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teen beaten, strangled and set ablaze because he was gay... What a busy year it's been in Alabama. In the same year-long period in which then-chief justice Roy Moore secretly installed a monument to the Ten Commandments in an Alabama courthouse, the housemates of Scotty Joe Weaver "tied up, robbed, beat, strangled and cut [him,] then set [him] afire in the woods." The murderers responsible for Weaver's horrific torturous death, still not condemned by professed-Christian Roy Moore, are Christopher Ryan Gaines, 20, his girlfriend and the victim's lifelong "friend," Nichole Kelsay, 18, along with Robert Holly Loften Porter, 18. From PNO:
Carletta
Sims perhaps appreciates the long arm of such Alabama Christian
justice. She was fired
in Alabama for being an atheist. And how much more must Melinda
Maddox understand Alabama Christian justice, being
the citizen who took Roy Moore, then AL's chief justice (and still
aspiring
politician), to court over his religious monument.
After Maddox's name appeared in the newspaper as the plaintiff,
a person or people shot out her house windows with a pellet gun.
Her Ford Expedition was keyed on both sides while parked outside
of her office. When the case went to trial in October 2001, Maddox
came home to 72 messages on her answering machine. "They were
about how I should be run out of town and didn't deserve to live
with decent, God-fearing people," she says. "There were
calls to my mom and dad about how they should be ashamed for raising
a heathen." And what of Roy Moore's icon to iconoclasm these days? It is now on tour, so the faithful everywhere might have opportunity to approach it--with or without canes--and touch it, according to The Greenville Sun, which reported on a recent 200-person Alabama rally before the monument. "The rally began at 3 p.m. and continued for more than an hour, despite the 85-degree heat." Wow. Keynote speaker, Jim Cabaniss, a retired mechanical engineer from Houston and president of American Veterans In Domestic Defense (AVIDD), the group responsible for taking the monument on tour, said that once AVIDD members decided to take the Ten Commandments monument on a national tour, they discovered that…veterans could do so "without criticism from the press." Perhaps
this is because the press--good press--aims to report, not
criticize, unless by "the press" we mean FOX news,
which goes light
on fair and balanced reporting and heavy on editorial. Key
Iraqi oil pipeline blown It's a pipeline of the northern fields that was blown. Most of Iraq's oil comes from its southern fields; but, Iraq exports from its northern fields and through Turkey about 250,000 barrels of oil a day. Ron
Reagan in Esquire: "The Case Against George W. Bush" From Ron Reagan's article:
I admit: I didn't expect the article to be as well-written as it was. Ron Reagan is, as my old boss in publishing used to say of a good writer, "no dope." Innards If considered in toto, the Democrat-terrifying CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll showing absolutely no post-convention bounce for Kerry belies simple headlines. But when looking at the responses to the miscellaneous other questions the poll included, the "internals," the numbers might have us paint a different picture. (Or not. Bottom line is that the blogs are a buzz with over-analysis of this poll.) FAVORABLE
RATING %s: KERRY 58 / BUSH 52 Except for the question on Iraq, Kerry clearly comes out on top. The internals that are not so go are: STRONG
& DECISIVE %s: BUSH 51 / KERRY 42 Whitson's
Electoral College analysis shows Bush victory;
but, the trends favor Kerry James Whitson's PresidentElect.org is currently showing a Bush win in November. He points out that that some states once considered up for grabs are leaning Kerry; but, others leaning Bush are now considered solidly for Bush, and Kerry's lost a bit of ground in Maine, which was formerly considered an easy win for him. However, Whitson notes that "things are not trending well for the president." Whitson's current Electoral map is the seventh he's done for the 2004 election, and as a general rule, Kerry keeps gaining a little more with each new Whitson analysis. Whitson's
a member of MENSA, so he's gotta be right, right? :/ Blix:
Bush/Blair's witches of mass destruction. (The Blair's Witches Project?) The Guardian reported on former UN arms inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, and his reaction to the report by Lord Butler of the British case of war against Iraq. The Guardian article:
Arab
states hate U.S. policies and Bush more than ever. But not necessarily
the U.S. in general More evidence that Bush has got to go: Zogby has just released a survey showing Arab hatred of U.S. foreign policy to be at an all-time high. Interestingly, up to 60% of respondents, depending on their nationality, were favorable toward U.S. democracy and, to some extent, culture. When John Kerry promises to strength our alliances and forge new ones, he's addressing problems, like the ones the Zogby poll indicates, that George W. Bush as the author of the invasion of Iraq simply can never address. His credibility is shot. Air
Force chief-of-staff and "Veteran for Bush" comes out
for Kerry--calls Bush foreign policy a "national disaster." Gen. Tony McPeak (Ret.), the Air Force chief of staff during the first Gulf War, delivered the Democratic radio address this week. (Story here.) He said: "As president, John Kerry will not waste a minute in bringing action on the reforms urged by the 9/11 commission.... And he will not rest until America's defenses are strong." The
good general's words Gen. Wesley K. Clark's speech before the Democratic National Convention was a sharp rhetorical fusillade against the idiot notion that the Democratic Party is not the party of defense. It's brief, to the point, and one of Wes' best speeches ever. Highest
deficit ever From the AP:
Notice
that the White House released the news of this $445,000,000,000
deficit the same day Congress began hearings on the 9/11 commission's
final report. Did they hope media concentration
on the later would bury news of the former? U.S.
economy slowed dramatically in spring From the AP: "The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of just 3 percent in the spring...." More here. Early
convention highlights President
Jimmy Carter's speech (text
or video) |
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Operation: Southern Preservation
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