Only if a well-placed shot to a man's temple to kill him instantly to keep him from negotiating with any more with TAY-RISTS can still be considered lucky!

As a former soldier, I always thought that shots into the "bull's-eye" were skillful, rather than lucky, since we were being taught skill, and not reliance on luck!

But these are now new times, I understand, and we are operating on BUSH RULES now, and so, who can really say what words do now apply, although from the e-mails back to America accompanying the pictures from the scene of the dead Italian guy seem to make it pretty clear that the soldiers involved still consider it to be a skillful and expert shot, and not just luck, as some detractors would want us to believe:

"Oh, you're full of crap, that was just a lucky shot, bet you couldn't do it again!"

"Oh, yeah!"

"Get another Italian out there in a car, and let's just see if I can't make it two for two!"

"Oh, you were just lucky!"

"Want to bet?"

The more skill you possess, the luckier you are.

I wouldn't want to ride shotgun in a second car, and neither would you.

To the temple. Wow. We used to call that kind of shot a "pinwheel."

HHHhhhmmm!

What a very interesting perspective, jeffmoskin!

Interesting indeed, your juxtaposition of skill and luck, in that way, and yes, I can see how it would be so!

And the temple shot is probably the one shot that is absolutely guaranteed to take your man right on out of the picture, foreveraftermore!

And it sure did work on poor old Calipari!

No more negotiating with TAY-RISTS for that boy, at least not with that head George's "BOYS" left him with, and that is for sure, or at least, that is the chatter as I hear it up here, and who ever does really know!

And what are them Italians going to do about it anyway, I hear the boys saying, stop sending us pizzas?

And they do have a point, when you think on it: what can they do?

Make us an offer we can't refuse.

And while we are on the subject of "war" right now, here is some of what it is costing us right now, here in OUR America, and from the looks of it, if it is not related to "war", it looks like we just cannot afford any of it, well, because we need all of OUR reosurces to go into the pockets of those who make money off of "war", and then put some of that money back into the pockets of OUR politicians, in the form of "contributions", to keep those politicians putting more of OUR money back into the pockets of those who make money off of "war":

"House, Senate Agree on War Spending Bill"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
Wed May 4, 2:54 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The death benefit to survivors of troops killed in combat zones would jump nearly tenfold — from $12,000 to $100,000 — under an $82 billion spending package for Iraq and Afghanistan that is headed for final votes in the House and Senate.

President Bush gets most of what he asked for in final legislation that House and Senate negotiators agreed on Tuesday.

The measure reflects a desire by lawmakers to give the Pentagon what it needs while holding the line on State Department spending.

The House is to vote on the measure Thursday.

The Senate is expected to take up the measure next week when it returns from a weeklong recess.

Overall, the legislation is the fifth such emergency spending package Congress has taken up since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

It pushes the costs of the two conflicts and other efforts to fight terrorism worldwide over four years beyond $300 billion.

Congress had promised to pay only for urgent items in the spending package, but the final legislation ended up with the same overall price tag as the president's proposal.

Most of the money — $75.9 billion — is slated for military operations, nearly $1 billion more than what the president wanted.

About $4.2 billion will be spent on foreign aid and other international relations programs, roughly $1.5 billion below Bush's proposal.

The legislation also includes immigration provisions, including one that would make states verify that driver's license applicants are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants.

Since the president asked for the money for Afghanistan and Iraq in February, the House and Senate had differed slightly over what portion of the spending package should go to military operations and how much should go to foreign aid.

In the end, lawmakers added more money to protect troops at war, including funding to put more armor on vehicles used in combat zones.

Congress also included the death-benefits provisions but restricted the one-time payment to survivors of those who die in combat zones.

Some lawmakers had wanted families of all troops who are killed — no matter where they died — to be eligible.

The increase would apply retroactively to families of troops killed in combat zones, as defined by the U.S. statute and including in Iraq and Afghanistan, beginning on Oct. 7, 2001, when U.S. military operations commenced in Afghanistan.

The measure also increases life insurance benefits for all troops to $400,000 from $250,000 and creates a new insurance benefit of up to $100,000 for those who have suffered traumatic injuries such as losing a limb or eyesight.

The bill also includes a provision meant to protect the C-130J cargo plane from being scaled back by the Pentagon and language that would prohibit the Pentagon from reducing its fleet of 12 aircraft carriers until it does a long-term review of defense needs.

On the foreign affairs side, Congress sliced several of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's requests.

The measure provides $230 million for funds controlled by Rice for U.S. allies in the war on terror for economic and military aid.

She had requested $400 million.

The State Department also gets $592 million to build a sprawling embassy in Baghdad, although that too is about $70 million below Rice's request.

The State Department also will get $680 million for international peacekeeping efforts in countries including Sudan and Haiti and $1.7 billion for anti-drug efforts and development projects in Afghanistan.

The bill also provides:

_ $200 million in economic and infrastructure assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

_ $635 million for increased U.S. border security, including money to hire another 500 border patrol agents.

_ Roughly $900 million for tsunami disaster relief.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defense.gov

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

The State Department also gets $592 million to build a sprawling embassy in Baghdad, although that too is about $70 million below Rice's request.

Despite what whitewash CONGRESS is putting on this, they'll just build this SPRAWLING PALACE in Baghdad as they originally were going to do, and we'll be handed a bunch of cost over-runs, to have to pay for, as is usually the case with government building projects, like the New York State Capital, and that "BIG DIG", over there in Boston, as examples!

SO?

How much is this sprawling PALACE COMPLEX in Iraq really going to end up costing us American taxpayers?

Stay tuned!

And while OUR CONGRESS is ramming all of this money of OURS into military operations around the world, what is the state of OUR military, anyway?

Let's look and see what the latest information on that subject has to tell us:

Terrorism & Security

"U.S. military report: Wars straining U.S. power - Future readiness may be hurt by events today, Myers says"

May 3: A U.S. military leader says after years of combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is seriously limited in its ability to fight another major conflict.

NBC News and news services
Updated: 7:46 p.m. ET May 3, 2005

WASHINGTON - After years of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military is seriously limited today in its ability to fight in other major conflicts.

That's the sobering assessment from the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, who told Congress on Tuesday that the United States would ultimately win another war, but it would take longer and put U.S. forces at greater risk, because the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained resources.

Myers expressed confidence that American forces would ultimately prevail in any future conflict.

“The timelines may have to be extended, we may have to use additional resources, but it doesn’t matter, because we will be successful in the end,” he said.

Forces may not be as fast, precise

But in his annual Risk Assessment Report to Congress, Myers warns that the stressed U.S. military forces may be unable to meet expectations for speed and precision — in fighting and winning another conflict — and that “may result in higher casualties” for both U.S. military and civilians.

“The problem is that so much or our force is tied down that we don’t have enough to do other wars right away,” said Loren B. Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a think tank based in Arlington, Va.

One defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Myers predicted the risk would go down in a year or two.

The military’s reorganization toward Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s vision of a lean, agile force should reduce any increased risks it faces, he said.

Dealing with what's left of ‘axis’

Among the most likely conflicts the Pentagon foresees in the near term are with North Korea and Iran, the two remaining members of President Bush’s “axis of evil.”

The Bush administration accuses both of having ambitions to become nuclear powers; North Korea has already claimed it has nuclear weapons.

The U.S. military has timelines for defeating its potential adversaries, given enough soldiers, tanks, aircraft and warships to do the job.

But with so many of those resources tied up fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, those timelines could slip, Myers said, according to the defense official.

That increases the risk for conflict in places like North Korea and Iran, if either country believes the United States is in no position to rapidly respond militarily.

Myers' report comes as a nine-member commission held its first meeting Tuesday to discuss the next round of U.S. military base closings.

The Defense Department will release a list of facilities on the chopping block next week.

Ex-general's dire view

Barry McCaffrey, a retired U.S. Army general and an MSNBC analyst, was more dire in his assessment of the nation's military.

“Our ground combat power, the Army and the Marine Corps, are at their limit," he said Tuesday.

"We cannot sustain another operation."

Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, agreed.

“We can respond, but the response is gonna be conditional and this complicates our diplomacy and national security,” he said.

About 138,000 American troops are in Iraq, according to U.S. Central Command.

Another 18,000 are in Afghanistan.

Military officials have given no estimate of when they will be able to significantly draw down the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, but some generals have suggested it could come next year if Iraqi security forces continue to improve in quality and grow in numbers.

NBC News' Jim Miklazsewski and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Before George W. Bush was ever elected president of America, back in 1999, my thought was that with him in the White House, we would be tossing this nation's future right in the dumper!

Four years later, in 2004, before he was re-elected, by God alone knows who, I began posting articles from the main-stream media that to me documented the decline in this nation in just four short years under George W. Bush, and now, here we are, facing four more years, and this article above is just one more example of the SOARING DECLINE in America that has come about from having an incompetent as the leader of a once-great nation, sort of like putting Nero or Caligula on the throne of Rome, after the likes of Augustus.

SO!

WE ARE NOT SAFE IN AMERICA, and that is as a direct result of incompetent leadership in OUR America, and I just want the record to be clear THAT I NEVER VOTED FOR GEORGE W. BUSh, nor did I ever think he had the brains to come in out of the rain, let alone lead a nation such as OURS used to be, and so, those of you out there looking for scapegoats, DON'T LOOK TO ME!

George W. Bush is NOT my president!

Right now, I am disenfranchised, and so, do not have one.

Unfortunately for America, it does!

Unfortunately (for all of us) he IS our president. By court appointment in 2000, by skulduggery in 2004.

I don't believe he was EVER elected - - he stole Florida in 2000, and he stole Ohio in 2004 (plus millions of votes in Bush States for his "Mandate").

Still, we are left to pick up the pieces. We cannot impeach him (Repub House and Senate).

The best we could hope for is to get a Dem House and Senate ASAP in 2006.

If anyone who reads this and is not brain dead, can still believe that we are going to leave Iraq in the near or distant future, all I can say is " You have a much more trusting attitude toward the people that are deliberately and steadily tearing down the country that we used to know, than I do. "

$592 million for an embassy. In a country like Iraq.

How much did the Empire State bldg. cost to build? Even in todays dollars?

And more important - Why do we need such a magnificent and costly structure in
one Arab country?

Who are we trying to impress. Why?

Didn't I hear El Jerko saying we have to economize and bring down the deficit?

jeffmoskin called it right long ago.

OIL.

A.B.

And by the way - this is not play money.

It's not George Bush's money.

It's not money nice, rich, patriotic companies like Halliburton donate to the Gov't.

It's your money and mine.

Aren't we at all upset by this?

A.B.

And no, it is not play money, Mr. A.B. and yet they play with it, as if that were all it was, and we represented a never-ending source of it, our labors, as though we were merely beasts of burden, or geese who laid golden eggs.

And somehow, Mr. A.B., I think the emotional overload caused by caring these days is driving people right into a kind of state of walking catatonia, a kind of zombie-ism of where they are beyond getting upset, because their emotional systems just cannot handle the further load!

A similar thing happens when you cause environmental stress in rats by jamming too many of them into a maze!

Over in the JUDICIAL part of the forum, in a thread entitled "BUSH-Appointee deals right to dissent a death-blow in Northern District of New York", I am following the efforts of a small group of older American citizens in upstate-New York State, the Capital District area, to be exact, to have a CIVIL RIGHTS APPEAL heard in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, sometime later this year!

Last Thursday, the necessary Notice of Appeal to commence the appeal process in that matter was timely filed by these citizens with the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York within the thirty-day window for filing such notices, and when that Notice of Appeal was filed, that action by these citizens started a ten-day clock ticking, where these citizens then had ten days from the date of that filing to file a case management record with the Court, and that document was put in the mail today.

This necessary filing today keeps this citizen's CONSTITUTIONAL appeal appeal alive, and on track towards an eventual hearing in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which will be based on hard work, and the law, and THEIR continuing belief as Americans that it is OUR adherence to the law, and that alone, which separates us from brute animals!

