In 1982, Peter Robinson was hired as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House. During the six years that followed, he was one of a core group of writers who became informal experts on Reagan--watching his every move, absorbing not just his political positions but his personality, manner, and way of carrying himself. And the example Reagan set--as a principled, honest, generous-spirited older man who inspired Robinson and those around him--molded Robinson's outlook just as he was coming into his own. "Hard work. A good marriage. A certain lightness of touch." he writes. "The longer I studied Ronald Reagan, the more lessons I learned."

How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life offers a survey of ten of these life lessons, illuminated by stories drawn from Reagan's life (and Robinson's), by anecdotes from the author's time at the White House, and by Robinson's warm and personable writing. Among them:

*When Life Buries You, Dig
*Easy Does It
*Do What You Can, Where You Are, with What You Have
*Life Is a Drama. Do Something
*Marriage Can Save Your Life

Drawing on interviews with dozens of Reagan intimates from throughout his life and twin careers--in politics and show business--Robinson offers a window onto Reagan the man, and how his story can serve as a model for anyone looking for guidance in how to make choices, pursue passions, and live an admirable life.

Am I an admirer of Ronald Reagan? I loved the man--just loved him.

Might it be that white Africans are held to higher standards of civility; thus their mistreatment of blacks is unacceptable, while blacks and Arabs are held to a lower standard of civility and their mistreatment of blacks is less offensive?

President Bush has pledged to send more foreign aid to some African nations. Foreign aid has historically gone to governments. Instead of helping the poor, foreign aid has enabled African tyrants to buy cronies and military equipment to stay in power, not to mention establishing multibillion dollar "retirement" accounts in Swiss banks, should their regime be toppled.

What African countries need, the West cannot give. In a word, what Africans need is personal liberty. That means a political system where there are guarantees of private property rights and rule of law. It's almost a no-brainer.

Now I discover there is even more cause for concern regarding Ginsburg's address to this group. The American Constitution Society is a highly partisan, political extremist organization with an agenda not to support the U.S. Constitution, but to undermine its most basic precepts. Is this the kind of audience responsible Supreme Court justices should be seeking?

[edit]

Ginsburg's appearance before this new extremist front group is just one more reason she should be impeached from the court. She swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Instead, she has used her position on the court to undermine it, to illegitimately usurp authority from the people and the states and to provide aid and to politicize a branch of the government that should be above partisanship and the narrow agendas of special-interest groups.

A survey of the entire American Constitution Society website shows one thing conspicuously absent – a copy of the U.S. Constitution!

Americans are three times as likely to believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus (83 percent) as in evolution (28 percent).
America is so pious that not only do 91 percent of Christians say they believe in the Virgin Birth, but so do an astonishing 47 percent of U.S. non-Christians.
Americans believe, 58 percent to 40 percent, that it is necessary to believe in God to be moral.

House GOP rejected bill on improving grid in '01
Chicago Tribune
August 15, 2003

Soon after the power failure began, the political sparks started to fly.

Democrats, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, criticized the federal government for not improving the nation's power grid.

...But a Democratic proposal in June 2001 to offer $350 million in federal loans and loan guarantees to improve power transmission systems was defeated by Bush's allies in the House.

The legislation was offered during the California energy crisis, and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said at the time, "It's pure demagoguery. If Democrats had an energy policy, they'd have had one in the last eight years" under President Bill Clinton.

FOX's Stand on Lawsuit Clarified

New York, August 13 (FOX News) -- A spokesman for Democratic People's Republic Of Fox News (DPRFN) Wednesday issued the following fair and balanced statement clarifying the DPRFN stand on its lawsuit: Some disturbing views and assertions intended to becloud the prospect of settling this lawsuit are heard from inside and outside the beltway with the lawsuit at hand.

Firstly, it wants to confirm Franken's willingness to make a switchover in his DPRFN policy.

