Addiction to Porn Destroying Lives, Senate Told

WASHINGTON - Comparing pornography to heroin, researchers are calling on Congress to finance studies on “porn addiction” and launch a public health campaign about its dangers.

Internet pornography is corrupting children and hooking adults into an addiction that threatens their jobs and families, a panel of anti-porn advocates told a hearing organized Thursday by Senator Sam Brownback, chairman of the Commerce subcommittee on science.

Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography’s effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine. She told of one patient, a business executive, who arrived at his office at 9 a.m. each day, logged onto Internet porn sites, and didn’t log off until 5 p.m.

Layden called for billboards and bus ads warning people to avoid pornography, strip clubs and prostitutes.

“We’re so afraid to talk about sex in our society that we really give carte blanche to the people who are producing this kind of material,” said James Weaver, a Virginia Tech professor who studies the impact of pornography.

Brownback, a Republican from Kansas and an outspoken Christian conservative who has championed efforts to curb indecency on television and the Internet, said the public is beginning to realize “they don’t just have to take it.”

But he acknowledged the First Amendment right to free speech has limited congressional efforts.

In June, the Supreme Court blocked a law designed to shield Web-surfing children from pornography, ruling that requiring adults to register or use access codes before viewing objectionable material would infringe on their rights.

Brownback said scientific data is needed to help his cause.

Weaver acknowledged that research “directly assessing the impact of pornography addiction on families and communities is rather limited.”

But he pointed to studies that show prolonged use of pornography leads to “sexual callousness, the erosion of family values and diminished sexual satisfaction.”

Liberal commentators, and even many conservative ones, assumed, not unreasonably, that the awful situation in Iraq would prove to be the president's undoing. But I found that the very severity and intractability of the Iraq disaster helped Bush because it induced a kind of fatalism about the possibility of progress. Time after time, undecided voters would agree vociferously with every single critique I offered of Bush's Iraq policy, but conclude that it really didn't matter who was elected, since neither candidate would have any chance of making things better. Yeah, but what's Kerry gonna do? voters would ask me, and when I told them Kerry would bring in allies they would wave their hands and smile with condescension, as if that answer was impossibly naïve. C'mon, they'd say, you don't really think that's going to work, do you?

To be sure, maybe they simply thought Kerry's promise to bring in allies was a lame idea--after all, many well-informed observers did. But I became convinced that there was something else at play here, because undecided voters extended the same logic to other seemingly intractable problems, like the deficit or health care. On these issues, too, undecideds recognized the severity of the situation--but precisely because they understood the severity, they were inclined to be skeptical of Kerry's ability to fix things. Undecided voters, as everyone knows, have a deep skepticism about the ability of politicians to keep their promises and solve problems. So the staggering incompetence and irresponsibility of the Bush administration and the demonstrably poor state of world affairs seemed to serve not as indictments of Bush in particular, but rather of politicians in general. Kerry, by mere dint of being on the ballot, was somehow tainted by Bush's failures as badly as Bush was.

The Directors of OPA, OCA, and OGC lead our Agency with contacts outside of the Agency. These disciplines allow us, as Agency officers to scrupulously honor our secrecy oath. A simple rule of thumb should always apply - all Agency business with the media or Congress should be conducted solely through these elements to ensure that we protect against the release of unauthorized documents, sources or methods. We remain a secret organization.

There is no reason the GOP should surrender their Election Day win to Arlen Specter and the Left. Oh, and by the way, that's not intolerance (the New York Times is undoubtedly soon to editorialize that it is); it is practical politics. Conservatives ought to act like the governing majority they are - before they aren't.

Mr. Specter has been chastened and warned ... Mr. Specter will have to be more open-minded, more supportive, than he's been in the past. But he looks like a man who got the message, doesn't he? "

[Kofi Annan] urged the [Security Council] to issue "the strongest warning" to all forces fighting in Sudan. He added that an agreement to end the war in southern Sudan would provide a basis for bringing peace to Darfur.

"When crimes on such a scale are being committed, and a sovereign state appears unable or unwilling to protect its own citizens, a grave responsibility falls on the international community, and specifically on this council," he said.

MSF clinics receive new rape cases everyday. Hundreds of these women have been brave enough to come forward and tell us what happened. In one clinic serving a small camp, 20 women came to us and reported that they were raped within the last four weeks. There is no doubt; these numbers are only the tip of the iceberg.