What follows is the basis of THEIR case as it was filed with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals today!

For the sake of privacy, names of defendant parties, where private individuals, are given as their "street names"!

However, where the defendants are serving in a public capacity, and are alleged in the court papers to have used their public office in an improper fashion, and where these are public documents that I am citing from, the names of the public officials shall be read from the record as they appear:

Brief Description of Nature of Action, and Result Below:

CIVIL RIGHTS COMPLAINT PURSUANT TO 42 USCS 1983 which has as its origins a physical and verbal assault on the PLAINTIFF herein, on videotape, by defendant "Chum-Chum" of Poestenkill, on August 7, 2001.

In that videotape, which is at the heart of the matter, herein, defendant "Chum-Chum" can clearly be seen in digital quality running towards PLAINTIFF on a public thoroughfare in the Town of Poestenkill, County of Rensselaer, State of New York, which is in the Northern District of New York, and assaulting him.

Afterwards, defendant "Chum-Chum", still on tape, can be heard to say "Looka him shake", meaning the PLAINTIFF, who he had just seriously injured, and then, defendant "Chum-Chum" is heard to call PLAINTIFF, a 55-year old disabled veteran, a "f***ing retard"!

Defendant "Chum-Chum" taunts the PLAINTIFF in that videotape:

"Who you going to show that videotape to?"

"Nobody cares!"

Defendant "Chum-Chum" further informed PLAINTIFF as defendant Pelletier assaulted him on August 7, 2001 that defendant Pelletier purposefully intended to seriously harm PLAINTIFF in his person and property to deny PLAINTIFF rights, privileges and immunities guaranteed to him by the United States Constitution and 18 USCS 1512(b) & 1513(b) of the laws of the United States, and that he could do so with impunity, in the Town of Poestenkill, County of Rensselaer, State of New York, because he was a protected person.

Thereafter, it is alleged that on or about the afternoon of August 17, 2001, defendant RENSSELAER COUNTY EXECUTIVE Kathleen Jimino called PLAINTIFF at his home in Poestenkill, Rensselaer County, and told PLAINTIFF that defendant "Chum-Chum's" interests would be protected by Rensselaer County if PLAINTIFF attempted to bring a legal action against "Chum-Chum" for alleged Public Health Law and Sanitary Code violations in the Town of Poestenkill involving alleged falsification of test data by licensed professionals in Rensselaer County.

It is then alleged that on August 21, 2001, when PLAINTIFF made it clear to defendant RENSSELAER COUNTY ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH DIRECTOR Roy Champagne that PLAINTIFF was instituting a legal action against the Rensselaer County Department of Health for alleged negligence, that defendant Kathleen Jimino, cloaked in the authority of Rensselaer County Executive and acting under color of New York law, did conspire with defendant Joseph Cybulski, who was cloaked in the authority of Rensselaer County Director of Community Services, for the express purpose of having defendant Cybulski, under color of New York State Mental Hygiene Law 41.03(8), 41.05©, 41.07(a), 41.09 and 9.37(b), obtain for defendant Jimino from defendant Samaritan Hospital a fraudulent New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 involuntary commitment order so that defendant Jimino could have PLAINTIFF involuntarily incarcerated as a mental patient to intentionally harm PLAINTIFF in his person and property for seeking equal protection of law in Rensselaer County and for petitioning for redress of grievance.

Thereafter, on August 22, 2001, despite never having been seen, or examined in any way by CORPORATE DEFENDANTS herein, specifically Dr. John Braaten, Carol Fiorino, Bernadette Hallam and Andrea Gallerie, PLAINTIFF was taken into custody at the Albany, New York VA Hospital and was held against his will, and therefore stripped of his liberty and dignity as a human being, based upon NOTHING MORE than a fraud, a New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 "psychiatric arrest order", signed by defendants John Christian Braaten and Carol Fiorino, falsely attesting therein that they had physically examined PLAINTIFF, and had thereby determined that he was a person suffering from a mental disease who was dangerous and needed immediate incarceration in a secure mental health facility run by defendant Northeast Health, Inc., in the City of Troy, New York.

Were it not for the efforts of an Albany, New York Police Officer, who demonstrated to federal VA officials holding PLAINTIFF that the 9.45 order was based on a fraud, and so secured PLAINTIFF's release, PLAINTIFF would have remained in forced captivity, like a deranged animal, based on nothing but outright false statements transmitted allegedly from the Rensselaer County Office Building to Northeast Health, for the issuance of the 9.45 order, and then back to the Rensselaer County Office Building for transmittal across jurisdictional boundaries from the County of Rensselaer, to the State of New York, and thus, to the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, and the VA POLICE in Albany, New York.

The affidavit containing that sworn record was ordered left off of the COMPLAINT by the Court below.

The Court Below then dismissed the Amended Complaint where these issues were framed with prejudice as being unintelligible.

A MOTION FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF to enjoin this practice was denied as moot by the Court below.

Issues Proposed to be Raised on Appeal:

* The twenty-page limit on the maximum length that a pro se Civil Rights Complaint can be in the Northern District of New York, which is extremely prejudicial to the rights of the pro se PLAINTIFF who is a disabled person in the Northern District of New York;

* The central issue, of the appeal, however, is the legality and Constitutionality of what transpired when PLAINTIFF walked into the Albany New York VA Hospital on the morning of 22 August 2001, and was immediately taken into custody on orders of the VA Police upon identifying himself to VA personnel in the hospital as a disabled veteran seeking sanctuary in the VA Hospital, for fear of his life if he were to return to Rensselaer County, and his home.

In the Court below, PLAINTIFF requested permission of the Court to challenge affirmative defenses of absolute or qualified immunity, and collateral estoppel and res judicata raised in their Answers by several non-moving defendants to include defendants Kathleen Jimino, Joseph Cybulski, Timothy Holt, Denise M. Ayers, NYSRPN 453486, Roy Champagne, Robert Reiter, and Kevin Joseph McGrath, NYSLS 049508, which request was granted by the Court on November 24, 2003.

In the Court below, the central issue to be argued in this appeal is as follows:

Where the Amended Complaint in the action 03-CV-0753, commenced by Summons and Amended Complaint on September 17, 2003 in the Northern District of New York, asserts a cognizable Federal claim of violation of plaintiff's rights pursuant to the Constitution and laws of the United States pursuant to this Court's holdings in Ruhlmann v. Ulster County Dept. of Social Services, 234 F.Supp.2d 140 (N.D.N.Y. 2002), and alleges uncontroverted facts that support such claim, the Motions to Dismiss of defendants Northeast Health, Inc., Samaritan Hospital of Troy, New York, Adrian Anthony Morris, NYSMD 166342, John Christian Braaten, NYSMD 138415, Carol Fiorino, NYSRPN 230870, Bernadette Rotter Hallam, NYSRPN 331662, Andrea J. Gallerie, NYSRPN 444291, Carl Richard Aiken, NYSPE 067805, William Shea, Eugene Bechard and David Gebhardt to dismiss on the pleadings in the within action pursuant to F.R.Civ.P. Rules 9(b), 12(b)(6) and 12© must be denied in the sound exercise of this Court's discretion.

Where the Motions to Dismiss of various defendants rely upon matters outside of the pleadings, the motions are properly denominated as motions for summary judgment pursuant to F.R.Civ.P Rule 56, wherefore plaintiff herein is entitled to discovery prior to replying to such motions.

Where a more artfully drawn complaint might state the cognizable claims for relief as against defendants above in a more definitive manner, the Court should treat the Rule 9(b) and Rule 12 motions of defendants as motions for a more definite statement pursuant to Rule 12(e) and thereby grant leave to amend, rather than order the Amended Complaint dismissed.

Finally, pursuant to this Court's holdings in Ruhlmann v. Ulster County Dept. of Social Services, 234 F.Supp.2d 140 (N.D.N.Y.2002), defendants are not entitled to either absolute or qualified immunity in this above matter.

end quotes

Personally, my heart goes out to these simple people, and their struggle as American citizens to see justice finally done in this matter, which has been a charade in OUR America, and a shame, for far too long a time now, and so, I must wish them God Speed, and best of luck, which as jeffmoskin notes, comes of having great skill, and may that be the case here!

Stay tuned, and see!

This morning, as is my habit when I wake up, I turned on the radio news to see what parts of the planet or solar system George W. Bush might have had vaporized while I was sleeping, to protect me, of course, the "vaporizing", I mean, because, of course, outside of wanting to take over every place on the face of the earth that has oil, the only real reason George W. Bush would destroy the native population of another country would be to "per-tect" us, but I'm digressing here ....

This morning, the talk on the radio news had to do with the elections in England, and what that "outcome" was likely to be, in terms of "TWO-GUN TEXAS TONY" Blair, the "GREAT APPEASOR" of OUR times, and the commentary that I heard was interesting, and it illustrates why a nation like America should not have seeming pathological liars as presidents or high officials, such as Secretary of State, or National Security Adviser, or Vice-President, or Secretary of Defense, and that is the "sky-is-falling; cry wolf" syndrome, that really never does go away, despite the wishes of the "spinners" out there to have it be so.

The talk on the radio is that "TWO-GUN TEXAS TONY", the Savile Row "cowboy" of London, England, is likely to win re-relection, but in a much weakened state, AS A RESULT OF DISTRUST in that nation towards him for his stance on Iraq, as the very visible APPEASOR and partner of George W. Bush in that enterprise to invade and take over another sovereign nation on the face of the earth to get control of its oil resources, at the expense of the lives of its citizens, especially women and children.

The upshot of this is that in the future, England is much more likely to be wary of any calls from the United States for aid and assistance in dealing with alleged "developing" situations in the world, BECAUSE OF ALL THE LIES surrounding this invasion and military take-over of Iraq.

SO!

OUR America grows weaker IN THE WORLD, by visible degrees, and all George W. Bush and his crowd can do now is continue to PROJECT an aura of ineptitude and weakness and outright thuggishness and stupidity all around the globe, for all the candid world to see, and TAKE NOTE OF, as well, while BURNING up BILLIONS of OUR tax dollars to make us even weaker, here at home:

"Hey, looka there, Billy, the GREAT BIG BULLY has a weak knee and he can't move to his left very well, so stay on that side of him, and then, let him have it real good, right there in that weak knee!"

Or as "GOD" is alleged to have said, one time: "Hey, Daniel, listen, that Goliath fellow is going to be damn big, and mean to boot, but take my advice and put that sling stone right between his little pig eyes, and then watch out, because he is coming down with a crash, because as big as he is, he has a real weak head, and that is where you want to hit him, and good!"

In my lifetime as an American, and as one of its many disabled veterans, I truly never thought that I would see this day when OUR America would be little more than this great big bloated BULLY crashing around out there like a witless idiot out there in the world, running amuck on the world stage, WITH ITS PANTS DOWN AROUND ITS ANKLES, and its fat *** hanging out there, for all the candid world to see, and laugh at!

Like the WMD's, for example!

Some "rocket scientist" or other sees some Iraqi in a satellite phote carrying an over-sized burrito to work for his lunch, and the next thing we know, out of that, Saddam Hussein has "NU-CLAR WEP-INS", and he is a threat to world peace and safety!

EXCEPT .....

It was just an over-sized burrito, and never was anything else, but, what the hey .....

The point was to get the oil, and in the meantime, POUR the entire contents of OUR national treasury right on down the pockets of George W. Bush's "SECURITY INDUSTRY" cronies, and so, yes, America, a few lies just were necessary to achieve those "ends", and that is that!

Look at George W. Bush, will you, out there scouring around in caves and nooks and crannies thousands of miles away from here to dig out these losers, and then parade them before all the candid world as "THE GREATEST ENEMIES" the world has ever known, and THEY are HIS enemies!

"THE WORLD's GREATEST MAN", of course, MUST HAVE "enemies" who have to be the "WORLD's GREATEST", or else this cheap "passion play" involving George W. Bush as "GOD's INDOMITABLE CHAMPION ON EARTH "that is being written and foisted off on the candid world as "history", would simply have no meaning!

