OR

$38,000,000 total raised in any month
$36,000,000 total raised from grassroots contributors in any quarter
$26,700,000 total raised online at JohnKerry.com in any quarter
$2,600,000 total raised online at JohnKerry.com in one day ( March 4, 2004 )
and...
355,000 total number of grassroots contributions in any quarter

"The numbers document a profound change in attitudes, most strikingly on employment issues but also in areas like adoption rights, legal benefits and acceptance of gay relations.

"Although Congress and the Pentagon have balked at letting gays serve openly in the military, a Gallup poll last year found that an astonishing 80 percent of the respondents thought gays should be allowed in the armed forces, up from only 51 percent in 1977. Approval for hiring gay teachers for elementary schools jumped to 61 percent from 27 percent over the same period. Most gay athletes may be afraid to identify themselves publicly, but fully 86 percent of the public thinks that they should be hired for professional sports. A majority of the public thinks gays are just fine as members of the clergy, and three-fifths say they would vote for a well-qualified gay presidential candidate.

"There are lots of theories to explain these more tolerant attitudes. Our own guess is that as more and more gays have acknowledged their sexual orientation, straight Americans have come to see that gays are not deviants to be feared, but valued friends, neighbors and colleagues who are not much different from anyone else. Sadly, the poll data shows little easing of opposition to gay marriages in recent years, with roughly three-fifths or more of the public still opposed. That opposition might melt away if some state had the courage to legalize gay marriage and everyone could see that it posed no threat whatever to heterosexual unions."

"I believe my party has gone astray," McCain said yesterday, singling out GOP stands on environmental issues and racial set-asides.

"I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and their philosophy," he said. "But I also feel the Republican Party can be brought back to the principles I articulated before."

And he took another shot at President Bush. "You can't fly in on an aircraft carrier and declare victory and have the deaths continue. You can't do that."

As of March 27, Mr. Daschle threatens to block all federal judicial nominees unless ". . . the White House gives assurances that it will no longer abuse [sic] the process . . ." of choosing federal judges by recess appointments. He's referring to a total of two - yes, just two [emphasis mine]- recess appointments and the possibility of more, all made pursuant to the President's constitutional power so to appoint, never heretofore seriously disputed.

"We are providing the commission with access to all the information they need to do their job."

I found that the GOP House candidates actually did worse among minorities in 2002, winning only 23 percent of their votes, down from 25 percent in 2000. Moreover, in the midterms, 92 percent of the ballots cast for Republican House candidates came from non-Hispanic whites, up from 90 percent in 2000.

Minority outreach flopped, but the Republicans romped. How could this be?

The reason is simple: The majority is, by definition, bigger than the minority.

No question, the Mexican-American vote is growing, but it's far from dominant now. That's why the GOP needs to regain control of our borders now, while Republicans still hold a strong hand. If the GOP won't act soon, then immigration will become a perpetual-motion machine for making more Democrats, just as the Liberal Party in Canada uses immigration to create liberal voters.

From literally the first hours of the genocide, Capt. Mbaye simply ignored the U.N.'s standing orders not to intervene, and single-handedly began saving lives. He rescued the children of the moderate Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, after 25 well-armed Belgian and Ghanaian U.N. peacekeepers surrendered their weapons to Rwandan troops. The Rwandan troops killed Madame Agathe (and, later, ten Belgian peacekeepers), while the unarmed Capt. Mbaye -- acting on his own initiative -- hid the Prime Minister's children in a closet.

In the days and weeks that followed, Capt. Mbaye became a legend among U.N. forces in Kigali. He continued his solo rescue missions, and had an uncanny ability to charm his way past checkpoints full of killers. On one occasion he found a group of 25 Tutsis hiding in a house in Nyamirambo, a Kigali neighborhood that was particularly dangerous. Capt. Mbaye ferried the Tutsis to the U.N. headquarters in groups of five -- on each trip passing through 23 militia checkpoints with a Jeep-load of Tutsis. Somehow, he convinced the killers to let these Tutsis live.

On May 31st [1994], Capt. Mbaye was driving alone back to U.N. headquarters in Kigali when a random mortar shell, fired by the Rwandan Patriotic Front towards an extremist checkpoint, mistakenly landed next to his Jeep. He was killed instantly.

Capt. Mbaye, a devout Muslim, was one of nine children from a poor family on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal's capital. He was the first in his family to go to college. After graduating from the University of Dakar, he joined the army and worked his way up through the ranks. After his death, he was buried in Senegal with full military honors. He was survived by a wife and two young children.

The Sudanese government is complicit in crimes against humanity committed by government-backed militias in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. In a scorched-earth campaign, government forces and Arab militias are killing, raping and looting African civilians that share the same ethnicities as rebel forces in this western region of Sudan.

[edit]

Human Rights Watch found that the military is indiscriminately bombing civilians, while both government forces and militias are systematically destroying villages and conducting brutal raids against the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups.

[edit]

[The] government launched a massive bombing campaign which, combined with the raids of the marauding militias, have forced more than 800,000 people from their homes and sent an additional 110,000 people into neighboring Chad.

