Ramblings' Journal

MSNBC's Chris Matthews physically attacked on the air

MSNBC's "attack dog" Chris Matthews was himself attacked while on the air today -- by a man in a black mask and hood, yelling something about Abu Ghraib (according to Indymedia's account of the incident).

a protester in a black hood rushed past the barricade right next to Chris Matthew yelling something about abu ghraib and was immediately tackled.

The cameras IMMEDIATELY cut away and they went to a reporter inside Madison Square garden. The people at MSNBC, though completely surrounded by protesters, have been ignoring them completely.

"A protester jumped a fence and ran onto a stage being used by MSNBC during a live broadcast tonight at New York's Herald Square. It happened at 7:38pm during a broadcast of 'Hardball.' Host Chris Matthews was on the set with Christie Todd Whitman, NBC correspondent David Gregory, Newsweek's Howard Fineman and commentator Sherry Annis were on the outdoor set in midtown Manhattan when the incident occured." He "was immediately subdued by security working for the network.

Frances now at CAT 4, Jacksonville/Brunswick under the gun for Sunday landfall

Hurricane Frances has sustained winds of 140 MPH right now, and is still moving westward at 15 MPH. Hurricane Warnings and Watches are up for the Eastern and Central Bahamas as Frances is expected to hand a gradual right turn that will take up through the Bahamas and ultimately to strike the coast of the US.

The National Hurricane Center currently is projecting a strike solution that has Frances coming ashore as a CAT 4 or 5 storm near Jacksonville on Sunday.

More than one of the forecast models include the storm as not only striking the Northern part of Florida, but coming inland enough to give us grief even here in Atlanta.

Remembering what happened in 1995 when Hurricane Opal came in from the Gulf enough to cause grief here, I figure I need to get to the store soon. When Opal came in, our power ended up out for two days.

Once Hurricane Warnings go up for Florida, HurricaneCity will start streaming live non-stop coverage, plus there will be television and radio stations that will stream non-stop coverage.

Although the NHS is calling for a Jacksonville landfall, everyone along the Eastern Seaboard needs to watch this thing. Not only that, but the Gulf Coast is not out of the woods yet. If Frances does not turn, it'll plow through the Florida Straits like a hot knife through butter and sail on into the Gulf, which brings a completely new set of problems.

This is going to be one heck of a weekend weather-wise.

Everyone get ready now.

The Bush Tax Cut simplified: It ain't just the "rich" who benefits

I've been challenged repeatedly by those who have gotten upset over the "Bush Tax Cut" (they usually spit behind that to show their disgust). The usual argument is that the tax cuts only benefit "the rich," as if this nebulous description describes folks in their lofty mansions and expensive condos (after all, if they can afford homes like that, they should pay out more to the rest of us, right?), without defining who "the rich" is.

Tavares Forby, a relatively new member of my blogroll, lays the truth out more succinctly.

Many liberals claim that the Bush tax cut only benefits the wealthy. Anyone with basic math skills can prove this is not true. Actually, “President Bush tax cut” cuts the most on the lowest income bracket. The income tax goes as follows for filing single:

Current Tax:

$0-$27,050	15%
$27,050-$65,550	28%
$65,550-$136,759	31%
$136,750-$297,350	36%
$297,350+	39.6%

New Tax

$0-$6,000	10%
$6,000-$27,050	15%
$27,050-$136,750	25%
$136,750+	33%

This chart breaks down per income tax bracket on the differences of income taxes comparing President Bush tax cut vs. current taxes.

$0-$6,000	from 15% to 10%: down 3%
$6,000-$27,050	no change: 0%
$27,050-$65,550	from 28% to 25%: down 11%
$65,550-$136,750	from 31% to 25%: down 19%
$136,750-$297,350	from 36% to 33%: down 8%
$297,350+	from 39.6% to 33%: down 16%

As we can see from this chart, the tax bracket $0-$6,000 has the greatest decrease in taxes which is 33%. The only tax bracket that was not effected was the tax bracket $6,000-$27,050. The second greatest decrease in taxes is 19% from tax bracket $65,550-$136,750. This is proof that President Bush tax cut is not only for the wealthy, but also for the lower and middle income tax bracket.

But we're supposed to be the bad guys, right? Yeah....right.

AQ slaughters 12 Nepalese hostages by beheading in Iraq

News of this latest genocidal atrocity just in from Sky News:

Twelve Nepalese hostages have been beheaded by their captors in Iraq.

The hostages were kidnapped by the Islamist Army of Ansar al-Sunna, which has shown a video of the slaughter.

The footage, which apprears on the army's website, show militants apparently slitting the throats of their hostages.

A statement on the website said: "We have carried out the sentence of God against 12 Nepalese who came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians ... believing in Buddha as their God."

More details are to follow...

After hearing from several folks this morning, one word has emerged, one that should strike fear and terror in the hearts of these predators. Of course, as stupid as AQ is, it probably won't, at least not until it's too late. The word? Gurkha.

Get outta the way! He's gonna blow!

I couldn't resist....

Michael "Fatass" Moore tries to crash RNC floor

Filmmaker Michael Moore, brandishing a messenger's pass, tried to get past Secret Service agents and onto the floor of the Republican National Convention this evening.

He ended up in the "cheap seats" during Senator John McCain's speech.

When McCain referred to Moore and his lies, Moore flashed the "'L' for Loser" sign at him.

While McCain's tone was mostly conciliatory, he criticized Michael Moore, whose documentary film "Fahrenheit 9-11" attacks Bush over Iraq and has been popular with liberal audiences. Without mentioning Moore by name, McCain called him "a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace."

Oops, I forgot....he already is a quivvering mass of gelatin!

Actress Rosario Dawson arrested near GOP protests

Actress Rosario Dawson, from Kids, Josie & the Pussycats, and the in-production Frank Miller's Sin City, was arrested along with the director of the upcoming This Revolution, Stephen Marshall.

According to the criminal complaint, Dawson and Marshall were spotted in a road with about 30 people gathered around them. She and another person were wearing handkerchiefs as masks with only their eyes showing.

A police officer told Dawson and the other person that they had to leave the roadway, the complaint said, but they reportedly refused. Marshall reportedly tried to show police his city film permit but was arrested anyway.

Each was charged with two counts of disorderly conduct and one charge of obstructing governmental administration. They were released without bail and told to return to court Nov. 9.

Blogads on board & R/J stuff for sale...

Well, as you can see from the rail over there on the right side, I've received my first BlogAd, coming from Joel Gaines at No Pundit Intended.

Thanks, Joel! I really appreciate it!

And to anyone else, (yes, this is a shameless plug) please feel free to buy an ad or perhaps to buy some swag, as noted down on the left rail. I've got mugs and t-shirts that say "Black and Unapologetically Conservative" and "Unapologetically Conservative" (for those who aren't as "melanin endowed" as I am).

I'm looking at adding a few other things over the next few weeks, so feel free!

And once again, to Joel and to everyone, thanks for your support!

Ed Koch visits Bloggers Row at the RNC

With the Republican National Convention in full stride, one of the early speakers, former Democratic NYC mayor Ed Koch, stopped by the "Bloggers Row" area of the convention hall to talk with the folks in attendance, and discuss his support for the President.

• Blogs For Bush
• Captain's Quarters
• Slant Point
• Power Line

Former Atlanta mayor Bill "No Lip" Campbell indicted

Former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell has been indicted on corruption charges.

Campbell is accused of a long string of corruption, racketeering and tax fraud charges.

The detailed 48-page indictment was returned by the federal grand jury on Aug. 18, but was unsealed this morning.

It accuses Campbell of:

• Taking payoffs from individuals and companies doing business with and seeking business and licenses with the city;
• Defrauding the citizens of Atlanta by depriving them of his "good, faithful and honest services as mayor;"
• Failing to disclose cash payments and other things of value he received while serving as mayor.
• Encouraging and accepting illegal campaign contributions for his re-election as mayor in 1997.
• Participating in a scheme to defraud contributors to and creditors of his re-election campaign;
• Recruiting others, including city employees, to "knowingly and unknowingly participate in the pattern of racketeering activity."

Specifically, the indictment charges that Campbell took $55,000 in illegal payments from a computer subcontractor in June, July and August of 1999. The payments were made to secure city contracts, according to the indictment.

The indictment claims in the spring of 1999 the computer subcontractor, the business' name is not disclosed, approached Campbell about a contract.

Campbell, now an attorney with Willie Gary's law firm in Florida, calls the investigation a "witch hunt of unbelieveable proportions," and that his name will be cleared in court.

Another toy found in FL candy depicts Osama bin Laden

Florida-based Lisy Corporation is at the center of another toy scandal.

If you'll remember the story from late last week, Lisy Corporation distributed bags of candy that contained a toy depicting the 9/11 disaster. Lisy recalled the candy in question, and said that a Miami importer got the toy for them.

The importer, L and M Imports, claimed that they didn't see the problem.

This week, a toy has been found with an image of Osama bin Laden standing between two towers.

"Importers did not realize what they were buying. They were buying assortments of toys and they get to people like us trying to sell authentic Mexican candies. Nobody caught it and it went out into the stores," explains Lisy Corporation manager Luis Pardon.

The manager of Lisy Corporation says the candy was originally purchased sight unseen, but now he'll send back all he's collected.

The Republican National Convention is underway...

Live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the RNC can be found online from C-Span (Real Player) and from ABC News Now (Real Player - check your broadband portal news page for the link -- it varies from service to service). Off and on continuing coverage is also available from BBC World (WMP).

