Gratuitous Anne Hathaway Photos of the Day.

Yes, the girl from The Princess Diaries is all grown up.

I should start a blog that is only about women. It sounds creepy, I know. I am afraid to search Bloggerdom and see what sort of female related offerings are out there.

Blog of the Day.

If you are a Mets fan, a Red Sox fan, or an RBI Baseball fan, you should take a look at San Diego Serenade.

It's a music blog, but in his spare time the owner synchronized Vin Scully's call of the 1oth inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series (Bill Buckner, Mookie Wilson. Remember?) with a recreation of the action on the old RBI Baseball video game. It is not perfect, but it is most cool.
(Thanks to Steve Czaban for the heads up.)

Whatever happened to...

...almost everyone's favorite All-American, the presumption of innocence?

It is possible the woman in question was beaten and gang-raped. It is also possible she is lying. That is why we used to try alleged criminals in courtrooms instead of newspapers. Maybe we should give that hoary old tradition another try. What do you say, kiddies?


DNA testing failed to connect any members of the Duke University lacrosse team to the alleged rape of a stripper, attorneys for the athletes said Monday.

Citing DNA test results delivered by the state crime lab to police and prosecutors a few hours earlier, the attorneys said the test results prove their clients did not sexually assault and beat a stripper hired to perform at a March 13 team party.

No charges have been filed in the case.

"There is no DNA evidence that shows she was touched by any of these boys," said attorney Joe Cheshire, who represents one of the team's captains.

The alleged victim, a 27-year-old student at a nearby college, told police she and another woman were hired to dance at the party. The woman told police that three men at the party dragged her into a bathroom, choked her, raped her and sodomized her.

The Associated Press does not name alleged victims in sexual assault cases.

The allegations have led to the resignation of coach Mike Pressler, the cancellation of the lacrosse season and the suspension of one player from school.

The case also led to days of protests on and off the Duke campus, and some of the players have moved for safety reasons.

According to court documents, only lacrosse team members were at the party. Authorities ordered 46 of the 47 players on Duke's lacrosse team to submit DNA samples to investigators, who compared them with evidence collected from the woman.

Because the woman said her attackers were white, the team's sole black player was not tested. It was not known whether investigators tested for DNA other than the players'.

Cheshire said the report indicated authorities took DNA samples from all over the alleged victim's body, including under her fingernails, and from her possessions, such as her cell phone and her clothes.

"They swabbed about every place they could possibly swab from her, in which there could be any DNA," he said.

District Attorney Mike Nifong has said he would have other evidence to make his case should the DNA analysis prove inconclusive or fail to match a member of the team.

While Nifong's assistant told the AP on Monday the prosecutor would not comment on the findings, Nifong told The News & Observer of Raleigh he believes a sexual assault took place.

"I'm not saying it's over," he told the newspaper. "If that's what they expect, they will be sadly disappointed."

North Carolina Central University, where the alleged victim is a student, said after the results were released that the prosecutor would appear at a campus forum on Tuesday to discuss the case.

"The truth is if you speak to crime lab directors, they will tell you that in only a relatively small number of cases is there any DNA evidence," said Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project.

Cheshire said even if the alleged attackers used a condom, it's likely there would have been some DNA evidence found suggesting an assault took place. He said in this case, the report states there was no DNA on her to indicate that she had sex of any type recently.

"The experts will tell you that if there was a condom used they would still be able to pick up DNA, latex, lubricant and all other types of things to show that -- and that's not here," Cheshire said.

Stan Goldman, who teaches criminal law, evidence and criminal procedure at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the DNA results don't mean that Nifong can't go forward with the case -- but the test results make a successful prosecution much harder.

"Isn't the absence of DNA evidence, given the way the victim has described the crime, in and of itself almost enough to raise a reasonable doubt?" he said. "That's all the defense has to do."

Robert Archer, whose son, Breck, is a member of the lacrosse team, said the test results only confirmed for parents what they already knew.

"I know the kids on the team and I know they're innocent," said Archer, of East Quogue, N.Y.

It may still be a good idea to suspend the season of a team that had a party with booze and strippers, even if there was no rape.

It may still be a good idea to ask for the resignation of said team's head coach, even if there was no rape.

Super Bowl XL Champion Steelers Update. (Hines Ward Is A Hero Division.)

Hines Ward (R) of the Pittsburgh Steelers and his mother, Kim Young-hee, pose after a news conference in Seoul April 11, 2006.


Once again, sport proves to be more than just fun and games. If taught properly, sport builds character in young men, changing them from barbarians into gentlemen.


Super Bowl star Hines Ward meets mixed race Korean children
phillyburbs.com - Beaming Kim Gwan-woo couldn't hide his excitement at getting to meet Super Bowl star Hines Ward, a hero that the 7-year-old Korean boy wants to emulate.


Football star Ward ends tearful trip to S.Korea
Reuters - Korean-American football star Hines Ward wound up a trip to South Korea that saw him play catch with the president and shed tears in public by saying on Tuesday he wants to help mixed-race children in the country.


Finder: Hines Ward scores big for social change
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Imagine that: Hines Ward as Martin Luther King Jr. Little did the Steelers Nation know, the man is more than mirth and grit, more than smiles and miles of receptions, more than big plays and big blocks.


Steelers Notebook: Ward to help judge Miss USA pageant
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Apr 10 9:04 PMHines Ward , crowned MVP of the Super Bowl, will help pick the belle of the ball as one of nine judges on the celebrity panel for the Miss USA pageant April 21 in Baltimore.


Ward spins biracial roots into blessing
USA Today - "I was a lost child," Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward says. "I wasn't accepted in the black community because I was Korean, and I wasn't accepted in the Korean community because I was black." He blamed his Korean mother for the teasing he got on the playground in suburban Atlanta.


'Uncle' Hines Ward popular with Korean children
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - Pittsburgh Steelers star Hines Ward and seven-year-old Kim Gwan-woo have the same parental background: Their mothers are Korean and their fathers African-Americans once stationed in South Korea as U.S. service members.


Ward a South Korean inspiration
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - Chang Ye Eu, a sinewy 19-year old, doesn't know the difference between a field goal and first down. But when she heard that Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver and Super Bowl most valuable player Hines Ward was returning this week to the nation of his birth, she could not fight back tears of joy.