In a scorched-earth campaign, government forces and militias have killed several thousand Fur, Zaghawa and Masaalit civilians, routinely raped women and girls, abducted children, and looted tens of thousands of head of cattle and other property. In many areas of Darfur, they have deliberately burned hundreds of villages and destroyed water sources and other infrastructure, making it much harder for the former residents to return.

"Some of the defectors in the House were understandable and predictable, such as Rep. Jim Greenwood who represents a liberal district in Pennsylvania."

* receive 26 visits from a conservative president over the last three years? (Gee, how many times has Bush visited New York state or Massachusetts?)

* have two Republicans as their U.S. senators?

* twice elect Rick Santorum (the man who contends that homosexuality = polygamy or incest) as one of those U.S. senators? (In fact, Santorum carried Bucks County in his last race by 30,000+ votes. That doesn't sound like a liberal county to me.)

Kerry's ad, his first negative commercial of the general election, quotes the president's advisers as saying "moving American jobs to low-cost countries" is good for the economy and adds: "While jobs are leaving our country in record numbers, George Bush says sending jobs overseas `makes sense' for America."

[edit]

While Bush never directly said that outsourcing jobs "makes sense," that phrase is included in the 2004 economic report of the president, which was released in February and which Bush signed. In a section about offshore outsourcing, it says:

"When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than make or provide it domestically."

Feminists seek to destroy the boundaries of morality because they believe that the traditional nuclear family is oppressive and restrictive of their freedom.

What they don't understand is that the traditional family is where children first learn - not just the bonds of affection, but the demands of duties and obligations to one another. Feminists also fail to understand the central role that the traditional family plays in nurturing children - why it is the safest and best place for children to be born and reared.

In the wake of the unlimited freedom that feminists demanded flows a culture of death and destruction.

We will rebuild the towers; we must rebuild the family.

What that meant was anybody that was white-skinned got to get on an airplane and fly to safety, and anybody that was black-skinned got to stay in Rwanda and get killed. That's as simple as it came down to. It still to this day leaves a very, very bad taste in my mouth that the United States of America could have 350 Marines sitting at [Bujumbura, Burundi] airport, that the French were able to get in 500 or so paratroopers, that the Belgians had over 1,000 paratroopers.

You know, we basically had our intervention force already on the ground. What they later told us, it was impossible to get on the ground. We had it on the ground on April 10, within three days of this thing starting. But it wasn't there to intervene. It wasn't there to save Rwanda; it was there to save white people, and that's what it came down to. White people were saved and black people were not.

NEW YORK April 1 — An openly gay teenager received a $30,000 settlement from the city over her suspension for wearing a "Barbie is a Lesbian" T-shirt to school, her attorney announced Thursday.

Under the panel’s holding, “virtually all rent control laws in the Ninth Circuit are now subject to the ‘substantially advances a legitimate state interest’ test[,]” 224 F.3d at 1048 (W. Fletcher, J., concurring in the judgment), and many of those laws may well be held unconstitutional under that test. Rent control is often inefficient and sometimes unfair. See id. But we should not confuse inefficiency and unfairness with unconstitutionality.

PRESIDENT CARTER, DEMOCRAT
"In 1979, President Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah of Iran to be deposed by a mob of Islamic fanatics. A few months later, Muslims stormed the U.S. Embassy in Iran and took American Embassy staff hostage. Carter retaliated by canceling Iranian visas. He eventually ordered a disastrous and humiliating rescue attempt, crashing helicopters in the desert."

PRESIDENT REAGAN, REPUBLICAN
"The day of Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were released ..."

It is unclear whether American courts will heed the ruling, and federal officials reacted cautiously, saying they needed time to study the list of decisions. "It's a very complex ruling," said Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman. "We'll decide, based on studying it, how we can go about implementing it."

The United States acknowledges the jurisdiction of the court to resolve disputes between nations arising under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which allows people arrested abroad to meet with representatives of their governments and says detainees must be advised of this right.

The United States regularly invokes the convention to visit Americans in foreign jails.

Although the laws of an international treaty should prevail over national law, the Bush administration has often criticized the application of international law. Even if it bows to the ruling, federal officials may not be able to compel states to heed the court. Gov. Rick Perry, who succeeded President Bush in Texas, has said that "the International Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction in Texas."

"Each year delegates from the 53 member states (on the Commission) meet for six weeks to name the worst offending countries and adopt resolutions condemning their abuses. For years, however, the commission instead has been a haven for rogue governments -- who get elected to the body in order to shield themselves from international scrutiny and criticism.

"... Indeed, the Commission on Human Rights no longer can be counted on to 'name and shame' even the most egregious violators. North Korea, for example, knows how to bully its Asian neighbors in the United Nations, so that not even overwhelming evidence of its misdeeds will guarantee a tough resolution against the regime. Sudan quietly uses the promise of oil to buy off potential critics.

"... The prospect of democracy in states like Afghanistan is bound up with their willingness to endorse religious freedom. Saudi Arabia, home of most of the 9/11 hijackers, allows virtually no freedom of religion. Nigeria, increasingly devoted to Sharia, or Islamic law, supports extrajudicial killings. As long as states like these are allowed on the commission -- at least 18 members are themselves considered repressive -- its proceedings will remain a politicized sham.

