One of the Most Important Speeches of the Last 50 Years

A little background. The UN Human Rights Commission, in it's entire history, has never condemned any nation other than Israel. Darfur, Chechnya, Bosnia, etc, have all gone uncommented on.

In fact, the Commission met last fall in special session, while thousand were dying all over the world specifically to condemn Israel.

As is pointed out in the speech below, more Palestinians have been killed in the internecine "war" going on between Hamas and Fatah, than by Israel during the period when bombs continue to fall on Israeli cities.

So, what is quoted below is a speech given by Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of United Nations Watch to that same body late last week.

Adult FriendFinder will zap the link, but if you go to UNWATCH dot org you can see the video of the speech. It is also available at Youtube if you use the name above to search.

Mr. President,

Six decades ago, in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors, Eleanor Roosevelt, Réné Cassin and other eminent figures gathered here, on the banks of Lake Geneva, to reaffirm the principle of human dignity. They created the Commission on Human Rights. Today, we ask: What has become of their noble dream?

In this session we see the answer. Faced with compelling reports from around the world of torture, persecution, and violence against women, what has the Council pronounced, and what has it decided?

Nothing. Its response has been silence. Its response has been indifference. Its response has been criminal.

One might say, in Harry Truman’s words, that this has become a Do-Nothing, Good-for-Nothing Council.

But that would be inaccurate. This Council has, after all, done something.

It has enacted one resolution after another condemning one single state: Israel. In eight pronouncements—and there will be three more this session—Hamas and Hezbollah have been granted impunity. The entire rest of the world—millions upon millions of victims, in 191 countries—continue to go ignored.

So yes, this Council is doing something. And the Middle East dictators who orchestrate this campaign will tell you it is a very good thing. That they seek to protect human rights, Palestinian rights.

So too, the racist murderers and rapists of Darfur women tell us they care about the rights of Palestinian women; the occupiers of Tibet care about the occupied; and the butchers of Muslims in Chechnya care about Muslims.

But do these self-proclaimed defenders truly care about Palestinian rights?

Let us consider the past few months. More than 130 Palestinians were killed by Palestinian forces. This is three times the combined total that were the pretext for calling special sessions in July and November. Yet the champions of Palestinian rights—Ahmadinejad, Assad, Khaddafi, John Dugard—they say nothing. Little 3-year-old boy Salam Balousha and his two brothers were murdered in their car by Prime Minister Haniyeh’s troops. Why has this Council chosen silence?

Because Israel could not be blamed. Because, in truth, the dictators who run this Council couldn’t care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights.

They seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to scapegoat the Jewish people. They also seek something else: to distort and pervert the very language and idea of human rights.

You ask: What has become of the founders’ dream? With terrible lies and moral inversion, it is being turned into a nightmare.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Lost in the shuffle: Anna Nicole and HgH

I think most of you have by now heard about the autopsy of Anna Nicole Smith (Vicky Lynn Marshall) and her death being ascribed to an accidental overdose, principally from two central nervous system depressants, her anti anxiety medication and her sleeping medication.

What is getting glossed over, b/c for whatever reason no one wants to bring charges, is the fact that the medical examiner described her fever as resulting probably from her injecting herself in her buttocks.

Interestingly one of the 8 drugs found in her system was growth hormone, in this case I believe somatatrope.

As I mentioned in my earlier post about Sly Stallone, HgH is the new "wonder drug" being used all over Hollywood and of course with thousands of people seeking the fountain of youth.

While it's benefits are many, it can also be quite dangerous if abused. Principally as a cancer agent, and in unusual growth of various body tissues.

It is not easily, legally prescribed, but the FDA is simply too swamped to pursue the "life extension" physicians who are prescribing this all over the country.

Shatt el Arab Waterway

This weekend approximately 15 British Marines and naval seamen were kidnapped by Iranian Revolutionary guard forces while engaged in drug smuggling interdiction in the Shatt el Arab waterway, the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

This is far from the first time that British (and American) troops have been abducted by the Iranians.