And so, WE MUST BELIEVE!

YES, America, we must have faith that some guy captured in Pakistan, who looks like his real crime is sodomizing camels or other wild animals is REALLY THE DEVIL's OWN SECRET AGENT with the power to destroy the earth, before George W. Bush is able to do the same thing, and to me, this whole show is just getting to be down-right ridiculous, to be truthful!

SO?

A question:

TO BE A "GOOD" AMERICAN, circa, 2005, JUST EXACTLY HOW STUPID MUST ONE BE, RIGHT NOW TODAY, as compared to how stupid we had to be back on 9/11/2001?

My own guess is, "A WHOLE LOT MORE", but this is a democracy, and so, that is only one man's opinion on the matter!

SO?

What's yours?

"Britons Vote With War in Iraq on Minds"

By BETH GARDINER, Associated Press Writer

25 minutes ago

LONDON - Voters cast ballots in village halls, schools and even pubs across Britain Thursday in a national election that is expected to give Prime Minister Tony Blair a third term in office despite widespread anger over the Iraq war.

Although most observers believed Blair's Labour Party would win the election thanks to the strength of the economy, anti-war sentiment and doubts about Blair's trustworthiness could deny him the landslide victories he won in 1997 and 2001.

Few expected Blair's main rival, Conservative Party leader Michael Howard, to become prime minister, but the Tories could pare back the number of seats Labour holds in the House of Commons.

Blair's party had a huge 161-seat majority in the outgoing legislature; the new house will have 646 members.

If Labour's majority shrinks significantly, it could badly damage Blair, who would wield less power than in his first two terms and lose standing within his party.

"As far as the economy is concerned, we're doing fine."

"It's just the one big issue (the war)."

"I find it appalling that thousands of people are lying out there dead, it just sickens me," said Gary Davis, a taxi driver who voted Conservative in north London.

"Labour haven't lived up to expectations and I don't like the Tory attitude," said Sue Kenworthy, a housewife who cast her ballot in the village hall at Hatfield Broad Oak, a small rural community 40 miles north of London.

She voted for the Liberal Democrats, the second biggest opposition party.

Blair has said that if Labour wins he would serve a full third term but not run for a fourth.

Observers have speculated, however, that he could hand power to his Treasury Chief Gordon Brown midterm if he is badly weakened in the election.

The prime minister cast his own ballot with his wife Cherie and their two oldest children early Thursday in the village of Trimdon Colliery, which is part of the Sedgefield district that he represents in Parliament.

Blair, who turns 52 Friday, said "good morning" to waiting reporters but made no comment about the ballot.

Turnout could be crucial.

The last general election in 2001 saw a turnout of 59 percent — the lowest since troops returned in 1918 at the end of World War I.

This year's brief but hard-hitting campaign exposed the depth of Britons' anger at the prime minister, whose formidable political skills once charmed voters who saw him as a fresh face of change after 18 years of Tory government in the 1980s and '90s.

Blair's decision to commit the country to war in Iraq and his centrist stance on domestic issues — including plans to partly privatize some public services — have infuriated many within his own party.

But he has benefited from the Conservatives' even greater unpopularity and a perception that the opposition is less capable of handling the economy.

Howard headed a focused Tory campaign, pounding on just a few issues — tightening immigration, cutting taxes, cleaning up hospitals.

Although Howard supported the Iraq war, he attacked Blair, accusing the prime minister of lying about intelligence and the legality of the invasion and lacking a plan to win the peace.

"There was only one party that is prepared to take a firm line and to cap the number of immigrants," said Valerie Johnston, a Conservative supporter and retiree.

She voted in the 16th-century Flitch of Bacon pub in the village of Little Dunmow, north of London.

Police said there was no specific terrorist threat against the British election but said they would "have an appropriate policing plan in place which will include an increase in a high-visibility presence at key sites across the capital."

Two small makeshift grenades exploded outside the British Consulate in New York early Thursday, causing slight damage to the building but injuring no one, American officials said.

There were no provisions for Britons to vote at the consulate, the Foreign Office in London said.

I'd like to give you mine, but there's something breaking on the Michael Jackson trial and I don't wanna miss it.

Priorities.

You understand, of course.

Oh, God, jeffmoskin, but you can make me laugh, and that is a fact!

"Berlusconi looks to ease Iraq tensions with U.S."

By Crispian Balmer

Thu May 5, 9:02 AM ET

ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi insisted on Thursday that U.S. soldiers were to blame for the death of an Italian agent in Iraq, but said the incident would not harm U.S. ties or speed an Italian withdrawal from Iraq.

Relations between Italy and the United States have come under strain following the March 4 killing of Nicola Calipari at a U.S. checkpoint, with Washington and Rome blaming each other.

In a somber address to parliament, Berlusconi looked to strike a delicate balance between defending national dignity and reassuring his ally that relations would remain strong.

"The friendship between Italy and the United States has overcome more difficult problems than this," said Berlusconi, who is one of President Bush's closest allies.

"We have no intention of establishing any link between the events surrounding the death of our agent and the role of our country in Iraq," he added, shrugging off calls from some parties for Italian troops to be pulled from Iraq in protest.

Italy and the United States held a joint inquiry into the killing of Calipari, who died as he was escorting an Italian hostage to freedom.

But they failed to draw joint conclusions and have issued conflicting reports over the past five days.

While the U.S. military exonerated its troops of any blame, Rome said nervous, inexperienced American soldiers and a badly executed road block were at the root of the shooting.

"The absence of criminal intent does not at all exclude responsibility because of negligence," Berlusconi said, making clear he did not believe Calipari was deliberately targeted.

ITALIAN INVESTIGATION

Washington's refusal to accept the blame has infuriated many Italians and put pressure on Berlusconi to speed up the withdrawal of some 3,000 troops from southern Iraq, which is provisionally slated to start in September.

But the prime minister repeated on Thursday that he would coordinate the eventual pullout.

"The withdrawal of our troops certainly won't be unilateral, but agreed with our allies."

The Communist and Green parties demanded in parliament an immediate end to the Iraq mission, while the largest opposition party, the Democrats of the Left (DS), demanded an apology.

"We believe that the government of the United States should say sorry," DS leader Piero Fassino said in a speech.

Although the military inquiry is closed, Italian magistrates are pursuing their own investigations and Berlusconi said the government would give its full support to their efforts.

"We remain committed to doing everything possible to uncover the truth behind what went on and the eventual responsibility for the tragic death of a heroic servant of the Republic," he said, flanked by senior cabinet ministers.

The Italian report accused U.S. troops of failing to set up "the most elementary precautions" to warn drivers of the approaching checkpoint, calling the planning and execution of the road block "careless to say the least."

The U.S. pinned much of the blame on the Italian driver, saying he had been driving too fast, and on a lack of communication from Italy over its secret hostage mission.

"The discrepancies over the causes and modality of this tragic accident proved to be irreconcilable ... and I am certainly not going to be the one to minimise the scale of the disagreement," Berlusconi said.

"Poll: Most Want No Social Security Cuts"

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

31 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Most people say they are not willing to give up some of their Social Security benefits to save the poor from having their payments cut.

About 70 percent of people surveyed do believe President Bush's warning that Social Security is running out of money.

But most also say they do not like the way the president is handling the issue, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

"I'm very concerned that Social Security will run out of money," said Cindy Smith, a 47-year-old Republican from Las Vegas who had reservations about giving up her benefits to protect the poor.

"I would have to have more information about who those worthy lower income people are."

"We're all here to help one another, but I'd need more information," she said.

Many people are resistant to Bush's proposal to have future retirees who are in the middle- and higher-income classes accept smaller benefit checks than they are now set to receive, in order to protect the benefits of the poorest Americans.

The president argues that younger workers in particular can offset the loss with proceeds from the private investment accounts he wants to establish.

Bush has said the current program will not change for workers age 55 and older

The poll, conducted for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs, found that 56 percent of respondents are not willing to give up some guaranteed benefits, while 40 percent said they would.

Majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents were opposed to losing any benefits.

"If I was guaranteed that the poor would get what they're supposed to, that would be fine, but I'm not sure they would," said Margaret Normandin, an 80-year-old Democrat from Laconia, N.H.

A majority of those making $75,000 or more said they would be willing to forfeit some benefits.

Younger adults were more likely than older adults to favor an approach giving up some benefits while protecting the poor.

"That would be all right," said Rich Culbert, a 31-year-old engineer who lives near Rochester, N.Y.

"But that's just me not expecting Social Security to be there."

There generally is little public support for giving up benefits or paying higher taxes as a way to address Social Security's financial problems.

"We all want to fix the problem, but we don't want to pay much for it," said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who closely follows public opinion.

"We want the wealthy to pay for it."

Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said persuading the middle class to give up benefits is a hard sell.

"The middle class feels like it's barely holding on," she said.

"And Social Security is perceived to be the original middle-class support program."

One of the only proposals that gets support in polls is raising the $90,000 limit on earnings that can be taxed for Social Security.

Bush has suggested he might consider this step, which is opposed by many conservatives, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who has done extensive survey work on Social Security, said raising the cap would hurt small-business owners.

When asked whom they trust more to handle Social Security, 48 percent of respondents said Democrats and 36 percent said Republicans.

The president still faces strong opposition to his approach to Social Security, with 60 percent of those surveyed saying they disapprove.

Even some who back his approach express doubts.

"I approve — except that he's not getting anywhere," said John Rose, a Democratic-leaning retiree from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

"He should be doing a better job of selling it."

The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults was taken May 2-4.

It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
___

On the Net:

Ipsos-Public Affairs: http://www.ap-ipsosresults.com

When I was a kid, my mom told me that if I stuck my face where it didn't belong, there would be hell to pay.

So, you might say Calipari stuck his temple where it didn't belong.

In the cross-hairs.

Well, I'm with you, jeffmoskin, on not getting my head in the wrong place, like a "line of fire", especially these days, when the finger on the trigger is as unrestrained as it is these days!

SO?

What's Berlusconi going to do, then?

Revoke our national license to make pizzas?

Or will it be the silk suits?

"Kremlin denies Soviet 'occupation' of Baltics"

Thu May 5, 7:08 AM ET

MOSCOW (AFP) - The Soviet Union never occupied the Baltic republics at the end of World War II, but took over in a mutual agreement, the Kremlin said in an angry response to EU demands for a historical apology.

"There was no occupation."

"There were agreements at the time with the legitimately elected authorities in the Baltic countries," the Kremlin's European affairs chief Sergei Yastrzhembsky told reporters.

Yastrzhembsky denounced European Commission vice president Guenter Verheugen for saying earlier this week that Moscow's relations with Brussels would depend on Russia admitting the illegality of Soviet rule in the three tiny Baltic republics -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

"I advise those who want to develop constructive relations with Russia to leave the analysis to historians and to experts, and not to bring too many phobias and historical prejudice into current relations between Russia and the European Union," Yastrzhembsky said Thursday.

Verheugen "does not properly rememember the historical situation on which he is commenting."

Soviet authority was first established in the Baltics in 1940, following a secret pact between Stalin and Nazi Germany.

The three republics were then held by German forces between June 1941 and 1945, when the victorious Red Army returned, placing the region under Moscow's control until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

All three republics entered the European Union last year and are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Demands by the Baltics that Moscow recognise their annexation as illegal have sparked a major diplomatic row as Russia prepares to host world leaders next Monday for the May 9 commemorations of the end to World War II.

The presidents of Lithuania and Estonia, Valdas Adamkus and Arnold Ruutel, turned down an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend.

Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen also turned up the heat earlier this week by calling on Russia to apologise for the Soviet Union's actions in the Baltics.

US President George W. Bush will enter the fray on Saturday when he meets all three Baltic leaders in the Latvian capital Riga, before flying on to Moscow.

"White House Tries to Allay Russian Anger"

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 52 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The White House on Thursday sought to calm Russian anger over the U.S. call for Moscow to renounce the Soviet Union's 1940 annexation of Baltic states, even as President Bush promised to raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Soviet occupation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia beginning during World War II has come to the fore ahead of Bush's trip to Moscow for ceremonies celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe.