Super Bowl MVP Hines Ward meets Korean doctor who delivered him
Slam! Sports - (AP) - Super Bowl MVP Hines Ward met the doctor Thursday who delivered him in South Korea 30 years ago. Born to a Korean mother and an African-American soldier, Ward and his family left South Korea when he was a baby.

From The My Idiot Italian Cousins Department:

AP: Challenger Wins by Tiny Margin in Italy
Center-left challenger Romano Prodi claimed an outright electoral victory Tuesday over Premier Silvio Berlusconi before official results were in, but the slim margin could return Italy to political paralysis and instability.


On the other hand, there is some good news from the wilds of Sicily.


CNN.com: Italy arrests Mafia supremo

Bernardo Provenzano, the chief of the Sicilian Mafia who has been on the run for more than four decades and was Italy's most wanted man, has been arrested near Corleone in Sicily, officials said.

Dumb Cop of the Day.

AP: Woman, 82, Gets Ticket for Slow Crossing

An 82-year-old woman received a $114 ticket for taking too long to cross a street. Mayvis Coyle said she began shuffling with her cane across Foothill Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley when the light was green, but was unable to make it to the other side before it turned red.

She said the motorcycle officer who ticketed her on Feb. 15 told her she was obstructing traffic.

"I think it's completely outrageous," said Coyle, who described herself as a Cherokee medicine woman. "He treated me like a 6-year-old, like I don't know what I'm doing."

Los Angeles police Sgt. Mike Zaboski of the Valley Traffic Division said police are cracking down on people who improperly cross streets because pedestrian accidents are above normal. He said he could not comment on Coyle's ticket other than to say that it is her word against that of the citing officer, identified only as Officer Kelly.

"I'd rather not have angry pedestrians," Zaboski said. "But I'd rather have them be alive."

Just nail their doors shut, you moron. That'll keep them off the streets.

Others, however, supported Coyle's contention that the light in question doesn't give people enough time to cross the busy, five-lane boulevard.

"I can go halfway, then the light changes," said Edith Krause, 78, who uses an electric cart because she has difficulty walking.

On Friday, the light changed too quickly even for high school students to make it across without running. It went from green to red in 20 seconds.
Councilwoman Wendy Greuel said she has asked transportation officials to figure out how to accommodate elderly people.

"We should look at those areas with predominantly seniors and accommodate their needs in intersections" she said.

Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.

Today is Tuesday of Holy Week.

Today is also the Feast of St. Stanislaus, Bishop and patron of Cracow. He was murdered while saying Mass by King Boleslaus the Bold after Stanislaus had excommunicated the king for his numerous atrocities. Pray for us, all you angels and saints.

Today's reading is Isaias 49:1-6.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 71:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 15, 17.
Today's Gospel reading is John 13:21-33, 36-38.


[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]


Everyday links:

The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today


Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.


Memorare

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.


St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.


Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire

Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)


Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Even non-Ward Churchill employing colleges stink out loud.

From Best of the Web Today:

Academentia Watch--I
"Anti-Semitic leaflets appeared in publicly-accessible locations outside at least one upperclass House and several Yard dorms yesterday," reports the Harvard Crimson:

One of the fliers carries the name of National Vanguard, a Charlottesville, Va.-based organization that, in its own words, "stands up for the interests of White people." The flier claims that "Jewish interest groups have been at the forefront of nearly all the negative changes which have taken place in the White world during the last 100 years."

It also warns that "interracial sex is unsafe."

A second flier charges that the invasion of Iraq was "a war for
Israel," and it claims that U.S. policy toward Israel "is an expression of the Jewish-Zionist grip on America's political and cultural life."

We know where you think we're going with this, but you're wrong. It wouldn't be fair. After all, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer didn't say anything about interracial sex.



Academentia Watch--II
From London's Sunday Telegraph:

The London bombings were not acts of terrorism but "a demonstration," according to a senior academic.

Prof Ron Geaves has sparked controversy by claiming that the attacks on Tube trains and a bus that killed 52 innocent people in July were part of a long history of protests by British Muslims.

He also said that to refer to the attacks as terrorism risked
"demonising" those involved.

A British Muslim leader disagrees:

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, also insisted that the attacks were acts of "criminality" and "terrorism."

He said Prof Geaves's comments were unhelpful because they could actually be seized upon by people seeking reasons to target Muslims.

"For me, the definition of terrorism is when an innocent human life is lost. These bombings were an act of criminality and terrorism because that loss occurred.

"No motive can justify an act of terrorism. I think this kind of
speculation is unhelpful because it is taken seriously by some sections of the community who want to demonise Muslims."

There is something about academic life that seems to encourage a complete detachment from reality. Here's a very different example, from the New Hampshire, student newspaper of the University of New Hampshire:

In a light-hearted opening of the 14th Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Allies (LGBTQIA) Pancake Breakfast, [Toni] Bisconti, Associate Professor of psychology and Master of Ceremonies, welcomed
guests with a karaoke rendition, along with a slide show, of Nelson's new, controversial, pro-gay rights song. . . .

In her closing speech, Bisconti ripped open her jacket and revealed an "I love lesbians" t-shirt. After this semester, Bisconti will be returning to her home state of Ohio, with her partner, to teach at the University of Akron and she told the crowd how hard it was going to be to go from a blue state to a
red one.

She told the crowd members, sitting at round tables surrounded by pink, purple, and blue balloons, that she is not afraid to wear the shirt around campus. Ohio, she says, will be a different story. When someone yelled from their seat, "Make it blue," Bisconti replied, "That's what we're going to do."

Does anyone believe there is a secular university in America where anyone would be "afraid" to wear a pro-gay T-shirt? A quick perusal of the University of Akron Web site turns up a page for the LGBTU. Granted, it's only a U and not a QIA, but still, Bisconti is suffering from delusions if she thinks she's going to be persecuted there.

Gratuitous Senna Matsuda (Fyodor's favorite Japanese idol) Photos of the Day.

Ah, Senna...these Baby Doll shots are all-timers. Words can't do her justice.





Sadly, Japanese idol girls have a very short "shelf life". I haven't seen anything new from Senna in years.