House Republicans approved a party rules change Wednesday that could allow Majority leader Tom DeLay to retain his leadership post if he is indicted by a Texas grand jury on state political corruption charges.

By a voice vote, and with a handful of lawmakers voicing opposition, the House Republican Conference decided that a party committee of several dozen members would review any felony indictment of a party leader and recommend at that time whether the leader should step aside.

Scalia, who was at Rackham Auditorium to speak on the philosophy of constitutional interpretation, was asked by a member of the audience whether, if he had the chance, he would revisit his decision in the Gore-Bush 2000 election. Scalia cut off the questioner , saying, "I'm inclined to say it's been four years and an election. Get over it." That drew loud boos from the crowd. Scalia voted with the 5-4 majority in 2000 to cease the recount of disputed votes in Florida.

Scalia continued, "The issue is not whether the decision should have been decided in the Florida or U.S. supreme courts, but that the Constitution had been violated. ... The only decision was to put an end to it after three weeks and looking like fools to the rest of the world. It was too much of a mess."

But the Prize for the Court’s Most Feeble Effort to fabricate “national consensus” must go to its appeal (deservedly relegated to a footnote) to the views of assorted professional and religious organizations, members of the so-called “world community,” and respondents to opinion polls. I agree with the Chief Justice that the views of professional and religious organizations and the results of opinion polls are irrelevant. Equally irrelevant are the practices of the “world community,” whose notions of justice are (thankfully) not always those of our people. “We must never forget that it is a Constitution for the United States of America that we are expounding. … [W]here there is not first a settled consensus among our own people, the views of other nations, however enlightened the Justices of this Court may think them to be, cannot be imposed upon Americans through the Constitution.” Thompson, 487 U.S., at 868—869, n. 4 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

Does the Genocide Convention require a more forceful response to the ongoing genocide in Darfur or is it, like the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war many wars ago, a waste of paper?

Boys in the Spurger, Texas, school district won't be wearing dresses Wednesday and girls aren't going to be putting on men's suits.

That after a parent complained about a so-called "cross-dressing" day.

According to the tradition, boys and girls reverse social roles for one day during homecoming week. It lets the older girls invite boys on dates, open doors and pay for sodas. It also calls for guys to dress like girls -- and girls like guys.

However one parent complains the practice has homosexual overtones. School officials call that statement "inflammatory and misleading."

Still, the tradition is being scrapped and the district will hold "Camo Day" instead -- with black boots and Army camouflage to be worn by everyone who wants to participate.

Today Liberty Legal Institute came to the aid of a concerned parent requesting an excused absence for her children on official cross-dressing day in her children’s elementary school.

Tomorrow, November 17 is cross-dressing day for students, pre-K through sixth grade, at Spurger Elementary School .

“It is outrageous that a school in a small town in east Texas would encourage their 4-year-olds to be cross-dressers,” said Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Legal Institute.

But Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida who now hosts MSNBC's nightly "Scarborough Country," says the challenge for conservative hosts will be to prove "that we're more than just the Pravda of the right." He adds, "I think that's going to be difficult for some people. I honestly don't know what Sean Hannity is going to be able to talk about. If you've been reading off the Republican National Committee's talking points like he has for the past four years, it's going to be hard to be critical of the status quo."

Fresh from election gains, House Republicans moved Tuesday to consider a change in party rules that would prevent their majority leader, Tom DeLay, from having to step down from his leadership position should he be indicted in an investigation in Texas.

[edit]

Republicans adopted the rule in the 1990's, when they were in the minority and were trying to put the focus on investigations of prominent Democrats. They say a rule change is justified because the investigation involving Mr. DeLay, who was re-elected majority leader on Tuesday, is politically inspired.

House Republicans adopted the indictment rule in 1993, when they were trying to end four decades of Democratic control of the House, in part by highlighting Democrats' ethical lapses. They said at the time that they held themselves to higher standards than prominent Democrats such as then-Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (Ill.), who eventually pleaded guilty to mail fraud and was sentenced to prison.

The chairmanship should crown a senator whose loyalties to the Republican Party mainstream are unwavering and enthusiastic.

A conservative radio show host who was taken off the air for using an ethnic slur resumed his show Monday, but vowed that he will not change the tone of his program.