But for many in Central and Eastern Europe, the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 was not entirely a cause for celebration.

So Bush is offering a public show of sympathy for the "very difficult period" the ceremonies recall.

The president is making the spread of democracy the theme of a four-nation European trip that includes meetings with the leaders of the three Baltic states.

Bush, in an interview with foreign media before the trip, said that instead of bringing freedom, the war's end meant their countries were "taken over by a repressive, communist regime."

"There is great angst, and people don't view this is a liberating moment," Bush said.

"Of course I'll remind (Putin) of that."

Bush has sent a letter to Latvia's president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, that does not blame Russia, but acknowledges that Europe's liberation marked the decades-long Soviet occupation of the Baltics.

Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said this week that it "would be an appropriate thing" for Russia to renounce the annexation.

But the president and White House aides were vague on whether Bush would specifically ask Putin to do so.

The two are meeting at Putin's dacha on Sunday, the night before a Red Square military parade.

Russian officials have rejected any suggestion that they renounce the Baltic occupation.

They said it would be an insult to the 27 million Soviets who died during the war and argued that the countries willingly joined the U.S.S.R.

"One cannot use the term `occupation' to describe those historical events," Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Putin's special representative for ties with the European Union, said Thursday.

Also Thursday, the Russian foreign ministry said it was "patently counterproductive to put on the agenda of modern international relations an assessment of events that, though tragic, belong to the past."

Russia's refusal has led the presidents of Lithuania and Estonia to boycott the Moscow events.

Bush said he would tell Putin he should "work with the Baltics in a cooperative way."

"It really is in Russia's interests to have free countries and democracies on her border," he said.

"The more democracies on the border of a country, the more peaceful a country will be."

The White House, seeking to emphasize points of cooperation over differences, said the matter will not spoil Bush and Putin's meeting.

"We have a good strategic relationship with Russia," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

"We work very closely with Russia in a number of areas, whether it's trade, economic issues or our cooperation in the global war on terrorism and our cooperation on stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction."

But, he added:

"We must remember the past as we move forward to advance freedom and democracy and tolerance and prosperity."

There are other sensitive matters on the agenda between Bush and Putin — a centralization of power in the Kremlin that has raised fears about democratic backsliding, Moscow's arms sales to Syria and Venezuela, the seizure of oil conglomerate Yukos and intellectual property rights disputes among them.

"I believe Russia's interests lie to her west," Bush said.

"I believe that Russia, by embracing the values that we share, will be able to deal with the many problems that she has."

Bush was leaving Friday for Riga, Latvia, where he will meet with the leaders of the three Baltic states.

On Sunday, he speaks at an American cemetery in the Netherlands where the remains of more than 8,000 U.S. soldiers who died in WWII are buried.

The Putin meeting is that evening, followed the next day by the WWII ceremonies with dozens of other world leaders.

He completes his trip with a stop in Tbilisi, Georgia, another ex-Soviet republic that Bush will hail as one of the world's inspiring young democracies.
___

On the Net:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

Well, how about that, will you?

What is saving "TWO-GUN TEXAS TONY" Blair, the Savile Row "cowboy" of London, England, who is the GREAT APPEASOR to TEXAN George W. Bush, is the fact that his opposition is even worse than he is, which is how politics seems to go, these days, and probably all days if truth be told - "I'm voting for this one, because he's not as corrupt and stupid as that other one, and that is all there is to choose from!"

Sound familiar?

"Blair makes history, but loses aura of invincibility"

LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair looked to have made history by becoming the first Labour Party leader to win three straight terms in office.

Yet this latest victory could herald his imminent exit.

Despite entering the pantheon of British political giants with a predicted third term, estimates in an exit poll that the Labour majority in parliament has been sharply reduced could spell trouble for a premier already badly hit by the Iraq war.

Blair, who turns 52 on Friday, has led Labour to a majority of 66, down from the 167 seen in the last general election in 2001, the BBC exit poll said.

Pundits have predicted that Blair, who has already pledged to step down at the end of a third term in office, could hand over power much sooner to his ambitious Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, if the fallout over Iraq looks to have fatally undermined his popularity.

The man once known as "Teflon Tony" because criticism rarely stuck to him endured a torrid election campaign over allegations he misled the country about his reasons for joining the US-led war in Iraq in March 2003.

Repeated opinion polls during the campaign showed considerable hostility towards Blair, even among professed Labour supporters, largely due to the Iraq war, which millions of Britons opposed.

Brown has never made a secret of his desire to take the top job, and if the premier begins to resemble a lame duck incumbent, Brown's supporters in the Labour Party could act to remove Blair.

Whatever happens, Labour's fortunes in recent years owe massive amounts to Blair.

It was his political master stroke that rescued the party from oblivion a decade ago, and put the formerly all-powerful Conservatives on the ropes.

The key was reforming the ideologically leftist Labour Party with a fresh pragmatic brand of centrist economic and social policies that captured the ground from the Conservatives.

Since the party's first landslide victory in 1997, followed by another in 2001, the Blair government has set about changing the political landscape of Britain.

Under constitutional reforms, Scotland and Wales have voted for devolution and set up their own political bodies.

London now directly elects its mayor, and all but 92 hereditary peers have been removed from the House of Lords in the first stage of its reform, while the Bank of England has the power to set interest rates on its own.

In foreign policy, Blair has engaged Britain's military forces in five conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as brokered a peace agreement in Northern Ireland and launched a major development plan for Africa.

Though part of Britain's educated elite, following private school with a law degree at Oxford University, Blair is a different breed of politician.

Blair, who at the age of 30 won the seat of Sedgefield, northeast England, in the 1983 election, rose quickly through the ranks to become party leader in 1994, with his party still in opposition.

So, in 1997 when he was only 43, Blair became not only the youngest prime minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812, but also set himself apart by never having served as a cabinet minister, or even as a junior minister.

Nor has he always been beholden to cabinet members.

Much like a US president, Blair is known to prefer working with his advisors -- he has a record 20 of them -- to formulate policies while reaching out to voters directly with his great powers of persuasion.

end quotes

1812?

Hhhhmmm!

I remember 1812 from OUR American history, myself!

That's the year a bunch of thuggish English TAY-RISTS came over here onto OUR American soil and burned down OUR White House!

Hhhhmmm!

How about that, will you?

Well, if he had done that BEFORE the election, his party would have kept its 160 seat margin.

Ah, the price of ego.

Politics!

The world's longest running "PASSION PLAY" and Greek tragedy all rolled up in one, and just think, jeffmoskin, we have a front row seat as it is happening!

Now, when you were young, in your wildest dreams, did you ever imagine?

And did you read "Buck Rogers"?

"Bush Opens European Trip Amid Tensions"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

1 hour, 4 minutes ago

RIGA, Latvia - President Bush, ignoring Moscow's objections about his trip to former Soviet republics, said Friday that Russia should treat its neighbors with respect and not fear the rise of new democracies along its borders.

Bush opened a fast-paced, four-country journey to mark the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

He will meet on Saturday with the leaders of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

For these Baltic countries, the end of World War II did not bring liberation.

Instead, they traded Nazi oppression for nearly five decades of Soviet occupation.

Bush said he has reminded Russian President Vladimir Putin about that history, ahead of the victory celebrations.

"Frankly, it's the beginning of a difficult period, and I can understand why some leaders of countries aren't going and some others are," the president said of the anniversary events.

He spoke in a series of pre-trip interviews with television outlets in countries he will visit.

Lithuania's President Valdas Adamkus and Estonia's President Arnold Ruutel say they will stay home when dozens of world leaders — Bush included — go to Moscow for a parade Monday in Red Square honoring Russia's enormous sacrifices to defeat the Nazis.

Bush's trip has been clouded by Moscow's unhappiness about his stops in two former Soviet republics — Latvia and Georgia, a move seen by Russia as interference in its neighborhood.

The president also will visit the Netherlands.

Bush said he would tell Putin he should welcome peaceful democracies on Russia's borders.

"And so I will remind him that this is not a plot by anybody or any nation," Bush said.

"This is just the inevitable course of humankind because all humans want to be free."

Bush said the three Baltic countries, as new members of NATO, have a security guarantee from the United States and its allies.

Bush said he speaks with Putin frequently about the Baltics.

"And my job at times is to send a message that says, look, treat your neighbors with respect," Bush said.

"Free nations, democracies on your border are good for you — whether that be, by the way, in the Baltics or in Ukraine, I've sent that same message — or Georgia."

"In other words, countries that are free countries are countries that will be good neighbors."

At the same time, Bush said he would tell Baltic leaders that democracy must include respect for minority rights, a nod to Moscow's concerns about the treatment of Russian-speakers in the ex-Soviet republics.

Bush, in an interview on Russian television, acknowledged that the United States and Britain played a major role in reshaping Europe at the 1943 Yalta conference of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin.

"I think that the main complaint would be that the form of government that the Baltics had to live under was not of their choosing," Bush said.

"But, no, there's no question three leaders made the decision."

Dan Fried, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, said on Air Force One that there are competing narratives about how World War II was won and the aftermath.

"We have our dark spots too, just like the Russians, but we admit it," Fried said.

He said the Russians do not.

Russia refuses to apologize for occupying the Baltics, insisting that the Baltic governments of the time had willingly invited Soviet troops into their countries and agreed to join the Soviet Union.

Baltic leaders says that if Russia wants glory for defeating the Nazis, it also should take responsibility for the occupation.

Putin said Moscow already has condemned the secret Soviet-Nazi pact that led to the occupation.

In an interview published Friday, he said the Soviet-era legislature, the Supreme Soviet, had issued a resolution in 1989 that criticized the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as "a personal decision by Stalin that contradicted the interests of the Soviet people."

"I want to repeat: We already did it," Putin said.

"What, we have to do this every day, every year?"

Bush will lay a wreath Saturday at Latvia's towering Freedom Monument, which served as a symbol of resistance in the difficult struggle for independence.

Bush's trip to Latvia, the Netherlands, Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia was designed to meet a variety of diplomatic needs.

I don't believe I have ever heard, any of the big three, Bush - Cheney - Rumsfeld, ever use the word " occupation" in reference to our presence in Iraq.

A.B.

from m-w.com:


One entry found for occupation.
Main Entry: oc·cu·pa·tion
Pronunciation: "ä-ky&-'pA-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English occupacioun, from Middle French occupation, from Latin occupation-, occupatio, from occupare
1 a : an activity in which one engages <in the first three grades learning to read is perhaps the major occupation of the pupil -- J. B. Conant> b : the principal business of one's life : VOCATION
2 a : the possession, use, or settlement of land : OCCUPANCY b : the holding of an office or position
3 a : the act or process of taking possession of a place or area : SEIZURE b : the holding and control of an area by a foreign military force c : the military force occupying a country or the policies carried out by it

In October of 1962, President John F. Kennedy caused Russia to back down. They had been supplying Cuba with missiles. At that time, JFK let the Russians know in no certain terms that this was OUR hemisphere and they should STAY OUT.

On October 22, 1962, after reviewing newly acquired intelligence, President John F. Kennedy informed the world that the Soviet Union was building secret missile bases in Cuba, a mere 90 miles off the shores of Florida. After weighing such options as an armed invasion of Cuba and air strikes against the missiles, Kennedy decided on a less dangerous response. In addition to demanding that Russian Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev remove all the missile bases and their deadly contents, Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine (blockade) of Cuba in order to prevent Russian ships from bringing additional missiles and construction materials to the island. In response to the American naval blockade, Premier Khrushchev authorized his Soviet field commanders in Cuba to launch their tactical nuclear weapons if invaded by U.S. forces. Deadlocked in this manner, the two leaders of the world's greatest nuclear superpowers stared each other down for seven days - until Khrushchev blinked. On October 28, thinking better of prolonging his challenge to the United States, the Russian Premier conceded to President Kennedy's demands by ordering all Soviet supply ships away from Cuban waters and agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba's mainland. After several days of teetering on the brink of nuclear holocaust, the world breathed a sigh of relief.

