Dark Bilious Vapors

A Question of Impeachment?

Zogby International Reports: No Bounce: Bush Job Approval Unchanged by War Speech: Question on Impeachment Shows Polarization of Nation; Americans Tired of Divisiveness in Congress—Want Bi-Partisan Solutions—New Zogby Poll:

"President Bush’s televised address to the nation produced no noticeable bounce in his approval numbers, with his job approval rating slipping a point from a week ago, to 43%, in the latest Zogby International poll. And, in a sign of continuing polarization, more than two-in-five voters (42%) say they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found the President misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq.
…
Where voters live has some impact on their perceptions. The President’s job rating remains relatively strong in the South, with 51% rating his performance favorably; in all other regions, those disapproving his performance are in the majority.

In a more significant sign of the weakness of the President’s numbers, more “Red State” voters—that is, voters living in the states that cast their ballots for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004—now rate his job performance unfavorably, with 50% holding a negative impression of the President’s handling of his duties, and 48% holding a favorable view. The President also gets negative marks from one-in-four (25%) Republicans—as well as 86% of Democrats and 58% of independents. (Bush nets favorable marks from 75% of Republicans, 13% of Democrats and 40% of independents.)

Impeachment Question Shows Bitterness of Divide

In a sign of the continuing partisan division of the nation, more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country.
Among those living in the Western states, a 52% majority favors Congress using the impeachment mechanism while just 41% are opposed; in Eastern states, 49% are in favor and 45% opposed. In the South, meanwhile, impeachment is opposed by three-in-five voters (60%) and supported by just one-in-three (34%); in the Central/Great Lakes region, 52% are opposed and 38% in favor.

Impeachment is overwhelmingly rejected in the Red States—just 36% say they agree Congress should use it if the President is found to have lied on Iraq, while 55% reject this view; in the “Blue States” that voted for Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry in 2004, meanwhile, a plurality of 48% favors such proceedings while 45% are opposed.

A large majority of Democrats (59%) say they agree that the President should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, while just three-in-ten (30%) disagree. Among President Bush’s fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicate they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances, while seven-in-ten (70%) do not. Independents are more closely divided, with 43% favoring impeachment and 49% opposed.

And Why is that fellow Republicans would only, by a margin of 25%, support impeaching the Prez IF he lied about Iraq??? Yet these self-same pin-heads supported the impeachment for Clinton in a situation where no lives were lost, no Public/Tax money was involved and it concerned only a private indiscretion between two people - but NOT for a WAR of mis-managed deaths which threatens to bankrupt our Nation.

Scum, that's about all you can say about that other 70%of Republicans - Hypocritical Scum.

Karen on 06.30.05 @ 05:44 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Yep, everything in Iraq is hunky dory....

and it's only that evil, liberal media that keeps concentrating on the bad news.

Bullshit.

Listen to Christopher Allbritton. He's there. Again.

Since returning, it feels like I'm listening to the same record I've been listening to for a year, only with the volume turned up. Donald Rumsfeld, the American Secretary of Defense, says U.S. is winning the war and that the media are focusing too much on bad news. I know this because the press releases from the American Forces Information Network tell me so:

Progress in Iraq Takes Back Seat to Violence in Media, Rumsfeld Says
By Petty Officer 3rd Class John R. Guardiano, USN
American Forces Press Service

...

“Bumps in the road”? Just earlier today, presumably before the Iraqi journalist was killed, an Iraqi member of parliament was killed in a car bomb attack. I can't even begin to tell you how many Iraqis have been killed in the weeks I was away. And how many more Iraqis, journalists or otherwise, will die because the Americans can't tell who's friend or foe? Those aren't “bumps in the road.” Those are signs that you went off the road without a map a long time ago.

Where do you even begin combatting the head-in-the-sandism, brazen propaganda and revisionism of the above release. (By the way, it's about the fourth or fifth one I've received in the last few days touting the same theme, apparently in concert with President Bush's push to let Americans know that everything is going hunky-dory.)

News flash: Iraq is a disaster. I've been back one day, and the airport road was the worst I've ever seen it. We had to go around a fire-fight between mujahideen and Americans while Iraqi forces sat in the shade of date palms on the side of the road, their rifles resting across their laps. My driver pointed to a group of men in a white pickup next to me. “They are mujahideen,” he said. “They are watching the Americans.” Indeed, they were, and so intently that they paid no attention to me in the car next to them. We detoured around two possible car bombs that had been cordoned off while Iraqis cautiously approached.

Rumsfeld's assessment of “good progress” on the constitution is not accurate, as the committee to draw it up still hasn't completely agreed on how the Sunnis will take part.

When I was in Ramadi, I found the morale to be lower than expected. It wasn't rock-bottom among the Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, but it wasn't great. Most of the ones I talked to weren't confident they were doing anything worthwhile, and were instead focused on getting home alive. If a few Iraqis had to die to make that happen, well, war is hell.

I'm not sure who's winning this war, the Americans or the insurgents. But I know who is losing it: the Iraqi people. Those bumps in the road are their graves.

Len on 06.30.05 @ 12:27 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Thursday Dog Blogging™

I know I said this wasn't going to be a weekly feature, but dammit this is too good to pass up:

Hat tip: dKos regular Bill in Portland, ME

Len on 06.30.05 @ 11:41 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Yet More Fabulous Art...

As the final set from my “Mom Outings” – My neighbor, Dee, and I had a wonderful time last Thursday at the Art Institute and some of my favorite paintings and other interesting things.

Click on the “more” button to see additional of these paintings and art works.




Karen on 06.30.05 @ 10:39 AM CST [more..] [ | ]

From a new addition to the blogroll...

Take it to Karl, which features the input from purported liberal soldiers and their supporters, we get this interesting letter from a retired astronaut/USAF colonel:

I am genuinely pissed off. I am a liberal democrat who was shaken to the core by 9/11. I was ready to back the administration in pursuit of those responsible. With 96 combat missions, 2 space flights, and retired CEO of a Defense Department think tank, I know the ropes and the risks. What we got was an ill advised and unsupportable war in Iraq. Rove is an idiot.

SPACED OUT

Len on 06.30.05 @ 07:41 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Time to Talk Turkey On G.W.'s Competence

Dangerous Incompetence by Bob Herbert suggests dusting off a few impeachment manuals:

”The president who displayed his contempt for Iraqi militants two years ago with the taunt "bring 'em on" had to go on television Tuesday night to urge Americans not to abandon support for the war that he foolishly started but can't figure out how to win.
….
On July 2, 2003, with evidence mounting that U.S. troop strength in Iraq was inadequate, Mr. Bush told reporters at the White House, "There are some who feel that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, Bring 'em on."

It was an immature display of street-corner machismo that appalled people familiar with the agonizing ordeals of combat. Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, was quoted in The Washington Post as saying: "I am shaking my head in disbelief. When I served in the Army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander - let alone the commander in chief - invite enemies to attack U.S. troops."

The American death toll in Iraq at that point was about 200, but it was clear that a vicious opposition was developing. Mr. Bush had no coherent strategy for defeating the insurgency then, and now - more than 1,500 additional deaths later - he still doesn't.

The incompetence at the highest levels of government in Washington has undermined the U.S. troops who have fought honorably and bravely in Iraq, which is why the troops are now stuck in a murderous quagmire. If a Democratic administration had conducted a war this incompetently, the Republicans in Congress would be dusting off their impeachment manuals….”

Karen on 06.30.05 @ 07:05 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Breakthrough!

Air America Radio news is reporting that the Spanish Parliament has legalized gay marriage in Spain. A welcome blow to the hegemony of the Catholic Church (which is, of course, opposed to such a move) and a step forward for basic human rights.

Surprised the hell out of me, though.

Len on 06.30.05 @ 07:03 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Calling all War Mongers...Uncle Sam Wants YOU...

Had to find the link to this very good piece by Mark Shields (Creators Syndicate): DEFINITION OF SILENCE.

"What is the definition of silence? That would be Vice President Dick Cheney, House Majority Leader Tom Delay, R-Texas, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich getting together to swap war stories, or simply to reminisce about their military service.

Each of these distinguished political leaders -- all three enthusiastic backers of the U.S. war in Vietnam during their youth and forceful advocates of the U.S. war against Iraq in their later years -- had been, as young men, eligible for the nation's military draft, and yet none of them spent a day in uniform.

What brings this up is the news that the U.S. Army has, for four months in a row, failed to reach its recruiting goals. Recruitment for the Army Reserves and the National Guard, which between them constitute nearly half of U.S. troops now deployed in Iraq, are down, respectively, 21 percent and 24 percent.