Mark Belling used the word "wetback," a derogatory term for illegal Mexican immigrants, on his Oct. 27 show about potential voter fraud in Wisconsin.

[edit]

Belling, an occasional fill-in for national conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, has been on WISN for 15 years and consistently draws top ratings for his target audience of men ages 25 to 54.

Senators-elect Burr, Coburn, DeMint, Isakson, Martinez, Thune and Vitter will be proud additions to the Senate. I’ll tell you what would have been grotesque: If Erskine Bowles, Brad Carson, Betty Castor, Tom Daschle and Inez Tenenbaum, would have been in the Senate, that would have been grotesque. Pitty poor America then. Thankfully, the Lord saved us from all of them.

Two units that were not involved in Friday’s fighting advanced on the mosque, one moving around the back and the second, accompanied by Sites, from the front. Sites said he could hear gunfire from inside.

Sites was present when a lieutenant from one of the units asked a Marine what had happened inside the mosque. The Marine replied that there were people inside.

“Did you shoot them?” the lieutenant asked.

“Roger that, sir,” the second Marine replied.

“Were they armed?” the lieutenant asked.

The second Marine shrugged in reply.

Sites saw the five wounded men left behind on Friday still in the mosque. Four of them had been shot again, apparently by members of the squad that entered the mosque moments earlier. One appeared to be dead, and the three others were severely wounded. The fifth man was lying under a blanket, apparently not having been shot a second time.

One of the Marines noticed that one of the severely wounded men was still breathing. He did not appear to be armed, Sites said.

The Marine could be heard insisting: “He’s f---ing faking he’s dead — he’s faking he’s f---ing dead.” Sites then watched as the Marine raised his rifle and fired into the man’s head from point-blank range.

“Well, he’s dead now,” another Marine said.

When told that the man he shot was a wounded prisoner, the Marine, who himself had been shot in the face the day before but had already returned to duty, told Sites: “I didn’t know, sir. I didn’t know.”

"I would have shot the insurgent too. Two shots to the head," said Sergeant Nicholas Graham, 24, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "You can't trust these people. He should not be investigated. He did nothing wrong."

[edit]

Marines have repeatedly described the rebels they fought against in Falluja as ruthless fighters who didn't play by the rules. They say the investigation is politically motivated.

"It's all political. This Marine has been under attack for days. It has nothing to do with what he did," said Corporal Keith Hoy, 23.

The Bush administration has called it genocide. Other governments have labeled it ethnic cleansing and the world's worst humanitarian crisis. There have been calls for collective action and promises of relief. There have been somber reminders of the slaughter in tiny Rwanda a decade ago and solemn vows not to let such a thing happen here, in Africa's largest country.

But months later, the displaced inhabitants of Darfur, in western Sudan, find themselves consoled by little more than words. No Western country has been willing to commit troops to a small peacekeeping mission mounted by the African Union, while aid donors have been distracted by the conflict in Iraq, and U.N. sanctions have been frozen by diplomatic disputes.

[edit]

The continuing international reluctance to address the Darfur crisis has led critics -- including diplomats and former peacekeeping officials -- to complain that the United States and other powers have cynically substituted dramatic rhetoric for meaningful actions. One such critic is Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who led the stymied U.N. peacekeeping mission during the 1994 Rwanda massacres.

"The use of the word 'genocide' was nothing more than the U.S. playing politics with a term that should be sacrosanct," said Dallaire, who argues that the American government should back up its words with deeds, in part by "putting a lot more pressure" behind efforts to bolster the African Union mission.

Charles R. Snyder, the State Department's senior representative on Sudan, defended the U.S. role in Darfur, saying the Bush administration took the lead when no other country was willing to do so and has been the largest donor of aid.

"The word 'genocide' was not an action word; it was a responsibility word," Snyder said in a telephone interview. "There was an ethical and moral obligation, and saying it underscored how seriously we took this. . . . If I didn't believe the U.S. was doing enough, I would resign."

A Marine approached one of the men in the mosque saying, "He's [expletive] faking he's dead. He's faking he's [expletive] dead."

The Marine raised his rifle and fired into the apparently wounded man's head, at which point a companion said, "Well, he's dead now."

"Did you shoot them?" he asked.

"Roger that, sir," one of the men replied.

"Were they armed?" the lieutenant asked. The other Marine shrugged.