A master key to the fair and balanced solution to the lawsuit between the DPRFN and Franken is for the latter to make a fundamental switchover in its hostile policy toward the former.

The issue surfaced and deteriorated as Franken listed the citizens of the DPRFN as "a bunch of idiots" and the target of preemptive mocking and maliciously refused to blindly accept of purported "fairness" and "balance.".

Therefore, the Franken switchover in his hostile policy towards the DPRFN comes as a precondition for the solution to the lawsuit.

It will be considered that Franken has practically given up his hostile policy toward the DPRFN when a fair and balanced non-aggression treaty with legal binding is concluded and civil relations are established between the DPRFN and Franken and it is made clear that Franken does not seek to obstruct economic cooperation between the DPRFN and ignorant Americans.

At the CSPAN discussion in May Franken tried to play a trick, not seeking to make a policy switchover. Because of the upcoming lawsuit, Franken will have to give an answer as regards the dramatic allegations made by the DPRFN for the settlement of the lawsuit between the two entities.

By the answer the DPRFN will judge whether Franken is willing to make a policy switchover or it will continue to play a trick.

If it is confirmed that the settlement talks are nothing but another pitfall for mocking the DPRFN in spite of its utmost magnanimity, the DPRFN will be left with no other option.

It is clear that as long as Franken insists on his hostile policy toward the DPRFN, the latter will not abandon its lawsuit deterrent force.

The proposal made by the DPRFN for the conclusion of hostilities between the DPRFN and Franken is aimed at avoiding a public media war and guaranteeing the security and prosperity of all the DPRFN employees. It is not a call for a "fairness and balance" by all the participants in the media at all.

Only Franken is threatening the DPRFN. The very source of the danger of media war is the hostile relations between the DPRFN and Franken and, to put it more concretely, Franken's hostile policy toward the DPRFN.

The other commentators, except Franken, unanimously oppose a war and, in this sense, have established good neighborly and friendly relations or are committed to not openly mocking the DPRFN.

The DPRFN and Franken stand in extreme hostile relations. So, the Franken steps of policy switchover and the steps for the solution of the lawsuit must be taken strictly on the principle of simultaneous action by both sides.

It is our immovable judgment that shunning a solution of the problem by simultaneous action and persisting in the DPRFN acting first are, in essence, intended to disarm it and swallow it up.

A fair and balanced solution of the problem can be sincerely discussed only by the method of "give-and-take" talks.

Chief Justice Roy Moore said Thursday he will not remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building as a federal court has ordered, but will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop any removal.

"I have no intention of removing the monument ...," he said. "This I cannot and will not do."

Although I believe the Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of our legal heritage and that they can be displayed constitutionally as they are in the U. S. Supreme Court building, I will not violate nor assist any person in the violation of this injunction. As Attorney General, I have a duty to obey all orders of courts even when I disagree with those orders. In this controversy, I will strive to uphold the rule of law. We have a government of laws, not of men. I will exercise any authority provided to me, under Alabama law, to bring the State into compliance with the injunction of the federal court, unless and until the Supreme Court of the United States rules in favor of Chief Justice Moore.”

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the conservative and controversial radio host, surprised many listeners and detractors last week when she announced she would no longer practice Judaism. Dr. Laura, who was raised in a non-religious household by a Catholic mother and a Jewish father, publicly converted to Orthodox Judaism five years ago. Now, however, she told her listeners on 300 radio stations, "My identifying with this entity and my fulfilling the rituals, etcetera, of the entity - that has ended." Dr. Laura, famous for condemning homosexuality as a "biological error," lamented her lack of support from the Jewish community. "By and large the faxes from Christians have been very loving, very supportive," she said. "From my own religion ... I don't get much back. Not much warmth coming back."

The Forward reports that Jewish leaders had mixed emotions about the news, but many seemed to agree that Schlessinger expected too much from the Jewish community. "Was Laura naive to think, 'gosh, I'll be the queen of the Jews?' Yes, she was naïve," fellow conservative radio host Michael Medved said. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who chastised Dr. Laura's stance on homosexuality on Beliefnet several years ago, agreed. "I never got great applause from my work from the Jewish community - but my people are my people, whether they love or hate me."