For all I know, she still might be modeling and acting in Japan. There is a DVD available called High School Ghosthustlers (or something like that) that stars Senna as a ghost fighting teen trying to rid her school of malevolent spirits.























Ya gotta love those Chuck Taylor hightops!

The mental health industry's crackup continues apace.

From National Review Online comes the sad story of the medical profession's failure to help those with mental illness.

A Statement of Madness
The new guidelines for treating mental illness need help.
By Sally Satel

Imagine your brother has schizophrenia. When he takes his medications, he can hold a part-time job in a mom and pop hardware store. When he stops the drugs — something he does every few years because he simply does not perceive himself to be sick — your brother becomes hostile, wildly delusional (believing the radios in the hardware store are pulling thoughts out of his head), and does not come home for days at a time, sleeping in the street and eating out of garbage cans.

Clearly, your brother is someone who needs to take those medications regularly. Unfortunately, like about one-half of all patients with psychotic illnesses, he lacks insight into his condition. In fact, he thinks the medications are for a bad cold he caught back in 1988, and unless watched closely by his psychiatrist and family (he lives with his parents who dole out the meds daily), he could easily neglect to take them.

Recently, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), part of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, has released its Consensus Statement of Mental Health Recovery. It is a travesty of psychiatric care. In fact, if a psychiatrist treating patients with severe mental illness followed most of the ten “fundamental” principles of recovery elaborated in the statement, he would be at risk of committing malpractice.

The statement, according to the press release, was “developed through deliberations by over 110 expert panelists representing mental health consumers [the politically correct term for psychiatric patient], families, providers, advocates, researchers, managed care organizations, state and local public officials and others.” I wasn’t one of them. Despite being a member of the Advisory Council for the Center for Mental Health Services (the arm of SAMHSA expressly devoted to the nation's mental health services), neither I nor several other members, nor the council as a body, was shown the document and asked to comment.

Consider some of the “Fundamental Concepts of Recovery” from the Consensus Statement:

Concept #1 Self-Direction: "Consumers lead, control, exercise choice over, and determine their own path of recovery by optimizing autonomy, independence, and control of resources to achieve a self-determined life. By definition, the recovery process must be self-directed by the individual, who defines his or her own life goals and designs a unique path towards those goals."

Concept #2: Individualized and Person-Centered: "There are multiple pathways to recovery based on an individual’s unique strengths and resiliencies as well as his or her needs, preferences, experiences (including past trauma), and cultural background..."

Concept # 3: Empowerment: "Consumers have the authority to choose from a range of options and to participate in all decisions — including the allocation of resources — that will affect their lives, and are educated and supported in so doing. They have the ability to join with other consumers to collectively and effectively speak for themselves about their needs, wants, desires, and aspirations…"

Concept #9: Responsibility: "Consumers have a personal responsibility for their own self-care and journeys of recovery. Taking steps towards their goals may require great courage. Consumers must strive to understand and give meaning to their experiences and identify coping strategies and healing processes to promote their own wellness."

Reality check: How can a person like your hypothetical brother described above exercise full self-direction-empowerment-responsibility? His “choice” would be not to take his medication — a choice that leads to relapse rather than recovery. Should we let him, and the thousands like him, hit rock bottom every once in a while, as the Consensus Statement seems to suggest?

Bingo! It seems our psychiatric betters want to keep earning the big bucks while not taking any responsibility for their patients.

The list continues, rounded out by vague feel-good directives and descriptions. Recovery should be “holistic” yet it is a “non-linear” process, says the statement. What? Also, patients should be treated with “respect,” and, of course, there must be “hope.” Reminding “providers” of the need to respect patients and instill realistic hope is patronizing. Such principles are vital to good care, as we learn in medical school and residency. True, they are not always practiced, but this reflects the separate, real problem of the uneven quality of mental health treatment available.

This is déjà vu all over again. In 2003, President Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health released its report, "Achieving The Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America." President Bush had charged the 22-member group with making a "comprehensive study" that would "advise [him] on methods of improving the system."

Though more detailed and somewhat more sophisticated than the Consensus Statement, the Freedom Commission report was also woefully incomplete. It, too, failed to take on the most difficult cases, and considered severe mental illness only in terms of a "recovery model." The model holds that sufficient therapy, housing options, and employment programs will enable people with schizophrenia or manic-depressive illness to take charge of their lives. Many will, but thousands won't.

Is it not reasonable to doubt the capacity of the mentally ill to be responsible for themselves?

The problem with the recovery vision is that it is a dangerously partial vision. It sets up unrealistic expectations for those who will never fully "recover," no matter how hard they try, because their illness is so severe and their dependence on medications so great. By neglecting the needs of the most severely ill — that is, the individuals whose very awareness of being sick is blunted — the Consensus recovery guidelines are applicable to only half of those with mental illness. Picture the outrage that would be aimed at the National Cancer Institute if it sent out “recovery guidelines” on breast cancer that ignored half the clinical population of women with the disease.

What's more, exclusive emphasis on recovery as a goal steers policymakers away from making changes vital to the needs of the most severely disabled. (See here.)

Bless and protect Your most vulnerable children, Lord.

Every few years, there are calls to abolish SAMSHA, which was created in 1992. It should be. The main task of SAMSHA is to allocate the state mental-health and substance-abuse block grants. It is a bureaucracy that could be absorbed by the Health Resources Services Administration. Discretionary grants for pilot programs — those that can actually survive a rigorous review — could be controlled by evaluation scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The new Consensus Statement only fuels the well-deserved image of an agency that is often sorely misguided and naïve in its approach to the most vulnerable (and costly) of its constituents: the severely mentally ill.

— Sally Satel is a psychiatrist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She is co-author of One Nation Under Therapy, which will be released in paperback in June.

Let me guess. You KNOW Saddamy had no ties to Osama bin Goat Rape. You KNOW BushMonkey made it up.