Even the Marines, who had met their recruitment goals every month for 11 years, have failed to meet recent monthly enlistment quotas. Virtually all of the more than 1,700 Americans killed in Iraq belonged to one of these four service groups.
…
All of this brings to mind the heroic example of the late Paul H. Douglas, who served three memorable terms in the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Illinois. Right after Pearl Harbor, Douglas, a Quaker who was already a professor at the University of Chicago and an elected Chicago alderman, enlisted as a private in the Marine Corps. He went through boot camp at Parris Island and fought in combat in Pacific landings at Peleliu and Okinawa. He was wounded so severely that he lost permanently the use of his right arm. He won the Bronze Star. Here is the kicker: When Paul Douglas enlisted in the Marines, he was 50 years old.

Now is the time for President George W. Bush to create by executive order the Paul Douglas Brigade, which would actively seek and welcome the enlistment into today's short-handed military the middle-age members of Congress, card-carrying journalists and captains of commerce who missed the chance to serve in their own youth -- because of their commitments to career or comfort -- and could now help prosecute the war they endorsed.

That single act could simultaneously cure the shortage of military manpower and deplete the surplus of civilian hypocrisy. Not a bad deal.”

Karen on 06.30.05 @ 06:42 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Yet Another BlogMeme....

Well, Stan tagged me, so I have to play along. Because I'm a meme whore, ok? Get over it, or die with it on your mind.

The ChildHood Meme: What 5 Things Do You Miss About Your Childhood?

This meme requires you to do the following things:

Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place. Add your blog’s name in the #5 spot. Link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross pollination effect.

1. Lindsay
2. News to Hughes
3. Fluxion
4. Our Obligatory Blog
5. Dark Bilious Vapors

When your blog reaches the top of the list, you will receive 3,125 different childhoods to choose from. Note, do not break the chain. Myron Bichelmeyer of Culver City, California broke the chain and had to relive his own pathetic childhood. [Obligatory Disclaimer: I am, of course, a thoroughgoing skeptic, and don't take any of that seriously, and I don't expect you to either. But hey, this is a parody of a chain letter, so we'll just play along, OK?]

Next: select new friends to add to the pollen count.

1. Bryan, because he's good about cross linking to me on general principle.
2. Big Stupid Tommy, because I haven't seen this cross his blog, and because he inflicted a blogmeme on me Once Upon A Time
3. Gooseneck, because he hasn't updated his blog in just about forever, and he needs an excuse to do so
4. Mr. Mike, because he needs to take his mind off local politics for a few minutes ;-)
5. and Dr. Abby, because being the daughter of her Dr. Dad, I'll bet she had a pretty neat childhood.

Now list the five things you miss about childhood most.

1. Lack of responsibility. Having to be an adult and actually take responsibility for things sucks.
2. Recess. You should be able to break your day up and just go out and play a couple times a day.
3. The joy of Christmas. For me, specifically, that wasn't the joy of giving, it was the joy of getting. Screw the joy of giving; the only disappointment of Christmas morning was that every present under the tree didn't say "To Len" on it....
4. Saturday morning cartoons. I'm probably just living in the past, but they were better then.
5. Summer vacations. Why can't the whole world just take June, July and August off, play sandlot baseball and generally just screw around? Somehow, I think things would be a lot better in the world if we got our priorities straight like that.

Len on 06.30.05 @ 06:30 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Thought for the Day:

Peter Marshall: Now listen carefully, Paul...during the time of the hula hoop, the yo-yo, and Davy Crockett hats, who was in the White House?
Paul Lynde: I'll say the yo-yo!
--"The Hollywood Squares" [TV show]

Len on 06.30.05 @ 05:34 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Dammit, I shoulda listened this afternoon...

Rockies pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim hit Craig Biggio by a pitch in the 4^th inning of the Astros-Rockies game this afternoon. That leaves Biggio in uncontested possession of the modern (i.e., 1900 and after) major league record for a player being hit by pitches.

Biggio now takes aim at Hughie Jenkins's all time record of being hit by 287 pitches. 19 to tie; 20 to break.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 08:50 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Gotta Love Those Movie Tie-Ins...

Must be the new “War of The World’s” Movie influence, but can’t be a coincidence that the latest X-Box release is Destroy all Humans.

"Use destructive weapons and innate mental powers to take on the most feared enemy in the galaxy - Mankind! Play as Crypto, an alien warrior sent to Earth to clear the way for the Furon invasion force. Your mission is to infiltrate humanity, control them, harvest their brain stems and ultimately destroy them. You choose the method - infiltration or disintigration!"

My daughter, Cory, has rented it from Blockbuster to see if it’s really worth the “Anal Probe” to “harvest people’s brains.” LOL

Karen on 06.29.05 @ 03:42 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Art Institute Outing

While the family was enjoying Colorado – I was on a “Mom Outing” – My neighbor, Dee, and I had a wonderful time last Thursday (and retroactively apologize for no posts that day) taking the Metra-train downtown.

We had lunch at “The Italian Village” – they have the BEST Tiramisu Ever Made!!! [It means “Lift Me Up” – but we always call it “Carry Me Out” - LOL]

And then on to the Art Institute:

Dee on Michigan Avenue – Art Institute in Background


And some of my favorite paintings and other interesting things. But [brain-cramp] I wasn’t really reflecting on posting these - and some I only think of by artiste name, others by the picture name, and few others I don’t know the name at all.

So, just enjoy the pieces as photographed (no Names or Titles). I’ve divided them in to two sets, and first are some Impressionists pieces. (I'll post the other set tomorrow.)

Click on the “more” button to see these paintings and art works.

Karen on 06.29.05 @ 02:34 PM CST [more..] [ | ]

Failure of The Administration Imagination

Despite our Fearless leader's attempts to rouse "support", this this piece by Stephen J. Hedges (Washington Bureau of Chicago Tribune) about the failed imagination of our leaders and military to “understand this global terrorism and the kind of war this is we are fighting:
Critics: Pentagon in blinders: Long before 9/11, the military was warned about low-tech warfare, but it didn't listen is as pertinent today - whatever Bush tried to "explain" in his speech:

” Nearly 16 years ago, a group of four military officers and a civilian predicted the rise of terrorism and anti-American insurgencies with chilling accuracy.

The group said U.S. military technology was so advanced that foreign forces would be unlikely to challenge it directly, and it forecast that future foes would be non-state insurgents and terrorists whose weapons would be suicide car bombs, not precision-guided weapons.

"Today, the United States is spending $500 million apiece for stealth bombers," the group wrote in a 1989 article that appeared in a professional military journal. "A terrorist stealth bomber is a car with a bomb in the trunk--a car that looks like every other car."

The five men dubbed their theory "Fourth Generation Warfare" and warned that the U.S. military had to adapt. In the years since, the original group of officers, joined by a growing number of officers and scholars within the military, has pressed Pentagon leaders to acknowledge this emerging threat.

But rather than adopting a new strategy, the generals and civilian leaders in the Defense Department have continued to support conventional, high-intensity conflict and the expensive weapons that go with it. That is happening, critics say, despite lethal insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"They don't understand this kind of warfare," said Greg Wilcox, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, Vietnam veteran and critic of Pentagon policies. "They want to return to war as they envision it. That's not going to happen.”
….
Chinese war philosopher "Sun Tzu had it right," said one Army lieutenant colonel who spent a year fighting insurgents in Iraq and who requested anonymity. "If you know your enemy and if you know yourself, you'll never lose. We know about half of what we should about the enemy, and we don't know ourselves. We can't figure out what kind of Army we want to be."
….
"Mass, of men or fire power, will no longer be an overwhelming factor," they wrote. "In fact, mass may become a disadvantage, as it will be easy to target. Small, highly maneuverable, agile forces will tend to dominate."

The article marked a radical departure from military thinking. Until then, the word "insurgency" had been virtually banned inside the Pentagon.

In his 1986 book, "The Army and Vietnam," military analyst and Army veteran Andrew Krepinevich details just how reviled a fight against insurgents is among U.S. military leaders. Top Army commanders in Washington, Krepinevich found, brushed aside orders from President John Kennedy in the early 1960s to build a counterinsurgent capability in Vietnam.

And after the war, he said, counterinsurgency theory was purged from the Pentagon. Instead, the military returned to preparing for a conventional war with the Soviet Union. ….
The Pentagon, though, continued to equip for battlefield warfare, encouraged by a Congress that was more than willing to back big weapons, ships and aircraft programs and the jobs they create.

"There's no money in counterinsurgency," said Hammes, the Marine colonel, who served in Iraq and whose recent book, "The Sling and the Stone," has stirred more debate within the military. "It's about language skills. It's about people. It's about a lot of soft money moving over to [the Departments of] State, Commerce, Treasury, and there's no F-22 [fighter jet] in this program."

A 9/11 realization

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Schmitt, a former Marine and a co-author of the 1989 article, was at O'Hare International Airport on his way to Pittsburgh. Minutes before boarding his flight, he saw a television report that an airliner had hit New York's World Trade Center. He kept watching as the second plane hit.