"The administration is not willing to confront going to the Security Council and saying, 'We really need to make Iraq an international operation.' You can make a case that it would be better to do that, but right now the situation in Iraq is not that dire."

Americans are saying, "We're willing to move pretty far on this issue, we're much more tolerant than we used to be, but don't mix it up with religion and God."

The Bush administration has abandoned the idea of giving the United Nations more of a role in the occupation of Iraq as sought by France, India and other countries as a condition for their participation in peacekeeping there, administration officials said today.

[edit]

The administration's position could complicate its hopes of bringing a large number of American troops home in short order. The length of the American occupation depends on how quickly the country can be stabilized and the attacks and uprisings brought under control.

The Bush administration has been reluctant to give the United Nations more than minimal authority in the reconstruction of Iraq. Many administration members say that France, Germany, Russia and other countries demanding such a role are actually doing so to try to get more contracts and economic benefits for themselves.

The desire for more United Nations involvement by many countries echoes the debate that preceded the war. Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others were openly disdainful of getting United Nations authorization for the war, even after Mr. Bush had sided with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to pursue that route.

Mr. Rumsfeld, according to administration officials, vehemently opposes any dilution of military authority over Iraq by involving the United Nations, either through United Nations peacekeepers or indirectly in any United Nations authorization of forces from other countries.

A developing story, noted by several bloggers already: Prophecy teacher Jack Van Impe says he's been invited to the White House to brief staffers on what's to come in the Middle East. "I am not sure whether [President Bush] knows all of the prophecies and how deep of a student he has been in God's Word, but I was contacted a few weeks ago by the Office of Public Liaison for the White House and by the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make an outline," Van Impe says on his website. "And I've spent hours preparing it. I will release this information to the public in September, but it's in his hands. He will know exactly what is going to happen in the Middle East and what part he will have under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God."

Beginning soon, Ann regularly will offer her thoughts on issues and ideas of the day here on her blog, CoulterGeist, exclusively on Human Events Online. If you thought her weekly column and her books raised the ire of liberals, wait until the Left gets a load of CoulterGeist.

Rwanda's election commission accused the main opposition candidate of stirring ethnic divisions on Thursday ahead of August 25 presidential elections, the first since the country's 1994 genocide.

Ethnicity is among the most sensitive issues in Rwanda as it struggles to heal the legacy of the genocide when extremists from the Hutu majority slaughtered an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates.

Rights groups say the government, led by Tutsi President Paul Kagame, has used the ethnic issue to suppress political opposition by accusing potential challengers of threatening national unity.

Kagame denies it. He says he will not let anyone foment ethnic tension in a country still reeling from 1994's bloodshed.
The election commission said it had summoned Kagame's main opponent, moderate Hutu Faustin Twagiramungu, to appear before it later on Thursday to explain campaign pamphlets it said promoted ''divisive politics.''

''He has been issuing out brochures containing talk that is aimed at promoting divisive politics,'' election commission vice-president Sheikh Mussa Fazil Harerimana told Reuters.

''We want him to cease this talk because it violates the laws governing elections.''

Police said they had seized campaign leaflets belonging to Twagiramungu on Wednesday, but declined to say how many.

Twagiramungu was not immediately reachable for comment. A moderate Hutu, he says Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) have prevented him from campaigning freely.

Twagiramungu accused the RPF this month of harassing his supporters and making people scared to vote for anyone else.

Critics have long accused Kagame's RPF of stifling press freedom and intimidating opponents of its party -- the dominant force in a coalition that make up the government.

Many opposition leaders have gone into exile, while several people associated with opposition politics have disappeared. In May, parliament voted to dissolve Twagiramungu's Democratic Republican Movement for alleged breaches of national unity.