Wrong. Deroy Murdock sets you straight at National Review Online:

Papers reveal Iraq-al Qaeda ties—again

With conservative congressional majorities (WTF??? - F.G.) at risk in next November's midterm election, President Bush repeatedly should remind everyone that a key reason Coalition troops invaded Iraq was to padlock Saddam Hussein's Wal-Mart for terrorists. Pressured by congressmen and journalists, the administration finally has started releasing intelligence documents captured in Baghdad. These papers confirm what The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, Wall Street Journal editorialists, and I have demonstrated for years: Saddam Hussein indeed was entwined with terrorists in general and al Qaeda in particular. Bush should explain this, in detail, in his speeches on Iraq.

These papers appear on the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office's website (http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm). The administration should create and promote a simple URL (e.g., iraqdocuments.gov) so readers easily can examine Hussein's terror ties.

According to a March 23 ABC News analysis of several records, "an official representative of Saddam Hussein's government met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan on February 19, 1995, after receiving approval from Saddam Hussein." Bin Laden requested that Baghdad broadcast into Saudi Arabia sermons by radical Saudi mullah Suleiman al Ouda. He also proposed, as one file says, "carrying out joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia.

The document states that Hussein was briefed on the March 4, 1995 meeting, and that further "development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties to be left according to what's open [in the future] based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation." This memo notes that after Sudan booted bin Laden, and he decamped to Afghanistan, "The relationship with him is still through the Sudanese. We're currently working on activating this relationship through a new channel in light of his current location."

Hussein approved bin Laden's requested broadcasts. As for "joint operations against foreign forces," ABC notes that "eight months after the meeting — on November 13, 1995 — terrorists attacked Saudi National Guard Headquarters in Riyadh, killing five U.S. military advisers. The militants later confessed on Saudi TV to having been trained by Osama bin Laden."

In the April 3 Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes cites a U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" on an Iraqi at Guantanamo. "From 1987 to 1989, the detainee served as an infantryman in the Iraqi Army and received training on the mortar and rocket propelled grenades," the document states. "A Taliban recruiter in Baghdad convinced the detainee to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in 1994," it continues. "The detainee was a member of al Qaeda," it adds. "In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars."

In a March 27 cover story, Hayes dissects an eight-page fax from Iraq's then-ambassador to Manila, Salah Samarmad, to Baghdad's foreign ministry. The June 6, 2001, communiqué reveals Baathist financing of Abu Sayyaf, al Qaeda's Philippine branch. That May 27, these terrorists abducted 20 tourists, including three Americans, on the resort island of Palawan. They soon beheaded Californian Guillermo Sobrero. A June 7, 2002, rescue liberated Kansas City missionary Gracia Burnham, though her husband, Martin, died in the crossfire. The Burnhams were seized while celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary.

Samarmad tried to loosen Hussein's embrace of these extremists.

"The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous year) receiving money and purchasing combat weapons," Ambassador Samarmad wrote headquarters. "From now on we (IIS) are not giving them this opportunity and are not on speaking terms with them," he added, mentioning the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

As former Clinton foreign-policy adviser Laurie Mylroie wrote April 2 on OpinionJournal.com, an order from Saddam Hussein dated January 18, 1993, reads: "Hunt Americans on Arab territory, particularly in Somalia." On October 3, 1993, Islamic zealots staged the so-called Blackhawk Down attack in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing 18 U.S. soldiers and wounding 73.

The Iraqi Perspectives Project, led by retired Army Lt. Colonel Kevin Woods for the U.S. Joint Forces Command, reviewed some of these papers and discovered an October 7, 2000, document titled "Correspondence from Presidential Office to Secretary General of the Fedayeen Saddam Regarding Foreign Arab Volunteers." The FS, as this document indicates, operated paramilitary training camps that hosted "Arab volunteers from Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, 'the Gulf,' and Syria" who were "sacrificing for the cause."

Lebanese-born Joseph Shahda translated Document BIAP 2003-00654 for FreeRepublic.com. Dated March 11, 2001, this top-secret letter is addressed "To all the Units" from Air Brigadier General Abdel Magid Hammot Ali, Commander of Ali Bin Abi Taleb Air Force Base, and Air Colonel Mohamad Majed Mohamadi. The subject is "Volunteer for Suicide Mission." It reads, "We ask to provide...[Command of Ali Military] Division with the names of those who desire to volunteer for Suicide Mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American Interests."

"This idea that Saddam Hussein was some sort of isolationist dictator holed up in his palace and just happy to have his hands around the throats of his own people was inaccurate," Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R., Calif.), chairman of the House International Relations Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee tells me. "He saw himself as a Saladin and had contacts with people around the world who hated the United States, because he hated the United States."

Rohrbacher, who conducted a hearing Thursday on these documents, wishes Team Bush would move more quickly to release these papers. "This administration is overly protective and, I think, overly restrictive, and a little bit arrogant," he says. "My advice to President Bush is what Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich.) and I suggested in the first place: Get as much information out to the public as fast as you can, and let people make their own determinations based on what they see in the documents. So much of this has been held up for so long, in part so the government can control distribution of the documents. Forget distribution. Let it all hang out, and let people decide for themselves."

Senator Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) shares Rohrbacher's impatience. "The pace with which these documents are being released is inadequate," Santorum said March 28 in the Senate chamber. Of the "48,000 boxes, containing roughly 2 million documents,...less than 2 percent of the documents have been translated. At this pace, my grandchildren may know what is in these documents."

Yet another reason to re-elect Mr. Santorum.

Still, even at a trickle, what is emerging is unsettling.

The May-June 2006 Foreign Affairs cites a May 25, 1999, text titled "Fedayeen Saddam Instructions" in which Uday Hussein, the tyrant's older son, orders "special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas" [Kurdistan]. As authors Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray observe, "Preparations for 'Blessed July,' a regime-directed wave of 'martyrdom' operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion."

President Bush repeatedly should remind everyone that Coalition forces liberated Iraq on April 9, 2003, less than three months before "Blessed July."

That freakish "baptist" cult from Kansas continues its rebellion.

Remember the "Reverend" Fred Phelps and his looney followers? They found their way to Sodom on the Potomac and proceeded to insult Our Boys.


Army Hospital Picketers: 'Thank God for Maimed Soldiers'
See Video of Protest at Walter Reed Army Hospital

(CNSNews.com) - The man responsible for the "GodHatesFags.com" and "GodHatesAmerica.com" websites picketed the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Thursday with a dozen of his family members and followers. They carried signs stating "Thank God for Maimed Soldiers," "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "God Hates You."