Perhaps President Putin believes " what's good for the goose is good for the gander "

A.B.

It was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. I thank God that Khrushchev blinked. I don't think Kennedy would have backed down - not after the Bay of Pigs fiasco (GHW Bush was involved in the CIA end of it).

Khrushchev was rewarded with "early retirement." His granddaughter, Nina Khrushcheva, lives here and teaches at Princeton.

Well done, Mr. A.B., and jeffmoskin, both!

That was quite an exchange between you on what was certainly an interesting time in our collective lives!

I certainly recall that confrontation as one of the more memorable events in my life - was that the day we were going to get fried because of a pack of fools with grossly over-sized egos?

I myself always hold fond memories of Kennedy in that crisis, of what I thought then and now, was his utter calm:

"WE WILL PREVAIL, DO NOT FLINCH IN THE FACE OF DANGER!"

And so, we did!

And without a mess like we have today!

And thank God for that!

And so do I, Mr. A.B., so do I!

I wonder how George W. Bush would react if Putin reminded him of the fact that there would not have been any Nazis at all for anyone to have to fight in the first place if it had not been for American financiers named George Herbert Walker and Prescott "Cottie" Bush to allegedly bankroll their rise to power in Europe in the days before WWII?

"U.S. leans more on Iraq troops to fight insurgents"

By Ian Simpson

Sat May 7, 8:32 AM ET

MUQDADIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - When Major Mark Borowski plunged with Iraqi troops into a date palm grove notorious as an insurgent hideout, he did something a U.S. officer would not have done a year ago -- almost nothing.

Borowski's hands-off approach during the dawn sweep by hundreds of Iraqi soldiers marked the changing role of U.S. troops as they shift the burden of fighting insurgents onto under-equipped, barely trained Iraqi troops and police.

The brigade-size raid through dusty streets and a maze of towering palm trees, irrigation ditches and thickets at Buhriz, a town about 50 km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, was judged by U.S. officers to have been a success.

"I was pretty happy, this is a complex mission," Borowski, a battalion operations officer in the 3rd Infantry Division, told Reuters.

"You saw the terrain."

"It was like the land that time forgot back there."

U.S. aircraft and artillery were available for support.

But most of the few U.S. troops on the ground stayed close to their Humvees as Iraqi soldiers kicked down gates, searched through brush and bashed open the doors of uninhabited huts.

Buhriz is one of the stubborn insurgent redoubts in Diyala, a mixed Shi'ite and Sunni province of 1.8 million people north of Baghdad.

U.S. forces in the province, like elsewhere in Iraq, are trying to steadily shift more of the burden of fighting insurgents to Iraqi forces.

U.S. and Iraqi troops said challenges included having to pull soldiers out of action for even a few weeks of training, a shortage of Iraqi non-commissioned officers, fostering initiative and equipping soldiers who often lack even boots.

"Our mantra has got to be transition," said Colonel Steven Salazar, head of the 3rd Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade, which oversees the western part of Diyala province.

SWEATING OUT TRAINING

During a later training session at the vast U.S. base at Muqdadiya, Iraqi soldiers on a two-week course sweated under the midday sun as instructors drilled half a dozen units on putting up a quick road checkpoint.

Squad after squad jumped off a truck, uncoiled barbed wire, put up signs and posted guards, AK-47 rifles at the ready.

"This is all new for us."

"We can't get it all in 14 days," Captain Raeth Katfan, an officer with Iraq's 204th Battalion, said of the course.

A former lieutenant in Saddam Hussein's army, dissolved after the U.S. invasion in 2003, Katfan said the Americans were emphasising respect for civilians and initiative by officers.

Sergeant Major Shakar Mahmood Hussein, a trainer, added:

"Before you needed an order to be able to do anything."

"Now, the leader feels like a leader."

Iraqi troops, many of them veterans left jobless when Saddam's regiments were dissolved but later rehired by the new army, badly lack equipment including ammunition, body armor, helmets, weapons, uniforms and radios, soldiers say.

Several of the troops in training wore tennis shoes.

None had helmets.

Few had the same uniforms and equipment.

U.S. and Iraqi officers said the shortage was due to the lack of supply from the Defense Ministry.

During the Buhriz raid, officers with the Iraqi 205th Brigade, whose performance has been praised by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, lacked GPS equipment and compasses and relied on hand-held radios.

Troops did not have bolt cutters or shovels and used discarded iron bars and rusty axes to smash open doors and gates.

Company commanders also balked at coordinating pickup of munition stashes, Borowski said.

But despite the difficulties, the raid netted a heap of munitions, including an anti-aircraft gun and an army motorcycle with sidecar that a U.S. soldier rode down Buhriz's main street.

Several suspects were detained.

Iraqi commander Brigadier General Haad Ibrahim al-Tamimi was pleased with the result.

"With the help of the U.S. and relying on our soldiers we have driven the criminals out of here," he said.

"Bush: U.S. Had Hand in European Divisions"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

1 hour, 3 minutes ago

RIGA, Latvia - Second-guessing Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Bush said Saturday the United States played a role in Europe's painful division after World War II — a decision that helped cause "one of the greatest wrongs of history" when the Soviet Union imposed its harsh rule across Central and Eastern Europe.

Bush said the lessons of the past will not be forgotten as the United States tries to spread freedom in the Middle East.

"We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," the president said.

"We have learned our lesson; no one's liberty is expendable."

"In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others."

Bush singled out the 1945 Yalta agreement signed by Roosevelt in a speech opening a four-day trip focused on Monday's celebration in Moscow of the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat.

In recent days Bush has urged Russia to own up to its wartime past.

It appeared he decided to do the same, himself, to set an example for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

Bush also used his address to lecture Putin about his handling of the emergence of democratic countries on Russia's borders.

"No good purpose is served by stirring up fears and exploiting old rivalries in this region," Bush said.

"The interests of Russia and all nations are served by the growth of freedom that leads to prosperity and peace."

Bush spent the day with the leaders of three Baltic republics — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Many in the Baltic countries are still bitter about the Soviet annexation of their countries and the harsh occupation that followed the war for nearly 50 years.

Acknowledging that anger and frustration still linger, Bush said that "we have a great opportunity to move beyond the past."

His message here — and throughout his trip — is that the world is entering a new phase of freedom and all countries should get on board.

While history does not hide the U.S. role in Europe's division, American presidents have found little reason to discuss it before Bush's speech.

"Certainly it goes further than any president has gone," historian Alan Brinkley said from the U.S.

"This has been a very common view of the far right for many years — that Yalta was a betrayal of freedom, that Roosevelt betrayed the hopes of generations."

Bush said the Yalta agreement, also signed by Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, followed in the "unjust tradition" of other infamous war pacts that carved up the continent and left millions in oppression.

The Yalta accord gave Stalin control of the whole of Eastern Europe, leading to criticism that Roosevelt had delivered millions of people to communist domination.

"Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," the president said.

"Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable."

Bush said the United States and its allies eventually recognized they could not be satisfied with the liberation of half of Europe and decided "we would not forget our friends behind an Iron Curtain."

The United States never forgot the Baltic peoples, Bush said, and flew the flags of free Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania over diplomatic missions in Washington.

"And when you joined hands in protest and the empire fell away," the president said, "the legacy of Yalta was finally buried, once and for all."

Putin, writing in a French newspaper Saturday, said the Soviet Union already made amends in 1989 and his country will not answer the demands of Baltic states for further repentance.

"Such pretensions are useless," Putin wrote in Le Figaro.

Bush reminded Baltic countries that democracy brings obligations along with elections and independence.

He said minority rights and equal justice must be protected, a nod to Moscow's concerns about the treatment of Russian-speakers in the three ex-Soviet republics.

Bush applauded the Baltics for supporting democracy in Ukraine and spoke approvingly of democracy progress in Georgia and Moldova.

At a news conference, Bush rejected the suggestion that Washington and Moscow work out a mutually agreeable way to bring democracy to Belarus — the former Soviet republic that Bush calls the "last remaining dictatorship in Europe."

"Secret deals to determine somebody else's fate — I think that's what we're lamenting here today, one of those secret deals among large powers that consigns people to a way of government," Bush said.

He called for "free and open and fair" elections set for next year in Belarus, now run by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Bush placed a wreath at the Latvian Freedom Monument, a towering obelisk symbolizing this small country's struggle for independence.

While he is unpopular across much of Europe because of the Iraq war, Bush got a warm welcome here.

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga presented Bush with the nation's top honor, the Three-Star Order, calling him a "signal fighter of freedom and democracy in the world."

Bush has irritated Russia by bracketing his visit to Moscow Sunday with stops in two former Soviet republics, Latvia and Georgia.

He arrived in the Netherlands on Saturday night, ahead of a speech Sunday at an American cemetery.

"Syria says U.S. sanctions 'unfair and illogical'"

Sat May 7,12:45 PM ET

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria's finance minister expressed regret on Saturday that President Bush had decided to extend Washington's sanctions on Syria for another year, the official Syrian news agency reported.

Bush extended a ban on Thursday on certain U.S. imports to Syria and other sanctions imposed last May.

He said the Arab country was a threat to the United States.

Finance Minister Mohammad al-Hussein, who was speaking at a news conference to announce tax cuts, did not comment on the U.S. accusations but said Washington's sanctions were "unfair and illogical," the Syrian Arab News Agency said.

Hussein said his country would "continue to exert efforts for reform in the area of economy and other areas."

He announced a cut in taxes on car imports from 255 to 60 percent on vehicles with medium and large engines, a step that is expected to facilitate the signing of a long-planned aid and trade agreement with the European Union.

The U.S. sanctions severed banking relations with the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria and froze the assets of Syrians suspected of involvement in terrorism or WMD development.

Washington accuses the Arab state of supporting terrorism, pursuing weapons of mass destruction and undermining efforts to stabilize Iraq.

Syria denies the charges.

Bush said on Thursday Syria's policies "continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.

Traditionally tense Syrian-U.S. ties are at their worst, mainly because of strong Syrian opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the Feb. 14 killing of a Lebanese former prime minister in Beirut, which many Lebanese blamed on Syria.

Bush recalled the U.S. ambassador to Damascus after the massive car bomb attack that killed Rafik al-Hariri, in which Syria says it had no role.

Syria withdrew its forces from Lebanon last month, ending a 29-year military presence under pressure from the international community and anti-Syrian protests in its tiny neighbor.

Good morning, America, and to all of the MOTHERS out there especially, on this, your day, GOD SPEED you on your way, and protect you and yours throughout this day, and that wish is to ALL mothers, regardless of race, creed, or national origin, as befits a greeting coming to you from a citizen in a democratic REPUBLIC such as is OUR America!

MOTHERS are beyond national politics!

Pass it along!

Especially to http://www.whitehouse.gov

Personal power brings independence and freedom into the life of the individual, and it is continuously cultivated through attitude and projection!

What one believes, one becomes!

The more of a "mind" one has to believe with, the more profound the transformation.

Power over others, conversely, is an insidious form of enslavement!

- Commentaries on Tao Te Ching of Lao Tze, by R. L. Wing

SO?

A question!

"Are we the only nation on the face of the earth that is plagued with a revival of these CONSERVATIVES?"

"German Far-Right Rally Protests 'Guilt'"

By DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 15 minutes ago

BERLIN - About 3,000 supporters of an extreme-right party rallied Sunday to lament what they called Germany's "cult of guilt" about World War II, but they were kept from marching in downtown Berlin by thousands of counterdemonstrators.

National Democratic Party supporters were ringed by riot police on the Alexanderplatz square and after a several-hour rally agreed to scrap the march through Berlin, police spokesman Bodo Pfalzgraf said.

At least 5,000 opponents had headed toward them to block the planned route.

Hundreds of police, including reinforcements from across Germany, separated the two sides.

Police said there were no clashes.