Most of the past incidents have occurred in the desert regions of the borders between Iran and Iraq in areas that could possibly be confused.

The significance of this recent episode though, is that the Iran Iraq war of the 80's was fought largely over the Shatt el Arab waterway, the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Control of this passage dictates control of the oil into and out of the region.

It may well be that the Iranians are testing the waters, so to speak, to see if they will be able to control this vital link to the region once the British and Americans are gone.

Keep your eyes open for more on this.

GOOD NEWS!!! $300 for every man, woman and child!!!

Wait, you didn't think it was for YOU did you? Or anybody else in the United States, Europe or even the sites of horrible tragedies such as Somalia, Chad, Ethiopia?

No, it is to every man, woman and child that the UN considers to be in the "Palestinian Territories."

Yes, those cries that you hear coming from Gaza and the West Bank must be getting you confused.

The US and the European Union are boycotting Hamas, correct?

Well, that is easy to get around, just reclassify the aid as humanitarian, rather than military, or governmental.

So, the net effect is that the Palestinians received more than $1.2 BILLION in foreign aid last year. UP $200 Million dollars from the previous year.

That includes increases from the US, the European Union and the IMF.

What about other Arab nations? Well, not so fast. That would make too much sense.

I will simply let the New York Times, that bastion of Israel bashing tell the story.

Interesting to note that the Palestinins own finance minister, Salam Fayyad, estimates the aid as much more than that, perhaps by $100 to $200 Million. Even more, he guestimates that direct aid to the Authority was in the neighborhood of $850 million, more than DOUBLE what it had received in the two previous years.

By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: March 21, 2007

[I][COLOR red]JERUSALEM, March 20 — Despite the international embargo on aid to the Palestinian Authority since Hamas came to power a year ago, significantly more aid was delivered to the Palestinians in 2006 than in 2005, according to official figures from the United Nations, United States, European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Finance Minister Salam Fayyad estimates that the Palestinian Authority received more than twice the amount of budget support in 2006 than in 2005.

Instead of going to the Palestinian Authority, much of the money was given directly to individuals or through independent agencies like the World Food Program.

The International Monetary Fund and the United Nations say the Palestinians received $1.2 billion in aid and budgetary support in 2006, about $300 per capita, compared with $1 billion in 2005.

While the United States and the European Union have led the boycott, they, too, provided more aid to the Palestinians in 2006 than 2005. Washington increased its aid to $468 million in 2006, from $400 million in 2005.

The European Union and its member states alone are subsidizing one million people in the West Bank and Gaza, a quarter of the population, as part of their effort to avoid creating a catastrophe from the embargo.

Asked if the European Union could spend any more money on the Palestinians if it recognized the new Palestinian government than it does now, a senior European diplomat laughed and said, “We’d probably spend less.”

One side effect of the redirected aid, some officials said, is that while starvation has been avoided, institutions are withering and a culture of dependence is expanding.

In 2007, the United Nations began a humanitarian appeal for the Palestinians of more than $450 million, twice the 2006 appeal, the third largest United Nations request, after Sudan and Congo, ahead of 18 other disasters.

“These numbers are quite stunning,” said Alexander Costy, head of coordination for Álvaro de Soto, the United Nations special Middle East envoy, “given the relatively small size of the population of the Palestinian territory.”

He added: “What we do know for sure is that Palestinians, and their economy and society, are becoming increasingly dependent on humanitarian handouts, and this dependency is growing fast. For a state in the making, I think this was a step backwards in 2006 and a cause for alarm.”

The International Monetary Fund and the United Nations estimate that direct budgetary support to the Palestinian Authority in 2006 was about $740 million, more than double the $350 million in 2004 and 2005.

But Salam Fayyad, the finance minister in the new Palestinian unity government, thinks the Palestinians received at least 250 percent more than that in direct support when cash from Iran and Arab nations is counted, as well as the amount smuggled in by Hamas officials after trips abroad.