As with the DNC in Boston last month, broadcast television coverage is more fleeting as the networks only carry an hour per night on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Of course, everyone will carry Vice President Dick Cheney's speech on Wednesday, and President Bush's speech on Thursday night.

When you thought it was all clear, more tropical weather looms

A new tropical storm, Tropical Storm Hermine, has formed off of Cape Hattaras, NC. This is on the heels of Tropical Storm Gaston, which came ashore earlier today near Charleston, SC.

And of course, as most weather watchers know by now, powerful Hurricane Frances looms east of Puerto Rico, headed toward Florida. By Friday, Frances is expected to be in the Bahamas, with it's US target anyone's guess (as if Florida needed any more heartache).

This is going to make for an interesting week, to say the least.

Jim Williams at HurricaneCity.com has started live broadcasting coverage of the storms. They are going to run several hours tonight, and throughout the week.

I anticipate that non-stop coverage from Jim will start once Hurricane Warnings are issued for Florida. Stay tuned.

Black delegates at 2004 RNC double the number of 2000

The 167 black delegates at the Republican National Convention beginning Monday are more than double the number that attended in 2000, according to a new study from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

“This dramatic increase in African American delegate participation is a remarkable showing for the Republican convention, and it will be interesting to see whether it filters into the voting booths come November,” said Joint Center president Eddie N. Williams. “Our polling since the 2000 election has indicated some increasing support for Republicans among younger African Americans, although as shown in the 2002 midterms, this generally has not translated into more votes for the GOP.”

Increases in the black Republican vote have been fleeting though. The black vote for George W. Bush was around 9% of the total black vote in 2000, and the expectation is that a number of 10-11% will vote Republican this fall.

While most people feel that this represents a failure in the GOP's overall outreach, I count a single percentage point increase as a victory -- it indicates that there is an increase in conservative political thought in black America, and as I've said repeatedly, we (as conservatives in general, and black conservatives in particular) must "crawl before we walk."

AQ claims to have downed AA flight over Brooklyn in 2001

A captured Al Qaeda operative says that a man from Montreal, who trained with the 9/11 hijackers in Afghanistan, was responsible for the downing of American Airlines flight 587 shortly after it took off from JFK November 12, 2001.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents were told during five days of interviews with the source that Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen also known as Farouk the Tunisian, had downed the plane with explosives on Nov. 12, 2001.

The source claimed Jdey had used his Canadian passport to board Flight 587 and "conducted a suicide mission" with a small bomb similar to the one used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, a "Top Secret" Canadian government report says.

Jdey, 39, came to Canada from Tunisia in 1991 and became a citizen in 1995. Shortly after getting his Canadian passport, he left for Afghanistan and trained with some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, according to the 9/11 commission in the United States.

He recorded a "martyrdom" video, but was dropped from the 9/11 mission after returning to Canada in the summer of 2001. The planner of the World Trade Center attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, claims Jdey was recruited for a "second wave" of suicide attacks.

American Airlines flight 587 descended into a Brooklyn neighborhood shortly after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 265 people aboard.

Pulled toy depicts 9/11 disaster

A company in Miami has pulled more than 17,000 toys that were in bags of candy after a customer complained.

The toy in question appears to depict a plane hitting one of two "twin towers," not unlike the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster in New York.

A company called Lisy Corporation distributes the candy bags. They said they are also offended by the toy and have pulled 17,000 of the toys.

Lisy says they bought the toys, sight unseen, from L and M Import/Export of Miami. We talked to L and M and they say they have no problem at all with the toy and don't consider it offensive at all.

We even pointed out to the import company that every single toy has a stock number on the front that reads "9011." L and M Imports didn't find it all coincidental and said it's just a toy. Asked if they'd talk on camera, they said there is nothing to talk about.

NBA Olympians fall flat, lose to Argentina 89-81

Nobody in their right mind (at least on THIS side of the pond) thought the US basketball team was serious about winning this year.

The team, who had been beaten even before they left the States, didn't look like they were serious on the floor in any of their wins.

The team didn't play as a cohesive unit -- they were a team of "stars" who didn't know how to play together. Their defensive skills were pathetic at best. Their "holier-than-thou" attitude off the court didn't help much either. They refused to stay in the Olympic Village, opting to stay in the Athens Harbor aboard the Queen Mary 2.

And ultimately, they were outplayed by a better team in Argentina.

Argentina, with almost the same roster that made history in 2002 by becoming the first team to defeat a U.S. squad of NBA players, will compete for the gold medal against the winner of Friday's late game between Lithuania and Italy.

The Argentines were the better passers, shooters and defenders. They confronted the Americans with a mixture of man-to-man and zone defenses, and confounded them with an assortment of back picks that turned the start of the second half into a layup drill.

The Americans shot just 36 percent in the first half and didn't hit their first 3-pointer -- missing their first five -- until LeBron James made one 30 seconds before halftime.

Message to the NBA players: Take a lesson from the USA women. They are hungry, they know how to play as a team, and they understand the significance of The Games. You obviously don't.

Message to the USOC: Go back to collegiate players -- they are hungry, and are able to play ball with the rest of the world without turning their game into a joke.

Message to NBA Commissioner David Stern (who was at the game): Congratulations. You've turned the US national basketball team into a joke and laughing stock.

Explain THIS, Ketchup Boy!

From C-Span's coverage of recently returned Vietnam veteran John Kerry's statements before a Congressional Subcommittee on November 9, 1971:

"For a lot of these guys, particularly and these are the most significant numbers of people who saw combat in Vietnam --your minority groups . . . the one thing they have been taught how to do as one of them said very well, he said this at hearings before congress he said “you know I learned how to do two things while I was in the army one was to be an accountant and I can’t get a job as an accountant in this country, and the other thing I was taught how to do was kill” And I think that all of these men have a intense capacity for violence."

Russia finds proof of terrorist explosive in plane crash

Russian investigators have found traces of explosives in at least one of the two plane crashes there this week. The FSB says this prooves that at least one of the crashes was a "terrorist act."

Details of the discovery came after an Islamic group claimed responsibility for the crashes in a website statement.

Investigators are still working to decode the flight data recorders from the crashes, which left 89 people dead.

Russian aviation officials have confirmed that one of the planes, a Sibir Airlines Tu-154, sent out a hijack alert just before it crashed, Russian media report.

The FSB says the traces of explosive were found amid the debris of the Tu-154, which was flying to the Black Sea resort of Sochi when it disappeared from radar shortly after the pilot pressed the SOS button.

The same explosive, hexogen, was apparently used in a series of apartment bombings in 1999 that killed around 200 people.

In a website statement on Friday, a group called the Islamic Brigades said it had five people on board each aircraft. It warned this act would be followed by others "until the killings of our Muslim brothers in Chechnya cease".

Chechnya has elections scheduled for next week. Terroristic acts designed to change the public's opinion of local elections has worked previously, earlier this year in Spain.

The vast majority appear to have been ethnic Russians while there has been some speculation that a woman passenger aboard the Tu-154 may have been a Chechen.

"We have no information that she was a terrorist," said Mr Levitin, adding that investigators wanted to know why no one had come to claim her body.

"LAMBERT FIELD?" Uh.....Ketchup Boy, stick to what you know and leave football alone.

John Kerry made a faux pas of monumental proportions -- at least as far as us football fans are concerned -- yesterday.

While in Green Bay, WI for a campaign appearance, Kerry actually made the unthinkable mistake of referring to the "frozen tundra of Lambert Field."

As he was taking questions from the audience, he referred to the legendary Packers stadium, Lambeau Field (which has been called that for 39 years) as "Lambert Field."

(shaking head) Lambert field? Lambert field? Has this man never watched Sportscenter? Never listened to Chris Berman? Has he never heard John Facenda's NFL Films voice? The low, rumbling Voice-of-God? As in, "the Frozen tundra of (already-deep voice dropping another four octaves) Lammmbeauuuu Field..."

Italian journalist murdered by AQ scum

According to Al Jazeera, Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni has been "executed" in Iraq by a group calling itself the "Islamic Army in Iraq."

Baldoni's captors, a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq, had on Tuesday threatened to kill their hostage unless Italy withdrew its 3 000 troops from Iraq within 48 hours.

The Italian government initially rejected the kidnappers' ultimatum, saying it would maintain its "civil and military" presence in Iraq, but early on Thursday Rome said it was prepared to pull its soldiers out if the interim government in Baghdad requested it.

Damned animals.

USOC asks Bush-Cheney campaign to pull ad

The US Olympic Committee is getting into the Bush-Kerry race for the White House in an unanticpated way.

The USOC is requesting that President Bush's campaign pull an ad that mentions the Olympics, even though the recognizable trademark of the Games, the five rings, does not appear in the ad.

The ad has angered Olympic officials because they feel it hijacks the Olympic brand -- a registered trademark -- even though it does not display the Games logo.

The U.S. Olympic Committee had asked the Bush election "campaign to withdraw the advertisement they are running," International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Giselle Davies told reporters.

The television advertisement, ahead of the presidential elections in November, does not feature the five Olympic rings -- one of the world's most recognizable images -- but an announcer tells viewers that at "this Olympics there will be two more free nations," referring to the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq under Bush's presidency.

Heads up! Hurricane Frances is out in the Atlantic, westward bound

While the Southwest Florida coast continues to clean up from Hurricane Charley earlier this month, Hurricane Frances has formed out in the Atlantic Ocean.