Sunday was the anniversary of Nazi Germany's surrender on May 8, 1945.

The far-right party, known in Germany as the NPD, dismissed organizers of official remembrances on its Web site as "occupation collaborators and a group of professional Jews."

It said the rally was to protest the "cult of guilt" it says was imposed on Germany after the Nazi defeat 60 years ago.

Many protesters wore all-black and sported shaven heads.

Some carried flags in red, white and black — the colors used by the Nazis and imperial Germany.

"This is a disgrace," said Interior Minister Otto Schily, who has accused the party of reviving Nazi ideology and symbols.

Police sealed off much of downtown Berlin to prevent clashes and protect the landmark Brandenburg Gate, where mainstream political leaders and about 10,000 spectators attended a "Day of Democracy" celebration with music and speeches.

Most Germans consider the Third Reich's surrender to have liberated them as well as the rest of Europe from the terrors of Nazism.

President Horst Koehler, marking the end of World War II in Europe, insisted that neo-Nazis "have no chance" today because the vast majority of Germans don't support them.

In a speech in parliament, he said Germans "look back with shame" on World War II and the Holocaust.

"We have the responsibility to keep alive the memory of all this suffering and of its causes, and we must ensure it never happens again."

"There can be no drawing the line."

"We mourn all of the victims, because we want to do justice to all peoples — including our own."

Koehler recalled the destruction of German cities by Allied bombing and the expulsion of Germans from eastern Europe at the end of the war, but he also thanked the Allies because they "gave the Germans a chance after the war."

"Today, we have good reason to be proud of our country," he said.

Originally, the NPD had wanted to march to the Brandenburg Gate and Germany's new Holocaust memorial.

Officials refused, citing a new law banning gatherings that insult the memory of Nazi victims, but approved a restricted route.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and other top politicians on Sunday attended a wreath-laying at Berlin's monument to the victims of war and Nazism, which contains the remains of an unknown soldier and an unknown concentration camp victim.

"Bush Thanks Putin for Help in Mideast"

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

36 minutes ago

MOSCOW - Despite contentions over Moscow's commitment to democracy, President Bush thanked Russia's Vladimir Putin on Sunday for help on Iran and the Middle East and said "there's a lot we can do together."

The two leaders put an upbeat cast on talks at Putin's dacha at a walled compound in a birch forest 25 miles west of Moscow.

The Russian leader even let Bush drive his white Volga sedan around a driveway before heading to dinner with their wives.

"I'm having so much fun."

"We're going for another lap," Bush said.

The two leaders ignored reporters' questions and kept their real discussions private, so there was no repeat of the contentious debate that flared publicly at a February news conference when they disagreed about Moscow's quashing of dissent and exertion of control in the country.

"Russia's a great nation and I'm looking forward to working together on big problems," Bush said.

"And I want to thank you for your help on Iran and the Middle East and there's a lot we can do together."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who briefed reporters on the talks, said Bush and Putin found wide agreement on the Middle East, support for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and a joint determination to fight terrorism.

"They talked about the need that one cannot flirt with terrorism or terrorists," Rice said.

"I think that was really the essential issue here because they're very concerned about the Palestinian situation."

She said the countries would consult on the training of Palestinian security forces.

Bush and Putin also discussed Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran, among other issues.

Russia is building a nuclear reactor in the Iranian city of Bushehr and the United States fears this could held Tehran develop nuclear weapons.

However, U.S. officials accept for now Russian assurances that no enrichment or reprocessing will take place, and that any spent fuel rods will be returned to Russia.

Rice said the two leaders also discussed a recent speech by Putin in which he talked about internal reforms in Russia and said the demise of the Soviet Union was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

Rice said the candid talk between Bush and Putin underscored that theirs is a relationship "where they can talk about any subject."

"For the two presidents, there are no forbidden topics," added Lavrov.

Before his arrival in the Russian capital, Bush celebrated Nazi Germany's defeat and the end of World War II 60 years ago at an American cemetery in Margraten in the Netherlands, emphasizing the themes of democracy and freedom.

"The world's tyrants learned a lesson: There is no power like the power of freedom and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for that freedom," Bush told a crowd of thousands, including many white-haired war veterans who wore plastic rain ponchos on a raw spring morning.

"On this day we celebrate the victory they won," Bush said, "and we recommit ourselves to the great truth that they defended: that freedom is the birthright of all mankind."

Relations between Bush and Putin have soured of late amid U.S. unhappiness with Russian missile sales to Syria and crackdowns on business and Moscow's complaints of American meddling in its traditional sphere of influence.

Even before Bush's arrival, Putin appeared increasingly irritated at Bush's criticism of Russia's treatment of its former republics and his push for democracy along Russia's borders.

Bush said at an earlier stop in Latvia that Russia should acknowledge the Soviet Union's domination of Central and Eastern Europe and its harsh occupation of the Baltic country.

"This is not an issue of lecturing Russia," Rice told reporters as Air Force One was en route.

"It is that the United States and Russia have a deep and broad relationship."

"We'd like it to get deeper and broader."

"And the issue of common values and how Russia's democracy progresses is one of the issues on the agenda, an important issue on the agenda."

She took issue with Putin's assertion regarding the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"I'm not going to try to second guess President Putin on this," Rice said.

"I do know it was traumatic for many people to see the Soviet Union collapse."

"That's not surprising."

"Quite clearly the fall of the Soviet Union has led to some very good things including democracies throughout Eastern Europe and Central Europe and free Baltic states."

The United States has expressed repeated concern that Putin is quashing dissent and consolidating power.

Putin said in an American television interview that the United States should question its own democratic ways before looking for problems with Russia's.

Putin also told CBS' "60 Minutes" that the United States shouldn't try to export its democracy, as it is trying to do in Iraq."

The Russian leader pointed to what he believes are drawbacks to America's own brand of democracy, including the Electoral College system.

The Russian leader also has rebuffed calls from Bush and others for an apology for the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

In his remarks Saturday in Latvia, Bush said Putin should not fear the growth of democracy on Russia's borders and that "no good purpose is served by stirring up fears and exploiting old rivalries in this region."

Moscow has not disguised its unhappiness that Bush's four-nation trip was planned to bracket his stop in Russia with visits to two former Soviet republics, Latvia and Georgia.

Bush on Monday will join Putin and dozens of world leaders at a Red Square parade celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Bush has no scheduled public remarks during his 24-hour stay in Moscow.

And from George W. Bush, we go to his "GREAT APPEASER", the inestimable "TEFLON TEXAS TWO-GUN TONY" Blair, the Savile Row "cowboy"!

And what is up with Mr. Tony, today, you ask?

Well, let's take a look, and see what we can see, coming from that direction, which is to the east of me, up here where I am in OUR America:

"Blair resists chorus of calls to step down before end of third term"

Sun May 8, 8:06 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair resisted a chorus of calls over the weekend to resign before he finishes the historic third term he just won, amid discontent over his leadership from fellow party members.

A number of Labour Party members say they want Blair to step down as early as a year from now and make way for his powerful and popular finance minister, Gordon Brown.

"The prime minister is the prime minister, he has made as clear as he could possibly make it that he intends to serve for a full third term," Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said on Sky Television late Saturday.

"Our job now from the prime minister onwards is to make sure that we get our shoulders to the wheel," she said.

Blair stirred up rebels within his party by taking Britain to war in Iraq in 2003.

The rebels say the chickens are coming home to roost now that voters in Thursday's election have slashed the huge majorities he won in 1997 and 2001.

At the same time the divisions have raised concerns about whether the Labour Party can remain an effective force and prompted comparisons with the bickering that tore Prime Minister John Major's Conservatives apart a decade ago.

"We will very quickly squander a third term if we speculate endlessly about the leadership of the government," Jowell said.

A spokesman for the prime minister reminded journalists of Blair's statement last September in which he said that if re-elected he would serve a full third term.

"There has been no change," the spokesman said.

The prime minister only committed himself then not to run for a fourth term, which prompted immediate complaints he had made himself a lame-duck leader.

Blair delivered an historic third successive general election victory for the party on Thursday, albeit with a much smaller majority over the previous elections amid anger over the way he led the country to war in Iraq.

Labour obtained 356 seats in the 646-seat House of Commons, against 197 for the main opposition Conservatives and 62 for the Liberal Democrats.

The outcome meant Blair's majority has been slashed by more than half to a projected 66 but is still healthy compared with previous governments.

"We have... a bigger majority than (former Conservative premier) Margaret Thatcher had in 1979," environment minister Margaret Beckett told BBC radio.

Beckett, however, dodged answering any questions on whether she thought it would be another four years of Blair.

The Observer newspaper reported meanwhile that within Blair's own private circle, the timetable being discussed would involve him triggering a party leadership contest in July 2008 and remaining as prime minister while the succession is resolved, allowing the new leader to take over that autumn.

The Observer quoted an unnamed source within the prime minister's office as saying:

"The best thing would be to get in at party conference 2008 -- that gives you a year to establish yourself but not become over-familiar."

If Blair can hold on until November, he will have beaten Thatcher's 11 years in power.

The newspaper also reported tensions between the Blair and Brown camps over Blair's wish to bring one of his policy advisers, Andrew Adonis, into the government as deputy to Education Secretary Ruth Kelly.

The maneuverings are set against the backdrop of growing calls by Labour members of parliament for Blair to step down.

MP John Austin told The Sunday Times Blair "was a liability and not an asset in this election."

"You can't beat about the bush."

"Blair was a negative factor on the doorstep, time and time and time again."

"I think it was somewhat arrogant to say he was going to continue with a full term."

MP Ian Davidson said: "It needs to happen sooner rather than later.

"A natural break point might be the result of the referendum on the European Constitution," which is to be held in spring next year, he said.

MP John McDonnell said Blair elicits widespread "animosity" and he predicted Brown, who has long made no secret of his ambition to become prime minister, "looks as if he's a shoo-in."

MP Christine McCafferty said:

"My take on it is that within a year the prime minister will stand down."

"I would like to see the process take place, but we have just had the election so we need a pause for breath."

David Taylor predicted "I expect to see Blair go within a year to 18 months."

MP Clive Efford told The Sunday Telegraph:

"It will be impossible for Tony Blair to stay on for long."

"I favor an orderly transition to Gordon Brown."

"The outcome is inevitable."

end quotes

But is it, ever?

I mean, really?

Is it ever really over?

I doubt it, especially when it comes to politicians, and the "dance" and the GREAT GAME OF HOUSES, but who ever really knows, eh, jeffmoskin?

SO!

Stay tuned!

Life, in OUR America, and live, from "Jolly Olde", coming to you via the miracle of modern communications, the "TEXAS TWO-GUN TEFLON TONY" Blair show!

Updates regularly!

Live!

Late-breaking!

And from real people, too, and not just media simulations, so, how about that?

Ah, these "world leaders" of ours!

A bunch of egotistical children, if you ask me, but I guess somebody needs to be in there doing that job, and so, if the job really does require egotistical children, as it seems, then I guess the real pragmatic approach would be to have egotistical children in there running things, as the case is, but, wait a minute, here, what about Russia?

That Stalin fellow, for example!

Wasn't he just plain mean?

"Stalin Re-Emerges in Public Eye"

By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 8 minutes ago

MOSCOW - One poster stands out among the billboards splashed across Moscow for celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany:

Josef Stalin against the backdrop of a Red Army soldier raising the Soviet hammer-and-sickle over the Reichstag in Berlin.

Stalin always has been a contradictory figure in Russia, seen as either the powerful boss who led the country to victory over the Nazis and made it a 20th century industrial giant or the tyrant responsible for killing millions of his own people.

Under President Vladimir Putin, he appears to be making a comeback, with monuments in the works and criticism muted.

After waves of denouncements following Stalin's death in 1953 and as Soviets learned in the 1980s the full extent of his crimes, the Kremlin has been quiet about Stalin in recent years.

Putin rarely has harsh words for him.

