying out God's will. And much of his hatred for the Jews was given a framework and impetus by the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther.

I've said before so many of these creationists and intelligent design people are liars. They keep insisting that their formulations have nothing to do with religion when they have everything to do with religion.

Even Ham is a liar, claiming that his organization, Answers in Genesis, does not advocate teaching creationism in public schools.

Maybe the corporate construct that makes up Answers in Genesis is not out "advocating" the teaching of creationism in public schools, but I'll guarantee you that every single person affiliated with this freakish outfit would jump at the chance to present the "truth" of creationism to public school kids if they got the chance!

Heck, maybe Ham is right. But if so, he'd be in the group "closer to the apes."

At What Price Security?

I am a veteran of the U.S. Navy. I believe a strong and well-trained military is vital to our national interests.

What follows is in no way critical of the U.S. Air Force or our men and women in uniform.

Time magazine, March 24 issue:

Page 55 shows what appears to be a busy city street in a Middle Eastern country. A young mother walks through the crowd carrying a child, while a slightly older child walks by her side. Just off to the right is a scruffy-looking man with a beard and sneaky eyes. In the background stands another man, nondescript, but seems to be staring at the woman.

The caption is a question: "How do you fight an enemy who hides among the innocent?"

Page 57 answers the question this way: "Never let them out of your sight."

Featured on this page is a U.S. Air Force "state of the art surveillance aircraft" flying over what appears to be a Middle Eastern city.

These two pages constitute an advertisement for the United States Air Force.

It gave me the chills. Here's why:

First of all, keeping an eye on bad guys hiding among the innocent is not "fighting" the enemy.

Unfortunately, as the U.S., Israel and other countries have discovered, fighting an enemy hiding among the innocent will result in "collateral damage." Innocent people are going to be hurt, perhaps destroyed.

Secondly, even though it may have to be done in a war zone, the thought of a U.S. Air Force spy plane circling in the air above a populous city surveilling its citizens is unnerving, to say the least...

Especially when you think of what might happen when a president like Bush, who sees no limits to his powers as prezident or commander-in-chief, orders the Air Force to surveil Washington, D.C. to locate a rebellious group of senators working on his impeachment so he can have them arrested?

Don't say it can't happen here. Bush has already ordered illegal surveillance on numerous occasions. And with our system of checks and balances crumbled to rubble, it is a very short flight to a spy in the sky.

Here's another very interesting article dealing with this issue from a little different standpoint.

Muslim Youth Attack Anglican Priest

St. George in the East Church in London was consecrated in 1729. It was designed by a student of Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor. Although badly damaged in WWII by the German Blitz, it was rebuilt in the 1960s.

Michael Ainsworth, 57, is the priest at St. George in the East. While walking on the grounds of the church recently, he was attacked by three Asian youths when he asked them to be quiet.

They yelled "you fucking priest," knocked him to the ground, and punched him in the head. He was saved by some other youths who came to his assistance.

Fr. Ainsworth was taken to the hospital with deep cuts, bruising and two black eyes, where he was treated and released. Shortly after his release, he re-entered the hospital.

St. George in the East has been a target of violence previously. Not long ago, a brick was thrown through a window during a worship service. On another occasion, young people shouted "This should not be a church, this should be a mosque, you should not be here."

Violence is not committed only by Muslims, of course. For example, after the 2005 bombings in London, there were a number of attacks against Muslims. More recently, Muslim involvement in violence has been increasing, especially against Jews. Attacks on Christians are rather rare.

Question: Why would young Muslims want to damage a church or hurt a Christian priest? They didn't come out of the womb saying "I'm going to grow up and throw a brick through a church window," or "I think I'll go beat the crap out of a Christian priest when I'm big."

These acts derive from hatred that is taught in the home, or in the school, or in the mosque, or maybe all three. Christians and others are not off the hook, though, for too often they also are taught to hate in their home, or their church or their school.

Nothing will ever change until people decide, first of all, that we are of one race - the human race; and that we are all brothers and sisters; and that it is better to live in peace as a family than to try to destroy one another because of disagreements of faith, economics or politics.