GREENSBURG, La. (AP) - Beavers found a bag of bills stolen from a casino, tore it open and wove the money into the sticks and brush of their dam on a creek near Baton Rouge.

"They hadn't torn the bills up. They were still whole," said Maj. Michael Martin of the East Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Office.

The money was part of at least $70,000 taken last week from the Lucky Dollar Casino in Greensburg, about 30 miles northeast of Baton Rouge.

[snip]

"The casino people were elated" to get the money back, even if some of it was wet, [Police Chief] Harrell said.

"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely ... The president is well aware of what happened, when a bunch of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster ... And I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."

Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania)

During the primaries she told (former Kerry campaign manager Jim) Jordan: "I want you to issue a challenge for me to debate Howard Dean."

Another one was that they would change the burden of proof--that for the first time in history the burden would be on the nominee to somehow prove that they were worthy of the appointment instead of having the Senate review the presumptive power of the President to make the nominee and then if disagreeing object to them. That was a big deal.

They also claimed the burden of proof now was on the nominees, meaning that an otherwise qualified individual would have to submit his or her personal views to Democratic litmus tests, even if the nominee believed those personal views have no place in the courtroom. Not surprisingly, the nominees who have not met this arbitrary burden of proof are those whom committee Democrats were determined to block in the first place.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist yesterday withheld his support of Sen. Arlen Specter to head the Judiciary Committee, and said the Pennsylvania Republican needed to prove to his colleagues this week that he will run the panel impartially and push nominees all the way to a full Senate vote.

[edit]

Mr. Specter will meet individually this week with his colleagues and members of the Senate leadership to "both explain what he meant and what he would do as chairman," said Mr. Frist, referring to postelection comments by Mr. Specter that it is unlikely the upper body would confirm pro-life nominees.

Newsweek (which is owned by The Washington Post Co.) got special access for seven reporters segregated from its regular coverage by promising not to publish the article -- part of a forthcoming book -- until after Election Day.

President Bush's campaign granted less access and periodically booted Newsweek staffers from its Arlington headquarters, once for reporting on an off-the-record campaign party.

"The Sudanese government continues to terrorize its own citizens even in the face of the U.N. Security Council arriving in Africa,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division. “Unless the Security Council backs up its earlier ultimatums with strong action, ethnic cleansing in Darfur will be consolidated. And hundreds of U.N. personnel will be on the ground helplessly watching as it happens."

Just hours after the government agreed to a peace deal Tuesday aimed at ending violence in Darfur, Sudanese police arrived at this battered camp in the middle of the night, beating residents with wooden poles, bulldozing and burning shelters and firing tear gas into a health clinic, residents and aid workers reported.

The political parties showed rarely seen urgency and unity when they rushed through Congress a condemnation of the genocide in July. Since then, aside from a few op-eds and speeches, they've been silent. Sen. Frist, can you unite your senators and jointly ask the President to intervene in Darfur? Sen. Kerry, Sen. Kennedy and Sen. Reid, you are the leaders of the Democrats in the Senate, can you listen to your consciences and not your politics for a moment and support the President if he sends forces to Darfur? Can mostly everyone put their rivalries aside and do something only America can do; rescue the survivors of genocide and punish those responsible?

Mr. President, you are a man who calls it like you see it, unafraid to do what must be done to defend America and advance freedom in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. You called Darfur genocide, now will you stop the slaughter and suffering in Darfur? Will you stand up to a terrorist supporting, oppressive regime in Sudan? Will you spend some of that political capital you say you have and stop the most inhuman slaughter of the 21st Century? Can you lead America to rise to the occasion, to live up to its principles and to save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives from agonizing suffering and certain death?

[Jerry] Falwell said he had spoken to Rove three times since the election, and that Specter called him this week to offer assurances that he would not block Bush's court nominees.

Falwell, meanwhile, can -- and apparently, does -- get in touch with Rove. No one finds this strange because it's expected that top White House officials maintain an ongoing dialog with lowlifes like Falwell. Considering his record of hate and division, reasonable people and polite society should make him a pariah. Instead, Falwell has an ongoing dialog with the president's chief aide.

Which is worse: that Rove and Falwell are chatting or that no one seems to find that disturbing?

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

Text for the Week

"Greater love hath no man than that he lays down other people's
lives for his friend."

Epistle of Tony to the Neo-corinthians