As of 5P ET this afternoon, Frances is located near 13.7° North 46.4° West, or about 1000 miles east of the Lesser Antilles. It's moving to the west-northwest at 16 miles per hour.

Sustained winds on Frances are at 80 MPH.

According to the National Hurricane Center, forward motion is expected to decrease over the next 24 hours, while strengthening is also forcast, with Frances being expected to become a Category 2 storm by this time tomorrow.

Hurricane City is tracking the storm, but not expecting to do any livecasting just yet.

The current forecast track is expected to take Frances to the north of Puerto Rico, but of course, this is an inexact science.

Deja vu? William Kennedy Smith accused of rape...

13 years ago, William Kennedy Smith was found not guilty of rape in a Florida trial that, among other things, helped to create CourtTV.

Kennedy Smith, nephew of US Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), is in the hotseat again, this time, accused of raping his personal assistant.

He forced my head into his lap and wouldn't let me sit up," says Audra Soulias.

This Chicago woman is talking about her former boss, William Kennedy Smith.

"I was gasping for air. It was like I was being held under water," she said.

"I continued to cry. I continued to plead," said Soulias.

The same William Kennedy Smith who is now a doctor in charge of a world renown non-profit group headquartered in Chicago that helps landmine victims.

"He dragged me into his house, dragged me to his upstairs bedroom, and he raped me," she said.

Soulias was Smith's office assistant. She claims smith showed up at a small office party for her 23rd birthday.

It was there where she says smith was buying drinks for everyone, and said he would make sure she got home safely.

Instead she says he took her to his Lakeview house and allegedly dragged her into his bedroom.

"He pushed my shirt over my waist, pulled my tights down and forced his hand inside me."

Paul Ciolino, a private investigator working with Soulias' legal team says he checked out her story, gave her a lie detector test and she passed.

"Here we go again" Dept.: Website shows "CIA Agent" beheading by AQ

This is getting real old, real fast.

An Islamic militant group posted pictures on its Web site on Wednesday of what it said was the beheading of a man it called a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency spy in Iraq. Army of Ansar al-Sunna's site showed five sequential photographs of the apparent beheading and threatened the same fate for other people who it caught spying. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the pictures.

The group said in an accompanying statement that Jamal Tewefic Salman, who became an U.S. citizen in 1980, confessed to be masquerading as a journalist in Iraq to spy on Islamic fighters for the CIA. "A group of mujahideen were able to kidnap a spy called Jamal Tewefic Salman, who got U.S. citizenship in 1980. He changed his name to Khaled Abdul Messih," it said. "We have implemented God's judgment on him and the accompanying pictures show his beheading. We call on those living off the blood of the mujahideen to repent to God and stop what they are doing ... or else the mujahideen's and God's hands will reach their necks one by one," it added.

Rutgers prof uses offensive language to refer to Republicans

Mike Adams points out the potty-mouthed bleatings of a tenured professor at Rutgers University in his column today.

The prof in question, Norman Levitt, is a math professor at Rutgers. Adams notes that a column by GOPUSA.com columnist Mike Bayham on John Kerry offended Professor Potty-mouth so bad that he had to write back.

I think turd eating, s*** sucking mother f***** fits you just about right (although your mother was hardly worth it; my Lab Retriever up and caught the clap when he f***** your mama).

The height of polemical eloquence? Perhaps not. But then thrice-used scumbags like you hardly demand much recourse to the thesaurus. Die before you plan to, and in much pain.

NL

There are lots of people I don't like and who don't like me… I must say, however, that of all the fools and knaves currently polluting our culture, the scurviest are the two-bit, loudmouthed, spirochete-ridden flacks who peddle horses*** on behalf of the scumbag GOP.

Wear it if it fits.

NL

President McCormick's e-mail address is president@rutgers.edu, and his telephone number is 732/932-7454.

NAA(L)CP sending monitors to FL Primaries

The NAACP is sending lawyers and election workers to monitor the August 31 Florida Primary election -- and to "help" voters who may have "trouble" casting their ballots.

"The NAACP will not allow another 2000 voter fiasco to occur," said NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mfume. "We will have observers and lawyers on the ground to assist voters and to make sure they are not intimidated. Our goal is to see that all eligible voters register and vote, and that every vote is counted."

Mfume said the NAACP decided to send a rapid-response team to the Florida primary, following reports that elderly black voters may have been harassed and intimidated during last spring's mayoral race in Orlando -- and because of "recent attempts by state officials to illegally purge over 2,000 registered voters."

"The election of local leaders and the next president of the United States is too important to trust the process to Florida election officials," Mfume said. "We saw what happened the last time we did that," he added.

The NAACP calls itself a nonpartisan group, but it supports liberal causes, and its members have given an enthusiastic reception to Democratic candidates -- most recently, Sen. John F. Kerry, who spoke at the group's annual convention.

Deigning to "help confused voters" in light of their partisan stance, smacks of attempts to "drive" the election's outcome.

Russian plane sent 'HIJACK' signal

The wreckage of the second downed plane has been located by Russian officials, who said that a "Hijack" signal was received before the plane went down.

The first plane, official have said, broke up in mid-air.

The two planes disappeared within minutes of each other late yesterday.

Jeff Quinton has been live-blogging, and his coverage continues.

Apprentice runner-up makes Trump-sized deal of his own

Kwame Jackson, runner-up of the first season of NBC & Donald Trump's The Apprentice, has pieced together a deal that would make "The Donald" proud.

With two other partners, Jackson has made a deal with officials in Prince George's County in Maryland to develop an 80 to 130 acre area into commercial and residential property.

The deal is worth $3.8 billion and will provide over 32,000 jobs, Jackson said.

Season one of The Apprentice was released on video this week; season two premieres on NBC on Thursday, September 9.

Preserved bodies of WW I soldiers found on Italian glacier

The bodies of three Austrian soldiers have been found preserved in ice more than 80 years after their deaths in World War I.

They were found by Maurizio Vincenzi, the director of the military history museum at the small town of Peio in the Trentino region, member of a mountain rescue team and military history buff.

The bodies were found 3,400 metres up a mountain called San Matteo and are said to be exceptionally well preserved.

They had been spotted by Vincenzi as he scanned the glacier with binoculars and noticed marks on it.

FL GOP being sued for race discrimination by former employee

The Republican Party of Florida is being sued by former Southwest Florida employee Nadia Naffe. Naffe's suit alleges that she was required to perform job assignments against her will that concentrated on black organizations, events and issues.

Naffe alleges that she complained to the party's officials about this illegal practice, known as "race matching," but that her complaints were ignored. Instead, Naffe was told she was being "insubordinate" and "not a team player."

After seeking and failing to get assistance from the Republican Party, Naffe contacted the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in March 2004. The lawsuit alleges that shortly afterwards she was verbally threatened with firing by the RPOF's General Counsel, Robert Sechen. As retaliation, Naffe was fired a month later for reasons that her lawsuit alleges were fabricated.

The lawsuit alleges that Naffe was subjected to racially insensitive and stereotypical statements by RPOF Executive Director of Party Development Terry Kester including the following:

-- Instructing Naffe to contact African-American Republican Clubs to discourage their members from attending an NAACP march because "The last thing (the RPOF) want(s) to see is some black guy on television wearing a Republican shirt and responding to the press in an ignorant way."

-- Routinely referring to African-Americans as "you people" or "your people."

-- Telling Naffe that she was being given race-matched job assignments because "you understand your people."

-- Showing Naffe a portrait of the late Senator Strom Thurmond and boasting that he believed Thurmond was "the best Senator who ever lived."

The lawsuit alleges that when Naffe complained to the Chairman of the RPOF, Carole Jean Jordan, about the discrimination she was experiencing, she was told that the offending supervisor could not help the way he was because "he comes from a redneck part of the state."

No associated coverage has been noted in any of the local media, either in Tampa, Orlando or Miami.

We'll have to see whether this is truly an object of concern, or someone trying to play politics during the election year.

Dave Matthews Band blamed for dumping human waste off bridge

The Illinois Attorney General's office is bringing charges against rocker Dave Matthews after an incident involving his tour bus earlier this month in Chicago.

The Illinois Attorney General's office says they're responsible for dumping up to 100-gallons of raw human waste from a tour bus onto the Kinzie Street Bridge earlier this month.

The nasty mess rained down on passengers aboard a sightseeing boat two weeks ago.

The suit charges both the band and the bus driver with violating state water pollution laws, as well as common law public nuisance laws.

"Where are you going," indeed....

Two Russian airliners down within six minutes of each other; terrorism suspected

One Russian airliner has been confirmed as crashed, the second airliner is reported as "missing."

The two planes left Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, one, a Tupelev Tu-134 with 62 aboard, confirmed as down near Tula, about 125 miles south of Moscow; the second, a Tupelev Tu-154 with 44 souls on board, went missing near Rostov-on-Don, about 600 miles south of Moscow.

Jeff Quinton at Backcountry Conservative is live-blogging, and has the best coverage going now.

CORE urges Edwards' support of Janice Rogers Brown

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown is one of a number of conservative jurists whose nomination has been held up by Democrats in the US Senate.

The Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE) is urging Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate and US Senator John Edwards to support the nomination of Rogers Brown, and is encouraging him to help break the deadlock that Senate Democrats have undertaken to block Rogers Brown and other jurists from being brought before the Senate for an up or down vote on their nomination.