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

Germany - 1942 (IV)

Oswald Pohl was the SS general in charge of the Nazi Economic and Administrative Main Office. He controlled all slave labor and the disposition of Jewish possessions taken from those murdered in the death camps.

Pohl supervised construction of thousands of German concentration and extermination camps.
He was the one who decided what to do with hair cut off Jewish victims - the hair was used to make textiles. He also received the gold from Jewish teeth, rings, and eyeglass frames - these were sent to the national treasury.

Pohl did not get away. He was tried as a war criminal, was convicted and was hung on June 8, 1951.

October 1942 - In various places, some Jews resisted and some Jews escaped the Nazis, but the brutality and the killings continue. All Jewish property in Norway is confiscated. The British ambassador to the Vatican makes note in his diary that Pope Pius XII seldom denounces moral crimes. He writes that the Pope's "policy of silence ... must necessarily involve a renunciation of moral leadership."

At a small labor camp in Poland, a group of female non-Jewish prisoners beat, brutalize and kill several dozen Jewish women.

October 3 - Poland's ambassador to the Vatican spells out in detail to the Vatican how thousands of Jews have been gassed by the Nazis.

October 4 - German authorities order all Jews in German concentration camps be sent to Auschwitz for extermination.

The Sonderkommando was a special unit comprised of prisoners at Auschwitz chosen to handle the more unpleasant tasks, such as searching the dead for valuables, moving bodies to the crematoria, and cleaning the gas chambers.

Marie Vaillant-Couturier, a member of the French resistance imprisoned at Auschwitz, wrote the following:

"One night we were awakened by terrifying cries. And we discovered, on the following day, from the men working the Sonderkommando ... that on the preceding day, the gas supply having run out, they had thrown the children into the furnaces alive."

October 18 - Hitler orders that all captured Allied Special Operations Personnel be executed.

October 23 - The Battle of El Alamein begins in Egypt.

October 28 - The SS issues an order that socks and mittens taken from Jews be sent to SS families.

November 1942 - The Germans occupy southern France.

* November 1-6 - Over 170,000 Jews are killed in one week at Belzec, Auschwitz and Treblinka.

* November 2 - SS chief Heinrich Himmler approves a plan to set up a collection of Jewish skeletons and skull at the Strasbourg Anatomical Institute in France. The head of Germany's Ancestral Heritage Society requests 150 Jewish skeletons.

Allied forces at El Alamein, Egypt, rout General Erwin Rommel's troops.

November 8 - Allied Operation Torch landings occur on the Algerian coast. This inadvertently saves thousands of Jews from the death camps.

November 11 - Norwegian Protestant bishops in Oslo make a public protest re: the deportation of Norwegian Jews.

November 15 - A Parisian Jewish resistance group places two time-bombs in a window of a German barracks, killing several German soldiers eating breakfast. The bombs were carried by Jewish women.

November 19 - The Soviets counterattack near Stalingrad.

December 2 - Jews all over the free world hold a day of prayer and fasting for European Jews.

December 7 - A U.S. State Department official, G. Robert Borden Reams, a so-called "expert" on the Jews suggests the U.S. government remain silent regarding the Holocaust.

December 8 - Rabbi Steven Wise and other Jewish leaders meet with President Roosevelt to discuss the plight of European Jews.

December 9 - "The Christian Century," a U.S. Protestant magazine, attacks Rabbi Wise, saying he has lied about the Holocaust and even if he hasn't he should shut up about it.

December 17 - Under great pressure from many groups, the Allied countries "officially condemn the Nazis 'bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination,' and swear to punish those responsible. Several anti-Semitic U.S. State Department officials try to block this condemnation. There is no mention of Jews in this or future declarations.

The media in the U.S. fails to publicize or discuss the Holocaust.

December 18 - The British ambassador to the Vatican again comments that the silence of the pope is "highly damning."

December 28 - Dr. Carl Clauberg initiates sterilization experiments on Jewish women at Auschwitz.

December 30 - Pope Pius XII says that he thinks the atrocity stories about Jews are exaggerations "for the purposes of propaganda."

December 31 - By this date, two million Jews have been murdered by the Germans in the death camps. Hundreds of thousands more have been murdered by various German military and police units.