"I was thinking, `We're at war here,'" said Schmitt, a military consultant based in Champaign, Ill. "This is the new warfare."

The Sept. 11 attacks, Schmitt and others hoped, would bring change within the Pentagon. Even an Al Qaeda terrorist Web site referred to the 1989 article, noting that "some American military experts predict a fundamental change in the future form of warfare" and that "this new type of war presents significant difficulties for the Western war machine."

But little changed. The U.S. forces that flowed into Afghanistan in late 2001 and into Iraq in March 2003 were largely conventional.

The U.S. military quickly toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. But after those successes, both the Afghan extremists and Hussein's sympathizers transformed into effective insurgencies.

The mavericks contend that the U.S. response has been a string of classic military mistakes, especially in Iraq.

U.S. forces took over Hussein's palaces and military bases, secluding themselves from ordinary Iraqis and cutting off lines of intelligence. Thousands of innocent Iraqis were wrongfully imprisoned in a ham-handed search for insurgents, breeding contempt for the American occupiers.
….
"Here's an army that went into Iraq in 2003 with exactly the same set of equipment it had in 1991, with very few modifications," said Douglas Macgregor, a tank commander in the first Iraq war who wrote several books about reforming the Army before retiring as a colonel a year ago. "It hasn't produced anything new at all in 20 years."

Still, the mavericks argue that, even today, changes could have an impact on the way soldiers are fighting.

First, the mavericks call for ground forces to reorganize into distinct, small units--not large, lumbering divisions or expeditionary forces--that will live among Iraqis.

"Why are we still riding around in Humvees?" asks Poole, the retired Marine, whose Posterity Press has published books on counterinsurgent tactics. "In a war like this, you've got to get off the vehicle and into the neighborhood."

Second, more needs to be done to give soldiers language and cultural training, they say, something that officers in the Army and Marine Corps say has recently begun.

A third reform would prescribe a more judicious use of powerful weapons, such as tank rounds and 2,000-pound precision aerial bombs, especially in cities. Insurgencies exploit the deaths of civilians, the mavericks argue.

They say that the most important change would be a new command system, one that bases promotions on initiative rather than obedience and encourages taking risks, recognizing that mistakes will happen.
….
Additional focus has been put on running road checkpoints, detecting roadside explosives and protecting convoys.

But those efforts give new troops just a brief taste of the challenges they will be facing, and they put a heavy emphasis on defensive measures. According to officers who have been involved in counterinsurgent operations, there still is a reluctance among top commanders to acknowledge the nature of the enemy and what skills American soldiers need to fight.

"There's definitely the sensation that the Army's holding its breath," said one officer who recently took command of deploying forces, "that this will all blow over, and they can go back to what they want to do."
…..
Although they differ on the particulars of changing the military, the mavericks agree that the U.S. effort in Afghanistan and Iraq has been a lost opportunity. At best, they say, the outcome of both conflicts is uncertain. Some say they are doomed.

"There's nothing that you can do in Iraq today that will work," said Lind, one of the original Fourth Generation Warfare authors. "That situation is irretrievably lost."

Karen on 06.29.05 @ 02:05 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Exactly, spot-on right!

Steve Gilliard has exactly the right things to say about the College Repugnican Chickenshits:

You know, normally, I'd be inclined to humor these selfish fucks, but between seeing Bush's audience last night and reading the Daily News this morning, I'm just not in the fucking mood.

Ramona Valdez was 20 years old and she died as a Marine, in combat. Her family had none of the advantages of these people, her age, have had. And they do not even comprehend that the world is not just about words. Valdez's husband desperately wants to go back to Iraq, I guess to avenge his wife's death. Everything good about her is now just a memory.

She could have gone to school, she could have been drinking beer in a hotel. But instead she joined the Marines, just like thousands of other ambitious, but poor kids.

I'm tired of their excuses and their selfishness. I don't think anything but ill comes from Iraq. I wouldn't recommend anyone enlist to fight there. But these kids are utter and contemptible cowards. They think they can win a war by cheerleading and no one disabuses them of this notion. They are being coddled into thinking that a good speech is the same as going to Scout/Sniper school or being an MP and it isn't even close.

Their excuses are so palid, so insulting, so vile that it makes me ill. They want someone else to win a war they cheerlead. They think that all it takes is a good speech.

Part of me is revolted by this, but another part of me is heartened. Because if these people rely only on words, their are as doomed as the New Left was. These kids are being pumped full of the same shit which killed the left. Make a good speech, say the right things, people will like you and you never have to actually deliver as long as everyone feels good.

They should have called this a generation of Bushes and Cheneys

Yep, ranting is safer than enlisting:



Len on 06.29.05 @ 12:44 PM CST [link] [ | ]

SKB Gets It....

From a Chattanooga Pulse article on Certain Happenings in the Tennessee Blogosphere That Will Go Unremarked On Here (because I've yet to decide where I really stand on all the issues):

...[B]oth Conley and South Knox Bubba said last week that blogs should not be seen as a threat to alt weeklies. “Blogs can influence alt weeklies by providing a free flow of ideas,” Conley said. “Alt weeklies can influence blogs by reporting the news and publishing thought provoking commentary.”

South Knox Bubba agreed. “I think blogs are a new information outlet that won’t replace any existing outlets any more than radio replaced newspapers or television replaced radio,” he wrote. “It would appear there is a virtually insatiable appetite for news and opinion. Blogs are just one more offering on the menu.

“Further, blogs will never replace traditional media because we don’t have staff reporters and fact checkers and lawyers on the payroll, and we are in fact dependent on traditional and alternative media to do the actual reporting work on the street. There is some original reporting happening on blogs, but for the most part what we offer is opinion. (And you know what they say about opinions.)”

Len on 06.29.05 @ 12:33 PM CST [link] [ | ]

I didn't catch "The Speech" last night.

I had more important things to do, as the Cardinals were playing the Reds in St. Louis, which meant that XM was broadcasting the Cardinals Radio Network feed, featuring play-by-play by Wayne Hagin and Mike "The Moonman" Shannon. If I have a choice, I want to listen to The Moonman over Chimpy McCoward any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

But for you unregenerate news junkies that just can't get enough, Thomas Nephew at Newsrack features a scorecard on The Speech. Judging just from this summary (and not the other things I've read this morning), I didn't miss anything at all.

Though I'm very heartened by the fact that Even The U.S. Government Ministry of Propaganda mainstream media reported that the only applause for Bush during the entire speech was staged by bAdministration lackeys (I've seen a report that even the Faux Snooze Network reported that, though I don't have any independent confirmation of it).

Damn, it's nice to see the Smirking Chimp's popularity in the toilet and swirling clockwise....

Len on 06.29.05 @ 12:29 PM CST [link] [ | ]

History will be made any day now....

And I'll bet the proprietors of the Plunk Biggio blog couldn't be happier.

Last night, Houston Astros 2B Craig Biggio was hit by a pitch thrown by Colorado Rockies RHP Jason Jennings.

I know, you're saying *yawn* So what?.

Well, it was the 267^th time that Biggio had been hit. And that, my friends, ties the modern Major League record, which was held by Don Baylor. Let the folks at Plunk Biggio put it in perspective for you:

If Biggio manages to get hit again, he will be the first person born after the Ulysses S Grant administration to get hit 268 times.

For what it's worth, Hughie Jennings holds the all-time record (at 287, with Tommy Tucker in second place on that list with 272). All Biggio needs is to be hit 21 more times in his career to be the all time plunking champ.

If I were him I'd consider crowding the plate and jumping in front of the ball every chance I got to get that one, myself. But then again, Biggio is a career All-Star and has a good shot at enshrinement at Cooperstown. No doubt he'll be satisfied with the modern record, which he's almost sure to hold all by himself any day now.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 12:16 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Real conservatives are starting to get it....

From a Eugene, OR attorney who was a registered Republican, but no longer: Guest Viewpoint: The party's over for betrayed Republican, By James Chaney:

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.

I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal.

I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste. I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation. I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government. I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican.

My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things.

Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation's future on three core issues: how we led the world on the environment, how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn't go bankrupt, and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world's stage as its only superpower. Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts. And we've done it in such a way that we shouldn't be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again.

My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming. We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we've chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.

We have mortgaged the country's fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we've simply changed the rules. I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do. But the party has yet to explain to me why it's a good thing now, other than to say "... because we say so."

Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower. This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.

