Coward Deanpeace says Robert announcement a conspiracy
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Howard Dean thinks that the announcement of the Roberts Supreme Court nomination was timed to take heat off of Karl Rove. He does not explain how the impact of this would have been any different if it had been last week or occurred next week.

Dean Also Sees Conspiracy in Roberts Pick

DNC chief Howard Dean joined liberal group MoveOn.org in claiming President Bush's nomination of John Roberts was an effort to deflect attention from Plamegate.

Late Tuesday Dean issued a statement blasting the Roberts nomination while questioning the timing of the announcement.

"Faced with a growing scandal surrounding the involvement of Deputy White House chief of Staff Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby in leaking the identity of a covert CIA operative, President Bush announced his nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court late this evening," Dean's statement began.

Dean continued:

"It is disappointing that when President Bush had the chance to bring the country together, he instead turned to a nominee who may have impressive legal credentials, but also has sharp partisan credentials that cannot be ignored.

"Democrats take very seriously the responsibility to protect the individual rights of all Americans and are committed to ensuring that ideological judicial activists are not appointed to the Supreme Court.

"The Senate Judiciary Committee will now have the opportunity to see if Judge Roberts can put his partisanship aside, and live up to a Supreme Court Justice's duty to uphold the rights and freedoms of every American and the promise of equal justice for all."

News Max.com ~ Carl Limbacher ** Dean Also Sees Conspiracy in Roberts Pick

Coward Deanpeace says GOP will ''scapegoat immigrants''
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Even though his own campaign and staff are nearly as lilly white as Vermont, Howard Dean is trying to scare people into thinking that the GOP is anti-immigrant.

Dean: Republicans will "scapegoat" immigrants

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean told the National Council of La Raza in Philadelphia today that he expected the Republicans to "scapegoat" immigrants in the 2006 election.

In a speech to the annual convention of hispanic leaders, Dean said the GOP tried to generate fears about blacks through the quota issue in the 2002 election and about gays through the marriage issue last year.

"In 2006, it's going to be immigrants," he said. "You wait and see."

Republican chairman Kenneth Mehlman, in his own address to the group, did not respond to Dean's comments directly. He later told reporters that the allegation was "laughable" and said that President Bush had put together what Mehlman called "the most diverse administration in history."

Philly.com ~ Larry Eichel - Knight Ridder ** Dean: Republicans will “scapegoat” immigrants

Philly Burbs.com ~ Associated Press - Deborah Yao ** Republican, Democratic party leaders court Hispanics

Gore: New TV Channel Won't Be Partisan
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Former Vice President Al Gore, and chairman and co-founder of Current, an upcoming independent cable television network, takes questions from television critics during a preview presentation of Current Monday, July 18, 2005, at the 2005 Summer Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Current TV debuts August 1. >>>>>

Gore: New TV Channel Won't Be Partisan

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Former Vice President Al Gore, co-founder of a new television channel launching next month, said he's shunning politics - and so is his media venture.

"I consider myself a recovering politician. I'm on step nine," Gore told a meeting Monday of the Television Critics Association.

The 2004 Democratic candidate for president was asked if he was concerned the 24-hour news and information channel, called Current, would be perceived as having a political slant. It's scheduled to launch Aug. 1.

"I think the reality of the network will speak for itself. It's not intended to be partisan in any way," said Gore, Current's co-founder (with businessman Joel Hyatt) and chairman of the board.

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<<<<< Former Vice President Al Gore, chairman of the board and co-founder of Current, along with television producers and hosts Laura Ling and Gotham Chopra, present the upcoming independent cable television network, during a preview, Monday, July 18, 2005, at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. The Current TV network debuts Aug. 1.
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Aimed at an 18-34-year-old audience, Current has loftier goals in mind than party politics: Gore said it will engage young people in the "dialogue of democracy" by providing stories that interest them, and will involve them in the channel's content.

Using Web parlance, Gore said he wants Current to be the channel of choice for young adults.

"We want to be the television home page for the Internet generation," he said.

Viewers will have the opportunity to contribute their own filmed reports and features, such as a look at underground youth culture in Iran, said Gore and David Neuman, Current's programming president.

The young staff of reporters, producers and hosts includes Gotham Chopra, son of self-help guru Deepak Chopra and Laura Ling (Channel One News, MTV).

Preparing to launch Current in 20 million homes on DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Comcast in limited markets "has been a blast," Gore said. The five-year plan calls for it to reach 50 million homes.

He declined to talk about a current hot topic in Washington, the speculation about Bush administration figures Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby and the federal investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's name.

"I'd rather not," he said. "I'd rather keep the focus on Current."