The prospect of rising future deficits, some economists warn, is a key factor causing interest rates to edge up in recent weeks - a troubling sign for an economy that has lost 2.7 million jobs since George W. Bush took office in 2001.

[edit]

Reports of prospective budget deficits of $309 billion were enough to force President-elect Clinton to scuttle social spending plans in the early days of his administration. Now, the Bush administration faces even higher deficit projections, but is not backing down This year's deficit will be a record $455 billion, says the White House Office of Management and Budget. The Congressional Budget Office recently set the deficit at $401 billion, also a record.

Critics say that deficits of this magnitude could scuttle the economy's budding recovery and lay unacceptable burdens on the next generation of taxpayers. "The Bush fiscal policy is the worst policy in over 200 years," says George Akerlof, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley and 2001 Nobel laureate. He pegs the deficit over the next 10 years at almost $6 trillion.

[edit]

"The business community is happy to have a Republican administration, and doesn't want to rock the boat," says a Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a public interest group that advocates fiscal discipline. Last month, the coalition dubbed the first six months of the 108th Congress "the most fiscally irresponsible in recent memory."

"Following the lead of the Bush Administration, Congress made no attempt to reconcile the cost of new tax cuts and spending initiatives within the framework of a realistic long-term balanced budget plan. Instead, policymakers took a deteriorating budget outlook and made it worse," the report concluded.

From Beverly Hills alone, we should bring in millions in tax revenue. (Note: I am all-natural and I personally discourage the use of implants!)

Boob Job: "Do I have to answer honestly? Yes."

Nearly half of the 256 sitting judges and current nominees to the nation's federal appeals courts - one step below the Supreme Court - had never before donned judicial robes, according to a Post-Dispatch analysis.

America has warned the Niger government to keep out of the row over claims that Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium for his nuclear weapons programme from the impoverished West African state.

Herman Cohen, a former assistant secretary of state for Africa and one of America's most experienced Africa hands, called on Mamadou Tandja, Niger's president, in the capital Niamey last week to relay the message from Washington, according to senior Niger government officials.

One said: "Let's say Mr Cohen put a friendly arm around the president to say sorry about the forged documents, but then squeezed his shoulder hard enough to convey the message, 'Let's hear no more about this affair from your government'. Basically he was telling Niger to shut up."

A Roman Catholic priest in Newfoundland is speaking out against the Roman Catholic church's opposition to same-sex marriage, saying it is hypocritical.

"I will not perform same-sex marriages here, but I also will not encourage anyone to try to stop the government from allowing same-sex couples to do so elsewhere," Rev. Paul Lundrigan of Goulds, Nfld., said in his weekend sermon.

Father Lundrigan said the church has picked a poor issue to oppose vehemently when it has stayed silent in the past on sexual abuse of children.

"The church should have spoken out on so many other tragic issues and didn't," the priest said.

"The church, in recent years, has had thousands of children paraded across the same television screens telling horror stories of how their lives have been shattered by the abuse they suffered in Catholic-run orphanages and residential schools."

"I think that the hierarchy of our church has lost the moral ground to make judgment on how best to raise children."

[edit]

Father Lundrigan said if two women or two men want to get married and live a normal, happy healthy life, they should be allowed to do so.

"However, they cannot do it here (in the Catholic church). Yet this institution that will not allow such marriages, and of which I am a part, demands that its leaders lead a celibate life and suppress their sexuality to the point that hundreds of them around the world have been perverted into abusers of children."

"So, while I cannot perform same-sex marriages, neither can I support the institution of the Roman Catholic Church in its efforts to suppress those who wish to live a more open, honest and healthier lifestyle."

So went the weapons hunt. On numerous occasions, the discovery of a stash of illegal Iraqi arms was loudly announced--often accompanied by an orgy of triumphalist off-the-cuff punditry--only to be deflated inconspicuously, and in a lower tone of voice, until the next false alarm was sounded.