Republican decisions made in 2002 and 2003 have killed almost 2,000 of the most capable patriots our country has to offer - volunteers, every one. Support for those decisions was gathered through what appeared at the time to be spin and marketing, but which now turns out to have been deliberate planning and falsehood. The Blair government's internal documentation only confirms what has been suspected for years: Americans are dying every day for Republican lies first crafted in 2002, expanded and embellished upon in 2003, and which continue to this day. This calculated deception is now burned into the legacy of the party, every bit as much as Reagan's triumph in the Cold War, or Nixon's disgrace over Watergate.

Powerful stuff. Go read it all.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 11:58 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Sad news from the Memphis literary scene....

UPDATE: I see Karen scooped me on this. That's what I get for not being a news junkie like she is. I'll still leave this up, since I refer to the local fishwrap's obit vice the AP's.

Local novelist/historian/celebrity Shelby Foote has died at the age of 88.

While Foote started his literary career as a novelist, he is probably best known for his three volume work The Civil War: A Narrative. That work led to a gig as a talking head for Ken Burns's monumental PBS mega-documentary The Civil War, which catapulted Foote into major celebrity status (and, according to a TV interview he gave which I remember seeing, resulted in his receiving a number of marriage proposals). The Burns documentary did so much to bring the limelight to Foote (or so goes the story that I've heard) that he had to give up his long-listed Memphis area telephone number and get an unpublished number, in order to stem the tide of out-of-the-blue telephone calls and in-person visitors to his East Parkway home.

His appearance on the Burns film wasn't his only brush with notoriety, though. According to the obituary in the Memphis Commercial-Appeal:

The American Legion in Memphis considered his novel "Follow Me Down" to be a "dirty book" and took it to the city dump to be burned along with "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

"I considered it an honor to be burned along with D.H. Lawrence," Foote always said.

Come to think of it, I'd be proud to have such a distinction myself.

Requesciat in Pace, Mr. Foote.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 10:02 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Being, as I say, a disloyal alumnus of Northwestern's law school....

it's so nice to see it in the toilet and beginning to swirl clockwise.

I keep my eyes on Prof. Leiter's academic rankings of U.S. law schools, waiting patiently for the day that Northwestern drops out of the top tier.

And then am I going to celebrate!!!!!

Can't happen soon enough for me.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 09:18 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Juan Cole for President!

because he Gets It, while the Idiot in the Oval Office doesn't.

The good Professor Cole gives Bush the smackdown for last night's speech. Give it a read.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 09:13 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Today's Quotables:

Gem of a Quote:

”Sadly, Mr. Bush wasted his opportunity last night, giving a speech that only answered questions no one was asking. He told the nation, again and again, that a stable and democratic Iraq would be worth American sacrifices, while the nation was wondering whether American sacrifices could actually produce a stable and democratic Iraq.”

NY Times Op-Ed.


Karen on 06.29.05 @ 08:48 AM CST [link] [ | ]

The best analysis I've read on this whole fiasco....

Over at his blog (for indeed, that's what it is) ReelThoughts, James Berardinelli has some interesting things to say about the recent Tom Cruise meltdown (note, Berardinelli is apparently managing ReelThoughts by simply using an HTML editor, and not any sort of blog management software, so no permalink seems possible. Use the drop down listbox at the top to find "June, 2005", and look for the post on the June page dated "June 29, 2005" and titled "Cruise Control" if you want to see the source):

A certain degree of eccentricity is expected from celebrities. After all, considering their offbeat career choices (they spend their time pretending to be someone else) and stratospheric salaries, it's unreasonable to think they'll be "just like everyone else." But, with his much-publicized antics during the past six weeks, Tom Cruise has exceeded the curve. He has gone from being one of War of the Worlds' biggest assets to one of its biggest problems. There are two sayings in Hollywood that almost everyone subscribes to: "No publicity is bad publicity" and "There's no such thing as too much publicity." The Cruise situation may prove both sayings to be apocryphal.

When Cruise and Katie Holmes made a public spectacle of their whirlwind romance, it was cute but inconsequential. Little did we know, that was only the beginning. Since then, Cruise has entered a scorched earth mode in which he has taken on all comers. Step aside, Oprah! Watch out, Brooke Shields! Heads up, Matt Lauer!

Most people have religious beliefs, so few can criticize Cruise for his, or for professing them publicly. Opinions are one thing (and you know the saying about them...); the problem is, Cruise doesn't have his facts straight, and when he starts mouthing off about "established historical" incidents that are anything but that, one has to begin wondering where he's getting his information from, and why he isn't checking its veracity beforehand. So, as the truth emerges, he comes across looking like a dolt who believes every urban legend he has been exposed to. A few people have called his recent attacks on psychiatry "dangerous." I disagree. Anyone who looks to Tom Cruise for advice about how to handle a psychiatric problem deserves what they get. What those comments are accomplishing, however, is to make him into a laughingstock.

Berardinelli then speculates that Cruise's latest antics may torpedo Mission: Impossible 3 (apparently burning in Development Hell even as we speak), and make him seriously unbankable for projects after that. But, given my interest in religious affairs (and Cruise's commitment to Scientology puts this whole dog-and-pony-show into the religion category), I was interested in this comment by Berardinelli:

There are similarities between what's happening with Cruise and what happened with Mel Gibson around the time when The Passion of the Christ was released. After all, both situations involve popular movie icons emerging as preachers for a religious cause. But there are differences as well. Gibson may never act in another blockbuster movie, but he has directing to fall back on, and that appears to be what he's interested in doing. Cruise, on the other hand, has never crossed behind the camera (although, like Gibson, he has a successful production company). And Gibson's doctrine represents that of a mainstream religion (albeit a splinter sect)- Catholicism. Scientology, on the other hand, is viewed by many as either a cult or a "fake" religion. Fundamentalist Christians flocked to The Passion of the Christ. Every living Scientologist alive could see a Cruise movie and it wouldn't make a blip at the box office.

I'm in a dilemma meself. As a general rule, I don't like putting money into the hands of shills for movements (religious and otherwise) that I don't approve of; that was a factor (but only one) in my decision not to see The Passion of the Christ (though the main factor was Roger Ebert calling it the most violent movie he'd ever seen--remember, ol' Rog has seen movies like both iterations of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as part of his job), and it was a big disincentive to go see Battleground Earth (though, of course, the fact that that one sucked so badly means I'd have never gone to see it even if John Revolta weren't a Scientologist). So right there, War of the Worlds comes with a big black mark against it for me. On the other hand, we're talking a huge, action packed mindless brain-drain summer movie (and I enjoy the hell out of spectaculars like that) that appears to be getting good reviews (in this morning's email from Rotten Tomatoes, the Tomatometer is standing at 91% FRESH--meaning that 91% of the critics that Rotten Tomatoes tracks are giving it good reviews).

So I'll probably go, but I'll probably wince a few times when I see Tom....

Len on 06.29.05 @ 08:41 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Gem o'the Day:

Dick Cheney has famously predicted that the Iraq Insurgency is in Last Throes. If so, it’s a remarkable coincidence that these Last Throes happen to look just like a dramatic increase in military effectiveness. Consider the statistics: 1,000 people killed since April, and 70 attacks/day compared to 53/day during this same period in ’04 and 8/day in ’03. If Dick is now seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, it wouldn’t be the first time in military history that this has happened. Remember the Iraqi Minister of Information during the invasion and his Cheneyesque "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!" I’m guessing that at some point in the invasion he probably claimed that the US invasion was in its Last Throes!
--Sher Wright

Remember that Sher is a West Point grad, so he knows whereof he speaks on the question of military effectiveness.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 08:17 AM CST [link] [ | ]

This should be a popular site for Memphians....

given the Bluff City's understandable enthusiasm for things Egyptian (see, e.g.:

The Pyramid

and


the front gates of The Memphis Zoo)

we now have My Name In Hieroglyphics:

My name using Egyptian Hieroglyphs!

Try your name

Script by

Hat tip to Elayne Riggs, whom the press of work and other things has caused me to ignore too much recently.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 08:12 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Well, this is why we're considered a bit weird....

I have a confession to make.

I've indulged in some internet dating. In fact, I've had two long term relationships (a year's duration or more, each) which started on the 'net.

Now, admit that, and some people look at you like you have your privy member growing out of your forehead or something.

Then again, after reading a story like this, one is tempted to look in the mirror and examine one's forehead very carefully: Frostbitten lover deported to U.S.

An American who lost several fingers and toes after sneaking across the border in the dead of winter to visit an internet flame has been deported to the U.S., having never met his Quebec sweetheart in person.

An official with the Canada Border Services Agency confirmed Tuesday that Charles Gonsoulin was deported to the U.S. on June 16, the Canadian Press reported.

...

The 41-year-old Los Angeles man had asked to be allowed to stay in Canada on humanitarian grounds so he could meet his internet companion. But the plea was rejected at an immigration hearing June 13.

An LA resident. That explains a lot right there... Like how someone would be enough of an idiot to try to cross the Canadian border on foot in the dead of freaking winter.