“I say the minimum for direct budgetary support was $880 million in 2006 compared to about $350 million the year before,” Mr. Fayyad said. He estimates total aid in 2006 was closer to $1.35 billion.

The United States, Europe and Israel imposed their boycott because Hamas supports terrorism and refuses to recognize Israel, renounce violence or honor existing Palestinian-Israeli agreements. The unstated aim has been to build enough disaffection among Palestinians that they would drive Hamas from power and replace it with Fatah.

Mr. Fayyad, who is from Fatah, says the international embargo should be lifted for the new unity government that includes non-Hamas ministers like him, because much of the money coming in cannot be traced and some is surely being stolen or misappropriated.

Mr. Fayyad, a former official with the International Monetary Fund, is considered to be credible by the United States and the European Union. He met Tuesday with the American consul here, Jacob Walles.

The larger amounts of aid Western countries poured into the Palestinian territories in recent months were aimed at making up for the inability of the Palestinian Authority to pay salaries. To a large degree, beginning in the summer of 2006, the European Union and Arab countries paid the salaries instead.

By the last quarter of 2006, full salaries were again being paid to Palestinian Authority employees, who, over the year, received about 55 percent of their salaries.

Those salaries were paid despite Israel’s decision — beginning in March 2006, when Hamas took office — to withhold from the Palestinian Authority some $50 million a month it collects for the Palestinians in duties and taxes, after it deducts the cost of electricity and water that it supplies to the West Bank and Gaza.

While Israel recently handed over $100 million of the sum as a humanitarian gesture to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, Israeli officials say that as of today, they are holding back $475 million in money belonging to the Palestinians, a big hole in the normal Palestinian budget.

European and American officials also cited the difficulties in Gaza caused by Israeli security restrictions on Palestinian imports and exports as another reason for the increased aid. Their contributions were to United Nations agencies that deal with the Palestinians, like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the World Food Program and various health agencies, to nongovernmental agencies and, in the case of the European Union, large cash payments directly to employees of the Palestinian Authority.

The United States provides more money to the United Nations refugee agency than any other country. Congress authorized $400 million in aid to the Palestinians in fiscal year 2005, including its aid to United Nations agencies, said Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, a spokeswoman for the American Consulate in Jerusalem which deals with the Palestinians. In fiscal year 2006, she said, $468 million was authorized.

The European Union, moved by the plight of Palestinians, set up a mechanism to pay partial salaries directly to nonsecurity employees of the Palestinian Authority and to help pay fuel bills, either to Israeli fuel companies or through the office of Mr. Abbas of Fatah.

In 2005, according to Emma Udwin, spokeswoman for the European Commission, the European Union and its individual states contributed about $711 million to the Palestinians, not including contributions through United Nations agencies.

In 2006, Ms. Udwin said, the European Union and its states spent $916 million on the Palestinians, not including United Nations contributions.

The amount of aid has increased, but the structure of the aid has changed: aid that had gone to economic development has been diverted to simply keeping people fed and sheltered. In 2005, 16 percent of European aid was classified as humanitarian; in 2006, 56 percent was.

The point, Ms. Udwin said, was to isolate the Hamas-run authority, “but not to punish individual Palestinians.”

But rather than pressuring Hamas, the European aid is now paying 77,000 Palestinian households, or 88 percent of the salaried nonsecurity personnel of the Palestinian Authority, a subsidy to nearly 470,000 people, plus another 73,000 low-income households who are considered to have special needs.

Arab countries provided an estimated $400 million in 2006, the International Monetary Fund says.

Despite all the aid, the economy, hampered by security restrictions put on Palestinian travel and exports and fierce Palestinian infighting between Hamas and Fatah, continued to show signs of collapse. The Palestinian gross domestic product dropped by 6.6 percent in 2006, poverty rose by 30 percent and unemployment was over 30 percent. The proportion of those who would be unable to feed themselves without aid reached 49 percent of Gaza’s population, and internal violence among Palestinians caused ten times the number of deaths and injuries as in 2005.