My Way News ~ Associated Press - Lynn Elber ** Gore: New TV Channel Won't Be Partisan

Too Much Choice
Mood:  suave
Topic: Funny Stuff

LOL, I can't decide... CAN YOU BLAME ME?!

Radical Islamist at the British left-wing newspaper, The Guardian, and they're refusing to fire him
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Reporter Remains on Guardian's Staff

Reporter Shall Remain

The British left-wing newspaper The Guardian (search) is acknowledging that one of its reporters belongs to a radical Islamist group banned in parts of Europe and Asia, but it's refusing to fire him.

The Guardian says that while Dilpazier Aslam, who's been reporting on the London bombings from Leeds, is a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the organization which has been accused of funding terrorist operations in Central Asia, and banned in Germany for anti-Israeli propaganda, is legal in Britain. But, The Guardian tells The Independent newspaper, "we are keeping the matter under review."

Fox News ~ Brit Hume - Political Grapevine ** Reporter Remains on Guardian's Staff

UK Independent ~ Shiv Malik ** 'Guardian' man revealed as hardline Islamist

Atheists Feel Left Out
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

<<<<< MAKING A STAND: Simi Valley resident Stuart Bechman, co-president of Atheists United, says that for nonbelievers the present political climate is like the McCarthy era of the 1950s.

A Time of Doubt for Atheists
† With the religious making inroads in popular culture and politics, nonbelievers yearn for higher power in Washington.

It's been years, decades even, since the Almighty was so hot.

The evidence is everywhere. President Bush rallied the faithful to hold on to the White House. A book by an Orange County preacher extolling God's purpose in our lives stays a bestseller for more than two years. And Hollywood, frequently seen as a den of iniquity, is courting a more spiritual audience in movies and TV.

Faith is the new must-have, evident when a major leaguer points skyward after his base hit, when a movie star credits the Big Guy for his Oscar, when the Justice Department backs the display of the Ten Commandments at two state capitols, and when it defends the Salvation Army's requirement that employees embrace Jesus Christ.

So where does that leave the fraction of Americans who define themselves as godless? Although the percentage of Americans who claim no religion is about 14%, less than a quarter of them identify themselves as atheists, according to recent polls.

Some are using humor to cope, such as actress Julia Sweeney in her one-woman play "Letting Go of God," which ran in Los Angeles for several months this year. "It's really because I take you so seriously," she tells an imaginary God, "that I can't believe in you."

Others see the future as a time when nonbelievers are outcasts and religion dictates law, social protocol, even private life.

"The McCarthy era is the last time this climate existed," says Simi Valley resident Stuart Bechman, co-president of Atheists United, a local affiliate of Atheist Alliance International.

Although the comparison sounds melodramatic, atheist activists believe the climate to be so perilous that they're considering something drastic: unity.

Atheists aren't by nature of one mind. There's a godless organization for every wrinkle of nonbelief — the prayer-never-hurt-anyone, live-and-let-live atheists; the prove-the-God-fearing-world-wrong, keep-America-secular atheists; and the contrarian I-don't-believe-in-God-but-don't-call-me-an-atheist atheists.

Fear, however, is a great motivator, and politically active atheists know that they need an advocate in government to be heard. Unfortunately, as one activist noted, most politicians are as eager to align with the godless ranks as they are to lobby for pedophiles. Hence the need for an image makeover.

Keen to cast off stereotypes of immorality, atheists are stressing their integrity, patriotism and respect for the faithful while staying true to their age-old commitment to the separation of church and state. Some even bristle at the terms "atheist" or "nonbeliever." Others have begun raising funds, lobbying politicians and building online communities.

There have been larger-scale actions as well. The first godless march on Washington drew thousands in fall 2002, and a few months later the Godless Americans Political Action Committee was formed. This year, an Inauguration Summit of 22 like-minded groups was held in Washington to stimulate cooperation days before Bush's swearing in. And this Veterans Day, so-called foxhole atheists (servicemen and women who are nonbelievers) will be honored in the capital.

If all goes as planned, says Ellen Johnson, longtime president of American Atheists, at least one presidential candidate will be courting their vote in 2008.

"We can't complain about what the religious do," she says. "All we have to do is copy their strategy."

Best or Worst of Times?

Some among the nonbelievers say life is pretty good compared with decades past when violence was a common threat and professed nonbelievers were driven from their jobs and homes.

"I actually think it is getting better for atheists in the U.S., despite the religiosity of the current administration," Las Vegas atheist Clark Adams writes in an e-mail. "Many celebrities are on record as nonbelievers, and it's not too uncommon to see an atheist positively portrayed on TV or in movies."

Others, though, label this argument "denial." They're quick to reference the many atheists who so fear harassment that they join atheist groups anonymously and others who are cast out of their families, refused positions involving children or relieved of jobs because of their nonbelief.