In a rare critical statement, Putin told Germany's Bild newspaper on Thursday that Stalin was a tyrant, but added that he should not be compared to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

"I can't understand you equating Stalin and Hitler."

"It goes without saying that Stalin was a tyrant, whom many call a criminal."

"But he wasn't a Nazi," Putin said.

Stalin came to power after the death of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin in 1924 and began a reign of terror that lasted nearly three decades, ending only with his death in 1953.

An estimated 20 million people were executed, imprisoned or deported to other parts of the former Soviet Union.

Altogether, 10 million are believed to have died.

Critics warn that Russian leaders' failure to condemn Stalin's crimes means dismissing the values for which the Allies fought.

But the Kremlin may have pragmatic reasons for its silence:

Recent opinion polls have shown that nearly half of Russians hold a largely positive view of Stalin and give him credit for the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War — as World War II is known here — despite evidence of his grave strategic errors.

For many, the nostalgia goes further.

A few thousand people in the Siberian town of Mirny, 2,500 miles east of Moscow, attended the presentation Sunday of a monument to Stalin featuring a bust of the dictator, Russian media reported.

Local leader Anatoly Popov praised Stalin as "a great son of Russia who gave the people everything he had ... and took nothing in return," Ekho Moskvy radio reported.

Lawmakers in the western city of Oryol recently called on the central government to name streets after Stalin and restore memorials in recognition of his wartime achievements.

Several other Russian cities also are considering erecting monuments to Stalin.

"We should once again render honor to Stalin for his role in building socialism and saving human civilization from the Nazi plague," Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov said.

Zurab Tsereteli, a controversial Russian sculptor, has made a massive bronze statue featuring Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to honor the historic Yalta conference held by the three leaders in 1945.

Tsereteli is donating the statue to the southern city of Volgograd, where there is a movement afoot to bring back the city's previous name — Stalingrad.

"I am just describing the facts," Tsereteli said, brushing aside criticism that he is erecting a monument to a dictator.

"Did they meet?"

"Yes, they did."

"... Did they save us from the Nazis so that we don't have to wear swastikas?"

"Yes, they did ... I don't go any deeper," he said.

Yevgeniya Furman, 75, who saw many of her Jewish friends sent to camps or killed under Stalin, says the despot should not be honored.

"Stalin was a tyrant, that's all there is to it," she said.

"Look at how many people he killed."

Critics blame Putin for overseeing the revival of positive attitudes toward Stalin and failing to denounce him as an authoritarian dictator.

Alexander Yakovlev, a war veteran who was a key architect of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's liberal reforms, said Stalin's leadership during the war brought more harm than good.

He pointed to Stalin's purges of tens of thousands of senior army officers before the war and his decision to imprison hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war whom he declared traitors for surrendering to the enemy.

"The victory was achieved despite Stalin's leadership, not thanks to it," Yakovlev told The Associated Press.

end quotes

HHHhhhmmm!

Is it really better to get killed, or enslaved, by your own dictator, as opposed to a foreign one, especially if the foreign one who is going to kill you or enslave you is a real Nazi, and your own dictator is not?

Wow, now that is a real conundrum, here, isn't it?

Boy, it sure is tough living in a democracy, all of this thinking that we have to do all the time!

And all these tough questions, to boot!

"Would I rather be killed or enslaved by George W. Bush, or a Nazi?"

Is that an essay question, or is it multiple choice?

And the hell with Russia!

What about here, in OUR own America?

What's this with Miss Hillary, now?

I bet all these people out there kicking Miss Hillary will be sorry when they won't have Miss Hillary to kick no more, or was that Millhouse "Tricky Dick" Nixxon that they were kicking?

Oh, who can keep up with all these politicians, anyway?

Or for that matter, all of these felons and such that OUR government always seems to be consorting with, in one way or the other, when politics is involved, as seems to be the case, here, anyway!

"Sen. Clinton's Financing in the Spotlight"

By PAUL CHAVEZ, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 42 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Campaign donations made more than four years ago at a celebrity-studded Hollywood gala have led to a federal criminal trial against a former finance director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that could hamper her future campaigns.

The trial set to open Tuesday focuses on a lavish August 2000 political party at a tony Brentwood estate that drew dozens of A-list guests and performers, including Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Cher, Diana Ross and Muhammad Ali.

Clinton hasn't been linked to charges that the cost of the event was vastly underreported, but Republicans will be watching for any ammunition they can use against the Democrat, considered an early front-runner for the 2008 presidential nomination.

David Rosen, who was Clinton's finance director during her 2000 U.S. Senate run, faces three counts of filing a false statement.

An FBI agent speculated in an affidavit that Rosen was trying to duck federal financing rules so the campaign would have more money to spend on other expenses.

Rosen pleaded not guilty in January.

He could face up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if convicted.

The party, called a "Hollywood Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton," included both a dinner and a concert.

About 350 people accepted invitations to both, which cost $25,000 a couple.

About 1,200 people purchased $1,000 tickets just for the concert.

Many people got complimentary tickets and campaign reports never gave a full accounting of the total money taken in.

However, organizers reported raising nearly $1.1 million for a joint committee benefiting Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign and the national and state-level Democratic parties.

Rosen, 40, reported the event was underwritten by about $400,000 worth of "in kind" contributions — goods and services provided for free or below cost — but Peter F. Paul, a three-time convicted felon who pleaded guilty in March to securities fraud charges, has told prosecutors he gave the campaign at least $1.1 million for the affair.

Paul has filed a lawsuit claiming he bankrolled the gala on a promise that former President Clinton would become a "goodwill ambassador" for his Internet media company.

He is ready to testify against Rosen, according to his attorney, Joseph Conway.

Another of the event's organizers, the man who corralled the celebrities, said Rosen was a "decent person" who faced a devil's choice: risk getting fired by exposing the gala's skyrocketing tab or cover up its true cost.

"David I don't think deserves to go to jail," co-organizer Aaron Tonken said in a recent interview from prison, where he is serving 63 months for unrelated charges of defrauding charities of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Tonken believes the Federal Election Commission should fine Hillary Clinton's campaign.

To build its case, the government enlisted Raymond Reggie, a prominent political consultant whose sister is married to U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Prosecutors have not named Reggie, but two sources familiar with the case said he is the "cooperating witness" identified in court documents.

During a secretly recorded conversation with Reggie in September 2002, prosecutors said Rosen made incriminating statements they will introduce at trial.

Reggie pleaded guilty last month in Louisiana to unrelated bank fraud charges.

A request for an interview with Hillary Clinton was referred to her lawyer, David Kendall, who would not comment.

Last year, Kendall told The Associated Press that Clinton's campaign properly reported all donations in 2000.

Rosen's attorney, Paul Mark Sandler, also declined to comment.

It is not the first time a Clinton campaign has been under scrutiny.

President Clinton's 1996 campaign was dogged by allegations of illegal fundraising from overseas donors.

"Things like this have occurred along the way in the Clinton national role and they have handled it," said Lee Miringoff, an independent pollster and director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

The key, he said, is whether "fingerprints lead back to her."

Government lawyers won't say publicly why they believe Rosen might have underreported the cost.

But one theory suggests it would have allowed Clinton's campaign to spend more money on essentials such as advertising.

Under arcane campaign finance rules of the time, reporting the event's actual cost would have forced the campaign to forfeit coveted "hard money," according to Larry Noble, a former Federal Election Commission lawyer who now leads the campaign-finance watchdog Center for Responsive Politics.

And speaking of arcane election laws that allow politicians to seemingly stuff oodles and oodles of campaign contributions right down their own pockets, what do we have here, from Miss Hillary's own HOME STATE of New York?

And as you read this, keep in mind that by 1976, the State of New York had white collar crime to the extent of $44 BILLION, which is in the time frame that the New York State Legislature did away with tough campaign contribution laws in New York State!

Hhhhmmm!

$44 BILLION!

Now wouldn't that make a greedy politican drool!

"Election cash pays for perks - State law gives candidates the flexibility to use campaign donations for cars, personal trips, gifts"

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Sunday, May 8, 2005

ALBANY -- State-level candidates rake in millions of dollars in campaign contributions to fund their political aspirations, but the money often buys things with no clear political purpose.

Financial filings with the state Board of Elections show that in recent months, candidates have spent donors' money on such things as gifts for employees and colleagues, flowers for district offices and membership dues to tony private clubs.

Under the state's lax Election Law, critics say, campaign committees have become little more than largely unregulated slush funds for politicians.

Money given by donors ostensibly to help candidates get elected or re-elected has paid for such things as a flight to Rome for Gov. George Pataki's wife so she could attend Pope John Paul II's funeral with her husband, and the legal defense of former state Sen. Guy Velella, R-Bronx, who had to give up his seat and do prison time for accepting bribes.

And then there are the numerous small purchases -- supposedly worth $5 or less -- that are listed as "unitemized" expenses and require no explanation by law.

And the spending often goes on long after an election is over.

"It's a hole so large that you could probably drive the entire Army Reserve of New York through it," Democratic political consultant and lobbyist Norman Adler said of the single paragraph in the Election Law that addresses the use of campaign cash.

The law states only:

"Contributions received by a candidate or a political committee may be expended for any lawful purpose."

"Such funds shall not be converted by any person to a personal use which is unrelated to a political campaign or the holding of a public office or party position."

"It's extremely flexible, and it's hard to find things that you can't justify," said Adler, a veteran of many state-level campaigns.

As state Board of Elections spokesman Lee Daghlian put it, "Unless you out-and-out stick it in your pocket and walk away, everything's legal."

The situation is even cushier for political parties, which maintain so-called "housekeeping" committees that, unlike individual campaign committees, have no contribution limits.

Such contributions, known as "soft money," were banned at the federal level in 2002.

By law, parties are supposed to use their housekeeping accounts to cover overhead costs and "ordinary activities which are not for the express purpose of promoting the candidacy of specific candidates."

But such "party-building" efforts as voter registration drives and literature drops are legal, even if they end up benefiting candidates.

In several cases, parties have circumvented the restrictions to get money into candidates' hands.

Earlier this year, the state Republican Party weathered criticism -- even from within its ranks -- for paying for first lady Libby Pataki's personal assistant.

The Democrat-controlled Assembly passed a campaign finance reform bill this year that would end unlimited contributions to housekeeping committees, but the Republican-led Senate has not followed suit.

Pataki, also a Republican, has called for ending soft money donations to housekeeping accounts since 1999.

The law governing individual and party campaign committees wasn't always so vague.

Until the mid-1970s, it included a list of things a campaign committee could and could not pay for, according to Daghlian.

"Like any laundry list, it wasn't complete," he said.

"So, (the state Legislature) did away with it."

The state Board of Elections has only two auditors on staff, but it tries to audit the financial filings of every statewide candidate and the state political parties, Daghlian said.

Auditors generally focus on whether donors exceeded contribution limits, he said, but also flag expenditures that seem "out of whack."

Otherwise, the board doesn't investigate expenditures unless it gets a complaint.

If asked, the state board offers advisory opinions on the legality of campaign committee expenditures.

Past opinions are posted on the board's Web site.

They have dealt with questions of whether campaign funds of a deceased office holder can be transferred to his or her spouse, children or staff (answer: not if it's for personal use), used to pay personal income taxes (answer: no), or used to buy items later sold to the candidate (answer: yes, if he or she pays market value).

The most recent opinion was issued in September 1997.

Assemblyman Robert Reilly, D-Colonie, said he's trying to draft legislation that would restrict campaign committee spending.

But he's having trouble.

The problem is, one candidate's campaign necessity is another's personal luxury, so it's tough to establish hard rules, Reilly said.

It's also difficult to prove a candidate is using items funded by campaign committees -- like cars, or cellular phones -- for both personal and political use.

Reilly cited a post-election "debriefing" trip to Vermont taken by Albany County Comptroller Mike Conners with his wife, his daughter and her boyfriend over Thanksgiving 2004 paid for in part with donor funds as inappropriate committee spending.

Conners unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Delmar, on the GOP line last fall.

"Not to knock Mike Conners, but that's an example of abuse," Reilly said.