The Congress of Racial Equality is airing the ad in Edwards' home state of North Carolina, where the Democratic Party is hoping for victory this year with Edwards on the ticket as the vice presidential hopeful.

"Judge Janice Rogers Brown is the daughter of sharecroppers and an American success story," a female announcer says in the ad set to air for about a week starting Wednesday on cable and network news broadcasts in North Carolina.

"For her remarkable work, she has been nominated to the federal bench ... Tell John Edwards and Ted Kennedy to stop blocking the nomination of Judge Janice Rogers Brown."

CORE national spokesman Niger Innis said the group hasn't made an endorsement in the presidential race. But he said it's no accident the ad is airing in a Southern state Democrats hope to win.

"Frankly the fact that we're doing this in the heat of a political season when the whole world is watching, is a good thing," said Innis, a registered Republican. "We're not affecting the election, it's John Edwards' timidity and cowardice in dealing with this question, it's the Democrats' filibustering tactics that could affect this campaign. We just want to let black Americans know what is happening within the Democratic Party."

September Details publishes "reverse blacklist" of Hollywood Republicans

Details magazine, in their September issue, is "outing" young Republicans in Hollywood.

It just so happens that, in its September issue, Details magazine is outing Hollywood GOP sympathizers. The magazine claims that, in order to address the celebrity deficit that the GOP currently has, the Republican National Committee has unveiled a list of stars who veer toward the Republican side of the aisle.

Some of the names, like Jessica Simpson and Shannen Doherty, are already known. But others are more unexpected, like Adam Sandler and Freddie Prinze Jr., although Prinze’s wife Sarah Michelle Gellar has been known to lean right in the past.

In a related article, Sony producer Mike DeLuca has stepped up and acknowledged his Republican affiliation, describing the reaction in Hollywood as the equivalent of being “exposed as a serial killer.” DeLuca pointed out some lefty hypocrisy, saying, “They scream about the environment before they hop onto their private jets and blow 8,000 pounds of fuel getting to the Hamptons.”

One of the celebs named in the Details article has responded to the outing incident via her publicist and has done so in an entertaining and quasi-historical manner. The star is Mandy Moore, and the New York Post has reported the response as, “Mandy is not, nor has she ever been, a Republican.”

Fascinating...

Caption this one...

"Someone set us up the bomb..."

This was a split second prior to impact from a US missile in the "holey" city of Najaf on Monday.

Slimy Indymedia site publishes names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of RNC delegates

This morning, Indymedia posted the personal information on more than 1600 delegates attending the Republican National Convention in New York City next week.

In the release that accompanies the file, Indymedia claims that they are in the business of doing what they can to "shut down the RNC."

At the 2004 Republican National Convention, the self-appointed managers of the world will be discussing their party platform of racism, imperialism and the violent suppression of human liberty. They will proudly renominate the unelected president of an illegitimate government.

We view the Republican Party as one of the most important organizations of the ruling class, selling and intellectualizing this system to all thanks in part to a compliant corporate media system.

This list includes the names, address, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of RNC delegates in addition to what hotel each one is staying at during their invasion of New York City. It is not a complete list, but does include information on over 1600 delegates gathered from a variety of sources. It is based on a list that was released on the Internet earlier this summer by an anonymous affinity group. We have verified much of this data, expanded upon it, and republished it more
broadly.

Our objectives are to:
- Supply anti-RNC groups with data on the delegates to use in whatever way they see fit.
- Supply a body of information that can be easily added to.
- Encourage the republishing and redistribution of this data.
- Facilitate making local connections. Many of these delegates are involved in politics and business on a town or county level.

Personally, I think they're lower than slime and pond scum. After all, a right to privacy is OK, as long as it's not their privacy that's being violated.

Just damn.

Why are you REALLY voting for Kerry?

Interesting piece from One Hand Clapping from over the weekend, where Donald asks that fateful question with a single caveat: the respondent cannot simply say "Because he's not Bush."

• It will be insufficient merely to declare that Bush is wrong on Iraq, taxes, education, etc. You must explain why and how Kerry is right.

• You must cite and provide links to Kerry's speeches or campaign releases to back up your claims. These cites can reach all the way back to when Kerry declared his candidacy for the 2004 race.

Donald's deadline is next Saturday morning at 7A CT.

Janet Jackson: Bush White House used "my boob to distract" public from Iraq

From Drudge:

Janet Jackson now claims that her "Nipplegate" Super Bowl incident was used by the Bush administration to distract people from the war in Iraq!

Mike Slezak, managing editor of GENRE magazine, tells DRUDGE he has set the provocative Jackson interview for October's issue.

AQ releases Micah Garen

From Reuters:

U.S. journalist Micah Garen was on Sunday freed by an Iraqi group who had held him hostage in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya.

"I am very grateful to everyone who worked to protect me and guarantee my release and I thank my friends in Nassiriya and my family and fiance who spent three months with me in Nassiriya," Garen told Arab satellite television Al Jazeera by telephone.

He was speaking from the Nassiriya office of rebel Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Fallout from Matthews' meltdown continues to collect

Day By Day on the Matthews meltdown

SNL alum Piscopo may run for NJ Governor

53 year-old comedian Joe Piscopo, most known for his late 80s stint on Saturday Night Live, is considering running for Governor of New Jersey in the wake of the sex scandal that caused current NJ Governor Jim McGreevy to announce his resignation.

The actor and one-time "Saturday Night Live" star, who describes himself as a lifelong Democrat with working-class roots, said in a televised interview on Friday that "young, very concerned New Jersey citizens" suggested the idea to him.

As Piscopo's sportscaster character would scream at the camera on Saturday Night Live, "STAY TUNED!"

Subservient Bush? Just damn

Remember Burger King's Subservient Chicken from a few months back? You would type in instructions, and a guy in a chicken costume would do your bidding on screen.

Well, MoveOn.org has created SubservientPresident.net. And yes, you guessed it, they've got a guy in a George W. Bush mask "doing your bidding."

The FAQ for the site says that it is supposed to "remind us that the current guy in the president suit will do whatever the oil industry tells him."

I wonder how bad John Kerry and his people would squeal if someone came up with SubservientKetchup.com.

Kerry camp wants Swift Boat Veterans' book banned!

From Drudge's front page, above the masthead:

The Kerry campaign calls on a publisher to 'withdraw book' written by group of veterans, claiming veterans are lying about Kerry's service in Vietnam and operating as a front organization for Bush. Kerry campaign has told Salon.com that the publisher of UNFIT FOR COMMAND is 'retailing a hoax'... 'No publisher should want to be selling books with proven falsehoods in them,' Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton tells the online mag... Developing...

Michelle Malkin on Hardball last night

I don't watch Hardball; Chris Matthews rubs me entirely the wrong way.

That being said, I didn't see Michelle Malkin on the Matthews MSNBC love-fest last night.

She was presumably on to talk about her new book, but the MSNBC producers asked her to do a segment on the Swift Boat controversy involving John Kerry and the new book Unfit For Command, which raises some legitimate concerns about John Kerry.

Matthews began to pepper Michelle in his usual bullying style, but Michelle wouldn't take the bait. When she mentioned a question raised about whether or not Kerry's wounds were self-infilcted, Matthews got defensive. When Michelle pointed out that the question was raised in the book, Matthews got even more defensive -- he hadn't read the book.

He tried again to bully Michelle, and when she wouldn't cower to Matthews' bluster, he ended the segment -- and by extension, her appearance. She didn't get to discuss her book at all.

And if all that weren't bad enough, Matthews had the classless gall to bad mouth her once she left. Then to pile the BS higher and deeper, Countdown host Keith Olbermann showed his ass and how he's entirely out of his depth outside of sports by continuing to pile onto Michelle in her absence.

Both Olbermann and Matthews used their blog entries to beat up on Michelle as well.

Of course, Michelle is a regular contributor for Fox News Channel and gets to appear on some of the highest rated news programs on cable. Olbermann and Matthews? Their collective audiences would fit inside a phone booth. OK, maybe two phone booths since MSNBC is carrying some Olympic coverage.

Al Jazeera not being censored at RNC as they were at DNC

Arabic news network Al Jazeera, shut out of coverage of the Democratic National Convention last month in Boston, won't have their signage eliminated at this month's Republican National Convention in New York.

"We're delighted and thrilled" the sign will be on display in Madison Square Garden, Al-Jazeera spokeswoman Stephanie Thomas said.

USA Today reported today, "Lenny Alcivar, the convention's media spokesman, said Al-Jazeera is being treated the same as other news networks who'll set up studios in the skyboxes."

Democrat Zell Miller to give keynote at Republican National Convention

Retiring Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) will be giving the keynote speech at this month's Republican National Convention in New York.

Miller endorsed President Bush earlier this year, and had been previously announced as part of the Convention speaker's lineup.

In 1992, Miller gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention that propelled Bill Clinton to the Oval Office.

"In 1992, Senator Miller delivered the keynote address in the very same arena at the Democrats' convention," GOP chairman Ed Gillespie said in making the announcement. "We're honored he'll be taking the stage at the Garden this year for President Bush."

Keyes nearing a Dean-esque "Scream" moment over reparations?

Illinois GOP Senatorial candidate Alan Keyes refuses to back down on his reparations stance, even though he is ticking off his core constituency with it. The black and liberal audience he is pandering to with it, so far, seems to be seeing through it, which leaves the Maryland Republican out in the cold.

His voice rising to a yell, Republican U.S. Senate nominee Alan Keyes told a bipartisan civic group Wednesday he "will not budge" from his belief that descendants of slaves should be exempted from income taxes to help heal the wounds of past discrimination and segregation.