"The best hope of breaking their grip may be the creation of a democracy caucus now being pushed by Chile, Poland, South Korea and the United States."

The good news is that three-quarters of people say it is either extremely important or very important to stay informed.

The bad news is that there is a great deal of confusion about basic facts relevant to policy. Almost half the public, and a quarter of those over age 55, thought Medicare already provided drug benefits for outpatients before legislation providing such coverage was enacted. More than half could not hazard a guess about the size of the budget deficit. The average person thinks 37 percent of Americans lack health insurance, more than twice the actual percentage.

From where do Americans learn about the economy? By far the most common source is television. Those who rely on television the most, however, tend to be among the least informed.

... Liberals, moderates and conservatives all did about equally well on the test of economic facts. But those who said they hadn't thought much about their ideological leanings -- one in three people -- were appreciably less knowledgeable.

Those who were more knowledgeable about economic policy facts were less likely to support the last Bush tax cut. Among those who scored in the bottom quarter on the factual knowledge quiz, the ratio of favorable to unfavorable opinions was 2.6 to 1; for those in the top quarter it was 1.1 to 1.

Another Jew jumps up on the tables and runs toward Jesus from behind. He dives at the Christ, who ducks just in time. The Jew sails headfirst into a stone pillar, cracking open his skull and splattering blood and bone fragments everywhere.

Jesus flays every merchant in reach, lacerating faces and exposed arms. The disciples kick ass: John smashes a jug of olives over a temple scribe's head; Philip holds a sheep salesman's arms from behind while Bartholomew pummels him in the stomach; Peter chases an ox trader around one of the beasts of the field, circling the ox one way, then the other. Finally, Peter leaps over the animal, tackling the man to the ground.

Jesus: Now let us get the moneychangers!

Memo to Iraq: Iraq is not Somalia, and we are not going anywhere until Iraq is free.

In October 1993, 18 American troops were killed in a savage firefight in Somalia. The body of one American was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu as the Somalian hordes cheered.

Clinton responded by calling off the hunt for Mohammed Farrah Aidid and ordering our troops home. Osama bin Laden later told ABC News: "The youth ... realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat."

Hours after the deaths of the four American civilians who were dragged from their vehicle and mutilated in Falluja on Wednesday, an American general went before reporters in Baghdad with the air of measured assurance that has characterized every daily briefing on the military situation across Iraq.

"Despite an uptick in local engagements, the overall area of operations remains relatively stable with negligible impact on the coalition's ability to continue progress in governance, economic development, and restoration of essential services," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, 51, the former paratrooper who is chief spokesman for the United States military command.

One Republican who attended the March 20 dinner told The Post Bunning told the crowd he had met his Democratic opponent.

"I have to tell you he looks like one of Saddam Hussein's sons," the Republican, who asked not to be identified, quoted Bunning as saying.

When some people in the audience laughed and others gasped, Bunning added, "No, I mean before they were dead, of course," according to the Republican's account.

Bunning then added, "I really mean that he looks like one of Saddam's sons, and he even dresses like them, too."

Bunning's campaign denied last week that he had made the remarks. But on Wednesday, campaign manager David Young issued a one-sentence apology. "We're sorry if this joke, which got a lot of laughs, offended anyone."

An organization formed by supporters of ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is hoping candidates it is endorsing will win a majority of the 48 Alabama delegate seats to the Republican National Convention.

Jim Zeigler, organizer of the League of Christian Voters, said the group has endorsed candidates for most delegate positions to the convention. Some Republican delegates are elected statewide, while others are elected from congressional districts.

Zeigler said the group is endorsing candidates who it believes will support a suggested plank to the Republican platform. That plank would endorse proposed federal legislation to prohibit federal judges from hearing cases involving acknowledgements of God.

Romeo Dallaire's book about the genocide in Rwanda has won the 2004 Writers' Trust of Canada award for political writing, it was announced Wednesday.

[edit]

The prize is awarded to a non-fiction book that exhibits outstanding literary merit and enlarges people's understanding of contemporary Canadian political and social issues.

I.R.S. Request for More Terrorism Investigators Is Denied

The Bush administration has scuttled a plan to increase by 50 percent the number of criminal financial investigators working to disrupt the finances of Al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations to save $12 million, a Congressional hearing was told on Tuesday.

The Internal Revenue Service had asked for 80 more criminal investigators beginning in October to join the 160 it has already assigned to penetrate the shadowy networks that terrorist groups use to finance plots like the Sept. 11 attacks and the recent train bombings in Madrid. But the Bush administration did not include them in the president's proposed budget for the 2005 fiscal year.

The disclosure, to a House Ways and Means subcommittee, came near the end of a routine hearing into the I.R.S. budget after most of the audience, including reporters, had left the hearing room.

Nearly one in five Rangers (those collecting $200-K) and Pioneers (those collecting $100-K) comes from the financial sector. This group of 85 bankers, stockbrokers and wealthy private investors -- which has bundled at least $12.5 million for the 2004 Bush campaign -- includes 20 top Wall Street executives ... Now the (financial) industry is leading the drive to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, endorsing administration plans to overhaul the retirement system and salivating over the prospect of Social Security privatization.