Gonsoulin had developed an online relationship with Quebec resident Jennifer Couture, but wasn't able to enter Canada legally to meet her because of a past robbery conviction.

He decided to walk across the North Dakota-Manitoba border and make his way to Winnipeg, where he intended to board a bus to meet her.

Gonsoulin was picked up on Feb. 23 on a golf course in southern Manitoba after spending about 100 hours in the cold. He was dehydrated, babbling and severely frostbitten.

He had eight fingers and parts of three toes amputated, and had to relearn how to use his hands and walk.

In March, he pleaded guilty in a Manitoba court to illegally entering Canada and carrying a prohibited weapon. He was given a suspended sentence.

For a second there, I thought that this guy was a gun nut, til I followed the handily provided link to the story about his sentencing; turns out that the weapon was pepper spray, which he was carrying to ward off any animals that he might have encountered along the way.

Hmmmm. Some evidence of prior planning and rational thought there. There might be some hope, after all.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 07:53 AM CST [link] [ | ]

We're going to get some empirical evidence soon....

concerning the Religious Right's belief that allowing same sex marriages is the first step to social collapse.

A same sex marriage bill, establishing the right of same sex couples to contract a civil marriage, passed the Canadian House of Commons on a 158-133 vote yesterday. According to the CBC story cited, this makes Canada "only the third country in the world, after the Netherlands and Belgium, to officially recognize same-sex marriage."

So keep an eye on events over the Northern Border. If Canada doesn't collapse into social anarchy, can we conclude that perhaps the religious bigots are full of shit? Because, face it, there's no evidence whatsoever that extending the benefits of marriage under civil law to same sex couples will in any way undermine society in general or the institution of marriage in particular. The opposition to same sex marriages is religiously based, pure and simple.

And I'm pleased to see that our neighbors to the north have a Chief Executive that Gets It, unlike the poor excuse for a leader that we have below the 49^th parallell:

The "vote is about the Charter of Rights," said [Canadian Prime Minister Paul] Martin. "We're a nation of minorities and in a nation of minorities you don't cherry-pick rights."

Unlike the United States, which is on the fast track to become a dictatorship of the (carefully cherry-picked) majority.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 07:41 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Shelby Foote, Author and Historian

Well, for all you Civil War Buffs, is the news that Shelby Foote died Monday at age 88. Civil War historian Foote dies (Associated Press):

" MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Novelist and Civil War historian Shelby Foote, who became a national celebrity explaining the war to America on Ken Burns’ 1990 PBS documentary, has died at 88.

Foote died Monday night, said his widow, Gwyn.

The Mississippi native and longtime Memphis resident wrote a stirring, three-volume, 3,000-page history of the Civil War, as well as six novels.

“He had a gift for presenting vivid portraits of personalities, from privates in the ranks to generals and politicians. And he had a gift for character, for the apt quotation, for the dramatic event, for the story behind the story,” said James M. McPherson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War historian. “He could also write a crackling good narrative of a campaign or a battle.”

On Burns’ 11-hour PBS series “The Civil War,” Foote became an immediate hit with his encyclopedic knowledge of the war, soft Southern accent and easy manner. With his gray beard and gentlemanly carriage, he seemed to have stepped straight out of a Mathew Brady photograph.

Later he would say that being a celebrity made him uneasy, and he worried it might detract from the seriousness of his work.

Foote worked on the Civil War history for 20 years, using his skills as a novelist to write in a flowing, narrative style.
....
In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Foote’s “The Civil War: A Narrative” as No. 15 on its list of the century’s 100 best English-language works of nonfiction.

His final novel, “September, September,” published in 1978, tells the story of an ignorant white couple who kidnap the son of a rich black businessman in the 1950s. It became the basis for a TV move starring fellow Memphis resident Cybill Shepherd.

Foote was born Nov. 7, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., a small Delta town with a literary bent. Walker Percy was a boyhood and lifelong friend, and Foote, as a young man, served as a “jackleg reporter” for the crusading editor Hodding Carter on The Delta Star. As a young man, Foote got to know William Faulkner.

During World War II, he was an Army captain of artillery until he lost his commission for using a military vehicle without authorization to visit a female friend and was discharged from the Army. He joined the Marines and was still stateside when the war ended.

He tried journalism again after World War II, signing on briefly with The Associated Press in its New York bureau.

Early in his career, Foote took up the habit of writing by hand with an old-fashioned dipped pen, and he continued that practice throughout his life. Foote said writing by hand helped him slow down to a manageable pace and was more personal than using a typewriter.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Margaret Shelby, and a son, Huger Lee. A graveside service is planned in Memphis on Thursday."

Courtesy of the Daily Herald.

Karen on 06.29.05 @ 07:35 AM CST [link] [ | ]

The Bolton fiasco plays out....

Josh Marshall, citing Steve Clemons, notes that the White House and Senate Republican leadership has pretty well given up on shepherding the Bolton nomination through the Senate. Hot damn! There's spending "political captial" for you. Josh further notes:

What remains to be seen now is whether President Bush will bypass the senate and install Bolton at the UN by a recess appointment.

For starters, it's worth saying that that's the president's right. Whether it's fair in the abstract is just as irrelevant as the question is about the filibuster.

But it is also becoming increasingly clear that winning on Bolton is more important to the White House than having someone in that position who would be in any way effective in the job by any measure. He would, I assume, be the first UN Ambassador ever to be seated who quite publicly lacked the confidence of the United States senate. And what does it tell you exactly about President Bush's foreign policy priorities today -- and all the challenges that the country currently faces in Iraq and elsewhere -- that he's putting so much into sustaining this single nomination? There's nothing else going on in the world that could use the attention and political muscle more than this?

Well.... You do have to credit Bush for his tenacity. He decides he wants something done, and he spares no effort or expense to get it done.

But his choice of goals to exert that effort and spend that expense gives one the impression that Dubya was either born incompetent, or else studied assiduously for years to achieve incompetence. A stunning achievement in any event.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 07:29 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Thought for the Day:

In the June 22 Washington Post, Jeffrey H. Birnbaum reported that the number of registered lobbyists has "more than doubled." Perhaps you think that refers to the large increase in lobbying activity that began in the 1970s, a long-term trend whose most visible measure has been a proliferation of expensive restaurants in Washington, D.C. (Before 1970, your typical lobbyist's idea of haute cuisine was Blackie's House of Beef or Trader Vic's.) But Birnbaum's statistic actually covers a much briefer time frame. The number of registered lobbyists has doubled--are you sitting down?--since 2000. Let me say that a different way. Since George W. Bush became president, the group of people whose numbers constitute the most reliable index I know of the extent to which government policy is for sale has increased 100 percent. Bush's presidency hasn't done much for the economy nationwide, but in Washington it has produced a gold rush.
--Timothy Noah

Len on 06.29.05 @ 06:23 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Stooges Strikes Again..."Sort-tain-Ly"...

Give a “Look” at this “Curly” tattoo found by Stan on his Stan adventures:: Another tattoo show.

And Stan also points out: Actually, he had a whole curly tribute all over his body. Note the "Curly" on his head. He had other Curly and Stooges tattoos. I just took the picture of his back because it was the single largest piece.

Great!! But now that you’ve posted this picture - Everyone is going to want one!!! LOL


Karen on 06.29.05 @ 05:17 AM CST [link] [ | ]

And speaking of autoegocrat....

the dear boy may be in love. He's been blogging a bit about Rachel Lea Hunter, a candidate for a justiceship on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Ms. Hunter's caused autoegocrat to swoon because she's got way bigger cojones than most Democratic and moderate Republican politicians, and she has no hesitation in calling the Rethugnicans exactly what they are: jack-booted fascist thugs. A few GOoPers have called her on it, and she's fought back, with all guns blazing:

I stand by my comments. I am unrepentant and unapologetic for the remarks that I made. A number of you have asked why I made those comments. Up till now, I kept my views largely focused on local, i.e. state, politics. Anything else was not really relevant. But I watched the national scene and became increasingly appalled at what I saw.

She lists a number of appalling developments in American public life, and then continues:

These are just some of the reasons. But if someone had described the above to me and asked me to name a government, I would have thought of a third world dictator or some regime other than the US. And yet it is our government that no longer respects property and liberty rights. Call it what you will, but it has all the hallmarks of a tyrannical government.

The efforts of the individuals in question who twisted my words backfired. I had a handful of disgruntled individuals and one, just one, person called my office. Not only did I have support from across the state, but from across the nation. It was overwhelming. There were people of all political groups who think just like I do on this issue.

...

I am not a traitor. I love my country. I don't want any more September 11ths. However, the Republicans cannot wrap themselves in the flag and scream "traitor" and "unpatriotic" and call for a person's resignation whenever someone asks a legitimate question about the war in Iraq. I and many Democrats do not need Karl Rove's therapy.