The speed and efficacy by which the Nazis were able to identify, locate, arrest, and transport Jews to the extermination camps was due to the assistance of the American company, International Business Machines (IBM)!

Maybe, Possibly, Perhaps There Really Was a Sodom & Gomorrah

Trinity Southwest University is a fundamentalist Christian school located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. One of its purposes is to uphold the Bible as God's divine word to humans. It believes that the Bible is the final authority on any issue it "touches."

TSW is also into archaeology, big time; TSW seeks to prove "scientifically" that what the Bible says is true. Like a lot of fundamentalist operations, TSW praises the notion of "faith," but actively seeks scientific support for that faith.

Dr. Steven Collins is dean of the college of archaeology and biblical history at TSW. Collins has read Genesis. Collins believes that from his reading of Genesis 13, Sodom can be found at Tall al-Hammam in Jordan. "The Bible makes it very clear," says the dean, "Sodom is the largest Bronze Age city east of the Jordan River, north of the Dead Sea."

The Bible speaks of "Bronze Age" cities? I don't think so.

Collins, naturally, believes in the Bible and also believes that if only he could discover Sodom and Gomorrah, this would provide solid archaeological evidence that the historical information in Genesis is factual.

Well, not really. (See below)

Another archaeologist, Eric Cline from George Washington University, says that Collins is dreaming; that he has provided no "compelling archaeological evidence" regarding the location of Sodom and Gomorrah.

What's funny is that all these fundamentalist archaeologists are studying the biblical material microscopically to try to get some clues as to where these two cities might be found. One said that "the key to locating the Cities of the Plain [Sodom & Gomorrah] is an intricate analysis of the biblical text."

What's sad is that this is all unnecessary. Even if these determined diggers could provide conclusive proof they had discovered the sites that were the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Bible, that would say nothing about the accuracy of the bible. All it would say is that the author of the biblical tale of the two cities used real place names for his setting; kind of like Tom Clancy uses the name of the Washington, D.C., in his political pot-boilers.

More and more biblical scholars are coming to believe that the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses - everything before King David - are essentially legendary. No external evidence has ever been found to support their historicity; none whatsoever! They are legends!

But clowns in khaki still spend their lives climbing up one mountain and down another seeking Noah's god-designed ark. And Dr. Collins will spend a few more years futilely digging around in Jordan for Sodom and Gomorrah.

Linking to God - Mathematically

The Templeton Foundation is an organization dedicated to religious research and to the hope of discovering a link between religion and science. Since 1973, the Templeton Foundation has given a prize for "Progress toward Research of Discoveries about Spiritual Realities."

The title of the prize should tell you what this is really all about. Interesting, too, is the fact that the Templeton Foundation adjusts its prize money annually so that is exceeds that of the Nobel Prize.

This year's prize of 820,000 pounds went to a Polish mathematician and "metaphysician" by name of Michael Heller. Heller, 72 years old, is also a priest, and was a good friend of the late Pope John Paul II.

It is claimed by the Templeton Foundation that Professor Heller has shows "how maths can offer circumstantial evidence of God's existence."

Well, sorry, but circumstantial evidence ain't gonna cut it. Evidence that is circumstantial rests on the bias of the believer. Circumstantial evidence of God's existence is no evidence whatsoever.

You can get a flavor of who Heller really is and what he is about in the comments made by the man who nominated him for the prize, Karol Musiol, Rector of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Musiol claims that Heller has "brought to science a sense of transcendent mystery and to religion a view of the universe through the broadly open eyes of science."

But science is not concerned with "transcendent mystery;" that belong to the sphere of religion. So, to claim that he's brought transcendent mystery to science is merely to say he's done nothing whatsoever.

Musiol went on to proclaim that Heller "has introduced a significant notion of theology of science. He has succeeded in showing that religion isolating itself from scientific insights is lame, and science failing to acknowledge other ways of understanding is blind."

Heller, who is a professor in the philosophy department of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, made a statement which is not only old hat but absolutely redundant. He tried to relate the cause of the universe to the cause of mathematical laws. "By doing so we are back in the great blueprint of God's thinking about the universe, the question on ultimate causality: why is there something rather than nothing?"