Fred Phelps, pastor of the independent Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., claimed the injuries and fatalities suffered by American military personnel are the product of God's wrath.

"God almighty is punishing this evil nation by killing their kids over in Iraq and by maiming, crippling and mangling their kids over in Iraq," Phelps told Cybercast News Service. "This nation is going to continue to be punished by God until they repent, but we don't believe they're going to repent." See video.

Phelps believes military personnel share the blame for court decisions and legislation favoring homosexuality, even if those service members do not support that lifestyle.

"It's irrelevant whether they as individuals support them. They joined an army and became a part of a military establishment, voluntarily, knowing that that military establishment was packed and jammed with homosexuals," Phelps argued. "If they join an army that they know is a sodomite army and fight for a nation that they know is a sodomite nation, they are equally guilty."

Because of time restraints, we now move to further action.

Don Smith of Maryland turned up the volume on his opposition to Phelps' protest. The owner of what he described as "the loudest Harley I know of," Smith brought his motorcycle and had other friends bring theirs to wait for Phelps' group.

Shortly after Phelps and his followers marched into position -- singing "God Hates America" to the tune of "God Bless America" -- Smith and his friends started their engines.

In law enforcement and military circles, the procedure is called "acoustical countermeasures." Smith referred to it as "protestus interruptus."

Heehee!

"I understand First Amendment rights, but my personal feeling is, there [is] a time and a place for everything," Smith argued. "These people are protesting at funerals of guys -- men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and outside a funeral or outside an Army hospital, holding signs that say 'God Hates Wounded Soldiers.' It's not the time or the place."

After approximately 30 minutes of no one being able to hear their chants and songs over the motorcycles, a large group of off-duty military personnel in civilian clothes approached Phelps' followers and began verbally challenging the anti-military signs. Phelps' group packed their belongings and walked away, followed briefly by the servicemen.

Members of FreeRepublic.com and TroopsSupport.com immediately took up positions on all four corners of the intersection at the main gate to the hospital, waiving American flags and displaying signs supporting the troops.

Krauthammer on those pesky Mexicans.

Since we're hanging out in Citizen Krauthammer 's neck of the woods, I thought I would bring you another bit of brilliance in which he agrees with Your Humble Servant.

My proposition is the following: a vast number of Americans who oppose legalization and fear new waves of immigration would change their minds if we could radically reduce new -- i.e., future -- illegal immigration.

Forget employer sanctions. Build a barrier. It is simply ridiculous to say it cannot be done. If one fence won't do it, then build a second 100 yards behind it. And then build a road for patrols in between. Put cameras. Put sensors. Put out lots of patrols.

Can't be done? Israel's border fence has been extraordinarily successful in keeping out potential infiltrators who are far more determined than mere immigrants. Nor have very many North Koreans crossed into South Korea in the last 50 years.

Of course it will be ugly. So are the concrete barriers to keep truck bombs from driving into the White House. But sometimes necessity trumps aesthetics. And don't tell me that this is our Berlin Wall. When you build a wall to keep people in, that's a prison. When you build a wall to keep people out, that's an expression of sovereignty. The fence around your house is a perfectly legitimate expression of your desire to control who comes into your house to eat, sleep and use the facilities. It imprisons no one.

Of course, no barrier will be foolproof. But it doesn't have to be. It simply has to reduce the river of illegals to a manageable trickle...

Charles Krauthammer whacks Francis Fukuyama.

Citizen Fukuyama is right just often enough so you can't call him a complete crackpot. But he is wrong often enough to make you wonder why anyone pays attention to him.

Citizen Krauthammer catches ol' Fran in a lie as Fukuyama's intellectual odyssey lurches onto yet another tangent. (I know, I know. I'm sure he believes he's the most logically consistent and intellectually honest man in the room. Don't we all?)

It was, as the hero tells it, his Road to Damascus moment. There he is, in a hall of 1,500 people he has long considered to be his allies, hearing the speaker treat the Iraq War, nearing the end of its first year, as "a virtually unqualified success." He gasps as the audience enthusiastically applauds. Aghast to discover himself in a sea of comrades so deluded by ideology as to have lost touch with reality, he decides he can no longer be one of them.
And thus did Francis Fukuyama become the world's most celebrated ex-neoconservative, a well-timed metamorphosis that has brought him a piece of the fame that he once enjoyed 15 years ago as the man who declared, a mite prematurely, that history had ended.

A very nice story. It appears in the preface to Fukuyama's post-neocon coming out, "America at the Crossroads.'' Last Sunday it was repeated on the front page of The New York Times Book Review in Paul Berman's review.

I happen to know something about this story, as I was the speaker whose 2004 Irving Kristol lecture to the American Enterprise Institute Fukuyama has now brought to prominence. I can therefore testify that Fukuyama's claim that I attributed "virtually unqualified success'' to the war is a fabrication.

A convenient fabrication -- it gives him a foil and the story drama -- but a foolish one because it can be checked. The speech was given at the Washington Hilton before a full house, carried live on C-SPAN and then published by the American Enterprise Institute under its title "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World.'' (It can be read here.)

As indicated by the title, the speech was not about Iraq. It was a fairly theoretical critique of the four schools of American foreign policy: isolationism, liberal internationalism, realism and neoconservatism. The only successes I attributed to the Iraq War were two, and both self-evident: (1) that it had deposed Saddam Hussein and (2) that this had made other dictators think twice about the price of acquiring nuclear weapons, as evidenced by the fact that Gaddafi had turned over his secret nuclear program for dismantlement just months after Saddam's fall (in fact, on the very week of Saddam's capture).

In that entire 6,000-word lecture, I said not a single word about the course or conduct of the Iraq War. My only reference to the outcome of the war came toward the end of the lecture. Far from calling it an unqualified success, virtual or otherwise, I said quite bluntly that "it may be a bridge too far. Realists have been warning against the hubris of thinking we can transform an alien culture because of some postulated natural and universal human will to freedom. And they may yet be right.''