The former presidential candidate disdainfully brushed aside questions over whether his suggestion should apply to rich African Americans such as Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey.

Keyes continues to draw heat from conservatives nationwide (including this one) with his stance, insisting (among other things) that the position was not well thought out and would create a further antagonistic division of the races within the United States, this time based upon both financial as well as genological class.

With his voice becoming more shrill and loud, comparisons to former Presidential candidate Howard Dean make themselves apparent, and bring forth a question: "Is Keyes nearing his own 'Dean moment'?"

US reporter set to be beheaded by AQ tomorrow

Al Jazeera has released yet another video of a hostage kneeling in front of a trio of masked terroristic thugs.

The soon-to-be-victim this time is American photojournalist Micah Garen, a filmmaker who was in Iraq to film a documentary on the looting of archeological treasures in Iraq, according to his fiancée, Marie-Helene Carleton, in their New York apartment yesterday.

A group calling itself the Martyrs Brigade released the video to the Arabic TV channel Al Jazeera. It showed Garen kneeling in front of five hooded terrorists holding rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The militants gave U.S. forces 48 hours to pull out of the holy city (of Najaf) before they would execute Garen, who was snatched from a shop in Nassiriya on Friday along with his interpreter.

How long before we've had enough of this?

What's wrong with this picture?

Just damn.

Keyes tries to clarify his position: He's still pandering

After this morning's Chicago Tribune article that showed Keyes appearing to support reparations all of a sudden, the Keyes camp issued a statement this afternoon to "clarify" his position.

I have also consistently maintained that the history of slavery, racial segregation and discrimination did real damage to black Americans, left real and persistent material wounds in need of healing.

In various ways through the generations since the end of slavery, America has tried to address this objective fact, but without real success. This was at least in part the rational for many elements of the Great Society programs of the sixties, and for the original and proper concept of affirmative action developed under Republican leadership during the Nixon years.

Unfortunately, the government-dominated approaches of the Great Society, which purported to heal and repair the legacy of historical damage, actually widened and deepened the wounds. They undermined the moral foundations of the black community and seriously corrupted the family structure and the incentives to work, savings, investment, and business ownership.

The idea I have often put forward to address this challenge involves a traditionally Republican, conservative and market-oriented approach: removing the tax burden from the black community for a generation or two in order to encourage business ownership, create jobs and support the development of strong economic foundations for working families.

This has the advantage of letting people help themselves, rather then pouring money into government bureaucracies that displace and discourage their own efforts. It takes no money from other citizens, while righting the historic imbalance that results from the truth that black slaves toiled for generations at a tax rate that was effectively 100 percent.

I have also made it clear that while I believe that the descendants of slaves would be helped by this period of tax relief, my firm goal and ultimate objective is to replace the income tax, and thereby free all Americans from this insidious form of tax slavery. It is well known that this is one of the key priorities of the Keyes campaign.

He's full of himself. Not only that, he waffles as bad as Kerry.

About the only thing that Keyes' plan would do is to drive an even larger class-based wedge between the races. And it's a far cry from his on-the-record 2002 position. Waffles, indeed.

Alan Keyes supports a form of reparations? (WTF?!)

Yesterday, in response to a reporter's question in Chicago, Republican US Senate candidate Alan Keyes said that he supported a form of reparations (Chicago Tribune links require free registration or BugMeNot.com).

Prompted by a reporter's question, Keyes gave a brief tutorial on Roman history and said that in regard to reparations for slavery, the U.S. should do what the Romans did: "When a city had been devastated [in the Roman empire], for a certain length of time--a generation or two--they exempted the damaged city from taxation."

Keyes proposed that for a generation or two, African-Americans of slave heritage should be exempted from federal taxes--federal because slavery "was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment." In calling for the tax relief, Keyes appeared to be reaching out to capture the black vote, something that may prove difficult to do, particularly after his unwelcome reception at the Bud Billiken Day Parade Saturday.

The former ambassador said his plan would give African-Americans "a competitive edge in the labor market," because those exempted would be cheaper to hire than federal tax-paying employees and would "compensate for all those years when your labor was being exploited."

Under Keyes' plan, African-Americans would still have to pay the Social Security tax, because "it's not a tax in the strict sense," said Keyes, calling it instead a payment to support a social insurance program.

In 2002 on his short-lived MSNBC show, "Alan Keyes is Making Sense," he argued with one of his guests, an advocate of reparations, asking, "You want to tell me that what they suffered can actually be repaired with money? You're going to do the same thing those slaveholders did, put a money price on something that can't possibly be quantified in that way."

And in a 2002 column titled "Paid in Blood," Keyes called lawsuits on behalf of slave descendants against large corporations an "effort to extort `reparations' for slavery from their fellow citizens" and said that "the truth of the Civil War is that the terrible price for American slavery has been paid, once for all," when Americans gave their lives on the battlefield to end slavery. "The price for the sin of slavery," Keyes wrote, "has already been paid, in blood."

It smells real fishy to me.

Michelle Malkin not only is as skeptical as I am, but she has a reparations calculator that shows how stupid the notion of reparations is.

Beating me over the head politically from the pulpit

In general, my chuch (Cascade United Methodist in Atlanta) has stayed away from politics (of course excepting the occasional "Jean Sixpack is a memmber here, who is running for Atlanta City Dog Catcher; please keep her in your prayers as they go into Election Day Tuesday."), but yesterday I almost walked out of the service.

One of the associate pastors was delivering the sermon, and she chose to make all sorts of veiled political assertions and accusations against the Bush Administration. I growled my best Klingon growl, and bit down on a retort. Rachel shifted a little uncomfortably as she noticed (she told me later) a number of other people squirming a bit in their pews.

I sat stone-faced through the remainder of her sermon, and came awful close to getting up and walking out.

But, as I've been told many times before, "...ain't no one monkey gonna stop the show..." I was not about to let her or anyone else stop me from worshipping the Lord, and I was not about to let anyone tell me that because my political ideology didn't follow theirs that I was 'not in God's favor,' to use a quote from her sermon.

This morning, LaShawn talks about a group of conservative Christians who are sending "spies" into churches to see if they advocate a particular political position or not. She also relates her experiences, which sounds like they are not too far from mine -- at least yesterday.

I grew up attending predominantly black churches, but I never noticed veiled political “preaching” until I attended a black church in D.C. I’d writhe in my seat (was I the only one?) as the preacher or guest speakers asked why Americans were “killing babies in Iraq” or that a “certain politician” was trying to turn back the clock on civil rights, etc.

The preacher never said, “Don’t vote for Bush” or “Put John Kerry in the White House", so should this be permissible? Or is freedom of speech an issue?

I was even treated to a “black” interpretation of Scripture. Ok, my excuse for even showing up at such a place was that I was looking for a new church, and until I found a good one, I attended the church closest to where I lived.

Since becoming a Christian, I’ve attended two conservative Reformed churches. Besides asking the congregation to “pray for our leaders", I never heard either pastor advocate a particular candidate, veiled or otherwise.

But don't beat me over the head because I choose to support a particular candidate or official! Don't parade candidates into the pulpit to speak during services! I don't go to church to be preached to about my politics, I go to hear the Word and to worship the Lord. As I said last week, leave the partisan politics outta the pulpit. Please.

Shatner still can do it better

Need a soundtrack for today's strip? Try here!

You'd think they'd have learned after Atlanta's "french fry basket" cauldron

Is it just me, or does the Athens Olympic cauldron look, for all the world, like the world's largest cigarette?

Looks like an ad for Truth. I suppose anything would be better than those frazzlin' "Crazyworld" ads of theirs.

No matter.

Saturday, the competitions begin in earnest, no matter where you are, where you watch from, and where you read us from: Seven Network in Australia, BBC One and BBC Two in the UK, CBC and SRC in Canada, and the combined NBC Universal Networks here in the US.

Yet another Egyptian "CIA Agent" beheaded on web video

In what is becoming a nightmarishly regular occurance, the decapitation murder of an Egyptian man by AQ terrorists was shown on an AQ-associated web site today.

There was no way to verify the authenticity of the images, and there was no record that the man, identified on the Web site as Mohammed Fawzi Abdaal Mutwalli, had been kidnapped. The pictures are apparently stills from a video on the site that could not be accessed.

A second Web site, an English-language site that does not appear to have political links, carried the video of the beheading. Neither site gave a date for the killing.

Images (also of a graphic nature) can be found at My Pet Jawa.

So much for the notion of an Olympic truce.

These predators are no better than fire ants, and they need to be exterminated in the same fashion.

Nelly unsuccessfully tries to clean up the image of Pimp Juice

Nearly a year ago, I blogged about a new "sports drink" (and I use the term loosely) called Pimp Juice. The drink is the brainchild of rapper Nelly, and has a taste that is closer to Skittles than to Red Bull, the market segment leader.

The larger issue, however, is the name, which like his chart-topping song of the same title, glorifies the pimp-and-whore prostitution subculture that objectifies women and promotes life along the edge of legality.

Ambra updates us on the response that Nelly has had to the backlash to the drink.

World Entertainment News Network reports that Nelly has put a spin on his infamous "Pimp Juice" song - and its new energy drink namesake - by offering a P.I.M.P. scholarship to disadvantaged students.

Dubbed the P.I.M.P. Scholars Program, (an acronym for Positive Intellectual Motivated Person), the scholarship will award one male and one female $5,000 each."