Since 1999, before the second intifada caused Israel, in the name of protecting its citizens, to reinvade the West Bank and set up various security restrictions, the Palestinian gross domestic product per capita has dropped 40 percent in real terms, according to the International Monetary Fund — a severe depression. So even external aid of $1.2 billion or more doesn’t offset the loss of what would have been another $2 billion in Palestinian Authority income.

In general, the Palestinians take in about $15 million to $20 million in taxes a month, Mr. Fayyad said, plus the $50 million or so from Israel. But the budget now is at least $170 million to $175 million a month, with a bill for wages and pensions alone of $115 million a month.

The Palestinian Authority’s self-generated income, including the amount Israel collects but is not now delivering, is only about 60 percent of the monthly wage bill alone, and only about 40 percent of the monthly budget. So the Authority needs between $1.2 and $1.3 billion in foreign aid every year now just to break even — about what Palestinians, if not the Authority itself, got in 2006.

Numerous aid officials think that the current aid structure for the Palestinians is highly inefficient and undesirable since it is not going to development or training but is simply being consumed by one of the most aid-dependent populations in the world.

A United Nations official who asked for anonymity in order to speak frankly, said “aid is going down the sink hole,” keeping people alive rather than creating jobs or helping them to create economic opportunities.

Álvaro de Soto, the United Nations special envoy, says that because so much aid has been redirected to humanitarian purposes, development aid has dried up. “And by not engaging with government bodies that actually run Palestinian affairs, the international community has undercut its ability to promote the reform goals it advocates, to ensure that the Palestinian administration runs efficiently,” he said in an interview.

“There is a real fear that Palestinian institutions that the international donor community has toiled to build and beef up over the years are being gradually undone,” he said. “This has grave political consequences, since these institutions are meant to be the foundation on which, one day, a Palestinian state will be built.”[/COLOR][/I]

HgH, Sly Stallone and me: An update to "A Brief History of Steroids...", Part 5

For those who have not heard, Sly Stallone last week was caught in customs carrying 68!!!, yes 68, vials of human growth hormone (I believe somatotropin but that is a brand name and does not matter).

I have known people from my days in the fitness industry who worked with him and knew of his cosmetic surgeries and steroid use over the years and had always assumed he used Growth Hormone as well, but this was a rather egregious amount.

This post is not to condemn Sly, however. As you may have picked up in the earlier posts on this subject, I really don't take issue with Performing Enhancing Drugs. They are largely just hormonal manipulation, no different than birth control or fertility drugs, or other efforts at changing our hormonal makeup for some perceived or actual benefit.

I am doing this update because of the INCREDIBLE explosion in the use of HgH. Living here in NY, second only to LA as a land of Plastic Surgery, Botox, etc. virtually every middle aged woman I know has either tried Hgh or inquired about it.

What the problem is, is quite simple. It was not designed as cosmetic drug, but rather it's initial applications were in treatments of dwarfism and other pituitary malfunctions.

To give you an example of what can happen when you have unchecked amounts of Hgh in your body, think of Andre the Giant, the wrestler, or Georgie Mhuresan the former 7'7" NBA center.

They both suffered from a somewhat common condition (relative to other "bizarre" abnormalities). They each had tumors on their pituitary gland which caused a continual release of Growth Hormone. It eventually killed ANdre which is what happens when the condition is untreated.

What Hgh does, is cause the increase of cells, ALL cells. That is why abusers of it in the athletic sphere will develop cro magnon like protuberances on their facial features, or one foot larger than the other.

Most obvious is when you look at a national level bodybuilder, 100% OF whom use Hgh. They all posses what is impossible levels of body fat. Ripped abs that you and I could never achieve (unless of course we also Partook of the various performing enhancing cocktails) and yet when the turn sideways, it looks as if they have POTBELLIES. Why, because their organs have grown and are pushing out!!!!