That's a theologian speaking, not a scientist. He is operating not in a scientific mode, but a theological mode.

Again, from Heller: "Science is but a collective effort of the human mind to read the mind of God from question marks out of which we and the world around us seem to be made."

I don't think so!

And again: "So long as the Universe had a beginning, we can suppose it had a creator."

No, we can't! And then you'd have to suppose a creator of the creator, etc., ad infinitum.

Finally, although his work is obtuse and difficult for a non-mathematician, it is summed up this way: Heller's theories "do not prove the existence of God, they may provide circumstantial evidence that He exists."

In other words, they prove nothing and this Templeton Award is much ado about nothing.

Going Gestapo Over Droopy Pants in Florida

[Photo is from the blog, BlackGivesBack]

One of the most difficult and terrifying problems facing the Florida state legislature these days is droopy pants!

Slip-sliding down the hips, the pants call to mind how Florida's economy is in the toilet and how Florida's school children are having a hard time evolving.

Never fear, however, as Florida's senators, taking a page from the Gestapo, have called for an end to this disgraceful and morally-abject behavior.

Believing that if one law is good for a state, then a million laws regulating a million modules of behavior, must be a million times better, Florida's senators have moved in that direction by outlawing droopy pants!

Now, you'd naturally assume that the author of this saggy, baggy legislation, would be a Republican. You'd be wrong. He's a simple-minded Democrat, by name of Gary Siplin, from Orlando. Maybe it's the Orlando connection - that's rapidly becoming the saggiest, baggiest city in Florida!

What Siplin objects to is the fact that the baggy pants fad derived from "rap artists after first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex." And he thinks it is his job to force Florida's kids to look good as it will "help students get jobs and a degree."

Is that part of the job description for a Florida senator?

Some cities in Florida, such as Riveria Beach, already have a baggy pants law. Repeat offenders who insist on showing off their buttocks can go to jail for 60 days!

Wonder what simple Siplin and his Gestapo mind will come up with next?

I think they should pass a law that would forbid girls from tattooing their stomachs. That's so distracting at the beach! Plus they might not be able to get a job as a lifeguard - especially at a Disney resort!

[I do think these drooping pants are truly idiotic and stupid. I don't think we need to outlaw them. Droopy pants were a fad in 1948. I know; my Levis drooped, too.]

Blessed Virgin Blindness

The Virgin Mary gets credit for lots of miraculous goings-on. Personally, I don't think she deserves any of it, as I've never seen a shred of evidence that 1) the VM existed, or 2) if she did exist, she was a virgin, or 3) if she did exist and was a virgin that she cured or helped anyone in anyway.

In fact, as this story shows, the VM can become a liability.

Seems that a rumor got started down in India, in the Kottayam area, that there was a miraculous image in the sky. The rumor started at the house of a hotelier in Erumli, close to where this divine image was said to have been seen.

The hotelier also claimed that VM statues in the house had been "crying honey and bleeding oils and perfumes."

The liability part of this story comes from the fact that a whole bunch of really stupid, gullible people went out and stared into the sun in the sky, looking for the Blessed Virgin. Almost 50 folks have had to be treated for sight-loss caused by photochemical burns on the retina.

When doctors and health officers told church leaders about this, the church leaders "disowned" the miracle.

Sadly, more stupid, gullible people continue to flock to the hotelier's house to stare up into the sky hoping to see an image of the VM.

They will end up not being able to see at all.

A Christian Church in Qatar

A Christian church in a Muslim country is a rarity.

Qatar has allowed a Christian Church to be built within its borders.

The Roman Catholic Church is known as Our Lady of the Rosary. To get to it requires a 15-minute drive into the desert. It has no cross, no bell and no steeple.

The pastor and parishioners would prefer that no one knows about it. "The idea is to be discreet because we don't want to inflame any sensitivities," said Father Tom Veneracion. "There isn't even a signboard outside the church."

Up until five years ago, Catholics in Qatar had to meet "underground" Then the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, gave five denominations permission to open churches.

All is not well in the sands of Qatar, however. Qatar is a Wahhabi Muslim country, and some feel that the church is an "offense." A well-known politician has even asked for a national referendum to determine whether the church stays or goes.