What is needed is some answers. Why did we really invade Iraq? Hostilities were declared to be over in 2003. Saddam Hussein has been captured. His sons are dead. When are we going to leave? How many more Iraqis and Americans must die? How many more billions of dollars that we do not have must be spent?

What are you Republicans so afraid of that you must silence your critics? That we might be right? That the word will get out and spread? Its too late.

I'm not in love, but I'm damned impressed. We need some candidates like that here, instead of the insipid Rethugnicans and Blue Dog Democrats that infest that cesspool called "Tennessee politics".

Len on 06.28.05 @ 09:40 PM CST [link] [ | ]

And the latest on Zach and Love In Action

The State apparently completed its investigation of child abuse allegations, and ruled them "unfounded". Basically, given the difficulties of proving emotional abuse, that's not necessarily surprising.

In order to get your fix on the latest breaking news:

EJ is, of course, all over it.

As is autoegocrat at The River City Mud Company.

Dr. Abby adds some links on the abuse question.

And if you want to get away from the Memphis blogosphere's take on this story, The Republic of T and Pandagon weigh in too.

While the ruling on abuse isn't surprising, I'm wondering why action isn't being taken on a licensure issue? Seems pretty clear to me that what they're doing over there constitutes the unauthorized practice of medicine (psychiatry) and/or psychology. And surely they should be sanctioned for that.

Len on 06.28.05 @ 09:29 PM CST [link] [ | ]

As silly publicity gimmicks go...

This is a pretty damn good one:

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

Len on 06.28.05 @ 07:12 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Picasso Art News and Paintings

Picasso pencil nude earns $575,357 Auction of sketches by ex-mistress nets barely believable prices by Rachid Aouli (Associated Press):

”PARIS -- A sketch by Pablo Picasso of his mistress reclining nude sold Monday for $575,357 at a Paris auction where the woman sold 20 of the artist's works.

Describing the pencil on paper sketch in the sale catalog, Genevieve Laporte recalled how she had fallen asleep just as Picasso was preparing to draw: "He waited patiently until I opened my eyes to continue his sketch!"

The Picasso Museum in Paris bought the sensual image entitled "Odalisque" for about three times the estimated price, Artcurial auction house said. Altogether, the sale of Laporte's collection reaped $1.87 million.

A similar sketch, entitled "Le Songe," was sold to an unidentified British collector for $507,239, more than twice the estimated price, said Francis Briest, the auctioneer.

"I am so happy because it has been over 50 years that I have had them," said Laporte, who had a two-year secret affair with Picasso in the 1950s, when she was in her 20s.

Laporte, 79, said earlier this month that she kept the sketches Picasso gave her in a safe because she was worried about thieves, but she now was ready to part with them….”

Apropos of this news item and as part of my “Reverse Mom Holiday” I had a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago and was able to see a few of my favorite Picasso’s [along with lot of other wonderful paintings and art works that I’ll post later.] Some truly World Class art works to see up close:







Karen on 06.28.05 @ 03:21 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Summer Tales of My Nightmares...

Yipes: Just say "Selachophobia" and these Shark Stories are just multipying:

Boy loses leg in 2nd shark attack in 3 days by Bill Kaczor (Associated Press):

" PANAMA CITY, Fla. -- A boy fishing in waist-deep water Monday was critically injured in the second shark attack on a teenager along the Florida Panhandle in three days.

Craig Hutto, 16, of Lebanon, Tenn., was taken to Bay Medical Center in Panama City, where his leg was amputated. He was listed in critical condition but was expected to recover, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The boy was attacked off Cape San Blas, a popular vacation destination about 80 miles southeast of the Destin area, where Jamie Marie Daigle of Gonzales, La., was killed by a shark on Saturday. She was 14.

Erich Ritter of the Shark Attack Institute said the girl probably was attacked by a 6-foot bull shark, based on measurements of the bite wound. He said it was unlikely the same shark was responsible for Monday's attack.

The boy was fishing with two friends when the shark bit him in the right thigh, nearly severing his leg, Gulf County Sheriff's Capt. Bobby Plair said.

The three then tried to wrestle the shark off the boy, hitting it in the nose several times. The teen was pulled ashore by his friends, and a doctor who happened to be nearby began treatment before the boy was taken to the hospital..."

Karen on 06.28.05 @ 03:03 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Gem o'the Day:

In short, there are still plenty of places in this country where, in bar after bar on a Saturday night, somebody will eventually stand up and say, "If a faggot came in here I'd kick his ass!" And this is what makes many gays so cagey. Most of them are too smart to hear that and respond, "Here I am, you savage!"

And I'm not just talking about rednecks here. Even Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania, a well-educated man and one of the highest-ranking Republicans in the Senate, doesn't have a clue. Instead of just shutting his mouth because he doesn't know anything, he actually said that homosexuality was a threat to the American family. Of course, he didn't explain why, he just said it as if it were written in stone.

Did I miss something? I read a lot, but never once have I heard about groups of gays hopping in vans and driving from suburb to suburb, threatening American families. If only somebody could convince Santorum this isn't the case. But in his demented mind, he apparently convinced himself that these same gays are driving into culs-de-sac from coast to coast, jumping out of the vans, running into houses just as families are settling in for their evening prayers, and fucking each other...in front of the kids.

Of course, if it were happening that way, I could understand how families could fall apart and within six months show up on The Jerry Springer Show. Who could blame them? But, like I said, I read a lot, and when I'm not reading, I watch The Jerry Springer Show. A lot. So far, I'm happy to report, there is no concrete evidence to support Santorum's claim. Nothing...

And I think it takes a lot of balls for heterosexuals to make such a fuss over this issue, considering that 50 percent of us can't even stay married. It's not like we have a lock on this institution. For all we know, if gay marriages were figured into the equation, the divorce statistics may even go down. That's actually one of my secret dreams because it would be a hell of a kick in the ass to the religious right.
--Lewis Black, in Nothing's Sacred

Len on 06.28.05 @ 11:41 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Winter Park: Colorado

Well, the Crew and Hubby are back from the Reunion in Winter Park, Colorado.

While I was enjoying my “Reverse Mom Holiday” at home: Here are a few pictures of their trip at higher (and cooler) elevations and FUN stuff and Bee-A-You-Ti-Full Mountains.

Rocky Mountains, Colo.



Click on the "more" button to see additional Fam Photos.

Karen on 06.28.05 @ 10:34 AM CST [more..] [ | ]

Rocky Top Brigade Update:

can be found here.

I'm going to break my usual rule of no longer doing individual welcomes of new RTB members to acknowledge that Serrabee of Rock'n'Roll Minor Planets has joined our merry band. I'm pleased by that because I've been reading her for a while now; a native of Knoxvegas, she's become a Memphian by choice, and the Memphis blogworld has become a bit richer for her presence here.

Look forward to seeing her (and a few of the rest of you) at the next local blogger's bash (whenever someone gets around to making the call; I'm sorry, but in order to get me to do it someone's probably going to have to buy Karen another plane ticket to Memphis and put her up somewhere... that's what it took to get me to do it the last time :-) ).

Len on 06.28.05 @ 10:03 AM CST [link] [ | ]

A Luther for our times?

If only....

But Prof. Leiter also shares with us some correspondence from Professor Peter Ludlow (of the University of Michigan):

Here's something you may not have known or suspected. When I grew up my family went to a conservative Christian church and I subsequently went to a Swedish Baptist college in Minnesota. I recently went back to my home town and was sickened by what became of the family church over the last 20 years. The received view is that the conservative christians have taken over the Republican Party. I think the reverse happened. The right wing of the Republican Party has taken over the church. Nothing could be more clear to me. In a fit of revulsion, and with a nod to Marty Luther, I wrote up the following 95 theses on the relighous right: Download ludlows_95_theses_on_the_religious_right.doc [Note: MS Word .doc file --LRC] In lieu of nailing it to the door of the Wittenburg Church I'm sending it to you instead. Not exactly the same thing, I realize. I'm not saying I'm a believer and I'm not saying I'm not, but I am saying that what has happened to the fundamentalist church is revolting.

According to Prof. Leiter, Prof. Ludlow encourages the widest dissemination of his theses. Given that implicit permission, I'm taking the liberty of posting them, in their entirety, below the fold (click "more", below, to read). But if you want, feel free to download the word document (link in the quote), or to visit Prof. Leiter's blog entry (where there is a Rich Text Format file as well).

Len on 06.28.05 @ 09:07 AM CST [more..] [ | ]

Interesting signs of the coming persecution?