It's this group that pushes the separation of church and state, a debate energized during the 1960s by legendary atheist activist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who proclaimed herself "the most hated woman in America."

They reject the argument often cited by Christian activists that the nation's government was founded by Christians. They argue that although some of the authors of the Constitution may have been religious men, they consistently maintained a clear boundary between their faith and their government. They note that until the communist scare of the 1950s, "In God we trust" wasn't the national motto, nor did it appear on paper currency, and "under God" was absent from the Pledge of Allegiance.

They point out that Bush — who as Texas governor declared April 17, 2000, Jesus Day — has awarded religious "armies of compassion" and other faith-based groups more than $3 billion in public funds since 2003. And they feel the steel in remarks by former California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, now on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, who told Roman Catholic legal professionals in April that people of faith were embroiled in a "war" with secular humanists.

"I have been threatened with damnation so many times it's stupid," says Dave Silverman of Piscataway, N.J., communications director of American Atheists and founder of NoGodBlog.com. "The amount of intolerance in this country is staggering."

Atheists often keep quiet about their worldview. Some say that to volunteer their atheism offends believers.

"We have a social idea that it's rude," says Bobbie Kirkhart, Los Angeles-based president of Atheist Alliance International.

Others say it instantly taints society's perception of them.

Silverman says his 8-year-old daughter, who he says is also an atheist, has been taunted as a Satanist by some of her Christian playmates. Atheist United's Bechman says he usually receives hate mail or prank calls after he takes a stance on church-state issues. Los Angeles acting teacher and Thomas Jefferson impersonator Dale Reynolds says he's sometimes consoled by believers saddened by his lack of faith.

"It is the kind of thing that if you bring it up, there are ramifications," Reynolds says.

Still, there are those outspoken nonbelievers doing their best to influence the masses.

American Atheists' Johnson, whose national organization claims 2,200 members, is a regular on news talk shows. She is also executive director of the Godless Americans PAC, and meets with politicians to build awareness and support for church-state separation legislation. She helped organize the 2002 march on Washington and is organizing November's Atheists in Foxholes parade and ceremony. Yet, she acknowledges, atheism is a hard sell.

"The candidate is in an awkward position," she says. "They're wary to be endorsed by an atheist…. We have to be able to deliver the votes to get them into office. I can't do that yet."

Mynga Futrell and Paul Geisert of Sacramento hope to change that with a new name and an online community. They founded the Brights' Net (the-brights.net) in 2003 to create a place for people who share "a worldview free from supernatural and mystical elements." They chose the term "brights" because, unlike "godless," "atheist" and "nonbeliever," it did not define them in religious terms. By creating this label, Futrell and Geisert hope to "level the playing field" and recast members of their community as independent thinkers who celebrate knowledge without identifying themselves as vociferous anti-theists.

They want to build a large, influential community, similar to MoveOn.org, to sway public opinion. So far, they say, there are Brights in more than 115 countries.

"There's this tremendous feeling of being a second-class citizen when you know you're patriotic and working for all kinds of good things for the country, and yet you're ranked with the pedophiles," Futrell says. "You have to have political influence in order to get cultural change of any kind."

Celebrity Heroes

If the politicians don't come, it doesn't hurt a cause to have a celebrity.

In 1999, then-Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura became a hero for the movement when he refused to endorse the National Day of Prayer and told Playboy magazine that organized religion was "a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers."

Actress-writer Sweeney emerged this year as a sort of amiable advocate for nonbelief. "Letting Go of God," which played at a small Hollywood theater, proved so popular that Sweeney is recording a CD of the performance, writing a book based on it and has plans to release it as a film.

Her show aims to entertain and disarm audiences as it traces Sweeney's path away from Catholicism.

In one scene, a Bible study class causes her to find the book outrageous and disturbing. She asks herself, "Is this one big practical joke?" Her skepticism isn't limited to one religion; after a journey to the Far East and a run-in with Deepak Chopra, she chooses science over faith because "for the first time, knowing too much didn't ruin it."

Breaking the news to her devout Catholic parents, however, didn't go well. Her father forbade her from attending his funeral. Her mother complained that "at least being gay is socially acceptable…. Why can't you just say you're still searching?"

Sweeney didn't respond to interview requests, but on her blog at juliasweeney.com, she described the fallout of the recent publicity.

The mail was so voluminous and, she writes, "so outraged and so filled with hate" that on June 13 she decided to stop blogging for a while and has considered moving.

"I think I tried really hard not to be hateful in my monologue," she writes. "I tried to make a case for faith and show the struggle with compassion to all sides…. I think I have a lot in common with Christians … because I think it's majorly important if someone is religious or not. Only I think it should be on the 'not' side."