Worse, if you see them in the winter, they are all wearing shorts and tank tops, and no, it is not to show off their physiques. It is because Hgh raises your metabolism to such levels that they are always hot.

That is why, we regularly hear of football players dying from heat exhaustion, supposedly unexplained, in summer training camp. Remember Corey Stringer of the Vikings 3 years ago? They tested for ephedrine, but never mentioned his obvious growth hormone usage.

So, if you are tempted to try it, and it is something of a wonder drug, beautiful skin, low bodyfat, extreme muscularity, BE CAREFUL and keep in touch with your physician!!!

"An Inconvenient Truth"

Like many Americans I watched with interest former Vice President Gore’s Academy Awards night. Also, like many Americans I am sure, I took the opportunity to watch the cable premier of “An Inconvenient Truth”. The documentary about the “climate crisis” that won the Academy Award for he and Lawrence Bender, better known as Quentin Tarentino’s producer (check his film credits on IMDB).

This post may seem a little fractured so bear with me. As with many things Gore, I am left with a mass of contradictory feelings.

First, let me start by saying unequivocally that I believe that we are in the middle of a significant climate shift here on earth. I am also convinced that much of it is caused by various forms of thermal reactions to our global pollutants and from greenhouse gases and emissions.

So, consequently, you can deduce that I am in favor of doing whatever we can to change this situation. In fact, as I have written before, I think it is necessary not just from a global human perspective, but from a US security perspective. Breaking our addiction to imported fossil based fuels is the easiest thing we can do to change the international terrorist dynamic.

So here is where my contradictory feelings come into play. Al Gore was (before Dick Cheney took that mantle) THE most powerful vice president this country had ever known. By all accounts, until he began running himself early in Bill Clinton’s second term, he had tremendous access and input. Yet, the Clinton administration did little or nothing to improve this country with regard to either energy independence or cleaner fuels. Sure they tighten up the regulations on burning coal, but they also allowed the explosion of SUV’s without reclassifying them as passenger vehicles so that they would have to be part of the overall fuel economy standards of the auto makers for passenger cars (Oh, you didn’t know SUV’s were considered light trucks so they don’t have to meet either safety or fuel standards!!??).

OK, that’s water under the bridge. He brings an important message. But here is the problem with the movie. I have been seeing EXACTLY the same thing on all of my favorite stations for ten years (TLC, the Discovery Channel, A&E, Science Channel, National Geographic, etc.). In fact, Tom Brokaw did a special just last year, right before the movie came out on the same subject.

The science, is as far as I know, little disputed (although more on that later). However, the film like everything with the Democrats these days is minus one conspicuous thing. ANSWERS.

I think, among most Americans, there is a general acceptance of the idea of “global warming” (the movie does not use that term but rather “climate crisis”). Yet nowhere in the film are there REAL discussions of the technologies that will help us. Is it ethanol from saw grass? Fuel Cells? Solar? Nuclear? Electric hybrid? This is where the discussion is and to be a LEADER that is what is needed.

But then, that is Al Gore’s problem now, and always. He never presented answers. Not when he ran for President and not now.

Let me state unequivocally that I DETEST Al Gore. For those who don’t know, and he did it again in t movie - He leapt into real national consciousness making a speech about his sister dying from lung cancer from smoking at the Democratic National Convention. At that time, he failed to mention that, besides his family being tobacco farmers, HE WAS THE SINGLE LARGEST RECIPIENT OF TOBACCO MONEY IN THE SENATE. I was so disgusted by this that I simply could not bear to listen to him.

Worse, rather than confront the failings of the Clinton administration, but recognize it’s successes and build on them, he SACRFICED the democratic party for 8 years by running away from Clinton during his campaign. He left the Democrats leaderless and defeated.