Despite these safeguards, America has done everything it can to avoid the ICC's jurisdiction and, even worse, to destroy the institution itself. Last June, it sponsored a successful Security Council resolution exempting all peacekeepers from ICC prosecution for one year, and the resolution was renewed this year. As TNR has reported, it has also twisted the arms of military allies to sign bilateral deals exempting Americans from ICC prosecution. Most recently, America went so far as to withhold $2.7 million in support for Latvian troops in Iraq because Latvia would not sign an exemption. And now comes the Liberia resolution, which exempts not only the Americans but the Nigerians, also non-parties to the court's statute, who committed serious abuses (including summary executions and torture) in previous peacekeeping operations. President Bush has even signed the "American Servicemembers Protection Act" (ASPA), which not only forbids American authorities from cooperating with the ICC, but authorizes the president to liberate by force any American personnel held by the ICC. That's right: If necessary, we will invade the Netherlands.

[edit]

Bill Clinton refused for most of his term to sign the ICC statute, doing so only in the last hours of his presidency knowing that the Senate would never ratify it. George Bush formally removed America's signature, and has ramped up the efforts to kill the court. The public shunning of the United Nations in Iraq, the palpable loathing of even the remotest constraint on America's freedom of action, and the kind of bullying shown to Latvia is the reason more countries will not help America in Iraq and elsewhere. By attacking the ICC, America lets the world's warlords and genocidaires off the hook--and puts itself on trial instead.

"We have planted many good ideas and programs here, but the ideas will not be heard and the programs will not flower without more money to create jobs, more troops to protect the electricity and more time to train Iraqis so U.S. troops can get off the streets ... It would be a tragic irony if the greatest technological power in the history of the world came to the cradle of civilization with its revolutionary ideas and found itself defeated because it couldn't keep the electricity on."

In a move that was cheered by human rights groups, legislators in Argentina's lower house voted to throw out amnesty laws that effectively ended trials over abuses during the country's military dictatorship.

The House vote on Tuesday came after more than seven hours of debate during which lawmakers re-examined the legacy of the junta years.

By a show of hands, the 186 House Deputies present approved the annulments and sent the measure to the Senate for final congressional debate. The Senate debate will start Wednesday.

The vote was unanimous, though 51 deputies were absent. A simple majority was needed for passage.

[edit]

At issue is the fate of Argentina's "Full Stop" and "Due Obedience" laws, enacted in 1986 and 1987, respectively. Those laws effectively ended human rights trials after the dictatorship.

Some 9,000 people were officially reported as dead or missing after the 1976-1983 dictatorship, but human rights groups estimated the number could be as high as 30,000.

If Republicans want to be the party that honors the rule of law and respects the original meaning of the federal Constitution (as opposed to the penumbra loving dems), then they need to quit acting like jackasses when it comes to the Ten Commandments decision and flag burning.

* The State of Israel
* The AFL-CIO
* The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
* The white supremicist group, Church of God Race Relations
* The University of Oregon
* The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education

...and last but not least...

* The Weekly Standard

...I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice … who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Independents, who outnumber Democrats or Republicans, need a good reason to head to the voting booth, according to a survey released Thursday.

The poll, conducted for the New Democratic Network, found that slightly more than 40 percent identify themselves as independents, 32 percent called themselves Republicans and 27 percent said they were Democrats.

But these so-called "swing voters" were more than twice as likely not to vote than people who consider themselves Republican or Democrat, a factor for the candidates running in the 2004 election.

Over objections from some Muslim American groups, President Bush is expected to sidestep Congress and appoint a Middle East scholar who has been derided by critics as anti-Muslim to a federally funded think tank, congressional sources said on Tuesday.

Broder hated being lumped with such obvious partisans, as he repeatedly told Today executives. "I would ask them, when are you going to put on the goddamn screen that Roger Ailes is on the payroll of the Republican National Committee for such-and-such an amount?"