Crazy Al and other black "leaders" upset at GOP's anti-Kerry ads on black radio

I've said repeatedly that the Republican party needs to advertise it's message in black media. That it needs to get that message out to blacks in urban areas in order to get any sort of true outreach going toward the black mainstream in America.

Now that this is beginning to happen, you are seeing black liberals going up in smoke.

After all, they've had free reign to spoon-feed any story they want -- true or not -- about conservatives in black media for years. But that era is coming to an end. Conservatives have a right and a responsibility to speak up for themselves not only in the mainstream media, but in black media as well.

But to hear Al Sharpton and others tell it, we don't have that right.

"It's laughable that the Republicans would trot out these paid Negroes to try to cut into the 92% of African-Americans that tends to vote Democratic," said Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.)

"Bush cannot get away with this foolishness," Sharpton said. "It will backfire. It will turn around and energize people to beat George Bush."

"His wife says she's an African-American. While technically true, I don't believe a white woman, raised in Africa, surrounded by servants, qualifies."

Sounds like Crazy Al is upset at the very idea of conservatives finally broaching black media with a conservative message.

Last I checked, that wasn't a bad thing; that is unless you have a desire to suppress the exchange of ideas.

Focusing on the Brotherhood on NRO

Blog sister of mine, LaShawn nudged me over to a new piece by freelance writer Dan LeRoy that showcases the Conservative Brotherhood (of which I'm proudly a member), along with black conservative bloggers in general.

Even among their limited audiences, however, these bloggers are providing black conservatives with something crucial that they often lack: ready access to other black conservatives. One reason celebrated figures like Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and Walter Williams can be derided as "tokens" and "sellouts" is because many people don't know the black conservatives in their own communities.

"They're out there, but I think there's an extent to which we've been told that if you disagree with the civil-rights industry that your blackness is somehow inauthentic," says Tooley, "and so we've been kind of isolated from each other." Blogging, he believes, is helping bridge those gaps.

Kerry Catholics call Bush "Anti-Christ"

In comments released today, Catholic League president William Donohue responded to comments on the Catholicsforkerry04.org site that called President George W. Bush "The Anti-Christ."

“The home page of Catholics for Kerry 04 prominently lists comments by Wayne Madsden, who says, ‘George W. Bush’s blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs and his constant references to ‘evil doers,’ in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations—the anti-Christ.’ He also charges that Bush ‘couples his political fanaticism with a neo-Christian blood cult.’

“This is the language of a demagogue, and it has no legitimate role to play in presidential politics. It is important to note that it is not the position of the Catholic League that the Kerry camp should be held responsible for this group of wacko Catholics. But at the same time, it shows how hypocritical the operatives in the Kerry camp really are."

I call on Kerry and his team to denounce these comments as mean-spirited, antagonistic and just plain wrong. (not that I'm holding my breath or anything...)

As I mentioned when talking about Jesse Jackson's comments last week, neither party has any monopoly on The Bible or on religion. God loves all.

CIA Agent supposedly beheaded on web video by AQ

A web site used by Al Qaeda-affiliated groups is now promoting a video of the decapitation of someone they claim is a CIA agent.

No orange jumpsuit, no advance demand of "get out or he dies" or anything else like that.

The four-minute long footage showed a Western-looking man sitting on a chair surrounded by armed masked men. One of the men struck the captive's neck repeatedly with a sword, severing his head amid shouts of "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest).

A militant later held up the severed head for the camera.

An Arabic sign placed around the man's neck identified him as a "CIA agent." The video, which could not be immediately authenticated, showed what seemed to be the captive's picture identification card with the caption "visitor."

The Web site did not say which group issued the video, nor did the masked men identify themselves or make any political statements as previous kidnappers in Iraq had.

The men could be heard speaking in the background but the audio quality was too poor to understand.

The tired-looking captive was wearing a plain shirt and trousers.

In any event, the gruesome beheading murder of the as yet unidentified man is available on the web, with still photos at My Pet Jawa and the video available from Northeast Intelligence Network (WMP), and Slant Point. (warning, both links are extremely graphic)

I hope these monsters die horribly.

Charlie now a hurricane

As of the 2P ET update, Charlie has become a Category 1 hurricane.

Hurricane Charlie has max sustained winds of 75 MPH. Currently it is 90 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica. It is moving to the West-Northwest at 18 MPH.

ABC News continues cheerleading for Ketchup Boy

ABC News' political unit produces a daily newsletter called "The Note," which today makes an idiotic claim.

Forget the fact that that we still can't find a single American who voted for Al Gore in 2000 who is planning to vote for George Bush in 2004. (If you are that elusive figure, e-mail us and tell us who you are and why: politicalunit@abcnews.com.)

Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.

They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions."

It still has a hard time understanding how, despite the drumbeat of conservative grass-top complaints about overspending and deficits, President Bush's base remains extremely and loyally devoted to him -- and it looks for every opportunity to find cracks in that base.

More systematically, the press believes that fluid narratives in coverage are better than static storylines; that new things are more interesting than old things; that close races are preferable to loose ones; and that incumbents are destined for dethroning, somehow.

Tropical Storms Bonnie & Charley threaten SE US

Tropical Storm Warnings and Hurricane Watches are up along the Florida Panhandle as Tropical Storms Bonnie and Charlie bear down on the Gulf Coast.

As of the 11 AM ET update, TS Bonnie has max winds of 50 MPH is about 235 miles SSW of the mouth of the Mississippi River, moving NNE at 6 MPH. The National Hurricane Center expects Bonnie to gain strength and pick up speed over the next 24 hours. Landfall is expected tomorrow afternoon along the Florida panhandle.

TS Charlie is just short of hurricane strength, and expected to become a hurricane later this afternoon. Charlie is in the Caribbean 175 miles SSE of Kingston, Jamaica, and moving WNW at 18 MPH. Hurricane Warnings are up in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and the western portion of Cuba. With Charlie being expected to turn to the north soon, a Hurricane Watch is along the western coast of Florida from the Keys and Dry Tortugas northward.

Charlie is expected to make landfall along the west coast of Florida near Tampa Friday evening.

Hurricane City, one of the more comprehensive storm-watching sites on the web, is set to begin streaming live content later this afternoon.

Let the Games begin!

Though the Opening Ceremonies for the Summer Olympics aren't until Friday evening, the first games of the soccer competition are today.

Televised coverage begins on MSNBC at 10:30A ET, and on Telemundo at 1P ET.

Today's coverage include the US Women taking on host nation Greece on MSNBC and both Mens' and Womens' coverage on Telemundo with Mexico v. Mali, Argentina v. Serbia-Montenegro, and a Spanish-language rebroadcast of the US-Greece women's battle.

Announcers on MSNBC are JP Dellacamera and Lori Walker, while Andrés "GOOOAL!" Cantor and Alejandro Blanco will call the games in Spanish on Telemundo.

The NBC Universal networks are carrying 24 hour-a-day coverage of the Olympics beginning Friday night. Let the Games begin!

Cobb: "What I know now..."

Fellow Conservative Brotherhood member Michael Bowen deals in fundamental truths about Iraq this morning.

What I Know Now:

• I now know that Saddam Hussein could be captured alive.
• I now know that Bagdad can be taken in two weeks.
• I now know that of 25 million Iraqis, we'd only get called on human rights violations against a couple dozen prisoners.

Mike Wallace as he was being arrested: "I'm an 86 year-old man!"

60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace was arrested last night by New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission officers for disorderly conduct after allegedly "lunging" at one of them.

The 86-year-old "60 Minutes" mainstay was handcuffed and hauled into an Upper East Side station house at around 8:30 p.m. after picking up a takeout order from Luke's restaurant on Third Avenue near East 79th Street and finding his double-parked driver delayed by two Taxi and Limousine Commission officers, said Allan Fromberg, a TLC spokesman.

Wallace got in and sat in the car with the driver as the officers checked out the chauffeur's papers — until Wallace got out to see if he could speed up the process.

"He was observed to be overly assertive. He was disrespectful to the inspectors. He was asked to step away three times. He did not comply," Fromberg said.

"[Wallace] was seen to have seemingly lunged at one of the inspectors, and the other inspector feared for his partner's safety and at that point restrained Mr. Wallace."

"I'm an 86-year-old man," he chortled. He said he was only trying to find out what was going on as his meatloaf and mashed potatoes cooled inside the car.

"For whatever reason, this guy and his buddy were intent upon telling me that I was interfering with the execution of the law," Wallace told The Post.

Couldn't happen to a nicer moonbat...

Knight-Ridder? Or Night Rider?

UN inspectors to monitor US elections at Bush Administration's request

The Bush Administration -- more particularly the State Department -- has had the unmitigated gall and audacity to request the United Nations to send international UN inspectors to the US to "monitor" the November Presidential elections. The invitation was at the behest of 13 Democratic members of Congress who have insisted that the 2000 election fiasco was nothing short of a "coup d'état"

Now, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the largest regional organization in the world with 55 participating nations, will monitor the U.S. election on Nov. 2. Members include Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain and the United States.

"OSCE members, including the United States, agreed in 1990 in Copenhagen to allow fellow members to observe elections in one another's countries," Kelly wrote. "Consistent with this commitment, the United States has already invited the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to observe the November 2, 2004, presidential elections."

Johnson was joined by members of the Congressional Black and Progressive Caucuses on the Hill, each of whom insisted that "disenfranchised" voters in a number of states, most notably Florida, cost Democratic candidate Al Gore a victory in the 2000 election, the closest election ever.