... The Wall Street Journal reported that hedge fund consultant Lee Hennessee sent out invitations to a March 11 Bush fundraiser with this message: "The current administration is favorable to the hedge fund industry, and we need to do all we can to keep them in office."

"A private investment partnership, owned by wealthy individuals and institutions, which is allowed to use aggressive strategies that are unavailable to mutual funds, including short selling, leverage, program trading, swaps, arbitrage and derivatives. Since they are restricted by law to less than 100 investors, the minimum hedge-fund investment is typically $1 million."

A Newport News woman charged with a felony for receiving oral sex in a car is challenging a state law that prohibits certain types of sex between consenting adults.

A police officer says he found the 21-year-old woman in a parked car receiving oral sex from a man about 3 a.m. Jan. 29. Both were charged with a felony under the statute for crimes against nature... If convicted of the felony charge, the woman could face up to five years in prison.

FALLUJAH, Iraq March 31 -- Jubilant residents dragged the charred corpses of four foreigners one a woman, at least one an American through the streets Wednesday and hanged them from the bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

Senate financial disclosures reveal that you and your immediate family own at least $25 million in HCA stock and your inheritance is clearly dependent on the success of the financial fortunes of the company. HCA and its doctors will benefit from any limits on liability for malpractice ...

... in some circumstances (the Senate bill) would prevent injured patients and their families from bringing legitimate cases, limiting losses and thereby increasing profits for HCI .... Eliminating joint and several liability [would be] a boon for HCA and HCI. Joint and several liability, as it applies in most states, holds the hospital accountable if a doctor is unable to pay a damage award and the hospital was involved in the medical negligence. Dropping this rule will benefit hospitals and insurers by eliminating their liability if one of their doctors goes bankrupt and is unable to pay a victim's damages.

The Treasury tapped civil servants to calculate the cost of Sen. John Kerry's tax plan and then posted the analysis on the Treasury Web site. A federal law bars career government officials from working on political campaigns.

The Treasury analysis doesn't mention Mr. Kerry by name. Rather it sketches out the potential cost of a tax plan that rolls back tax reductions for taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 -- the nub of the Democratic presidential candidate's plan. The result, the Treasury said in the analysis posted March 22, would be a tax increase of as much as $477 billion over 10 years on "hardworking individuals and married couples." The same day, the Republican National Committee issued a press release in which it unveiled what it called its "John Kerry $pendometer," and cited the same $477 billion figure as the cost of "raising taxes on the top income bracket."

[snip]

John "Buck" Chapoton, who headed Treasury's tax office under Ronald Reagan, said career tax officials "are supposed to be objective. It's important that they are thought of as not being influenced or used for political purposes."

Eugene Steuerle, another Treasury tax official during the Reagan administration, said that using the analysis of the Kerry plan for political purposes "stepped over the line" that's supposed to protect career officials from political influence. "This type of release tends to reduce the reputation of the department as a fair and neutral arbiter of what constitutes good tax policy," Mr. Steuerle said.

House Majority Leader Tom Delay of Texas requested the estimates, said Stuart Roi, a DeLay spokesman, because several Democratic budget proposals had provisions similar to the Kerry tax plan. Mr. DeLay then distributed the analysis widely, including to the Republican National Committee. "The Democrats are all one and the same" on tax repeal, Mr. Roi said. "They don't attempt to make a distinction."

GOP'S (WEAK) ARGUMENTS FOR BANNING GAY MARRIAGE
by Chuck Muth[note-- from the In the News section]

The folks pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage are beginning to resemble those Japanese World War II soldiers stranded on remote Pacific Islands who continued to defend their positions because they didn't know the war was over. At least, that's the impression I got from reading a recent "talking points" memo put out by the Senate Republican Conference (SRC).
(snip)
The Federal Marriage Amendment does absolutely nothing to protect or defend marriage against divorce or adultery, nor unwed motherhood. The ONLY thing it does is, well...ban gays from getting married. Senate Republicans and their press secretaries can try to "spin" the FMA as protecting and defending marriage 'til the cows come home, but it is what it is and people will eventually see through the smokescreen.

Another talking point the SRC urges Republican senators and staffers to use is the argument that "decades of studies show children do best with a mother and a father."

Unless, say, the father is an abusive drunk and the mother is a drug addict. In that case, it really doesn't matter whether the two are married and of the opposite sex. If they have kids, those kids would be MUCH better off being raised in a safe, loving home in the suburbs by parents who happen to be, say, a doctor and a lawyer...even if of the same sex.

You see, just because a set of parents are of the opposite sex doesn't automatically mean the kids in the home are in a good environment. The fact is, there are same-sex parents who are good...and some who aren't so good. There are also opposite-sex parents who are good...and some who aren't so good. And it could also be reasonably argued that a child raised by two parents of the same sex might be better off than a child raised by a single parent who works full-time and drops his or her kid off with strangers at day-care every day.