We do not yet know. History will judge whether we can succeed in "establishing civilized, decent, nonbelligerent, pro-Western polities in Afghanistan and Iraq.'' My point then, as now, has never been that success was either inevitable or at hand, only that success was critically important to "change the strategic balance in the fight against Arab-Islamic radicalism.''

I made the point of repeating the problematic nature of the enterprise: "the undertaking is enormous, ambitious and arrogant. It may yet fail.''
For Fukuyama to assert that I characterized it as "a virtually unqualified success'' is simply breathtaking. My argument then, as now, was the necessity of this undertaking, never its assured success. And it was necessary because, as I said, there is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the root causes of 9/11: "the cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance, and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world -- oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism.''

Fukuyama's book is proof of this proposition about the lack of the plausible alternative. The alternative he proposes for the challenges of 9/11 -- new international institutions, new forms of foreign aid and sundry other forms of "soft power'' -- is a mush of bureaucratic make-work in the face of a raging fire. Even Berman, his sympathetic reviewer, concludes that "neither his old arguments nor his new ones offer much insight into this, the most important problem of all -- the problem of murderous ideologies and how to combat them.''

Fukuyama now says that he had secretly opposed the Iraq War before it was launched. An unusual and convenient reticence, notes Irwin Stelzer, editor of "The Neocon Reader,'' for such an inveterate pamphleteer, letter writer and essayist. After public opinion had turned against the war, Fukuyama then courageously came out against it. He has every right to change his mind at his convenience. He has no right to change what I said.

Did you ever wonder what all those union members whose dues support Democrass pols think about amnesty for illegal immigrants?

Psychotic European Cow of the Day.

And you wonder why your ancestors left the old country?

Traditional Mothers Face Discrimination
by Joseph A. D'Agostino

Thus the logic of feminism: A prominent female member of the Dutch parliament has proposed fining college-educated Dutch women who choose to be homemakers rather than work. Sharon Dijksma, deputy chairwoman of the Dutch Labor Party, provides yet more evidence that feminism was never about giving women choices but about destroying the family in order to enhance the power of the state.

"A highly-educated woman who chooses to stay at home and not to work -- that is destruction of capital," Dijksma said, according to the English-language Brussels Journal on March 31.

Behold! This is the intersection of totalitarian leftism and capitalist corporatism unchecked by Christian morals! (BTW, The Catholic Church has been warning the world about both since the late nineteenth century. You're welcome.)

"If you receive the benefit of an expensive education at society's expense, you should not be allowed to throw away that knowledge unpunished." In the Netherlands, the state pays for college tuition.

Unbelievable.

Thus, too, the logic of socialism: The people are taxed heavily, then provided with "free" services, and then, because the government has deigned to return some of the people's tax money back to them, politicians and bureaucrats get to run the people's lives. Just as feminism here in the states has advanced to where feminist leaders openly criticize the Bush Administration for promoting marriage to single mothers and the fathers of their children, prominent feminists in Western Europe are now openly hostile toward homemakers.

The logical conclusion of rebellion is death for those who resist.

Dijksma wants to extract some of the cost of their college education from the women who love their children more than paid work, and who are fortunate enough to have husbands who can enable them to stay home. This despite the continued rise of women's labor force participation in the Netherlands. "Between 2001 and 2005, the number of Dutch women aged between 15 and 65 who were out on the labour market rose from 55.9 to 58.7%," reported the Journal. And this despite the cataclysmic drop in Dutch birthrates.

You would think Dutch leaders would want to encourage child-rearing, and homemakers are far more likely to have more than one child than full-time career women. Currently, Dutch women average 1.7 children over their lives, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. The large Muslim population of the nation has a disproportionately large number of children, and given most European Muslims’ attitudes toward women's education, few Muslim wives are likely to be affected by Dijksma's proposal. Yet Dijksma wants to promote a policy that will drive down the native Dutch population’s birthrate even further.

Since our own left-fascists seem to have fallen in love with immigrants all of a sudden, let's compromise. You agree to wall off Mexico, and we'll allow a flood of beautiful, educated Dutch chicks looking for American men to support them to wash ashore.

For La Dijksma and her ilk: Good riddance, you stinking tulip-tenders.

She might consider that having a relatively small proportion of prolific homemakers could raise the Dutch birthrate. If 20% of Dutch women had four children each and the rest averaged 1.5, the Netherlands would be almost at replacement rate fertility. If the Dutch government made it easier, rather than harder, for women to stay home and have more children but only a little more than 1 out of 5 women took advantage of it, the Netherlands could be saved from the nation’s suicidal birthrate.

Our own country has many forms of discrimination against traditional mothers. Institutionalized discrimination against men (called "affirmative action for women") harms not only men, but those homemaking women married to them and their children, who suffer because the husband and father of the family loses a job or a promotion because of a quota.

It also harms those many women, and their children, who work part-time and depend on their husbands' careers for their future security. The federal tax code grants breaks for day care but none for homemakers. Those who home-school must pay full taxes for public schools anyway.

It's not as if American women didn’t want to be homemakers: 77% of working mothers say they’d rather be home.

That's democracy, baby. Hitlery, call your office.

Yet feminists, so enamored of choice when it comes to abortion and homosexuality, aren't trying to help these three-quarters of working mothers achieve their desires. Quite the opposite. Don't think that Dijksma's plan comes from a marginal Dutch political faction. "In the municipal elections earlier this month, the PvdA [Dutch Labor Party] became the biggest party in the Netherlands thanks to the Muslim vote," says the Journal. "The PvdA is generally expected to win the general elections next year, when the 35-year-old Dijksma, who has been an MP since she was 23 and is a leading figure in the party, might become a government minister." The Dutch Labor Party's website carries a favorable treatment of her proposal. "If you receive the benefit of an expensive education at the cost of society, you should not be allowed to throw away that knowledge unpunished," Dijksma says, according to Expatica News.

Kill them, Sharon. (What's up with all broads named Sharon going nuts lately?) Kill all who oppose your vision of the future of hupersonty! How dare they defy you? You are modernity incarnate!

Needless to say, having an educated women with her children all day is not a waste of anything.

Mr. D'Agostino, former Associate Editor of HUMAN EVENTS, is Vice President for Communications at the Population Research Institute.