"That's not legally what those campaign funds should be used for."

Compared with the state requirements, the rules governing how federal candidates spend their campaign dollars are slightly more restrictive, according to Ed Davis, director of research at Common Cause, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group.

Gifts generally aren't allowed by the Federal Election Committee, and spousal travel isn't always approved.

And they're downright stringent in New York City -- at least for those using the public campaign financing system.

Qualified expenditures for public matching funds include campaign offices, staff salaries, advertisements, consultants and literature.

The funds cannot be used for gifts, food served anywhere other than at a campaign event, or legal and petitioning expenses.

All candidates' expenses are audited.

If they are found to have spent public money on an unqualified item, they are required to return that sum.

"Not only do we audit by examining documents, but we also make on-site visits to candidates' campaign offices to enforce legal expenditures," said Tanya Domi, spokeswoman for the New York City Campaign Finance Board.

Unless the Legislature approves public financing of state-level campaigns, the current spending rules are not likely to change, observers said.

But public financing has been a non-starter in Albany.

The Assembly's campaign finance package includes it, but neither Pataki nor the Senate, which has yet to address campaign finance reform this year, supports it.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat who's running for governor in 2006, does.

Another key reason why nothing has been done to rein in campaign spending is that the donors themselves aren't calling for it loudly enough, Adler said.

"People give money because they either like a candidate or they want something out of him," he said.

"They do not contribute with a specific expenditure in mind."

"They give money because they like what a candidate has done or will do, not because they want to buy TV time, mailings or pay for the phones at headquarters."

Elizabeth Benjamin can be reached at 454-5081 or by e-mail at ebenjamin@timesunion.com.

"For politicians, family ties can include payroll - Sweeney's wife is among the ranks of relatives on legislators' staffs"

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Sunday, May 8, 2005

ALBANY -- Congress has been smarting lately over revelations that dozens of members, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, have hired spouses, children or other relatives with campaign funds.

In this apparently common practice, the Capital Region's representatives are no exception.

It has long been known in political circles that U.S. Rep. Michael McNulty, D-Green Island, pays his brother, Jack McNulty III, to serve as his campaign treasurer.

From 2003-'04, Jack McNulty received $32,938 from his brother's campaign, Federal Election Commission filings said.

A relative newcomer to the practice of hiring relatives is U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, whose campaign paid $42,570 to Creative Consulting, a firm owned by his wife, Gayle Ford, between April 2003 and January 2004.

Sweeney's filings list payments to Creative Consulting for fund-raising consulting and commissions.

Creative Consulting is Sweeney's 10th-largest campaign expense.

His largest was $273,993 to The Victory Group in Maryland, also for fund-raising consulting and for "media."

Ford's company received its first payment from Sweeney's campaign on April 11, 2003 -- one day after she filed papers to do business as Creative Consulting in the Albany County clerk's office under the name "Gaia Mashanta Ford" and using a Cohoes address.

FEC records show the checks from Sweeney's committee to Creative Consulting go to a post office box in Clifton Park, where the couple, who married last year, live.

Individuals are supposed to file paperwork in every county in which they intend to do business.

Ford has not filed in Saratoga County, a check at the Saratoga County clerk's office revealed.

Sweeney spokeswoman Melissa Carlson said the congressman considers his wife "his best representative in the district when he's fund-raising."

She said Ford, who has no previous fund-raising experience and no other clients, receives a 10 percent commission on whatever she raises.

Ford will file the appropriate paperwork in Saratoga County, Carlson said.

"He trusts her, and she knows the people he deals with in terms of fund-raising, so it works out," Carlson said.

The Victory Group handles Sweeney's fund-raising in Washington, D.C., and Ford focuses on New York, she added.

Ford also works for Powers & Co., the lobbying firm of former state GOP Chairman William Powers, Sweeney's longtime political ally and onetime boss.

The recent focus on payments to family members was sparked by reports that the wife and daughter of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, were paid more than $500,000 by his campaign and political action committees.

Last month, the Los Angeles Times reported that at least 39 congressmen have paid their spouses, children or other relatives from campaign funds, or have hired companies in which a family member had a financial interest.

Hiring family members is not an uncommon practice among state-level politicians as well.

Assemblyman John "Jack" McEneny, D-Albany, hired his daughter, Rachel, to manage his unsuccessful challenge to Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings in 1997 and his successful Assembly campaign in 1998.

He paid her about $500 a week.

Having a family member on staff is a mixed blessing, McEneny said.

It's easier to trust them, he said, but: "Your best friends in politics are the people who will give you negative feedback."

"And it's hard for people to give negative feedback to a relative."

Elizabeth Benjamin can be reached at 454-5081 or by e-mail at ebenjamin@timesunion.com.

"German neo-Nazi march stopped on WW2 anniversary"

By Erik Kirschbaum

1 hour, 10 minutes ago

BERLIN (Reuters) - A neo-Nazi march in Berlin was stopped by thousands of anti-fascist demonstrators Sunday after a tense standoff that overshadowed Germany's ceremonies marking the end of World War II in Europe 60 years ago.

Berlin police said 6,000 demonstrators opposed to the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) crowded into streets around Alexanderplatz square where 3,300 right-wing extremists gathered to protest what they called a German "cult of guilt."

Eager to prevent the violence that flares when leftists try to stop far-right marches, authorities ordered the NPD to stay at Alexanderplatz behind a buffer zone of barricades and police.

Two hours later the NPD decided to abandon the march.

Anti-Nazi demonstrators cheered when police announced on loudspeakers that the march was canceled.

"With peaceful means, the public showed these Nazis who were trying to glorify the greatest genocide in history will never again have any role in Germany," said Juergen Trittin, a minister in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government.

Holding one of their biggest rallies ever -- thanks to constitutional free speech guarantees -- the far-right then stayed at the Alexanderplatz square, where there were some scuffles with leftists who got close to barricades.

Police arrested 42 people -- 32 leftists and 10 rightists -- for throwing bottles or using the outlawed "Hitler salute."

There was also one firebomb thrown at the neo-Nazis.

Most Germans see May 8, 1945 as a day of liberation.

The motto of the anti-Nazi rally borrowed the word for "Thanks" in Russian: "Spasibo -- We say thank you."

Some carried banners reading "Fascism never again" and "War never again."

The NPD had wanted to march through the Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of unification, and past a new Holocaust memorial.

"This was not a day of 'liberation' but a day of defeat for Germany and it's nothing to celebrate," said NPD leader Udo Voigt.

"Almost every German has relatives expelled from the east or a grandfather who was killed."

"We're here to mourn the millions of Germans killed in the war," he told Reuters.

The extremists with shaven heads and black clothing were required to pass through tight police screening to the rally.

In a speech in parliament, President Horst Koehler said most Germans were relieved "and numbed" when the war ended.

"There are unfortunately incorrigibles still among us who want a return to the racism and right-wing extremism," Koehler said.

"But they don't have a chance."

"We feel disgust and contempt for those guilty of these crimes against humanity who dishonored our country," he said.

CELEBRATIONS ACROSS EUROPE

Across Europe, there were ceremonies marking the end of the war in Europe Sunday and Monday.

President Bush said in a speech in the Netherlands the lesson of the war was that democracy brought peace.

Commemorations to mark the end of the war that cost at least 50 million lives worldwide were also taking place in London, Paris and Washington.

The war in the Pacific ended three months later and the Allies mark Victory over Japan on Aug. 15.

In Paris Sunday, President Jacques Chirac laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier under the Arc de Triomphe, before leaving for Moscow to celebrate the war victory.

Prince Charles led low-key commemorations in Britain, laying a wreath at the national war memorial in London.

Britain plans bigger events later in the year to mark the end of the war.

Chirac, Bush and dozens of other world leaders including German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will join President Vladimir Putin for the celebrations in Moscow Monday.

The Allies agreed to celebrate victory on May 9, 1945, but reporters broke the news of Germany's surrender prematurely, prompting mass rejoicing on May 8.

The Soviet Union kept to the agreed date and Russia still marks victory in Europe on May 9.

In Poland Sunday, there was sober reflection on how the war divided the continent as well as the millions killed.

Prime Minister Marek Belka told a ceremony in Warsaw:

"We want to believe that truth will be spoken about the heroism of the war years but also of the betrayal of the postwar years."

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his cabinet:

"Sixty years after the end of the worst war in human history, one cannot underestimate the importance of the victory to the entire world and particularly to the Jewish people."

end quotes

"There are unfortunately incorrigibles still among us who want a return to the racism and right-wing extremism," Koehler said.

Hhhhmmmm.

Don't we have a bunch of those over here as well?

Indeed we do.

I am just starting Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here.

Written in the 30s as fascism was sweeping through Italy and Germany, it is remarkably "fresh" here in OUR America.

I'll keep you posted.

"Party-line Bolton approval expected"

By SIOBHAN McDONOUGH, Associated Press
Last updated: 2:56 p.m., Sunday, May 8, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday he expected John R. Bolton, the contentious nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to win a party-line vote in the committee this week.

"Republicans, I suspect, will vote in favor of John Bolton; Democrats, I suspect, will vote unanimously against him," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

That would send Bolton's nomination to the full Senate on a 10-8 margin when the GOP-led committee meets Thursday.

Lugar said he thought the vote, delayed since mid-April, would come off as scheduled.

But he acknowledged that Democrats who want to get more information about Bolton have many procedural ways to stall the vote.

Four committee Republicans supported a postponement of that April vote in order to review fresh allegations against Bolton.

While none has indicated plans to oppose Bolton, it would take only one Republican to side with the committee's eight Democrats to create a tie vote -- jeopardizing the nomination.

One of those four Republicans, Sen. Chuck Hagel, said on ABC's "This Week" that he has yet to learn anything about Bolton that would keep him from supporting the nominee.

But Hagel, R-Neb., said he was reserving his vote until he heard all the facts.

Bolton has been accused of trying to get subordinates whose intelligence information he opposed fired and of having a combustible personality inappropriate for a U.N. ambassador.

The top Democrat on the committee is still awaiting information about Bolton that he requested from the State Department.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., raised the possibility of trying to delay the committee vote if he does not get the material.

The documents include an accounting of instances in which Bolton sought names and details of U.S. officials whose communications were intercepted by the National Security Agency.

Biden also sought records regarding Bolton's assertions that Cuba and Sudan were bent on developing weapons of mass destruction and on China's proliferation of weapons technology.

Bolton has been the State Department's arms control chief.

"The real issue here is how far did John Bolton stretch the truth or try to stretch the facts relating to intelligence," Biden said.

Lugar said he continues to believe that Bolton is the right man for the job.

"I have no doubts in all the testimony we've already uncovered ... that John Bolton has been blunt, some would say even more than that."

"Some would say intimidating, abusive, tried to get people fired," Lugar said.

"But at the end of the day, nobody was fired."

"People's feelings may have been bent out of shape."

Lugar added, "Somebody that bends things out of shape may be needed to wrench around the U.N."

Also Sunday, former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin confirmed he told the Senate committee that Bolton tried to have a government intelligence analyst ousted in a dispute over Cuba.

"A subordinate came to me and said that Mr. Bolton was seeking transfer of one of our employees, and I objected to that, and said that we wouldn't do it," McLaughlin said on CNN's "Late Edition."

McLaughlin said "not in my personal experience" had he heard of such an effort by a policy-maker.

McLaughlin added that the committee did not ask him whether he thought it appropriate for Bolton to be U.N. ambassador.

Please do, jeffmoskin!

And by the way, I would be very cautious advertising in here that you actually do read books!

That would make you out to be an intellectual, you know, and those incorrigibles still among us who want a return to the racism and right-wing extremism don't like intellectuals who can actually read!

It makes them look dumb as a stump, I think is what they said, and to them, that is class-based invidious discrimination when you do something that they can't, like read a book, for instance!

And when we have an American president who can't or doesn't read, well ......

(sentiment left unstated)

edited to read:


"And when we have an American president who can't or doesn't read well"