Now, most people would say that in ideal circumstances, kids should be raised by a married mother and father where daddy works and mommy stays home with the kids; where they live in the 'burbs with two SUVs and a puppy on an annual income of $85,000-plus; where the parents are both college-educated, alcohol-free and never eat medium-rare hamburgers. But just because that might be the "ideal," does it mean the rest of us can't and shouldn't play in their reindeer games?
(snip)
One need not be a gay marriage supporter to realize the arguments against it are rather weak by comparison, especially in a nation which cherishes, above all else, individual liberty and equality under law. If SRC's talking points are the core of the arguments for FMA supporters, their battle is already lost. They just don't know it yet. Sayonara.

"The Kerry campaign also pointed out that the chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, N. Gregory Mankiw, supported a 50-cent increase in the gas tax as recently as 1999."

"In March 2000, top Bush aides said he wanted to roll back all or part of a 4.3-cent increase to the gas tax that was enacted in 1993. A White House spokesman confirmed that Bush has not sought any rollback in the gas tax but said Bush never formally committed to the proposal."

"Bush's remarks, at a taxpayer-funded forum on the economy here, were coordinated with his campaign's new ad, which accuses [Kerry] of backing a gas tax increase ..."

Elsner: How would you describe the events taking place in Rwanda?

Shelly: Based on the evidence we have seen from observations on the ground, we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred in Rwanda.

Elsner: What's the difference between "acts of genocide" and "genocide"?

Shelly: Well, I think the - as you know, there's a legal definition of this ... clearly not all of the killings that have taken place in Rwanda are killings to which you might apply that label ... But as to the distinctions between the words, we're trying to call what we have seen so far as best as we can; and based, again, on the evidence, we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred.

Elsner: How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?

Shelly: Alan, that's just not a question that I'm in a position to answer.

It is equally futile and silly for Democrats to assert that Al Qaeda has benefited by George W. Bush's action against Iraq. What resource, precisely, have field commanders hunting for Al Qaeda been denied? The United States has thousands of its very best soldiers in Afghanistan, has built new military facilities all over Afghanistan and its border states, has bombers standing by to hit any target that can be identified. Maybe the battle of Tora Bora was mismanaged in December 2001, but that was a full year before the Iraq buildup was a factor. Since September 11, U.S. forces have pursued Al Qaeda every place it has been physically possible to locate elements of the organization, using every weapon the United States possesses except for nuclear weapons. What is it that could be done against Al Qaeda that is not being done? Drop nuclear bombs on Afghanistan? On Spain? The Democratic side in the recriminations derby never names any specific military thing that could be done against Al Qaeda that's not already being done.

And new evidence keeps emerging for Mr. Clarke's main charge, that the Iraq obsession undermined the pursuit of Al Qaeda. From yesterday's USA Today: "In 2002, troops from the Fifth Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. Their replacements were troops with expertise in Spanish cultures."

Of particular concern has been the conflation of al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as a single, undifferentiated terrorist threat.

This was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between the two in character, threat level, and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action. The result has been an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al-Qaeda. The war against Iraq was not integral to the GWOT, but rather a detour from it.

[edit]

They feared that a war of choice against Iraq would weaken a war of necessity against al-Qaeda by distracting America’s strategic attention to Iraq, by consuming money and resources much better applied to homeland defense, and, because an American war on Iraq was so profoundly unpopular around the world, especially among Muslims, by weakening the willingness of key countries to share intelligence information so vital to winning the war on al-Qaeda.

Strategically, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was not part of the GWOT; rather, it was a war-of-choice distraction from the war of necessity against al-Qaeda.

[edit]

The war against Iraq was a detour from, not an integral component of, the war on terrorism; in fact, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM may have expanded the terrorist threat by establishing a large new American target set in an Arab heartland.

I actually feel very sorry for Marburger, because I think he probably is enough of a scientist to realize that he basically has become a prostitute.

Later, in an interview with The New York Times, Dr. Gardner said he had made the reference but added, "I wish I'd used it as a verb rather than as a noun."

Both offers were on condition that they would not set a precedent under the constitutional separation of executive and legislative powers, an administration official said.

A trial is to begin here on Wednesday morning to determine whether a Jewish couple can deduct the cost of religious education for their five children, a tax benefit they say the federal government has granted to members of just one religion, the Church of Scientology.

The potential ramifications are huge, for a ruling in favor of the couple could affect the millions of Americans who send their children to religious schools of all types. At stake is whether people of all religions can deduct the cost of religious education as a charitable gift, as Scientologists are allowed to do under an officially secret 1993 agreement with the Internal Revenue Service.

That agreement came despite a 1989 Supreme Court ruling denying tax deductions for money paid in fees set by the Church of Scientology for its "auditing" and "training" services. The Supreme Court decision said the money did not qualify for the charitable gift deduction because it involved a fixed price and was akin to a fee for a service.

[edit]

The judges in the original Sklar case said "it appears to be true" that Scientology - founded by L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer, in the 1950's - received preferential tax treatment in violation of the First Amendment.

"Why is Scientology training different from all other religious training?" Judge Barry D. Silverman wrote in his opinion, adding that the question would not be answered just then because the court was not faced with the question of whether "members of the Church of Scientology have become the I.R.S.'s chosen people." Judge Silverman then recommended litigation to address whether the government is improperly favoring one religion.