The Theology of the Body: 82. Voluntary Continence Derives From a Counsel, Not From a Command

In his General Audience of 23 June 1982, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on Theology of the Body, by addressing St. Paul's treatment of virginity and marriage. Consecrated virginity is a matter of counsel, not command, so that marriage is no sin, though voluntary virginity is better.


Voluntary Continence Derives From a Counsel, Not From a Command

On Wednesday, 23 June, Pope John Paul resumed his catechesis on the value of voluntary continence, basing his audience message on St. Paul's treatment of the theme of virginity or celibacy.


1. Having analyzed Christ's words reported in Matthew's Gospel (Mt 19:10-12), it is now fitting to pass on to Paul's treatment of virginity and marriage.

Christ's statement about continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is concise and fundamental. In Paul's teaching, as we will soon be convinced, we can distinguish a correlating of the words of the Master. However, the significance of his statement (1 Cor 7) taken as a whole is assessed in a different way. The greatness of Paul's teaching consists in the fact that in presenting the truth proclaimed by Christ in all its authenticity and identity, he gives it a stamp of his own. In a certain sense it is his own personal interpretation, but it is drawn primarily from the experiences of his apostolic missionary activity, and perhaps directly from the necessity to answer the concrete questions of those to whom this activity was directed. So in Paul we encounter the question of the mutual relationship between marriage and celibacy or virginity. This subject troubled the minds of the first generation of Christ's confessors, the generation of disciples, of apostles, of the first Christian communities. This happened through the converts from hellenism, therefore from paganism, more than through the converts from Judaism. And this can explain the fact that the subject appears precisely in a letter addressed to the community in Corinth.

2. The tone of the whole statement is without doubt a magisterial one. However, the tone as well as the language is also pastoral. Paul teaches the doctrine handed down by the Master to the apostles. At the same time he engages in a continuous conversation on the subject in question with the recipients of his letter. He speaks as a classical teacher of morality, facing and resolving problems of conscience. Therefore moralists love to turn preferably to the explanations and resolutions of this first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 7). However it is necessary to remember that the ultimate basis for those resolutions is sought in the life and teaching of Christ himself.

3. The Apostle emphasizes with great clarity that virginity, or voluntary continence, derives exclusively from a counsel and not from a commandment: "With regard to virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my opinion." Paul gives this opinion "as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord and merits your trust" (1 Cor 7:25). As is seen from the words quoted, the Apostle, just as the Gospel (cf. Mt 19:11-12), distinguishes between counsel and commandment. On the basis of the doctrinal rule of understanding proclaimed teaching, he wants to counsel. He wishes to give his personal opinions to those who turned to him. So in First Corinthians (chapter 7), the counsel clearly has two different meanings. The author states that virginity is a counsel and not a commandment. At the same time he gives his opinions to persons already married and also to those who still must make a decision in this regard, and finally to those who have been widowed. The problem is substantially the same as the one which we meet in the whole statement of Christ reported by Matthew (19:2-12): first on marriage and its indissolubility, and then on voluntary continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Nevertheless, the style of this problem is totally his own. It is Paul's.

4. "If however someone thinks he is not behaving properly with regard to his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes; he does not sin. Let them marry! But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So then, he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage does better" (1 Cor 7:36-38).

5. The one who had sought advice could have been a young man who found himself faced with the decision to take a wife, or perhaps a newlywed who in the face of the current asceticism existing in Corinth was reflecting on the direction to give to his marriage. It could have even been a father, or the guardian of a girl, who had posed the question of her marriage. In any case, it would deal directly with the decision that derives from their rights as guardians. Paul is writing at a time when decisions in general belonged more to parents and guardians than to the young people themselves. Therefore, in answering in this way the question that was addressed to him, he tried to explain very precisely that the decision about continence, that is, about the life of virginity, must be voluntary, and that only such continence is better than marriage. The expressions, "he does well," "he does better," are completely univocal in this context.

6. So then the Apostle teaches that virginity, or voluntary continence, the young woman's abstention from marriage, derives exclusively from a counsel, and given the appropriate circumstances, it is better than marriage. The question of sin does not enter in any way. "Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries, she does not sin" (1 Cor 7:27-28). Solely on the basis of these words, we certainly cannot make judgments on what the Apostle was thinking or teaching about marriage. This subject will indeed be partially explained in the context of First Corinthians (chapter 7) and more fully in Ephesians (Eph 5:21-33). In our case, he is probably dealing with the answer to the question of whether marriage is a sin. One could also think that in such a question there might be some influence from dualistic pro-gnostic currents, which later become encratism and Manichaeism. Paul answers that the question of sin absolutely does not enter into play here. It is not a question of the difference between good and evil, but only between good and better. He later goes on to justify why one who chooses marriage will do well and one who chooses virginity, or voluntary continence, will do better.

We will treat of Paul's argumentation in our next reflection.

Saudi Arabia plans 560-mile fence along the entire length of Iraq border...

...Golly, you'd think CowardlyCuriousGeorge FlyingBushMonkey would take a hint from his Saudi masters and stop the Mexican flood...

Saudi Arabia has invited bids for the construction of a security fence along the entire length of its 900km (560mile) desert border with Iraq in a multimillion-pound project that will attract interest from British defence companies.

The barrier is part of a package to secure the Kingdom’s 6,500km of borders in an attempt to improve internal security and bolster its defences against external threats.

Saudi Arabia is concerned that the chaos in Iraq could cause an overspill of sectarian violence and terrorism. The kingdom claims to be winning the battle against al-Qaeda’s Saudi wing but wants to protect itself against Saudi insurgents returning from Iraq. (Thanks to the Times of London and Drudge for the heads up.)

Seymour Hersh: Bush 'is planning nuclear strikes on Iran's secret sites'

Read carefully, kiddies. Nuclear weapons are the last option. That's why we keep improving our conventional weapons, so we don't have to use nukes to get the job done.

BTW, Seymour isn't above sensationalizing a story to make waves. He was the one who first labeled the Abu Grab-u hijinks "torture".

The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads, claims an investigative writer with high-level Pentagon and intelligence contacts.