A reporter for the Al-Arab newspaper wrote that "The cross should not be raised in the sky of Qatar, nor should bells toll in Doha."

But, a former dean of the Islamic law school disagrees, saying that "places of worship for various religions is a fundamental human right guaranteed by Islam."

Saudi Arabia, the strong ally of the United States, remains the only Gulf state to ban churches.

It's kind of amazing how, with Bush and company, oil makes stronger bedfellows than does democracy or human rights.

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

Germany 1942 (III)

In the month of August, 1942, when most people should be vacationing -- enjoying the mountains or the beaches -- the Nazis murdered 400,000 Jews.

The U.S., Britain, and Germany agree to cooperate in the feeding of 2 1/2 million starving Greek civilians. The English send 35,000 tons of food per month after the Germans agree not to confiscate it. This feeding costs the Allies $30 million per annum.

The Allies do not, however, do anything to help the Jews in Europe!

August 1-12 - 81,000 Polish Jews are sent from Warsaw to the Treblinka death camp.

August 3 - Emanuel Ringelblum, a resident of the Warsaw ghetto, wrote a diary detailing life in the ghetto. On this date, the first part of the diary, hidden in ten tin cans and milk cans, is secretly buried by a Warsaw schoolteacher, Israel Lichtenstein.

August 4 - Jews are deported from Belgium for the first time. Throughout the country, however, non-Jewish families hide 25,000 Jews.

August 5 - In Radom, Poland, 600 elderly Jews along with young children are shot by the SS.

This daily slaughter will continue all through the rest of 1942, in every city and every country where the Germans have a presence.

August 8 - Edith Stein, a Catholic nun, is gassed at Auschwitz.

August 9 - 180 Jews of Mir, Belorussia, escape to the forests. Jews kill six German and Ukranian policemen at Kremenetes, Ukraine. A group of Jewish partisans capture and execute 44 German policemen at Derechin, Belorussia.

* August 10 - 30 - 50,000 Jews at Belzec are murdered. Swiss authorities refuse entry to 10,000 Jews on the grounds that Switzerland can accept only "political" refugees, not "racial" refugees. These 10,000 go to their deaths.

* August 13 - 27 - US and British officials decide to keep secret Riegner's cable outlining Nazi plans for the Holocaust.

[Often Jewish children were hidden inside Roman Catholic monasteries and convents. Too often, though, these children were refused unless they converted to Christianity. Father Bruno, a Belgian priest, risked his life to save several Jewish children.]

* August 28 - Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, finally receives Reigner's cable. He decides to keep it quiet until he can verify the information. In Paris, Catholic priests who have helped Jews are arrested.

* August 30 - French Bishop Pierre-Marie Theas writes to his parishes that all human beings are God's creation, Jews as well as Christians, and that all people deserve respect from governments and individuals.

Late summer of 1942 - An SS officer by name of Kurt Gertsein goes to the German papal nuncio to tell what he knows of the mass gassing of the Jews. He is turned away.

A Jewish congressman from New York, Emanuel Celler, proposes a bill to allow French Jews about to be deported to the East to immigrate to the U.S. The bill is killed by the House Committe on Immigration.

In France, as Jews are being deported to their deaths, the Vichy Minister of Information reminds the press they need to recall "the true teaching of Saint Thomas and the Popes ... the general and traditional teaching of the Catholic Church about the Jewish problem."

* September 12 - The German Sixth Army and Fourth Panzer Army arrived at Stalingrad, Russia.

* September 22 - French Protestant pastor Marc Boegner protests Jewish deportation and offers to have Jewish children adopted. Vichy France Premier Laval says the children must all leave France.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was a rabid anti-Semite. After leading attacks against the British and Jews in Palestine and Iraq, he fled to Berlin. Hitler promised Husseini that when he conquered the Middle East, he would kill all the Jews. After the war, Husseini escaped a trial and was feted for years in Middle Eastern capitals.

* September 26 and 28 - German railway officials gather in Berlin to discuss obtaining more trains and track upgrades. With IBM's help they can send more Jews to death camps more quickly.

More tomorrow...