"If the I.R.S. does in fact give preferential treatment to members of the Church of Scientology - allowing them a special right to claim deductions that are contrary to law and disallowed to everybody else - then the proper course of action is a lawsuit to put a stop to that policy," Judge Silverman wrote.

President Bush's 2005 budget request for the Internal Revenue Service would seriously shortchange the agency's tax collection activities, leaving a half-million delinquent tax accounts uncollected, 15 million service calls unanswered and nearly 46,000 audits unscheduled, according to the president's own IRS oversight board.

A strongly worded special report, to be released today, says Bush's $10.7 billion budget for the IRS falls at least $230 million short of the agency's immediate needs and fails to match the administration's tough talk on tax law enforcement. The president requested a 4.6 percent boost to the IRS's budget, but the board says much of that will be swallowed by pay increases and other costs unconnected to tax collection.

The oversight board -- which includes seven presidential appointees as well as the Internal Revenue commissioner and Treasury secretary -- implores Congress to boost Bush's request by $530 million. That investment would yield $5 billion each year in taxes that otherwise would go uncollected, the board said.

"Nothing would be better from my point of view than to be able to testify, but there is an important principle involved here it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisors do not testify before the Congress."

The Brazilian government, bowing to economic and political pressure from the Islamic world, yesterday withdrew its effort to protect the civil rights of homosexuals.

Brazil had introduced a resolution before the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.

But the measure was vehemently opposed by the Vatican and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), both of which lobbied the 53 members of the Human Rights Commission to oppose the resolution.

...the disconnect between the Post's editorials and the factual information being generated on their own news pages seems to be approaching Wall Street Journal-like proportions.

U.S. officials told NBC News that the full record of Clarke’s testimony two years ago would not be declassified. They said that at the request of the White House, however, the CIA was going through the transcript to see what could be declassified, with an eye toward pointing out contradictions.

Palm Springs

Yuppie International Garden

Park Avenue

Margarita Island

CEO

Glamour International

Top Aristocrat

SoHo

Luxuriant City

Upper East Side

Latte Town

Wonderful Digital Jungle

There is no single clear solution to this issue. If there was such a solution, we wouldn't be here today. But this amendment attempts to strike a balance between those citizens who want to be heard in defining marriage yet never taking away the rights and benefits of gay and lesbian couples.

One of the worst atrocities took place in the town of Kibuye, where 21,000 were killed in two days.

More than 25,000 killers have been released. Tens of thousands more are expected to follow. In Kibuye, 1,740 of the murderers are back on the streets. Many of the Tutsi survivors see their expressions of remorse as little more than a cynical move to win release.

"Some write us letters saying, 'You can help us to get out of prison.' They don't want to talk about the people they killed. They say 'for what happened', never for 'killing your family'. They think that is confessing. One came to my husband and offered him a cow to forgive him. It's like a bribe," says Madalena.

"Truly if somebody comes to us and says 'Forgive me, I killed', saying the truth, there is no way not to forgive that person. But these people see us, the survivors, as the people in the wrong, as the people trying to finish them by putting them in prison ... You can meet them in a bar and a word slips out - why did I let you live?"

The Catholic church is at the forefront of pressing the guilty to confess and the survivors to forgive, but it has yet to acknowledge its own role in the transformation of so many churches to extermination centres.

A few weeks after the massacre in Kibuye, the Catholic congregation filed in to what had been Father Senyenzi's church, for Sunday mass. A few feet away the half-buried bodies gave off the sweet, nauseating stench that was by now familiar across much of Rwanda. The worshippers feigned ignorance. One woman spat that it was a lie anyone had been murdered. She declined an invitation to step a few yards to her left and cast an eye over the sloping ground spotted with bones stripped by dogs and washed by rain.

Another worshipper confessed that there had been a lot of killing but he was adamant that the dead were rebels who holed themselves up in the church. Father Senyenzi was hiding them, he said, that was why he had to die too.

Some of the faithful had tried to scrub away the blood that painted the walls and floor but the torrent had worked its way too well into the crannies and there was no escaping the smell. The worshippers prayed holding their noses or with cloths pressed against their faces.

The new priest, a Hutu, offered no prayers for his murdered predecessor. Father Jean Francois Kayiranga previously officiated at a parish in the east of the province but needed a new church, having ordered his own to be bulldozed with 2,000 Tutsis inside. He was not a lone criminal within the clergy. Many priests and nuns were courageous - about 200 of them were murdered - but others were at the forefront of the killing. In Butare, a group of nuns poured the petrol used to immolate Tutsi women. Other nuns led children by the hand to the waiting interahamwe. Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka was to be found at his church in Kigali with a cross around his neck, a pistol on his hip and a list in his hand from which he announced those selected to die.

[edit]

After the killing, the Catholic church shielded priests and bishops implicated in the slaughter and helped some of the most notorious to flee abroad. Among them was Father Hormisdas Nsengimana, who survivors describe as a particularly cruel killer at his parish in Nyanza. The church gave him a new parish in Cameroon.