President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, that privately he refers to him as "the new Hitler", says Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

Some US military chiefs have unsuccessfully urged the White House to drop the nuclear option from its war plans, Hersh writes in The New Yorker magazine. The conviction that Mr Ahmedinejad would attack Israel or US forces in the Middle East, if Iran obtains atomic weapons, is what drives American planning for the destruction of Teheran's nuclear programme.

Hersh claims that one of the plans, presented to the White House by the Pentagon, entails the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One alleged target is Iran's main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, 200 miles south of Teheran.
Although Iran claims that its nuclear programme is peaceful, US and European intelligence agencies are certain that Teheran is trying to develop atomic weapons. In contrast to the run-up to the Iraq invasion, there are no disagreements within Western intelligence about Iran's plans.

Golly, I must be getting forgetful. I don't remember Citizen Hersh's front page expose on that disagreement among Western spy services over Iraq.

Town Sees Nuclear Plans as a Boon, Not a Threat

Could reality actually be winning the battle against totalitarian leftism disguised as science?

From Drudge: Local governments and residents embracing new nuke plants -- with enthusiasm...

Bill Whelchel, working the main chair at Elmore's Barber Shop on Limestone Street, paused the clippers above his customer's half-sculptured crew cut to consider the question of atomic energy.

"I'm not worried at all about putting in a new nuclear power plant," said Mr. Whelchel, 76. "We're used to nuclear power around here. Plus, it'll create jobs, and one thing I've learned is that working people are happy people."

More than a quarter century after the accident at Three Mile Island and two decades after Chernobyl, America's utilities stand at the early edge of what promises to be the first large-scale wave of nuclear plant construction since the 1980's.

And the energy companies are finding — especially in the small, struggling Southeastern towns like Gaffney where most of the plants are planned — that memories of those tragedies have faded and that local governments and residents, eager for jobs and tax revenues to replace vanished industries, are embracing them with enthusiasm.

Indeed, none of Mr. Whelchel's half-dozen customers said they had any problem whatsoever with the idea of a nuclear facility going up down the road.

"I can't remember hearing a single negative comment from any local resident," Cody Sossamon, publisher of The Gaffney Ledger, said as he sat in his office out near the highway.

Driven partly by federal Department of Energy projections that demand for electrical power will increase 50 percent by 2025, and by recent federal legislation offering a more streamlined application process and financial incentives for new nuclear facilities, many utilities are eager to get back into the atomic business.

"We initially were looking at 14 communities in the Southeast, and then we narrowed that down to four," said Henry B. Barron Jr., chief nuclear officer for Duke Power, which announced last month that it would apply to build its first new nuclear plant in three decades just outside Gaffney. "I found no single individual who had any concerns about the plant. The few who did have concerns were worried about increased traffic on the roads during construction."

Big Babykilling (A wholly owned subsidiary of Antichrist Enterprises, Ltd.) fights back with the help of some useful idiots.

Boston Globe: Move to overturn S.D. abortion ban gains ground


No,"useful idiots" is not too strong a phrase. Check out Judie Brown's take:

From Human Events Online: For Pro-Lifers, Timing Is Everything

I was fully expecting such legislation to receive resounding, unanimous support from pro-life groups nationwide. While I am highly encouraged by the many solid organizations that are enthusiastically backing the new law and putting that support in writing, I am astonished to report that the unanimity I anticipated is regrettably absent.

The holdouts are admittedly few, but that short list includes some of the best-known organizations. It seems these folks are concerned that the South Dakota law is premature, that the timing is wrong, that it might cause more problems than it solves depending on how the Supreme Court handles it. That is, of course, if the Supreme Court ever gets an opportunity to address it. The comments from such groups are based on speculation. Not a one of those who are uttering such concerns have provided a single shred of evidence to support their view; and not a one of them has provided the rest of us with the inside track on the crystal ball they are using.

It's outlandish for any organization or individual who is identified as pro-life to argue that a bill banning all surgical and medical abortions is ill-timed. Such statements defy the heart of what the pro-life movement is all about.

Amen to that, Sister.

None of us are involved in this struggle to predict what nine Supreme Court justices may do, or what a campaign to obliterate abortion through public referendum might produce. We do what we do because babies are dying and we want to end the senseless crimes that produce thousands of dead bodies every single day.

I ask you, why isn't everyone listening to the wee small voices gleefully singing the praises of an effort to end this heinous act that has already murdered well over 40 million little ones?

The bottom line, kiddies? Don't let the antique media define the terms of any debate. South Dakota's abortion law isn't "ill-timed".

The Party of Blasphemy, Buggery, and 'Bortion Update.

No! Not the saintly Democrasses! Say it ain't so, Howie.

Republican Party Sees 'Trademark Pessimism' From Sen. John Kerry
(CNSNews.com) - Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) says the United States should set a specific date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops now fighting in Iraq. In News This Hour


House Dem Committed 250 Ethics Violations, Group Says
(CNSNews.com) - U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) has committed over 250 violations of House ethics rules, according to a conservative legal watchdog group. Full Story

BTW, kiddies, Citizen Mollohan just happens to be the ranking Democrass on the House Ethics Committee.

Religion of Peace and Love Update.

Apparently, the god the mohammedans worship insists they remain enslaved...

Democracy, Islamic Law Don't Mix, Iraqi Official Says
(CNSNews.com) - Despite President Bush's insistence that the Iraqi "people want there to be a democracy," a pro-American member of Iraq's new parliament claims there is "no relationship between Islam and democracy." Full Story


...and they don't have any qualms about making deals with virulently secular slavemasters, either...

Washington Times:Venezuela's Chavez turns to Iran on military, uranium


...Perhaps mohammedism should be renamed the Religion of Slavery and Cowardice...

Washington Times:Imams vow to preach values of Islam, West

...hmmmm, maybe not. I wish those gentlemen well.

Las Vegas Sun/AP:Bush Administration Tries to Dampen Talk of Iran Strike

Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.

Today is Monday of Holy Week.

Today is also the Feast of St. Beocca, an English martyr killed by marauding Danes in the ninth century. Pray for us, all you angels and saints.

Today's reading is Isaias 42:1-7.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 27:1, 2, 3, 13-14.
Today's Gospel reading is John 12:1-11.


[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]


Everyday links:

The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today


Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is

The Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.


Memorare

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.


St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.


Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire

Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)


Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.