The group initially asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan directly, but was rebuffed by the organization, whose stated that a request of that type could only come from the government in question.

Johnson's group then lobbied the State Department, who has acquiesed to the request.

On one hand, this will show that the US government is completely above board and that the fears of the moonbats both inside and outside this country are completely baseless, but on the other hand, this validates the idiotic rantings of moonbats like Johnson and her crew.

Beheading hoax video producer says criticism is unfair

Robert Martin & Laurie Kirchner, co-producers of the Ben Vanderford beheading video hoax that came out yesterday, have released a press release complaining about how they have been treated unfairly in the press (up through and including various blogs).

This video is not meant to be a pro or anti war commentary. The comments of Ben in the movie regarding ending the occupation were simply emphasize realism in what someone being held hostage would have potentially said while pleading for their life. How the video should be viewed is that it exposes problems in the media. We rely much too heavily on Reuters and Associated Press for our media coverage. After the Middle Eastern networks aired the videos obtained via the internet--not posted on any websites by us as reported by fox news, AP and Reuters picked it up. Then plenty of news organizations began playing it as fact. Stop and think how a similar, but much more harmful hoax could be conducted. Physical evidence should be the new standard in the modern digital age, rather than grainy videos.

It is not like we purposefully dragged this hoax out in any manner, or ever sent the video to any news or law enforcement saying it was true. To the contrary, as soon as the story broke Benjamin Vanderford immediately confirmed that it was a hoax. Perhaps if they had attempted to contact Ben before publishing the story as true, none of this "hoax" business would have ever occured--after all his home address is in the video. Shortly after the video was made we forgot about it, until Ben was woken up last Saturday.

If you check Kazaa, there are other faked death videos being shared. We never envisioned the scale our video would be published--this scope is thanks to lazy organizations such as AP and Reuters who published it, and Fox News who continues to run the story of the "hoax" more than any other network.

If Fox and a few other TV networks really are sensitive to the families they would have done as other networks have largely done--which is to not air the story on tv. Or perhaps AP and Reuters could have just done responsible journalism in the first place and this never would have happened. But it's easier to blame Ben and the video producers rather than take on the worldwide problem we have in news reporting.

We are also shocked by the reaction of some educated people. For example, from Crystal Carreon's Mercury News article: "``It's a cheap shot,'' said Theodore Glasser, Stanford University professor of communications. ``It's like bombing a building to see if security measures are in place. . . . You don't demonstrate something like that at the public's expense.''

Here's hoping that Vanderford and his friends' antics will get him in enough trouble that no one else will try the same kind of asshat stunt.

Technical difficulties (or not)

I apologize for any glitches in the site over the next week or two -- I'm doing some experimenting with layout and design; plus I'm adding Blogads (I'm looking for advertisers!) to the site.

George & Charlotte, thanks for the heads up about the right rail, and not being able to see the content because of it.

If anyone sees any other glitches or has any accessability problems, please let me know.

SF liberal brain-fart stages own beheading

Well, I said the last story smelled, and it looks like my nose wasn't wrong. The decapitation video of Vanderford was a fake.

A video aired today that purportedly showed an American being decapitated was a hoax.

The man from San Francisco, said he videotaped the staged beheading at his friend’s house using fake blood.

On the tape, Benjamin Vanderford, 22, sat on a chair in a dark room, his hands behind his back, trembling and rocking back and forth.

The tape showed a hand with a knife cutting at the motionless man’s neck but did not show any militants.

Mind you, Vanderford is running for the office of Supervisor in San Francisco's 5th District.

I hope the voters in SF are enlightened enough to keep this candidate for a straitjacket out of office. But then again, it is San Francisco...

Al Jazeera shows another AQ beheading, this time supposedly of an American

New video from Al Jazeera this morning shows a man identified as San Francisco resident Benjamin Vanderford being beheaded by Al Qaeda terrorists.

The AQ-linked group led by the Jordanian Abu Musab al Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the murder.

The man on the tape identified himself as what sounds like Benjamin Vanderford, from San Francisco. He sat on a chair in a dark room, his hands behind his back, trembling and rocking back and forth.

"We need to leave this country alone. We need to stop this occupation," he said, adding that he had been offered for exchange with prisoners in Iraq.

"We need to leave this country right now," he said. "Everyone's going to be killed this way."

The video then showed him beheaded with a large knife.

The video was titled "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Slaughters an American." Zarqawi is an al-Qaida linked militant whose group, Tawhid and Jihad, has claimed responsibility for numerous deadly attacks across Iraq, including the beheadings of U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg, South Korean translator Kim Sun-il and a Bulgarian man, Georgi Lazov. Their beheadings were also filmed and the video posted in the Internet.

Before he is killed, the man on the tape says he lives at 1510 Eddy Street in San Francisco. On his personal Web site, a Ben Vanderford lists that address as his home. The picture of Vanderford on the Web site closely resembles the man on the video.

Unlike in previous videos of hostage killings, no militants were seen on the footage. He was clad in a t-shirt, not the orange jumpsuit that other hostages have been dressed in.

On the Web site, Vanderford says he is 22 years old, and is running for supervisor of San Francisco's District 5. It also says he makes music for the label Record Label Records and is an independent video game programmer.

The video of the apparent killing also showed images of disfigured and injured people in Iraq. A recording of the Quran, Islam's holy book, played in the background.

This story smells. Bad.

Rest in peace, Rick James

America's funk is a little less funky today; Rick James has passed away.

"Today the world mourns a musician and performer of the funkiest kind," said Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. "Grammy winner Rick James was a singer, songwriter and producer whose performances were always as dynamic as his personality. The `Super Freak' of funk will be missed."

Jesse Jackson: "Jesus was a liberal"

That's it.

He's finally lost whatever infinitely small notion of a mind he had left.

My "blog-sister" LaShawn points out rabid, foaming at the mouth ravings by Jesse Jackson in a column in the Chicago Sun-Times this week that defies all logic, sense and reality by claiming that Jesus Christ was a liberal.

Think about it: A conservative Christian is a contradiction in terms. Christ wasn't a conservative. He fed the hungry simply because they were hungry. He didn't require that they go to work first. He healed the sick, simply because they were sick. He didn't push them into an insurance company, or let the drug companies gouge them on prices. Jesus was a liberal; Herod was the conservative.

Moses was the liberal; Pharaoh was the conservative. Abolitionists were liberals; slave owners were the conservatives. Mandela is a liberal; the South African apartheid leaders were the conservatives. That's why conservative Dick Cheney supported apartheid over Mandela, and approved of keeping Mandela in prison.

The Suffragettes were liberals; those who opposed the vote for women were conservatives. Martin Luther King was a liberal; the segregationists were conservatives. He wanted to end racial discrimination; they wanted to conserve it.

Last I checked, my Lord and Savior stayed outta politics. He is Lord of us all, liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, black and white, Jew and Gentile, logical and moonbat.

Jesse's analogies are nothing but partisan politics dragged into the pulpit. The pulpit ain't no place to drag this shark, Jesse. Give it up.

Moonbat bloggers going nuts over gun t-shirt

Kevin at The Smallest Minority points out the hysteria that liberal blogs are going through this morning over a t-shirt that suggests buying multiple guns of different types.

Seems they're reading more into the message than what's there. After all, the libs seem to think they have to "protect" us "disadvantaged" minorities from the "eeeevil" conservatives...

The barking moonbat wing of the Left has gone bugshit over Rachel Lucas's favorite T-Shirt. Well, Glenn Reynolds owns one, (I own one, too) so Atrios thought it must be racist, and wrote a post about it. Here's his take:

Now, Glenn's a gun fan and I imagine he's just celebrating the joys of guns, or whatever, but this shirt is no joke. There's a serious subtext here which is totally obvious to me that I think should be pointed out. Now, I don't think everyone who has purchased a shirt like this has purchased it with the subtext in mind, but nonetheless the message is clear.

The caption is "celebrate diversity." The colors of the caption are
commonly used pan-African colors: red, yellow, and green. While, for many, the "joke" (though, I'm not sure why it's funny) is that here diversity is a diversity of guns. Ha ha. But, look, the clear message here is that the way to celebrate diversity, particularly that pan-African diversity, is to buy a bunch of fucking guns. In other words, celebrate diversity by arming yourself.

And your problem with that is....? But no, it means "celebrate diversity" by buying a bunch of different guns. (The "fucking guns" is a dead giveaway that Atrios is not a "gun fan." Please pardon my stating the obvious.)

You'll note that the shirt doesn't say "Hey white folk! Celebrate diversity!" Nope, it's an equal opportunity shirt! Everybody join in! All colors of the rainbow, you too can join the nation of responsible citizens who own guns! It's not just for white crackers anymore!

But the commenters ran with it.

I read a much darker subtext into that.

(A)nd, I presume, shoot as many pan-Africans as possible, maybe even a few queers, since the colors are also reminiscent of the gay flag.

Welcome to more and more fascism.

---

I thought it was more sinister than even your interpretation. I read it as "Celebrate Diversity -- kill a black person."

---

...it says to me "kill the black, brown, yellow, red, ...". Sometimes I wonder if women and non-whites just get it, because they have encountered it so much.

---

Right wingers equate guns with power.

Mao: Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

This, the right wing endorses greatly. This is why they are always sore losers in elections.

For the record, I support everyone legally owning guns. I'm happy that we have that right as Americans. I've got no problem with the t-shirt. I think it's kind of humorous. And I think the Moonbats who have their panties in a wad need to get a collective life. Far away from me.