LA Times ~ Gina Piccalo ** A Time of Doubt for Atheists

Venezuala's top Cardinal calls Chavez a dictator, suggests 'rejecting' him
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

Venezuala's top Cardinal says the country's Constitution allows citizens to reject their leftist president, Hugo Chavez. As Chavez continues to push the country back decades, people and institutions grow increasingly impatient.

Cardinal Calls Chavez a 'Dictator'

Venezuela's highest Catholic prelate has called President Hugo Chavez a dictator and urged Venezuelans to refuse to recognize him as the nation's leader.

"I am convinced that what we have here is a dictatorship," Cardinal Rosalio Castillo said in an interview.

The cardinal's comments are likely to further strain relations with Chavez, who has described the church as a "tumor."

Castillo is retired and said he could not speak officially for Venezuela's church. But he is the highest-ranking member of the church hierarchy in Venezuela.

He said the people of his nation should refuse to recognize the left-wing president because he was not ruling democratically, citing an article in Venezuela's constitution stipulating that citizens could reject a leader if he violated democratic principles or human rights.

"Reject this government," the cardinal declared, charging that Chavez "has seized control of all the branches of government." He said Chavez maintained a "varnish of democracy" but had assumed dictatorial powers.

"His goal above all is not to help the poor but to concentrate his power," Cardinal Castillo said, adding that Chavez was trying to install Cuban-style communism in the country.

Chavez, who calls himself the "second Fidel," has outlawed most forms of public protest, rewritten Venezuela's constitution to broaden his powers, purged critics in the military and tried to take over the national federation of trade unions.

He also engineered a law allowing his government to suspend the licenses of radio and TV stations for content "contrary to the security of the nation," and has even set up his own Latin American satellite channel to rival what he calls the U.S. propaganda that can now be seen on satellite TV.

Chavez responded to Castillo's remarks by calling the cardinal an "immoral bandit and coup-mongerer."

News Max.com ~ Carl Limbacher ** Cardinal Calls Chavez a 'Dictator'

Hillary pledges college education to illegal immigrants before Hispanic civil rights conference; Receives standing ovations
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Clinton speaks before Hispanic civil rights conference

Speaking to the nations' largest Hispanic civil rights organization, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., received a standing ovation Monday when she vowed her support for legislation that would allow illegal immigrant high school students to attend college.

Clinton made her remarks on various issues of importance to the country's Latinos at the annual conference of National Council of La Raza, attended by 23,000 people at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

The event started Friday and has included a rally in center Philadelphia in support of the so-called DREAM Act that would benefit illegal students.

On Tuesday, the chairpersons of both the Republican and Democratic national committees are schedule to address the conference, which NCLR officials say is a first for the organization and a sign that both parties have heightened their interest in the growing Latino population and its votes.

The Morning Call ** Clinton speaks before Hispanic civil rights conference

Kiran Chetry was robbed in the rollerblading race with Julian Phillips
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: My Columns

A dedication blog to my Fox News gal, Kiran Chetry

Kiran Chetry
Born: August 26, 1974
Birthplace: Kathmandu, Bagmati - Nepal

Kiran Chetry was robbed in the rollerblading race with Julian Phillips Sunday morning, Julian cheated at the half way intern point. Kiran tagged and turned on her own, Julian GRABBED the intern and used him for momentum to double back. I DEMAND A REMATCH!!!

Somebody needs to tell Julian Goofball Phillips that...
1 - The movie "Roadhouse" sucked.
2 - When you enter a FAIR CONTEST with a Fox News babe, your ass is toast ! (Juliet Huddy free throw smackdown.)
3 - When you do the hokey pokey, you TURN YOURSELF AROUND... that's what it's all about.

The rollerblade race video is rather large (55MB) so you'll probably want Cable or DSL if you want to download it. It runs 6 minutes and 39 seconds. Sorry the quality is kind of crappy but I didn't want the file any bigger than it already is. BTW, the link will expire after 7 days or 25 downloads whichever comes first, so maybe someone can upload it again when it expires.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. Now here's my excuse to post more pics of my sweet, sweet, Fox News gal...

More sweet pics of Kiran dressed as Lara Croft on Halloween...
This Blog's shadow website **** Kiran Chetry the Fox News hottie

Nadagate T-Shirts, ''My Wife is a Covert CIA Operative''
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Funny Stuff

More great stuff to tweak the left in a fun-hearted way. Unlike the "tolerant, compassionate" liberal's "Kill Bush" gear.

This is almost as sweet as Rush Limbaugh's Club Gitmo T-shirts and gear at the EIB collection.

This stuff came a little too late for me, for it's now that I had the idea of calling the patent office to copyright the "Downing Street" Memo Pads.

Cafe Press.com Online Store ** Covert CIA Operative