JIM LEHRER: ... As secretary of defense, do you have any sense of failure concerning what happened on 9/11?

DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, I hate to separate myself as secretary of defense. The Department of Defense, of course, is oriented to external threats. This was a domestic airplane that was operated by people who were in the United States against a United States target, which makes it a law enforcement, historically a law enforcement issue. The Department of Defense's task is one that deals with external threats coming into the United States, and that's what the department is organized, trained and equipped to do.

Q And turn back would be going back to when it was treated as a law enforcement issue and --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, that's one that -- as we discussed yesterday, I think, that there are some that, as the President pointed out in his State of the Union, think that by serving legal papers, we can do what is needed. The President disagrees. The President believes very strongly that we must stay on the offensive, that we must take the fight to the enemy in order to win this war.

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

“Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories under oath,” Frist said in a speech from the Senate floor....Frist later retreated from directly accusing Clarke of perjury, telling reporters that he personally had no knowledge that there were any discrepancies between Clarke’s two appearances.

Co-ordinated attacks were launched on the presidential palace and key military installations in the Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday.

Diplomats said the assaults appeared to be a well orchestrated attempt to destabilise the government by inciting mutiny by the armed forces or even to depose it in a coup.

Sporadic gunfire echoed around the capital, Kinshasa, last night, hours after the government of President Joseph Kabila claimed to have brought the violence under control.

At least two soldiers were killed and several wounded as insurgents armed with automatic weapons, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades mounted pre-dawn attacks on two military camps, a military airport, a naval facility on the Congo river and a television station in the north of the capital.

Ugandan security forces are torturing supporters of the political opposition and holding them in secret detention amid the government’s pursuit of rebels involved in the country’s armed conflict, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The 76-page report, “State of Pain: Torture in Uganda,” documents cases of torture committed by military, intelligence, and security agents in the government’s pursuit of armed rebels. However, politicians challenging the de facto single-party state and the 18-year rule of Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, are often detained, severely beaten and threatened with death by the uncontrolled security apparatus.

[edit]

Military intelligence and security forces reportedly have suspended victims from the ceiling for hours or days in a position called kandoya (with their hands and feet tied behind their back), beaten them severely with wooden or metal rods, cables, hammers or sticks studded with protruding nails, and subjected them to water torture in which the victim is forced to lie face up while a water spigot is opened directly into his mouth.

In 2001 the government established a system of covert “safe houses”—unacknowledged and illegal places of detention—to hold persons suspected of supporting opposition politicians or rebels, groups that often merge in the minds of security officials. With no real oversight by the Ugandan judiciary and no access given to Ugandan government human rights officials, these places of detention facilitate torture and other abuses by shielding abusers from scrutiny.

Individuals have been held incommunicado in such places with no contact with family members or lawyers—sometimes for months. They have been denied medical care despite severe injuries, kept blindfolded so they cannot later identify their torturers and interrogators, and threatened with retaliation if they talk about their torture. The constitutional requirement that criminal charges be brought within 48 hours of detention or the suspect released is rarely honored in these cases, so that fresh marks of torture can fade and the suspect can be coerced to sign a “confession.”

Rwanda plans to release at least 30,000 suspects who have confessed to participating in the 1994 genocide, letting them be tried in community courts rather than by the country's overburdened judicial system, an official said Saturday.

The suspects will be released by the end of June — cutting by a third the 90,000 suspects being held on charges of taking part in the slaughter of at least 500,000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, said Johnston Busingye, the secretary general of the justice ministry. The genocide was orchestrated by a government of extremists from Rwanda's Hutu majority.

John Kerry cited a Bible verse Sunday to criticize leaders who have "faith but has no deeds," prompting President Bush's spokesman to accuse Kerry of exploiting Scripture for a political attack.

Kerry never mentioned Bush by name during his speech at New North Side Baptist Church, but aimed his criticism at "our present national leadership." Kerry cited Scripture in his appeal for the worshippers, including James 2:14, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?"

"The Scriptures say, what does it profit, my brother, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?" Kerry said. "When we look at what is happening in America today, where are the works of compassion?"

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry's comment "was beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse and a sad exploitation of Scripture for a political attack."

Ralph Nader said Sunday he will meet with John Kerry next month to discuss the effort to defeat President Bush in the November election.

While stressing that he is still a competitor in the race, the independent presidential hopeful said he views his candidacy as a "second front against Bush, however small."

Rice's remarks on 60 Minutes that the principle (of not testifying) is limited to "sitting national security advisers" is also a departure from her statements earlier this week, when she said the principle applied to all presidential advisers. She was forced to change this claim for 60 Minutes after 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste "cited examples of non-Cabinet presidential advisers who have testified publicly to Congress."

Finally, the White House is reportedly moving to declassify congressional testimony then-White House adviser Richard Clarke gave in 2002. By declassifying this testimony, the White House is breaking the very same "principle" of barring White House adviser's testimony from being public that Rice is using to avoid appearing publicly before the 9/11 commission.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify [before the 9/11 Commission]. I would really like to do that. But there is an important principle here edit it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.