"When someone like Buchanan or Jackson is a candidate one moment and a commentator the next, how the hell do people know which is which?" [Broder] says. "This may be a bullsh*t, old-geezer view, but I really think there's a sense of wanting it all. As journalists we have so many privileges, and the unwillingness to accept the limitation of the business is just f*cking selfish."

In June 1992 Bush, Limbaugh, and Ailes had dinner and took in a musical at the Kennedy Center. Limbaugh spent the night in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House -- the president insisted on carrying his bags upstairs -- and called relatives to brag about where he was sleeping.

The objection to Pipes is not, in any case, strictly a political one. It is an objection to a person who confuses scholarship with propaganda and who pursues petty vendettas with scant regard for objectivity.

War has killed up to 3.3 million people in the African nation of Congo over the past decade. The fighting, ignored by the rest of the world, continues to this day. The Congo war may add up to the deadliest conflict in the world in the last 50 years, yet its causes and consequences are still unknown. This reader's guide traces the history of the tragedy.

NBC has wisely chosen the hosts of "Buchanan and Press" for the first "Queer Eye" treatment, tonight on MSNBC.

True, a pass on Pryor is not without risk, not the least the possibility that he gets confirmed. But Democrats shouldn't make too much of that possibility. While Zell Miller and Ben Nelson voted against their party's initial filibuster of Pryor, as they did in the cases of Estrada and Owen, that's not the same as a vote in favor of a nominee. Their decision to sit out the filibuster probably better reflects an unwillingness to be seen as obstructionist than any outright support. What's more, an Eleventh Circuit seat for Pryor wouldn't be the end of the world. That court, based in Atlanta, isn't nearly as influential as either the D.C. circuit or the West Coast's Ninth circuit. Nor is it even close to being a Democratic stronghold: Ten of the court's 17 judges are Republican appointees. Building up the political capital to continue filibustering Estrada, nominated to the D.C. Circuit, or to filibuster Carolyn Kuhl, nominated Ninth, might be well worth the risk.

American pilots dropped the controversial incendiary agent napalm on Iraqi troops during the advance on Baghdad. The attacks caused massive fireballs that obliterated several Iraqi positions.

The Pentagon denied using napalm at the time, but Marine pilots and their commanders have confirmed that they used an upgraded version of the weapon against dug-in positions. They said napalm, which has a distinctive smell, was used because of its psychological effect on an enemy.

A 1980 UN convention banned the use against civilian targets of napalm, a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks to skin as it burns. The US, which did not sign the treaty, is one of the few countries that makes use of the weapon. It was employed notoriously against both civilian and military targets in the Vietnam war.

The upgraded weapon, which uses kerosene rather than petrol, was used in March and April, when dozens of napalm bombs were dropped near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, south of Baghdad.

"We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches," said Colonel James Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11. "Unfortunately there were people there ... you could see them in the [cockpit] video. They were Iraqi soldiers. It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect."

Nader's 9/11 Plan
Get a load of this: Likely 2004 third-party presidential hopeful Ralph Nader thinks the 9/11 terrorist attacks wouldn't have happened if he had been president. He claims that amid all the big decisions new presidents have to make after inauguration, he would have ordered cockpit doors to be hardened against attack. He says an old report warning about how easy it is to get in the cockpit still sticks with him. What's more, he would have wiped out Osama bin Laden and his gang without a shot being fired. How? Bribe Osama's friends to hand him over.

If you like farce, the upcoming judicial confirmation hearing for Judge Charles W. Pickering should make for some satisfying C-SPAN. The Mississippi federal judge is the Bush administration's nominee to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. To defend him against charges of racial insensitivity, Republicans are marketing Pickering's record of giving lenient sentences to black drug offenders. It's nice to see conservative lawmakers deferring to a judge's belief that some criminals deserve a second chance. Except these are the same lawmakers who spent their last term chipping away at the power of federal judges to reduce criminal sentences.