For anybody who has read me in the past, you probably have guessed that I am a Republican. Well, you would be wrong. I am an independent whose heart lies with the democrats. I became an Independent because the Democratic Party is so unbelievably clueless with regard to foreign policy and global politics. The current debate in Congress is a perfect example. They are simply saying, “We don’t know what to do, we just know we want to screw Bush”. That’s great. They get a unique opportunity form the American people and that is the best they can come up with.

Meanwhile, Bush is the only president to even raise the issue of energy independence and has spent the last week in South America talking to Brazil. Oh, by the way, did anyone take note of the fact that Brazil in energy independent largely through the use of saw grass based ethanol?

No, instead of focusing on this, the Democrats continue to play their blame game.

I think the reason I come down so hard on the democrats is that it is a little like arguing with family versus people you don’t know. When family or friends disagree with you, or you sense a failure to understand from them, you feel particularly disappointed and become emotional. With strangers there is simply disagreement without the emotional component. Because on most rights issues, I fundamentally feel a greater kinship to the Democratic Party, I find there dysfunction to be maddening.

So, to sum up. Watch the film, or simply watch the next documentary on one of those channels mentioned above. But also watch the documentaries, or read about the possible solutions. And let’s get started!!!

The World Bank, the P.A. and finances.

During the later phases of "Oslo" and after the Taba meeting between the US, Israel and the Palestinians, what amounted to an edict was given to Arafat. Either straighten up your finances or the game that we play diplomatically will now finally be backed up by the cut off of funding.

Now, you have all heard about how the US and the European Union has stopped sending aid to the "Palestinian Authority". This is, as in most things financial, not really true. The "front door" aid has been stopped but the Palestinians have continued to receive millions in aid.

During the period mentioned above, Fayyad was selected to try and put into order the accounting of the PA. It took him almost ten years but slowly he was able to start the process of reigning in some of the financial corruption. Largely this resulted form Arafat's death, as most of the corruption had involved personal accounts Arafat had set up to channel money to himself and his family and friends.

This is why the article below from the London Telegraph is so disheartening.

Palestinian minister admits aid millions lost
By Josh Mitnick in Ramallah, Sunday Telegraph

11/03/2007



A former World Bank official who is about to become the Palestinian finance minister has warned foreign donors that he has no idea where much of their money has been spent.In the 14 months since Hamas won elections, Palestinian finances have descended into such chaos that there is now no way to confirm whether aid is going to its stated purpose, according to Salam Fayyad, 54, who is poised to start his second stint as treasury chief once the rival Hamas and Fatah factions finalise a "unity" government.An estimated £362.5 million has flowed into Palestinian government coffers from abroad since the election that brought Hamas to power and ushered in a period of internal conflict that came close to all-out civil war.The European Union alone provided £59.5 million last year and sent a far greater sum directly to hospitals, power generation projects and to families in need.Now, Palestinian Authority spending is out of control, salaries are being paid to workers who never turn up, and nobody can track where the money is going, according to Mr Fayyad.There was no way to be certain that aid was being used as intended, he admitted. "Please write this: no one can give donors that assurance. Why? Because the system is in a state of total disrepair."Five years ago, Mr Fayyad - who had worked at the US Federal Reserve Bank - was asked to create order out of Palestinian finances by the president at the time, Yasser Arafat. Now, he is confronting the fact that his accounting reforms have all unravelled, there is a ballooning wage bill, a yawning budget shortfall and an international financial boycott of Hamas.Mr Fayyad conceded that until he assumed office he could not be sure of the depth of the crisis or how to fix it. He expected it to take weeks to regain enough control over Palestinian funds to restore oversight over new donations. It would take several months to begin reining in the inflated salary bill.Hours earlier, the World Bank had published a 197-page report warning the Palestinians to control a wage bill that totals two thirds of all spending, and of a "dire'' budget deficit, estimated at £57 million per month.Hamas refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist and is widely viewed as a little more than a terrorist faction. Last year, a ban on funding it was enforced by the EU, the US, many Arab states and international banks.Ironically foreign aid to Palestinians increased, either carried across the border into Gaza in cash-stuffed briefcases by Hamas officials, or through a special financial channel to the office of President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the rival Fatah faction with whom the West is prepared to work.As a result, Mr Fayyad said, incoming funds have been widely dispersed with no central authority to monitor them. Some have gone to people who do not appear on the Palestinian budget ledger. "Where is the control?" asked Mr Fayyad. "It's gone. Where is all the transparency? It's gone."He said his first objective would be to make the finance ministry the sole conduit for incoming aid, and to reinstate proper audits. That meant no more financial back channels or border smuggling, he said. "It's not my intention to manage the Palestinian budget system through the brown bag." The Palestinian Authority's unchecked proliferation of government jobs - growing by 11 per cent a year - is another threat to its existence, the World Bank said. Mr Fayyad acknowledged that the problem of thousands of absentee employees was "serious", but said it would take up to five years to bring wages into line with income.He was reluctant to say how he would do that, perhaps understandably, given that unpaid security forces have a habit of barging into government offices with guns blazing, and that gunmen recently shot up the outside of his office.Now some of Mr Abbas's presidential guard is assigned to his premises - a stark reminder of the connection between restoring security and bringing finances under control. "This will be extremely difficult," he said. "It's virtually impossible."