ED BRADLEY: But there are some people who look at this and say, "But this - this was an unprecedented event. Nothing like this ever happened to this country before. And this is an occasion where you can put that executive privilege aside. It's a big enough issue to talk in public."

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: It is an unprecedented event. We've said that many, many times. But this commission is rightly not concentrating on what happened on the day of September 11.. So, this is not a matter of what happened on that day, as extraordinary as it is - as it was. This is a matter of policy. And we have yet to find an example of a national security advisor, sitting national security advisor, who has - been willing to testify on matters of policy.

On the road, we come across the bodies of two young men. One has been impaled through the rectum. He's missing an ear, which is just part of the deal here—whether eaten or taken as a totem of power and protection. Several weeks earlier, Renaud took photographs of a woman impaled with her baby and another of a woman whose ovaries had been removed. It seems that the scale of violence is getting worse, as if taking lives is not only about revenge, but also power. The power to desecrate and annihilate.

Blast rips through Uzbek market

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- At least two people were killed and 20 injured after an explosion, described by authorities as a "terrorist act," ripped through a market in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.

[snip]

One Uzbekistan's foreign ministry spokesman was quick to link the incident to global terrorism, citing this month's bombings in Madrid, and instability in neighboring Afghanistan.

That view was echoed by other Uzbek officials.

[snip]

While human rights groups have targeted the former Soviet Central Asian state for its tough treatment of dissent, it was an ally to the United States in its "war on terror" in Afghanistan.

CANBERRA, Australia — Two senators who staunchly opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq heckled President Bush as he spoke to parliament on Thursday, but the president shrugged it off, saying "I love free speech."

LONDON — The following is the text of a speech U.S. President George W. Bush Delivered at Whitehall Palace in London on Nov. 19, 2003:

...Americans traveling to England always observe more similarities to our country than differences. I've been here only a short time, but I've noticed the tradition of free speech exercised with enthusiasm...

(LAUGHTER)

... is alive and well here in London.

We have that at home too. They now have that right in Baghdad as well.

(APPLAUSE)

BAGHDAD, Iraq Several thousand Iraqis protested the closure of a newspaper Sunday, chanting anti-U.S. slogans and burning American flags outside the newspaper's office in Baghdad.

The U.S.-led civil administration in Iraq closed the Baghdad newspaper Al Hawsa for 60 days, accusing its publishers of inciting violence against coalition troops.

The paper is published by followers of prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

"If the Coalition forces are going to keep on presenting us with such messages... they can just dream about any sort of end to terrorism," a statement from the newspaper said. "And they can also dream that we will stay quiet and step down from what we believe."

The Coalition Provisional Authority accused the paper's editors of printing articles that incited violence against U.S. and other coalition troops -- a violation of coalition regulations.

The building was sealed, and anyone caught attempting to publish the paper could face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

I find you salty in conversation, but your book is somewhat dry.

Perhaps it could have been colorful. But my attitude is one of understatement. In Sweden, we have a strong civil service tradition. I think we are even-tempered and patient. Diplomacy needs patience.

What was Bush like?

He made on me a boyish impression. He was agile, moving, moving in the chair, especially compared to Cheney.

Who, I suppose, seems more wooden.

Yes, the rumors that Cheney is alive are somewhat exaggerated. It's Mark Twain in reverse.

Hamas Leader Says God Has Declared War on U.S.
By GREG MYRE

JERUSALEM, March 28 — The new Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, called President Bush the enemy of Muslims and said today that God had declared war on the United States.

Opposition parties have been denied registration, without which they will not be able to participate in the elections next December. According to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, press freedom is still non-existent, despite the lifting of official censorship in 2002. Human Rights Watch reports that human-rights activists, as well as independent Muslims, are still being persecuted, while torture remains widespread and its perpetrators largely go unpunished. None of the recommendations made over a year ago by the UN rapporteur on torture has been fully implemented.

The judiciary lacks independence and the legislature, which meets only a few days each year, has little power to shape laws. The president selects and replaces provincial governors. Under terms of a December 1995 referendum, Karimov's first term was extended. Another national referendum was held January 27, 2002 to yet again extend Karimov's term. The referendum passed and Karimov's term was extended by act of the parliament to December 2007. Most international observers refused to participate in the process and did not recognize the results, dismissing them as not meeting basic standards. Also passed in the 2002 referendum was a plan to create a bicameral Parliament. Several political parties have been formed with government approval but have yet to show interest in advocating alternatives to government policy.

[snip]

Uzbekistan is not a democracy and does not have a free press. Many opponents of the government have fled, and others have been arrested. The government severely represses those it suspects of Islamic extremism. Some 6,000 suspected extremists are incarcerated, and some are believed to have died over the past several years from prison disease and abuse. With few options for religious instruction, some young Muslims have turn to underground extremist Islamic movements. The police force and the intelligence service use torture as a routine investigation technique.

In February, an elderly woman who had been pushing for an investigation into the death of her son, who died in prison and whose injuries suggested he had been thrown into boiling water, was sentenced to six years behind bars. Following international pressure, she was released on the eve of a visit to Tashkent by Donald Rumsfeld, the American defence secretary, who declared that Uzbekistan was a key security partner in the region.