IL GOP chooses Keyes to go up against Obama for US Senate seat

Today, Illinios Republicans chose two-time Republican Presidential candidate Alan Keyes to run against Democrat Barack Obama for the open US Senate seat there, producing the first black candidate versus black candidate race for a Senate seat in American history.

Keyes, a conservative commentator, ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate twice from his home state of Maryland and sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000. He has never lived in Illinois but under state law would only have to take up residence by election day, Nov. 2.

Obama, an Illinois state senator, gave a stirring speech at the Democratic convention that raised his stock with party members who see him as a future presidential candidate.

Illinois Republicans had previously courted former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, who spurned their advances.

Keyes is staunchly conservative, running to the right of most Repulican candidates in his Presidential runs. Obama, on the other hand, is considered to be moderately liberal, receiving failing grades from both the National Rifle Association and the Federation for Right to Life.

This sets up an ideological battle in the Prairie State which some say will create an even larger turnout in what previously had been considered a lock for Democratic candidate Obama.

FL woman fired from Muslim-owned firm for eating a BLT

A Catholic woman was fired from a Muslim-owned firm in Central Florida for eating "unclean meat."

Lina Morales was hired as an administrative assistant at Rising Star -- a Central Florida telecommunications company with strong Muslim ties, Local 6 News (WKMG-TV/DT Orlando) reported.

However, 10 months after being hired by Rising Star, religious differences led to her termination.

Morales, who is Catholic, was warned about eating pizza with meat the Muslim faith considered "unclean," Local 6 News reported. She was then fired for eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, according to the report.

"Are you telling me they fired you because you had something with ham on it?" Local 6 News reporter Mike Holfeld asked.

"Yes," Morales said.

At a Islamist Toys R Us near you...

Blacklisting of Hollywood conservatives

From Six Hertz House of Pain:

This morning on the Laura Ingraham talk radio show, a caller who claimed she was the mother of a popular Hollywood comedy sitcom star (who remained nameless) mentioned that the voices of some right-wing or conservative celebrities, including her son's, were being stifled due to some blacklisting of those who go against the John Kerry line.

This woman's son is afraid to speak his mind, though she says she is trying to encourage him to make his beliefs public.

It's particularly troublesome when a group of individuals, ie, the Hollywood "elite", do not heed the basic tenets of our constitution's Bill of Rights. So, basically in this case, gays can come out of the closet in Hollywood and be embraced, but God help you if you're conservative. I sense double standards.

Just damn.

NewsCorp (owner of FNC) President endorses Kerry

According to information from the Kerry campaign, NewsCorp President Peter Chernin has endorsed Democratic candidate John Kerry for President.

Appearing on FNC's Your World with Neil Cavuto, this afternoo, Chernin said he was not anti-Bush but explained why he thought News Corp. would benefit from a Kerry presidency.

"I think the two things that will be most important to News Corp is--one is education. We're a company where we don't manufacture anything. We depend on ideas. We essentially export ideas around the world and our ability to create those ideas is based on a highly educated creative workforce and so I think more than anything education is the thing that will be of greatest value to News Corp.

" I think the other thing is a real global focus, a focus on, you know, it's a world-wide market of 5 billion people, and I think the more this country looks outward and develops close relationships with economies and countries around the world, I think it creates bigger markets for our products and our ideas.

"This democracy is about making choices," he said, "and my choice is that I believe that Mr. Kerry can do a good job moving our economy forward."

Moussaoui reportedly allowed cell phone access

WMAL Radio Washington is reporting this afternoon that the man known as the "20th hijacker," Zacharias Moussoui, was allowed access to a cell phone by a jail guard in the facility where he is being held in Alexandria, VA.

More details are obviously set to come in this one...

IL GOP wooing Alan keyes to take on Barack Obama

According to this morning's Chicago Sun-Times, Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obama may have a real race on his hands after all.

The Illinois Republican party is reportedly speaking with former Presidential candidate and noted black conservative Alan Keyes about a run for the open seat.

''It would be a classic race of conservative vs. liberal,'' said state Sen. Dave Syverson, a member of the panel looking for a candidate to go up against Obama. ''It would put this race on the map in this country -- just for excitement.'

''(H)e certainly has an interest, and he said if the group is interested in meeting with him and speaking with him about his views that he would be happy to come out and meet [later]," said Syverson, a Rockford member of the committee.

''He said that he was open to the idea. And he felt that Obama didn't really represent the views of the people of Illinois. So I think he was really just in the exploration stage."

It would make for an interesting race, indeed, but as one who was upset with the carpetbagging move of Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York, I have to say that I'm not comfortable with the notion of Keyes pulling the same stunt.

City of St. Louis suing to vote early & vote often for November

The city of St. Louis has filed a lawsuit that would allow voters a two-week period leading up to Election Day to cast a ballot.

The suit is driven by the fiasco that presented itself to voters in the Gateway City in 2000.

If successful, the lawsuit would create a two-week window before Election Day in which any Missouri voter could cast a ballot. This would differ from absentee balloting, which requires a voter to provide a reason for casting an early ballot.

If a judge sides with the city, early voting would work this way:

St. Louis and all counties in Missouri would set up at least one polling center where votes could be cast starting Oct. 19, fourteen days before Election Day.

That location, and up to four others, would be open on business days for those two weeks and, at the option of local officials, on weekends as well.

Early voting, in some form, exists in more than half of the states. It's sometimes called "No Excuses Absentee" because, like absentee voting, it is done before Election Day.

The city's Election Board came under federal oversight after the 2000 election, in which voters were turned away from the polls because election workers could not verify their eligibility.

Missouri is again one of a handful of swing states that are expected to be key in deciding a close race. Slay is a co-chairman of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's national finance committee. Blunt, a Republican, is running for governor.

"This is about protecting people's access to the ballots," said U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr., D-St. Louis. Clay joined the city as a plaintiff in the suit.

Also signed on as plaintiffs are Democrats Craig Hosmer, a former state representative from Springfield, Mo.; state Rep. Wes Shoemyer, of Clarence, Mo.; and Ernestine Hill, a committeewoman in St. Louis. The lawsuit was filed in Cole County Circuit Court.

"If the Republicans want to win black votes, why aren't they on BET?"

I get asked regularly about black outreach by conservatives in general and the GOP in particular.

One of the points that I insist on is covered by Jason Riley's piece for Opinion Journal("Dems Score With Blacks as GOP Forfeits the Game") last Friday.

We, as conservatives, allow liberals to dominate black media and by default, to define who and what we are to black America.

In most of the major radio markets, black radio dominates the dial. And among black radio, Tom Joyner rules the roost. His ABC-distributed program is amon the top draws not only in black radio, but in urban and suburban radio period. Joyner, a long-time radio veteran with extensive local market experience in Chicago and Dallas, holds court over a cornucopia of topics that he and his cohorts banter over, and they are frequently visited by phone or in person by newsmakers and commentators that maintain definite sway among black America. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Julian Bond and other newmakers are among Joyner's semi-regular guests; NPR and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley is a regular weekly contributor.

Joyner hosts regular gatherings at Disney World, at festivals around the nation and on board a cruise ship once a year.

His show holds regular fund-raisers for historically black colleges around the nation, and he is a very outspoken advocate of "giving back" to the community.

His regular mantra now is to get George W. Bush out of office. And while Joyner's program has hosted several of the Democratic candidates for the presidency, his program has not hosted anyone from the GOP. While part of this can be attributed to Joyner and his compatriots on the air, an equally large part of that lack of exposure to a segment of black America that would not otherwise easily be reached lies with the GOP.

The visible communication sources in black America, from Joyner to Smiley on the radio, from BET to TVOne on television, and print sources ranging Johnson Publishing's Jet and Ebony to Earl Graves' Black Enterprise are continual wastelands for a conservative message and presence.

Oh, sure, writings from myself and other Project 21 members are there occasionally, but why don't we see the President there? Wh don't we see Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell there? Why don'te we see John Ashcroft or Donald Rumsfeld there?

All those individuals will readily show up on Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh's bully pulpits, and that's not a bad thing -- it's always good to preach to the choir and the faithful among yor flock regularly.

But you won't expand your presence; expand your message unless and until you begin to step outside your comfort zone.

Going on black radio may not be easy or comfortable at first; a wariness that will exist on both sides. But as the ice is broken, as black America recognizes that this is not a matter or a means of being "used" or "pandered to" solely for the gain of votes, then both sides will begin to open up and to discover a common ground that truly exists, and discover that there not only is room but a necessity for a two-party system to exist within black America.

It will take work, but the long-standing antagonism that exists can be overcome.

Ridge raises threat level to ORANGE for NY, NJ & DC

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced this afternoon that the terror threat level for the "financial services sectors" of the US has been raised to ORANGE.

Specific targets include the World Bank/IMF in DC, the Prudential Building in Northern NJ, the NYSE and the Citigroup building in New York City. The method of attack would be truck and car bombs of varying destructive power.

Apparently there is specific information that has emerged in the past 24 to 36 hours regarding attacks to the economic infrastructure.

New York City has been at level Orange, or Very High level since 9/11, but the rest of the country's level has been raised and lowered several times since then. The country as a whole has most recently been at condition Yellow.

An attack on the financial infrastructure of the US would be devestating to the economy at best, but there's no additional information as to what heightened threat may exist for the public at large.

As the TV-types like to say, "Stay tuned."