Saudi Justice

A story came across the wire services today that is a true indication of the difference between the West and Civil Law, and life under "Sharia".

A woman in Saudi Arabia was blackmailed into meeting a man alone. She was told that if she refused to meet him, her family would be told that they had been having a sexual relationship out of wedlock.

When she went to meet him and they got in his car, they were carjacked by a gang of six men.

The woman was repeatedly raped (reportedly 14 times) and beaten. Photographs of the grizzly scene were taken by her assailants.

Initially her attackers were charged with rape and the prosecutor had asked for death for the men, but the Saudi Justice Minister said without witnesses rape could not be proved.

Here is the incredible part. The woman has now been "convicted" of being alone with a man and sentenced to 90 lashes!!

Justice - Saudi style.

Kudos to Michael Kinsley

For those who may not have seen it as a common thread throughout my writing, one of the things that is so disturbing to me about our political discourse in the last few decades has been the total loss of civility. It seems impossible to disagree with someone about a position without expressing absolute disdain for that person.

Republicans were guilty of this with Bill Clinton and the Democrats have now returned the favor with George Bush.

In the most recent issue of Time Magazine, Michael Kinsley has written a "viewpoint" article entitled "Support the Troops: Bring them home"

Kinsley is a left wing Democrat, founder of Slate Magazine and a longtime critic of Bush and the war, so his credentials to the "left" are well established.

What I find so refreshing in his piece is this quote taken from the middle:

"The cause actually was worthy in theory: to liberate a country from a dictator, perhaps to find and destroy some dangerous weapons and more recently to stop the chaos and slaughter that we have unbottled in Iraq. Some war critics don't want to give Bush this much credit. But none of the ulterior motives sometimes attributed to the President make any sense. His intentions were noble, however naive and pigheaded.(my emphasis) But the war was a horrible mistake. And as everyone comes to realize it was a mistake, continuing it becomes something much worse than a mistake".

This is how you disagree civilly and express your opinion while maintaining dialogue.

I don't understand people who would call the President a murderer, or worse. Do they actually think that he personally wanted to have American kids die there? It is so silly as to not be worth a legitimate conversation. Much as most of what was said about Bill Clinton were absurdities.

It happens to be my contention that there are three separate conflicts in Iraq (more on that in the next post). That we (the public at large) doesn't recognize this, and that the fight against Islamic Jihadism is THE battle of the 21st century and must start somewhere, but Kinsley has left the ability to have that conversation open. Rather than simply sticking his tongue out and saying "a**hole", he is engaged in constructive dialogue.

A lesson for us all.