Via Brian Leiter, we get a pointer to an interesting discussion of Justice Scalia's dissent in McCreary County v. ACLU by Jack Balkin, professor of law at Yale. Scary stuff:

In his dissent in McCreary County v. ACLU, Justice Scalia forthrightly explains that the Establishment Clause is not about preserving neutrality between religion and non-religion. It is not even about neutrality among religions. Rather, it requires neutrality among monotheistic religions that believe in a personal God who cares about and who intervenes in the affairs of humankind, and in particular, among Christianity (and its various sects), Judaism, and Islam. From the United States as a Christian Nation, we have traveled to our "Judeo-Christian heritage," and now, apparently, to the "Judeo-Christian-Islamic" tradition. There is no such tradition, of course, as various members of all of these religions (and the various sects of these religions) have fought with and persecuted each other for many years. And one effect of Justice Scalia's theory is that he is willing to enshrine a notion of first class and second class citizens based on religion-- first class citizens can have government acknowledge their religion in public pronouncements and displays, while second class citizens cannot. Well, who said that the Constitution prohibited different classes of citizens, anyway? The Fourteenth Amendment? Who cares about your stinking Fourteenth Amendment!

Even so, it is refreshing to have Justice Scalia put his cards on the table [note: "ed." here highlights Prof. Balkin's comments --LRC]:

[T]oday's opinion suggests that the posting of the Ten Commandments violates the principle that the government cannot favor one religion over another. That is indeed a valid principle where public aid or assistance to religion is concerned, [ed.-- Why?] or where the free exercise of religion is at issue, but it necessarily applies in a more limited sense to public acknowledgement of the Creator. If religion in the public square had to be entirely nondenominational, there could be no religion in the public forum at all. One cannot say the word "God," or "the Almighty," one cannot offer public supplication or thanksgiving, without contradicting the beliefs of some people that there are many gods, or that God or the gods pay no attention to human affairs. With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities [does he mean, Deists, like many of the Framers?-- ed.] just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists
. . .
[T]here is a distance between the acknowledgment of a single Creator and the establishment of a religion. The former is, as Marsh v. Chambers put it, "a tolerable acknowledgement of beliefs widely held among the people of this country." The three most popular religions in the United States, Christianity, Judaism and Islam-- which combined account for 97.7% of all believers [do all of the 97.7% believe in a personal God who intervenes in the affairs of mankind?-- ed.]-- are monotheistic. All of them, moreover (Islam included), believe that the Ten Commandments were given by God to Moses, and are divine prescriptions for a virtuous life [Again, do all of the 97.7% actually believe that the Ten Commandments are the actual word of God actually given to Moses on Mount Sinai? What happened to liberal Protestantism and Reform Judaism?-- ed.] Publicly honoring the Ten Commandments is thus indistinguishable, insofar as discriminating against other religions is concerned, from publicly honoring God. [Except, of course, if you are a Christian, Jew or Muslim who doesn't believe in the Bible literally and who may actually be opposed to sects with such views, in which case the government is taking sides in a theological dispute within the various monotheistic religions-- ed.] Both practices are recognized across such a broad and diverse range of the population-- from Christians to Muslims-- that they cannot reasonably be understood as a government endorsement of a religious viewpoint [unless, of course you look at the actual views and theological disputes among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, which Scalia doesn't bother to do-- ed.]

And there you have it. If you aren't a monotheist who believes in a personal God, the government may disregard you. You don't count. We won't persecute you, of course, that would violate the Free Exercise of Religion. But we can disregard you. You are insignificant. You are not us, or perhaps more correctly, we count you as part of us when government acknowledges God, and disregard your protestations to the contrary that you have been left out.

From there, I posit, it isn't a far jump to the position (and here I'm sure that Christian extremists like Fallwell and Robertson are salivating) that such second class citizenship can include second class treatment as well. Hey you Krishnas! Get the hell out of the airporit, or else start collecting for Jesus/Yahweh/Allah!

I'm sorry. But it really isn't that far fetched.

Especially interesting is this comment to Balkin's post by Our Occasional Reader Jon Rowe:

Prof.

You are absolutely right about the historical nonsense of a "Judeo-Christian-Islamic" culture.

Back during the time of the Founding there were roughly two schools of thought regarding how to understand religious rights (actually it's more nuanced than this -- more variation, but permit me to simplify).

One school that wanted to give rights only to the different "Protestant" sects of Christianity (not to Jews or Catholics or Muslims).

And the other that would apply rights universally, not only to Jews, Catholics, and Muslims, but to Hindoos, Pagans, and Infidels of every denomination. In other words, Jews and Catholics tended to take their rights with the heretics, atheists, and polytheists.

I added the emphasis there, and I offer apologies to Jon for quoting his entire comment without express permission, but it was too good not to share.

But... If Scalia and his ilk are so hung up on the intention of the Founders (and, taking Jon's comment as a jumping off point, it's to be asked which Founders does Scalia and his acolytes intend to use when they start divining "intentions"), what's to stop them from starting to actively take away rights from the members of the non-Judeo/Christian/Islamic traditions (soon to read, "not-a-member-of-a-Christian-denomination-we-approve-of"?)? After all, that's what the Founders (well, at least some of them) intended!

Of course, the bigger question to me is, why is it necessary to give such scriptural reverence to the intent of the Founders? That was then; this is now. Times have changed (and Scalia probably thinks, not for the better), and we need to take a broader outlook. Certainly the intent of the Founders is one factor to be considered, but it's shouldn't be calcified into a literalist constitutional fundamentalism, should it?

Or does the law (which, after all, isn't all that far removed in methodology from theology) just want to jump on the latest exegetical bandwagon?

Len on 06.28.05 @ 08:44 AM CST [link] [ | ]

MadKane's been busy....

and she gives us a 3-for-1 special: two limericks and a filk. Go check 'em out... And if you're feeling the oppression of the summer heat, the filk (in honor of a recent NYC blogger bash) may help, since it's sung to the tune of "Winter Wonderland".

And if you're fond of Mad's dulcet toned voice, here's the audio link.

Len on 06.28.05 @ 07:41 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Happy Anniversary

Today is, of course, the first anniversary of the U.S. transfer of "sovereignty" to the new Iraqi government.

And according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, since the transfer 885 U.S. personnel, 29 U.K. personnel, and 41 other coalition personnel have lost their lives.

Requesciat in Pace.

Len on 06.28.05 @ 07:33 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Can't Win For Losing...

The Good News and Bad News This is the picture in Iraq: A conflict that the United States cannot easily lose, but also cannot easily win. By Fareed Zakaria (Newsweek):

"…What I worry about is not a defeat along the lines of Vietnam. It is something different. If the insurgents keep up their attacks, prevent reconstruction and renewed economic activity and, most important, continue to attract jihadists to Iraq from all over the region and the world. Last month's leaked CIA report, which described Iraq as the new on-the-ground training center for Islamic extremists, points to the real danger. If thousands of jihadists hone their skills in the streets and back alleys of Iraq and then return to their countries, it could mark the beginning of a new wave of sophisticated terror. Just as Al Qaeda was born in the killing fields of Afghanistan, new groups could grow in the back alleys of Iraq. And many of these foreigners are kids with no previous track record of terror. Some even have European passports, which means that they will be very difficult to screen out of the United States or any other country.

Additionally, by the fall of 2006, it will be virtually impossible to maintain current troop levels in Iraq because the use of reserve forces will have been stretched to the limit. That's when pressure to bring the boys home will become irresistible. And that would be bad news for the Iraqi government, which is still extremely weak and in many areas dysfunctional.
…
…Secretary Rumsfeld has long argued that American troops should never engage in nation building, leaving that to locals. But while we waited for Iraqis to do it, chaos broke out and terror reigned. So the Army on the ground has ignored Rumsfeld's ideology and has simply made things work. (It's a good rule of thumb for the future.)

But if we want to move beyond coping, we need a full-scale revitalization of Iraq policy, with resources to match it. Muddling along will ensure we don't lose in Iraq, but we won't win either.

Karen on 06.28.05 @ 07:29 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Apropos of my trip earlier this month....

St. Louis architectural photographer Toby Weiss pens a farewell to Busch Stadium.... Go give it a look.

Hat tip: Tom at Pretty War STL.

And while I'm mentioning him, I do want to give a hearty recommendation to y'all regularly to visit Tom at Pretty War STL (and his companion blog Pretty War). Not that it would necessarily matter to my regular readers (both of you), but I've often told people that it's just about impossible to understand Len without having a basic familiarity with St. Louis (particularly the South Side of St. Louis City). Pretty War STL features many photos from St. Louis, and can help give you a good feel for Life in the Gateway City....

And as a St. Louisan in Exile, it's a welcome breath of fresh air from home for me.

Len on 06.28.05 @ 07:18 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Hmmmmm... getting to be as bad as the curse of The Conqueror?