A large chunk of [Americans] are increasingly uneasy with gay civil unions. But almost everyone agrees that it's because of the connotations of the word "marriage." That's how the opponents of gay civil unions win--by playing semantics. It's the same way they've used terms like "death tax" and "sin tax" to trigger in us some sort of Pavlovian aversion.

Former international weapons inspector David Kay, now seeking Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for the Pentagon, has privately reported successes that are planned to be revealed to the public in mid-September.

Kay has told his superiors he has found substantial evidence of biological weapons in Iraq, plus considerable missile development. He has been less successful in locating chemical weapons, and has not yet begun a substantial effort to locate progress toward nuclear arms.

Senior officials in the Bush administration believe Kay's weapons discoveries should have been revealed as they were made. However, a decision, approved by President Bush, was made to wait until more was discovered and then announce it -- probably in September.

A retired schoolteacher who went to Iraq to serve as a "human shield" against the U.S. invasion is facing thousands of dollars in U.S. government fines, which she is refusing to pay.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a March letter to Faith Fippinger that she broke the law by crossing the Iraqi border before the war. Her travel to Iraq violated U.S. sanctions that prohibited American citizens from engaging in "virtually all direct or indirect commercial, financial or trade transactions with Iraq."

She and others from 30 countries spread out through Iraq to prevent the war. She spent about three months there. Only about 20 of nearly 300 "human shields" were Americans, she said.

Fippinger, who returned home May 4, is being fined at least $10,000, but she has refused to pay. She could face up to 12 years in prison.

The Christian right has infiltrated and taken over the White House -- in the person of the president of the United States. If Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson had sat down 15 years ago and created the profile of their perfect president -- a born-again Christian from the Bible Belt, flagrantly open about his faith -- George W. Bush would fit it almost to a T. Yet he is not quite what anyone would have imagined.

But if liberals stopped being put off by Bush's style, they would find something to cheer in his Christian conservatism. Bush's faith is almost always wielded in support of the "compassionate" element of his "compassionate conservatism." This is true when he is urging tolerance for Muslims. Or comforting the stricken. Or explaining his global AIDS initiative. Or advancing the idea of universal human rights. This is the kind of Bible-thumping any bleeding heart should love.

Let's accept difference -- me from you, you from me, us from them, them from we.

Let's understand that what you like, others abhor. You want two-wheel drive. Others want four.

Let's leave one another alone.

You drive away in a small-car parade. I'll take the Cadillac Escalade. It's huge, yes, with a wide-mouth grille. Its 6-literV-8 roars and sends a chill -- almost as scary as its gasoline bill.

Driving the 2004 Escalade from city to city, 2,000 miles, almost emptied my kitty. The gas bill tallied 240 U.S. dollars, a tab that made me scream and holler. You don't have to be a scholar to know that's a crazy way to spend a dollar.

But, hey, the cash was mine, and if I wanted to drive something as big and fine as the Escalade with its leather seats and very thick carpeting beneath my feet, with standard XM Satellite Radio and rear-seat DVD, why did you frown and scowl at me?

Do I tell you where to live, how to dress? Do I put you under duress for the thousands you spend on earthly things, such as neckwear bling-bling and diamond rings?

What about the millions you take in campaign donations to take power for you, but from the rest of the nation? You waste gas flying from city to city making promises to empty the public's kitty.

Let's leave one another alone.

[edit]

What else can I say? How better to explain why different things appeal to different women and men? Their preferences make them no better than you, no worse than me. You can't ask a man "What would Jesus drive?" if his name is Muhammad Ali. They're just doing what they have a right to do in the Land of the Free.

Let's leave one another alone.

You can use the 0-10 emissions rating to compare the cleanliness of any vehicle to any other vehicle regardless of class. A higher score is always better. For instance, a truck receiving a score of 8 is designed to be cleaner than any car receiving a score of 7. Emissions performance should be an important environmental consideration when buying a vehicle.