Yesterday Karen noted the death of Paul Winchell, the voice of the character "Tigger" in the movie Winnie the Pooh and The Blustery Day and succeeding films in the Pooh franchise. Now, Mustang Bobby over at Bark Bark Woof Woof tells us of the death of John Fiedler (link to the NY Times obit), who voiced "Piglet" in the Pooh series. Bobby speculates on "The Curse of the Hundred Acre Wood".

Thanks to Bryan at Why Now? for pointing to this; Bryan includes a little more information about Fiedler's other movie roles. As Bryan points out, "He was one of the more recognizable of character actors."

Len on 06.28.05 @ 07:04 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Well, this is pretty clear proof....

I've known a few people who deny that the many reports of a crisis in Army recruiting are true. I suppose one can believe what one wants, but when the Army has raised the maximum enlistment age to 39 (from 34), it's getting a bit harder to deny.

Good luck to Private Winter; I'm afraid she'll need it.

Thanks to Pete for the pointer, and congratulations on his new potential draft eligibility. :-)

Len on 06.28.05 @ 06:47 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Thought for the Day:

Not to worry, the experts say: The suitcase nuke threat is exaggerated--if any were actually out there, given the global surplus of fanatics, by now they'd surely have been used. Producing weapons-grade uranium and plutonium is a huge industrial operation requiring skills and equipment not easily concealed; even the craziest terrorist knows there are easier ways to make things go boom. Despite what alarmists would have you believe, you can't just buy ten kilos of P-239 on the Tashkent black market and get a recipe from alt.nukes.made.simple. To which the pessimist, knowing that we're inevitably headed toward a more nuke-dependent world as other energy sources dry up, can only reply: Not yet.
--Cecil Adams [on the question: is a suitcase sized nuke possible?]

Len on 06.28.05 @ 06:13 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Death of a Tigger...

Paul Winchell - the voice of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh - has died at age 82 in his Moorpark, Los Angeles, home.

”…Over six decades, Mr. Winchell was a master ventriloquist -- bringing dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff to life on television -- and an inventor who held 30 patents, including one for an early artificial heart he built in 1963.

But he was perhaps best known for his work as the voice of the lovable tiger in animated versions of A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh" -- with his trademark "T-I-double grrrr-R."

Mr. Winchell first voiced Tigger in 1968 for Disney's "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day," which won an Academy Award for best animated short film, and continued to do so through 1999's "Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving."

Mr. Winchell voiced memorable characters in numerous animated features over the years for Disney and Hanna Barbera. He was Gargamel in "The Smurfs," and Boomer in "The Fox and the Hound."

Mr. Winchell said he always tried to look for characteristics and idiosyncrasies in the voices he created. For Tigger, he created a slight lisp and a laugh. He credited his wife, who is British, for giving him the inspiration for Tigger's signature phrase: TTFN. TA-TA for now.

In 1974, he earned a Grammy for best children's recording with "The Most Wonderful Things About Tiggers" from the feature "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too."

Karen on 06.27.05 @ 02:10 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Osama bin Laden found!

Details here

Len on 06.27.05 @ 01:20 PM CST [link] [ | ]

I wonder if any of the justices said, "après moi le déluge"?

SCOTUS bars Ten Commandments display at courthouses

It's the right decision, but you know what's next: the culture war escalates, starting now. And the wingnut Christians are going to start screaming "Persecution!" And start their plans to persecute others, themselves (see: United States Air Force Academy, if you want an idea of where we're headed).

Len on 06.27.05 @ 12:13 PM CST [link] [ | ]

Only too true, alas....

From today's Ironic Times:

Karl Rove: Democrats Agents Of Satan
Democrats apologize for provoking remark.

Len on 06.27.05 @ 09:09 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Them Summer Wasps...Where's my rolled up newspaper?...

"Post to the Host:
I am traveling from Arizona to Massachusetts to celebrate my prized grandson's Bar Mitzvah. We have tickets for our family for your show at Tanglewood on July 2...these Wil requested as one of his gifts to go see that "Guy Noir" guy. My query is, how do I submit a card so that my grandson, Wil, will be recognized on this show?

Coralee Edwards
Willcox, AZ

Coralee, bring the boy down to the stage during the intermission and hand him up to me. I'm the guy in the black suit and the red shoes. Put a sticker on Wil that says Wil and of course a yarmulke wouldn't hurt. I'll show the bar mitzvah boy to the crowd and we can all sing "For he is Coralee's grandson" to the tune of "For he's a jolly good fellow" and then I'll give him back. If he wanted, he could tell the joke about the bees who go to the bar mitzvah and wear yarmulkes so nobody will think they're wasps.

Garrison Keillor at his webpage: A Prairie Home Companion.

Karen on 06.27.05 @ 08:30 AM CST [link] [ | ]

The Lack-Of-Intelligence of I.D.

Just can’t resist yet another GEM of an entry in the I.D. debate (as if there really ought to be any debate at all – LOL)

”Does God Have Back Problems Too?
· The illogic behind 'intelligent design.'

In 1829, Francis Henry Egerton, the eighth Earl of Bridgewater, bequeathed 8,000 pounds sterling to the Royal Society of London to pay for publication of works on "the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as Manifested in the Creation."

The resulting "Bridgewater Treatises," published between 1833 and 1840, were classic statements of "natural theology," seeking to demonstrate God's existence by examining the natural world's "perfection."

Current believers in creationism, masquerading in its barely disguised incarnation, "intelligent design," argue similarly, claiming that only a designer could generate such complex, perfect wonders.

But, in fact, the living world is shot through with imperfection. Unless one wants to attribute either incompetence or sheer malevolence to such a designer, this imperfection — the manifold design flaws of life — points incontrovertibly to a natural, rather than a divine, process, one in which living things were not created de novo, but evolved. Consider the human body. Ask yourself, if you were designing the optimum exit for a fetus, would you engineer a route that passes through the narrow confines of the pelvic bones? Add to this the tragic reality that childbirth is not only painful in our species but downright dangerous and sometimes lethal, owing to a baby's head being too large for the mother's birth canal.

This design flaw is all the more dramatic because anyone glancing at a skeleton can see immediately that there is plenty of room for even the most stubbornly large-brained, misoriented fetus to be easily delivered anywhere in that vast, non-bony region below the ribs. (In fact, this is precisely the route obstetricians follow when performing a caesarean section.)

Why would evolution neglect the simple, straightforward solution? Because human beings are four-legged mammals by history. Our ancestors carried their spines parallel to the ground; it was only with our evolved upright posture that the pelvic girdle had to be rotated (and thereby narrowed), making a tight fit out of what for other mammals is nearly always an easy passage.

An engineer who designed such a system from scratch would be summarily fired, but evolution didn't have the luxury of intelligent design.

….
There's much more that the supposed designer botched: ill-constructed knee joints that wear out, a lower back that's prone to pain, an inverted exit of the optic nerve via the retina, resulting in a blind spot.

And what about the theological implications of all this? If God is the designer, and we are created in his image, does that mean he has back problems too?…”

[By David P. Barash, David P. Barash, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, is coauthor of "Madame Bovary's Ovaries" (Delacorte Press, 2005).]

Courtesy of LA Times.

Karen on 06.27.05 @ 08:15 AM CST [link] [ | ]

As he says, not a match made in heaven....

In an interesting post about the admitted cowardice of Volokh Conspirator Juan Non-Volokh, Brian Leiter tells us a bit about his [Prof. Leiter's, not Coward Non-Volokh's] past:

Throughout my time in law school and graduate school, I wrote opinion pieces for the school newspapers defending a political point of view essentially the same as the one expressed on this site. I published all those under my own name too. My views were so well-known (or notorious, depending on whom you asked), as it were, that in the joke Michigan Raw Review the year I graduated, it was suggested that Ann Coulter (a year behind me in law school, and not much different than she is now) and I would marry and have children. (This wasn't thought to be a match made in heaven!)

For those of you who don't play the home game, Prof. Leiter bills himself as "as Social Democrat".

To quote Pinky (of "Pinky and the Brain"): "I mean, what would the children look like?"

Len on 06.27.05 @ 07:45 AM CST [link] [ | ]

Moon Over New York...

”As several polls reveal Americans' growing discontent over the war in Iraq, tens of thousands are expected to flock to venues in New York, Washington DC, Chicago and Los Angeles to support the Reverend Sun Myung Moon challenge Christians, Muslims and Jews to overcome their differences, promote inter-religious dialogue, and work as "Ambassadors for Peace" in the Middle East and the world.

The four-day, four-city tour, entitled "Now is God's Time" launches in New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center on Saturday, June 25. The next day, the coast-to-coast tour makes its second stop in Washington, DC, and moves to Chicago on Monday, June 27. The tour's final stop will be in Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 28. An estimated 50,000 people are expected to attend the four events; thousands more will participate by satellite link.

"Now is God's Time,